Year A
 Isaiah 9:1-4
 Psalm 27:1, 5-13
 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
 Matthew 4:12-23

May the words of my mouth…   O God…   speak your truth… 

Something happened…  something on the outside…  but also something on the inside…  Jesus heard that his cousin John had been arrested… and in that moment… something in him shifted…  he may have become more aware of the bullseye on his back…   he may have heard his clock begin to tick…  the sand in his hourglass begin to fall…  and so he left Nazareth… and made his home in Capernaum… by the Sea of Galilee…   in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali… a city where he could blend in…  hide out…  not because he had done anything wrong…  but because the good he wanted to do was so at odds with Empire…

This reading from Matthew… refers to a reading from Isaiah… and that reading refers to the time when Assyria had been weakened by the kingdom of Urartu… and after Assyria had been weakened… other states in the west formed an anti-Assyrian coalition… but because Israel and Judah were allies with Assyria… they refused to join in… and so the region of Zebulun and Naphtali… in the north… was attacked too… and its residents suffered prolonged darkness and fighting…

We heard part of this reading from Isaiah just recently… at Christmas… to describe the light of Christ that had come into the world… Matthew uses it now to describe the beginning of Jesus’ ministry… and when Jesus made his home in Capernaum… he brought the light of God into this outlying region… with a message of remembrance… a message of inclusion… a message of healing… he went throughout Galilee… teaching in its synagogues…  curing every disease and sickness… and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom…

And going to Capernaum now…  also meant that Jesus was entering into the people’s history… to a time in the past when their oppressors held them in contempt…  and when they believed their God held them in contempt too… that’s because it was a time in which they believed that when the cities’ peoples battled each other…  that their gods did too…

Two weeks ago… we heard about Jesus’ baptism…  and last week the reading told about how Jesus invited two of John’s disciples to Come and See his way of being… and today… Jesus calls fisherman Peter and Andrew… and James and John…  to follow him…  he tells them he will make them fishermen who will now fish for people… and since all three of the Synoptics tell this story… it must be important…

There are different ways to fish… in one of the resurrection stories… after the disciples had caught nothing… Jesus appeared and told them to cast the net off the right side of the boat… and they caught 153 fish… the nets were full but did not tear…  but in a sense… with a net… you’ve almost taken away fish free will… you haven’t really given them a choice about being caught… you haven’t let them weigh their options… let them make their own conversion choice…  but you can also get a fishing pole… and go after one fish at a time… put something on the hook that’s attractive to a fish… and let the fish choose whether to bite or not…

In John 10:16…  Jesus says…  I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold…   I must bring them also…   and they will listen to my voice…  so there will be one flock…   one shepherd…  so by telling the disciples that he’ll teach them to fish for people…  he’s also telling us the same thing… that we and the way we live our lives…  are the bait…  that we are what God uses to catch fish for the Kingdom… and we can almost hear Jesus say…  there are those who are not of this fish school… who I must also bring… and they shall hear my voice… and the voices of those who follow me…  so there shall be one school of fish… and one fisherman…

So we fish for people when we invite them in… with something that is so a-lure-ing that they choose to jump in the boat…  we are fishers of women and men when we offer the bread and wine to whoever is present… members or not…

And as Elisha picked up Elijah’s mantle…  Jesus picks up the Baptist’s mantle… but even more so…  and continues the proclamation that the Kingdom of Heaven is not only at hand…  but is inside of us…  the Kingdom of Heaven has not only come near…  but it touches our deepest longing to be God’s beloved…  and if we really do care about those who live on the social fringes of any Zebulun or Naphtali… those who have known the darkness of any despair… if we really do care about them… then by implication… there’s no one who doesn’t matter… and this is God’s vision…

Our churches remain on the cusp of change… and last week in John… and this week in Matthew… we’re being invited by Jesus to Come and See what God has in store for us… but we don’t sit passively by and wait… we may not be good at testimony… we may cringe at the thought of evangelism… but the truth is… all we have to do is tell our stories… and some of them are of radical welcome and inclusion… of diversity… of living and working together across denominational boundaries…

But we may feel concerned…   that when we tell our stories… about the trust we have in Jesus… and about how much God has done for us… we may be concerned… that the people we’re talking to… will immediately associate us with the Christians who they reject…  and reject us too…  and I’ve said to some people…  tell so-and-so that the god they don’t believe in is the same god I don’t believe in…

But we’re assured in today’s Epistle… that Christ sends us out not to baptize… but just to proclaim the Gospel… and not with eloquent wisdom… we’re not expected to be scholars… but just real people… who are beloved of God…  who and where we are… people who have stories of reconciliation with God… and because of that… stories of transformation…

In the Harry Potter movie…  The Prisoner Of Az-ka-ban… Harry…   Hermione…  and Sirius Black are saved from the Dementor’s Kiss…  a kiss that sucks out of one’s soul…  are saved by a Patronus…  a magical guardian…  which is conjured by an ancient and mysterious charm…  many wizards are unable to produce a completely embodied Patronus…  which generally takes the shape of the animal with whom they share the deepest affinity…  an animal whose form they will never truly know until they succeed in conjuring it…  because to cast the spell most successfully…   one must muster the happiest…  most joyous memory possible…  and the happier the memory…  the more powerful and tangible the Patronus will be…  and Harry recalls the love he feels for his family and friends…   to produce a guardian which saves them…

Recently…  at Grace Episcopal Church…  while Bp. Singh was meeting with a Sunday School class…  he asked the children what gives them hope…  what thought or memory gives them hope…  and a ten-year old piped up…  and said that while Harry remembered his family and friends…   the happiest thing he remembers…  is that he is God’s beloved child…  his hope…  his faith…  comes from his belief that God already loves him fully…  may we only have this kind of faith…  and then something on the inside will happen to us too…