January 26, 2020
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3 Epiphany
Isaiah 9: 1-4; Psalm 27; 1 Corinthians 1: 10-18; Matthew 4:12-23
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Good morning – I feel like it’s been awhile since I’ve been here. Maybe I need to reintroduce myself to you – I’m Jimmy, I’m actually the priest here, and occasional preacher! It is wonderful to be back here, especially on the occasion of today’s readings. I looked over the sermons that I have preached in years past for this particular Sunday, and I couldn’t find one I had preached on these particular readings, which means two things:
1. I can’t reuse a sermon I’ve preached before.
2. More importantly – we see a beautiful image of Jesus in the Gospel today, and that is what I want to focus on.
The Gospel of Matthew today puts Jesus in a region called Galilee, but before Jesus’ time Galilee comprised two of the Jewish tribes Zebulun and Naphtali. So – a bit of geography. Napthali and Zubulun were two of the twelve tribes of Israel. On our pilgrimage to Israel later in December, we will be visiting these areas. Naphtali and Zebulun were in the north western part of Israel.
The geography is important, because this area, 700 years before the birth of Christ, was a battlefield. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali were defeated by an invading Assyrian army around 700 BCE. Why does this matter?
It matters because of what happened following. As a result of Zebulun and Naphtali’s fall into Assyrian hands, the area was repopulated by the Assyrians who were not Jewish. So you have a historically Jewish tribal area, now being repopulated with people who do not proclaim Judaism as their religion. What effect did this have on the practice of Judaism in the area?
Not a great one. The population of non-Jews in the area impoverished the practice of Judaism in Galilee. Hence the region was called “Galilee of the Nations” or “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Jews living to the south in places like Jerusalem – the spiritual epicenter of the Judaism – frowned upon Jews in Galilee, and tended to despise them. Here’s an example – in John 1:46, the disciple Phillip chooses to follow Jesus and he goes and tells Nathanael “I have found the messiah – It’s Jesus from Nazareth” (Nazareth is in Galilee). What does Nathanael say? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Not only does Jesus come from the “wrong place” - Galilee – it is to Galilee, where he returns in Matthew’s Gospel today. It’s in Galilee – this place of misfits and broken people where Jesus has incredible success. He recruits Simon and Andrew (this church’s namesake) to be his disciples and the Bible says that he “went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Do you get the irony? That Jesus’ ministry succeeds in the place so many others had written off. Jesus was drawn not to Jerusalem, not to the temple and the priests and all that. He was drawn to the places full of misfits and broken people. That is good news for me. Because I am a misfit and a broken person. And I believe that Jesus is right there with me. It upsets me to no end that much of what passes as Christianity these days is projecting an image of success, of outward morality or piety.
If we take the message of the Gospel to heart, it means that Jesus will travel through the Galilee of our heart to find us, to reach us, and to love us. For me, the message of the Gospel today is that when we fall, and when we fail, and when we are hurt – that is great blessing. Why? Our brokenness is a blessing because when we are broken our minds are open to receiving a God who loves us unconditionally. A God for whom we don’t have to act or pretend. We can fully be ourselves.
In my life, my honesty with God has created a landscape like Galilee where Jesus walks and proclaims the good news and performs miracles. It’s not anything I’m doing – except – saying “Lord here I am. This is what you have to work with. It is what it is.” And Jesus says “Yes! Together we will walk Galilee, we will travel to unpopular places, meet with unimportant people, and you will have the greatest adventure of your life.
Thank God for Galilee. Thank God for broken places. Because it is in our flaws where God does the best work. AMEN.