January 26, 2014 – Matthew 4:12-23
Matthew 4:12-23
The Unexpected
Third Sunday after Epiphany – January 26, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
If we were coming to this story of Jesus for the first time, what would we expect to happen?
The mighty Son of God comes among us to fix a broken world!
Wise men from the East arrive bearing gifts fit for a king!
His cousin John, in the mould of the Old Testament prophets, announces that
at last here is the King like David who will right all wrongs and wipe away injustices!
The Spirit or Energy of God alights on him!
He is ready for the task!
You expect him to head off, make his way to the capital, enter Jerusalem and take it by force!
Hurrah! Yay, Jesus!
But that’s not what Jesus does.
Instead, he goes to the wilderness alone to pray for 40 days,
where indeed he is tempted to do these very things.
But he doesn’t do these things.
When he emerges from the wilderness, he takes up residence in humble Capernaum,
On the shore of the sea of Galilee, a farming and fishing village,
far from the seats of power,
and invites some very unlikely people to be his followers.
And far from asking them to fight, he asks these fishers to repent –
to change what they care about – and follow him.
And he will make them fishers of people instead.
We are so familiar with the way the story goes that it’s hard to hear the unexpectedness of it.
This is how the world is changed? Really? This is how the world is fixed?
This is how it all starts? With this simple invitation? Uh-huh.
You’d think that Jesus –
being the Son of God and having the whole Spirit of God at work in him –
could just fix everything by himself.
You’d think so.
But that’s not what Jesus does.
Jesus doesn’t want to work alone.
He calls these unlikely fellows to work with him.
He calls them to leave their nets, leave their boats, leave even their father – and work with him.
And he calls them to new community, new relationships.
The new work – the new fishing – will consist of work among the vulnerable:
the sick, the dying, the poor, the stranger, the sinner, the excluded.
And the new relationships – the people they fish for and gather up in the new nets of love –
will be formed with exactly the same people: the sick, the dying, the poor, the stranger,
The sinner, the excluded.
In this new work of teaching and healing and feeding and forgiving –
through this new work God’s long awaited reign of mercy-giving and
manna-sharing will come to be.
In these new relationships of care and concern, bearing each other’s burdens,
sharing each other’s hurts, holding on to each other no matter what – in and through
these new relationships God will transform the world.
It’s so unexpected. It’s not what you expect to see.
Jesus, on the beach, with four fishermen, and an invitation to join him:
this is how the world changes course? Really?
It’s not the scene you expect.
In fact it’s the last place you expect to see God’s reign come to be.
But that’s where it is.
There on that beach with a simple invitation to some most unlikely people.
It’s so unlikely, and yet that’s where God is most powerfully at work.
Last summer Sue and Theo and I spent a couple of days at Andrew and Nancy’s cottage.
Their cottage is on an island on Lake of the Woods.
So you have to take a boat to get there!
One evening they invited some friends and their children to come over.
When they arrived, they told us they had seen something very unexpected on the boat ride over.
During the trip, one of the boys looked up and said, “Dad, it’s the Stanley Cup!”
Dad looked up and – sure enough! There was the Stanley Cup!
Way up a hill, on the deck of a large cottage, stood the Stanley Cup,
gleaming in the sunshine in all its Canadian glory!
Apparently Jonathan Toews has cottage on Lake of the Woods!
But still: it’s not what you expect to see on the Lake of the Woods.
If you are watching the Stanley Cup finals on Hockey Night in Canada –
you expect to see the Stanley Cup.
If you go to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto like Theo and I did a couple summers ago –
you expect to see the Stanley Cup.
But if you go for a boat ride on the Lake of the Woods?
You do not expect to see the Stanley Cup.
We hopped in a boat to see for ourselves, of course, and –
it’s not that we didn’t believe the story, but still. The Stanley Cup?
And yet, there it was, shining away, in all its silver and nickel splendidness.
God is full of surprises.
Who knew that 580 Victor Street in the West End of Winnipeg is being called to
be a centre of God’s world-changing activity in the world?
And yet, it is.
Lake of the Woods is maybe the last place you expect to see the Stanley Cup.
Yet, there it is.
On a beach in out of the way Galilee is one Jewish peasant inviting four other
Jewish peasants to be part of God’s transformation of the world in love.
Yet, there it is.
580 Victor Street is maybe the last place you expect God to be at work
changing lives and changing the world
And yet, there it is.
Your life, your body, your self is being invited this morning to be part of
God’s work of transforming the world:
In this community you are being invited to follow Jesus into
all the very unexpected places God wants to be powerfully at work.
Through the relationships God invites you into, God is inviting you to be at work.
Maybe that seems incredible to you, but there it is.
It’s true that sometimes – maybe often – God in Christ is inviting you to walk into darkness.
Into suffering, into difficulty – our own and our neighbours.
But it will be okay, because the darkness has seen a great light.
As the Psalmist says, even the darkness is not dark to you (Psalm 139:12)
When we go to the darkness, we find that Jesus and his light are already there.
That is pretty unexpected.
But that is the good news: Jesus sits with those who sit in darkness.
Jesus is already there.
That is, finally, why we can follow him into the darkness: because he is already there with
his sweet light and his saving grace shining.
This morning it is not on a beach where Jesus calls us:
it is at 580 Victor Street where Jesus calls us.
He invites us to repent – to change what we care about – and calls us to follow him.
It is somewhat unexpected that he should come here and call us.
Why us? we might ask. Well: why not us.
Jesus doesn’t like to work alone!
And Jesus wants to give you meaning and purpose in work and in relationships even as he did
long ago to Peter and Andrew and James and John.
It seems incredible and unlikely and unexpected that God would want to transform the world
through the likes of us.
And yet God desperately does.
And apparently God can’t do it without us.
So together let us say yes to the invitation again, together let us follow,
knowing that whatever darkness Jesus leads us into,
we can be confident in knowing that Jesus is
already shining there with the light of
love and the light of grace,
working in the darkness to bring light – through us.
And together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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