Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.
Isaiah 9.1-4
Psalm 27.1,4-12
1 Corinthians 1.10-18
Matthew 4.12-23
Introduction
I’m sure you will all have heard the story which tells of a motorist lost in some rural part of the country who asks directions of a local, only to be told, “If I were going there I wouldn’t start from here”. But of course the joke is that any journey that you make has to start from “here” wherever here happens to be. It might be wonderful to imagine that you were somewhere better or more convenient but imagining changes nothing. The journey begins when you set out, and the place where you are has to be the place you set out from.
Exposition
In our Gospel reading today we hear of Jesus setting out to begin his ministry. As he sets out he begins in a particular place, with a particular message and with a particular group of people with him.
1. The place were he begins his work is Galilee, the northern part of the old Promised Land. Galilee was a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles who more or less lived separate lives in separate communities. This area of the Promised Land had been the first lo loose its independence to conquerors from the north and for this reason was called Galilee of the nations. Isaiah had prophesied that this land which had been the first part of the holy land to loose its independence would also be the first part to see the liberation which God would send. So Jesus began his ministry, not in the great centre of the Jewish faith at Jerusalem but in the marginal country to the north. He starts of with the people on the edge.
So that’s the first lesson to learn from today’s readings Jesus starts off with the people on the edge – the unexpected people. And that is always the way God works. If you want to see God at work today then the place to look is at the people on the margins, the places you wouldn’t expect to see him at work. And if you experience yourself as being marginalised and shut out then know that you are in the place where God works and he may well be seeking to do some work through you.
2. Jesus begins his ministry with a particular message. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. It’s the same message we heard John the Baptist proclaiming just a few weeks ago.
What does that message mean? Well firstly, it is a message about God’s rule. What Matthew calls the kingdom of heaven and the other Gospel writers call the kingdom of God is not a geographical kingdom in the sense in which we speak of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It’s not an area of land but the rule of God exercised over people. When in the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God’s kingdom will come and ask that his will should be done we are actually asking for the same thing in two different ways, that God should rule over the people of the earth so that they think and act in the way he wants them too. So Jesus message is that the time is close at hand when the will of God will be done and people will affirm their loyalty to him.
In order to get ready for that day people need to Repent. The word ‘repent’ does not mean “feel guilty”. God does not want us to feel guilty. The word ‘repent’ means to “turn around” and stop doing the things that you shouldn’t be doing and start doing the things you should. Feeling guilty is life destroying. All too often people feel guilty about things they should not feel guilty about whilst feeling nothing at all about the things in their life that need to change. Repentance is life giving. It means taking a good long look at who you are and where you’ve gone wrong and asking God’s help to be different from this day forward.
So Jesus message is that the time is coming close when God will act decisively in human lives bringing them to acknowledge his rule; and that now is the time to get ready for that by changing your life with God’s help and seeking to think and do the things he wants you to think and do.
3. Finally Jesus sets out with a particular group of people. Matthew tells us how he calls Peter and Andrew, James and John. They don’t seem to have been particularly special people; just ordinary working men who Jesus comes across and calls. Of course later on they will do remarkable things. As Jesus tells them they will change from catching fish to catching people for God. But the reason they are able to do these marvellous things is not because there is anything intrinsically special about them but rather it is because Jesus has called them and they have responded to his call.
There is another lesson for us to learn here. You don’t have to be someone special to serve Jesus – you just have to respond to his call. Jesus calls every single one of us to follow him as his disciple. Jesus doesn’t just want us to be church goers for a couple of hours a week. He wants us to be his disciples 24hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Not giving him some of the time we can spare but all that we have and all that we are. Then he will do remarkable things with us and in us as he did in and with Peter and Andrew, James and John.
Application
Jesus started off his ministry in the marginal villages of Galilee amongst the people living on the edge. All too often the Christian Church has been primarily concerned with the people at the centre of things, the rich, the powerful and the comfortable. We need to look again at the people on the edge of our society and discern how God is working amongst them, and if we perceive ourselves as being marginalised and powerless then we need to ask how God is working amongst us.
Jesus began with a message “Turn around for God’s rule is about to begin”. We need to turn around from the things in our lives which are not right before God so that we are ready for the rule of God.
And lastly, Jesus called ordinary people to do extraordinary things and those people were able to do those things because they responded to Jesus call. Jesus calls each one of us, to do remarkable things through us so that others may come to accept his rule and know his love.
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