The Kingdom is Open

Date: 2022-01-30

Audience: Grass Valley Corps ONLINE

Title: The Kingdom is Open

Text: Matthew 4:12-25

Proposition: The Reign of God was breaking in

Purpose: Repent from your sins and turn towards God

Grace and peace

Story of Jesus as told by Matthew, one of his Twelve key followers.

But the story of Jesus starting his ministry begins with John the Baptist calling out one of the Herods.

Remember how Herod the Great had pretty much all of his kids named after him? Yeah, so buckle up while we jump on the roller coaster ride that is one piece of his family relationships.

One of Herod’s sons was given a family name: Aristobulus. The Fourth, by the way. But not being called after his father like many of his brothers were must have seemed like a problem to him, because he named his first three children Herod Agrippa, Herod, and Herodias. His fourth child, Mariamne, he named after his mother, who had been Herod the Great’s favorite wife before he was tricked into executing her. That story gets complicated, though, so we’re going to leave it for another time while we talk about the much simpler situation involving Herod, Herod, Herodias, their grandfather Herod, and their uncle Herod the Second, who was also called Herod Philip, but who shouldn’t be confused with Herod the Great’s fifth son Philip who was called Philip the Tetrarch or Herod Philip the Second after his father’s death.

Really.

But when Herod the Great executed his son Aristobulus, he also married his granddaughter Herodias to his brother, her uncle, Herod the Second. Later, she left, divorcing Herod the Second in order to marry his half-brother, also her uncle, Herod Antipas, who dumped his first wife in order to marry Herodias.

For those of you trying to trace the family connections, this means that Herodias was not just her uncle’s wife, but also her grandfather’s daughter and sister to her husband while being sister to her father and aunt to her brother.

John the Baptist said that this was messed up, so Herod – that’s Herod Antipas, not Herod, Herod, Herod Agrippa, or Herod Philip – Herod had John arrested and held in the dungeon beneath his palace in Tiberius on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. That was a city he had built to be his capital and named in honor of the Roman Emperor. But the city was built on an old graveyard and ritually unclean, so devout Jews refused to live there, meaning Herod had to import a population of foreigners, forced migrants, the desperately poor, slaves, and prisoners. And now, John.

If you open your Bible to Matthew chapter four, verse 12, you’ll see that Matthew simplifies this whole thing by just saying:

12 When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he left Judea and returned to Galilee. 13 He went first to Nazareth, then left there and moved to Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.[1]

This is important, according to Matthew, because:

14 This fulfilled what God said through the prophet Isaiah:

15 “In the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali,

beside the sea, beyond the Jordan River,

in Galilee where so many Gentiles live,

16 the people who sat in darkness

have seen a great light.

And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow,

a light has shined.” [2]

Matthew is telling us that this is all connected and that it fulfills this 800-year-old prophecy from Isaiah, what we now call chapter 9 of that book. What Matthew is quoting are the opening lines of a passage about the birth of the Prince of Peace who was coming to usher in God’s ultimate reign on earth, this promised time when the whole world would be returned to his dominion. Then he connects that even deeper into the story he is telling about Jesus by telling us that:

17 From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”[3]

Now, because pastors have misused some of these words over the centuries, let’s do some quick definitions so you can hear what Jesus was saying and not what our current cultural context has implanted in your brain.

We’ll start with “sin”. The original meaning for this word translates to English as something like “missing the mark” or “not reaching the goal”. In the Bible, it is used to refer to any way we don’t choose to aim for the target of being who we were made to be. For example, Jesus told us to love our neighbor, but instead we boosted their car. Or, rather than living through the pain served to us by life and learning to cope with and be strengthened by it, we choose to self-medicate in hopes of numbing that pain rather than growing to be bigger than it. Or, maybe we live a morally exemplary life where we never do anything which could be said to be wrong, but we also never reach out to those in need around us, caring for them and binding up their wounds and helping them become what they were created to be. Or we worry so much about what is MINE and I don’t want to or don’t think I could share it, so I turn you away because you just aren’t worthy to share my meal or to benefit from the resources I could provide or to enter what I consider my land or my country. These are all things we do that miss the point of being neighbors on this big blue-green ball we call Earth. Things we do that are contrary to what scripture shows us God wants. Things we do that tear at the unity we were created to live out. That’s all sin, and Jesus preached that we need to repent of it.

Which brings us to that church word I’ve heard a hundred people crow at one another in anger, using it as a weapon. REPENT, sinner! Repent!

But that isn’t at all how that word should be used.

It certainly isn’t how Jesus is using it.

All it means is to “turn around” or “turn back towards” something. In this case, Jesus is telling us to turn from our mistaken, self-serving, community-destroying ways and turn back towards God’s ways of unity and peace.

Why would we do this?

Because, Jesus says, the Kingdom of Heaven is near.

Well, actually, Kingdom is kind of an oversimplification. What he said is closer to declaring that God’s reign or rule has begun to break in to become the dominant government over and in all.

He’s calling us to allegiance to the Creator.

He’s asking us to choose to follow the king.

And, though we may not realize it, Matthew was speaking to something that was happening in his day which the people would have heard and repeated and prayed for as if they wanted it to happen. Which they did.

It was in a prayer which had begun to spread through the population. Almost a hymn, really. A song of praise to Holy God, blessing him and asking him to deliver on a promise the people looked forward to being fulfilled.

It went something like this:

May the great Name of God be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he created according to his will.

May his kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and int eh lifetime of the entire household of Israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say Amen.

May his great name be blessed, forever and ever, blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored, elevated, and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessings and hymns, praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, upon us and upon all Israel; and say Amen.

He who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon use, and upon all Israel, and say Amen.

This prayer circulated at services, growing from congregation to congregation, and it worked its way into common use in daily prayer. Eventually it would be called the Kaddish and it would be used more and more as a part of mourning, but that took centuries. At the time Matthew wrote it was a recitation like the Lord’s Prayer would become for the early Christian community. Everyone knew it and could lead it if they were called on to pray for a group.

It was a praise, but it was wrapped around a prayer and a plea, sharing the hope of the people that this time would come soon, the time when God’s dominion wouldn’t be challenged because his ultimate rein would have come at last, every rebelling quelled, and every injustice dealt with.

It was a promise they had waited to see fulfilled since the days of the Exile, when a prophet named Daniel had lived a life faithful to God and been given visions of the future which he had shared in a scroll which came to bear his name.

Daniel had prophesied there would be four earthly kingdoms and that God’s eternal reign would be born out of the fourth of those.

Those four kingdoms were going to be beasts in their rule. Vicious, bloodthirsty, oppressive, demanding their way over all others.

By every calculation, the Roman Empire was the fourth beast. It was time for a new rule.

But God’s reign was going to be different. It wouldn’t be so animalistic. Ruled by one who was said to be like a Son of Man, God’s Kingdom was to be focused on deliverance, not warfare; forgiveness, not retribution. It would begin like a betrothal, sealing God and his people until such a time came for the consummation of the marriage, when his reign would become complete and the last challenges would fall away.

Jesus’ first followers, people like Matthew, believed he was the Son of Man whose appearance would initiate this final stage leading to the Reign – the Kingdom – of God.

18 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. 19 Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” 20 And they left their nets at once and followed him. [4]

In those days, if you wanted to become a disciple of a sage or rabbi, you would approach them carefully, usually at their home or their school, if they had one. Most seekers of this sort would be young men of about 15 years of age. They would ask about a position and the teacher would question them, sometimes for hours, before deciding if they would be able to follow him or not. Only the best and most likely to succeed would be chosen.

Traveling teachers did not take followers. If they were not established enough to teach in one location, they were a journeyman rather than a master.

Jesus, though, was no ordinary teacher. In at least some cases, he went to call the students he wanted to follow him rather than waiting for them to come to him. And though he may have had a house in Capernaum that he taught from, he doesn’t seem to have been anything other than an itinerant preacher, traveling from place to place to share his message.

But even though he doesn’t match the traditional model of a master teacher, he does fit another mold we read about in scripture and in some of the Second Temple literature which people have treated as authoritative at times. Passages such as Proverbs 8 and 1 Enoch 42 speak of Divine Wisdom calling out in the marketplace for people to follow. To Matthew, Jesus embodied Wisdom and so he doesn’t shy away from revealing the unusual way Jesus identified and sought out students nor does he hesitate to let us know that anyone who chose to follow Jesus was accepted, just as the most worthy student of an established master would have been. Jesus wanted everyone to know that the reign of God was at hand and he wanted them to respond by turning to follow him as he showed them how to follow the LORD.

Peter and Andrew were certainly aware of who Jesus was. Andrew had been a follower of John, someone who had spent time with Jesus previously, if only for a short while. But with John in prison, he seems to have gone home while he decided what to do next. Peter may have spent a day listening to and speaking with Jesus and Andrew before. He was older, probably in his 20s, maybe more. He was married and pursuing a trade as a fisherman. He was too old to be a disciple – his time had come and gone. Instead of learning at the feet of a spiritual master, he had learned from his father or a family friend the trade of fishing, including sailing, net mending, and knowledge of which fish to catch when and where to bring in the most profitable haul. There were people who would have counted on him and the income he brought in from the lake each day.

But when Jesus called, he left it all behind on the shore, just as Andrew did. And a few minutes later, before they would have had time to even process the choice they had just made, something similar happened again.

21 A little farther up the shore [Jesus] saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets. And he called them to come, too. 22 They immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind.[5]

What the fathers or any fishing partners might have thought about this isn’t described, possibly because Matthew chose not to speculate, but more likely because they weren’t happy. In their culture, your status was dictated by the honor and shame you carried with you. There was certainly some honor which accrued to families if their sons were accepted by a well-known teacher as disciples. But that time seems likely to have been long-past for these men. Leaving your family and your job to follow a wandering teacher into the desert is something which would have made them all the talk of the town, and not in a good way.

But something about the call got their attention. I think it is what they were asked to do. “I will show you how to fish for people!” Jesus told them. Dr. Ben Witherington points out that this is no simple call to some kind of spiritual discipleship plan. Instead they are being called to learn and do. What are they going to do? At this point, it is a little unclear what they know of Jesus’ ministry or plan, but it seems likely that he was already beginning to grow a reputation as a healer and an exorcist.

Luke puts the call of the disciples after Jesus had been in Capernaum for a bit and he stresses the miracles of healing and the casting out of demons. He even says that one of those healed was Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, so it could be that the new followers thought they would be learning to be miracle workers as well.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly what happened, even thought it wasn’t really the point.

23 Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. 24 News about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick. And whatever their sickness or disease, or if they were demon possessed or epileptic or paralyzed—he healed them all. 25 Large crowds followed him wherever he went—people from Galilee, the Ten Towns, Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and from east of the Jordan River. [6]

The point, as Matthew makes clear, was announcing the good news that the reign of God was happening. This was why Jesus was here and what he was here to do: Announce to good news! Everything else is just a side effect of that major announcement.

The promise of the reign of God was the deliverance of his people, both those in Israel and those who were Gentile in origin – so Jews and non-Jews alike were accepted and encouraged to share allegiance to the King above all Kings, the LORD God. This was no spiritual allegiance to God and earthly allegiance to Israel or Rome or wherever! No! This is a complete giving of self, body and spirit, to God.

In the Kaddish, the people pray for abundant peace from Heaven. In Jesus they received that abundant peace. In Hebrew, the word for Peace is Shalom. Shalom isn’t the absence of conflict – it is the presence of wholeness. It is physical AND spiritual. The Dominion of God on Earth is one of abundance in all good things. And the good news of that truth spreads through the province of Galilee, through Judea, through Roman towns and cities, through Greek cities and out to Syria as well. Matthew’s focus is on Jesus’ fulfillment of scripture – Remember the Isaiah quote he referenced at the beginning of this section referred to Galilee being a place of Gentiles living in darkness and death who would be delivered by the light of the promised Messiah.

So we have an answered prayer, the Reign of God beginning to replace the Kingdoms of the world, and the abundance of wholeness that is peace being achieved.

To each person, Jesus calls them to follow him, even when he doesn’t ask them to travel with him. And by “follow” he doesn’t mean some passive sit-back-and-watch kind of faith, but instead a faith that goes to seek deliverance of all it comes into contact with.

If that’s the kind of good news you are willing to inhabit and take part of, spiritual and physical, both being healed and offering healing, then pay attention, because Jesus is calling you to come and follow him.

Even if, like Peter, you’re too old or you feel you’ve gone too far some other way. Jesus has a place for each and every one of us and a way for us to learn to fish for people.

Are you with me? I hope and pray that you are.

Close in prayer.

[1] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 4:12–13). Tyndale House Publishers. [2] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 4:14–16). Tyndale House Publishers. [3] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 4:17). Tyndale House Publishers. [4] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 4:18–20). Tyndale House Publishers. [5] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 4:21–22). Tyndale House Publishers. [6] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 4:23–25). Tyndale House Publishers.