Epiphany 3 – January 23, 2011

This week's readings can be viewed at http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=15

Isaiah 9:1-4

This week’s OT reading promises better times for God’s people.  The “land of Zebulun and Naphtali” refers to parts of northern Israel that were overtaken by the Assyrians, so that the people there then lived in the “darkness” of oppression.  Joy is promised to these people, and I notice that the language is actually in past tense – the “great light” has actually already dawned for the people so that they know a new day is in the making.  We can perhaps relate to this, as we have seen the “light” of Christ but we’re still waiting for the “new day” of his reign to take shape.  I also note that the language of verses 3-4 is strongly social-political – i.e., the promised joy is rooted in God’s victory over the oppressor.  Thus the joy being described as like “people dividing plunder.” 

Finally, this week the OT reading is quoted in the Gospel reading, giving us an explicit interrelationship between the two.

Romans 1:10-18

The situation related in this Epistle lesson is familiar to anyone who has experienced really ugly conflict in the church.  Paul says the congregation should be “united in the same mind and the same purpose”; unfortunately, he’s heard about divisions among them.  The Corinthian Christians have divided themselves into factions, each aligning itself with a different authority figure.  One group claims Paul’s authority for its position; another claims the authority of Peter (Cephas); heck, one group even claims they represent Christ himself (presumably a trump card).  Paul resents the very idea that the body of Christ could be divided in this way; beyond that he resents being co-opted into someone’s agenda (verse 13) – having his words and actions twisted, taken out of context, and used to serve someone else’s purposes. 

Part of what seems to have been going on is that people in the various factions started claiming they were actually baptized in the name of Paul, Apollos, Peter, etc., as a way of bolstering their positions.  For this reason, Paul says he’s glad he didn’t baptize anybody but Crispus and Gaius, so at least nobody else can use that to claim any special authority from him.  Then, realizing someone is likely to go checking his figures, he catches himself (v. 16) and admits he can’t remember the exact number.  

Paul reaches his point in verses 17-18, when he calls these quarreling people back to a focus on the message of the cross.  In my experience, the ugly kind of conflict is so often about power – one group trying to gain power over others.  That’s why these last verses are so striking to me: because the “message” Paul is talking about is that God has acted to save the world by the ultimate act of weakness – Jesus’ crucifixion. He adds that his own lack of eloquence in preaching (another “weakness”) keeps the message from being “emptied (kenōthē) of its power.”  He admits that, seen from the outside, the message of the cross is “foolishness” (mōria, as in “moron”), but to us it’s the “power of God.”  In other words, grabbing for power just divides and ultimately weakens the church, but the weakness of the cross unites and strengthens us.  Final note: as I read this passage I’m reminded of Philippians 2:1-11, where Paul encourages another congregation to “be of the same mind” and focuses their attention on Christ who “emptied himself” (ekenōsen) to the point of dying on the cross.

Matthew 4:12-23

Before I get into this week’s Gospel reading, I need to correct something in last week’s post.  In discussing John’s gospel, I seemed to suggest that Thomas doesn’t show up in the other gospels – which is just wrong.  Thomas is listed as one of the twelve disciples in the other gospels; it’s just that John is the only one that gives us the stories about him. 

Anyway, this week’s Gospel reading is Matthew’s story of Jesus calling his first disciples.  Matthew begins (v. 12) by telling us that Jesus returned to Galilee from the Judean wilderness, where he’d gone to be baptized and where he faced temptation.  We then get the interesting note that Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum (incidentally, Mark also at one point refers to Jesus being “at home” in Capernaum).  Matthew makes this point to show fulfillment of today’s OT lesson, since Capernaum was located in the area that had been settled by the tribe of Naphtali, and was also “by the sea.”  And it’s there that Jesus meets his first four disciples while walking on the beach.

After reading last week’s lesson from John, we immediately notice that Matthew tells an entirely different story about Simon and Andrew.  John didn’t mention them being fishermen; he implied that Jesus met them in Bethany, which is in Judea; and he said that John the Baptist introduced Andrew to Jesus, and that Andrew then brought Simon.  Here in Matthew, of course, they meet Jesus while fishing together on the Sea of Galilee.  (Favorite childhood memory: the red leather Bible I got in third grade had a photo of “fishermen on the Sea of Galilee” in a boat with an outboard motor.)

E. P. Sanders points out in The Historical Figure of Jesus that Simon and Andrew are doing a different kind of fishing from James and John.  Simon and Andrew are using a “casting net” - standing in the surf using, casting it out and pulling it back in.  This kind of fishing didn’t require a boat.  James and John, though, have a boat which implies fishing by dragnet – a weighted net that could be dragged behind the boat to catch more fish.  That is, James and John – or more likely father Zebedee – had fancier equipment.  Sanders says, “There may have been a social differentiation between those who could afford boats and larger drag-nets and those who had to cast from the shore.”

At any rate, what gets me in this reading is that Jesus calls, and these four go.  Matthew is very explicit about saying that Simon and Andrew “left their nets,” which were their means for making a living, “and followed him.”  They just quit their jobs and joined Jesus.  (For some reason that flight attendant who slid down the airplane chute into his fifteen minutes of fame just flashed across my mind.)  James and John leave not only their nets but a boat and their father as well.  In other words, they leave a whole family business – which probably made Zebedee none too proud.  Later on in Matthew's story (19:27ff.), after Jesus has compared rich people entering the kingdom to a camel going through the eye of a needle, Peter recalls this episode for him: “Look, we’ve left everything and followed you.  What then will we have?”  Jesus answers that "everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."