Epiphany 3: New Beginnings, Matthew 4 v12-23
The Reverend Canon Richard Mitchell
In my end is my beginning; the end is where we start from.
That’s a very old quote, used famously by the poet TS Eliot in the ‘Four Quartets’.
It’s an important reminder in life that endings and beginnings are often wrapped up together going on at the same time.
If we look around cathedral green at the moment we could ask ourselves if this is an ending or a beginning and pretty clearly understand that it’s both. Scaffolding, fencing and mud are usually pretty good indicators of endings and beginnings. It’s all happening!
That sense of endings and beginnings is so much around us at the moment. We’re living in a sense of end times and beginning times following last years’ referendum, and how that will all work itself out isn’t yet clear; we know that there are ramifications not just in political and economic life, but in social and community identity and even in the look and management of the urban and rural landscapes.
Today’s Gospel from Matthew has several endings and beginnings working together in this early part of his narrative.
We know in our own lives that an end can often lead to a new start. When the going gets tough and an ending, or more than one of them take place and deeply affect us, we know that we have to hold on to a sense of the new door opening in some way. That in an end is a beginning, in relationship difficulty, unemployment, bereavement, financial insecurity.
Jesus has been in Judea, closer to the centre of things in Jerusalem, but, not in it, in fact, in the wilderness. He hears that John the Baptist, his cousin, has been arrested. That probably only means one thing at the hands of Herod - his liquidation. This is troubling. Jesus withdraws, Matthew tells us, to Galilee. The Greek word for withdrawal here is the same one that came to be used to describe the stepping back from public life to live the monastic life in community. But that’s not what it means here for Jesus. He moves from Judea to Galilee, leaving his home in Nazareth also.
There are a couple of important things about this for Jesus and for us.
The first is that this area he moves into is not rich and thriving; it’s a poor area based on agriculture and fishing and it’s mostly lived in by Gentiles, non-Jews. Jesus clearly is identifying himself with those away from the centre of things, with the ordinary people of a region at the edge of the cultivated lands. This is a crucial note for Jesus to be sounding and will be a model for his ministry. Jesus treasure, if you like, is to be amongst the kind of people where he begins his public ministry in ordinary Galilee. The people who sit in darkness are discovering that a new light is coming.
The other important thing about this ending and beginning is that Jesus continues the message of John, but in a new way. The message is ‘repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near’. Jesus takes on John’s mantle and gives it new meaning –the kingdom is now here more than ever! – an ending and a beginning. This was risky, of course, look what had happened to John. But, it’s clear that Jesu knew he had this mission and could trust in the promise spoken so often of God’s faithfulness, not least in the words offered by Zechariah, John’s father:
‘Through his holy prophets, God promised of old, to save us from our enemies, from the hands of all that hate us’.
It’s a line that might just have featured in the Inaugural address of the new president of the United States! The old founding fathers of the union of states, creating an unshakable nation that has enemies, but which will be protected from the worst that they can do, and will be saved’.
Well, we shall see. This is posing for us another ending and beginning in the life of the world. Presidents have tended to tone down initial speeches knowing how difficult it is to actually achieve the promises they’ve made. President Trump speaks much more boldly of all that will be done to put America first. Can it be achieved? We know that so often leaders end up having to deal with what Macmillan called ‘events, events’.
Jesus himself moves into his public ministry in Galilee proclaiming the kingdom. The isolation of Jesus in the wilderness ends and he moves into another new beginning, of being with people –his disciples whom he calls, and the crowds who he begins to gather and teach.
His focus is to be disciples - those who will learn from him and take his message forward, and the crowds - the congregations who will be bathed in the new light and receive the richness of his ministry and message.
We often look at the disciples and think, what a strange lot; none of them seemed to be very fitting of the call placed on them, they either argued or showed their ignorance. It would appear that character flaws weren’t what Jesus concerned himself with, it was a willingness to take the opportunity and journey with him. And I think that goes for us too; none of us are perfect in terms of character and ability, discipleship is about a willingness to make the most of an opportunity, to accept the divine invitation. The worst thing would be to hold back and miss out.
As our final hymn today says:
The kingdom of God is challenge and choice,
Believe the good news, repent and rejoice!
By the Lake of Galilee, the message is to repent, the good news is to come for those who follow.
Why does Matthew tell us that Simon and Andrew were casting their nets and James and John were mending theirs? Is it just an insignificant pictorial detail? Or is it something to do with discipleship for them and for us, to be partly about evangelism –casting or sharing the faith, and also pastoral ministry –mending people’s lives and being reconcilers?
This is a part of the gospel where endings and beginnings are to the fore. This is a formative stage of the Christian narrative; John is arrested, Jesus emerges, Jesus takes up John’s message of the kingdom, Jesus gives it fresh impact amongst the poor of Galilee and he calls his disciples who immediately follow him in accepting the invitation. And the crowds begin to gather to receive and respond.
Here today we see in Jesus the manifestation that endings could be turned into beginnings of huge significance. The arrest of John provided a stimulus and a challenge that Jesus took up, even though the risk and the challenge was great. It was God’s calling upon him to be the great light for those sitting in darkness.
We see also the end that leads to the new start for those first disciples, who seize the opportunity to follow this man who has visited them in their lowly state and called them to discover the wonderful and new work of God.
For us too here is the joy of the old being transformed into the new: the courage of or Lord in taking up his call, the glory of a kingdom that is about transformation through God’s justice, and the invitation to the fishermen to follow and discover.
For us too that relates to life here and now; that whatever endings we face, God is always making things new, reissuing the invitation to us, calling us to choose to be kingdom people and to be bearers of transforming hope.
Amen.