Welcome to Ordinary Time, Epiphany 3, Mt. 4:12-23, 1/22/17
Welcome to ordinary time. If you look at the front of your worship folder you will see that today we observe the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany. But in older lectionaries, and still among Roman Catholics, this day is the 3rd Sunday of ordinary time.
A quick lesson on the structure of the church year: Part of the church year focuses on significant events in the life of Jesus. The church year begins with the Advent and Christmas seasons, when we focus on the coming of Jesus into the world, both at his birth and at the end times. The Lent and Easter seasons focus on the events leading up to holy week, the death of Jesus, and his resurrection. But the Sundays between Christmas and Lent, and then that long time between the Day of Pentecost and the beginning of Advent were historically called “ordinary time.”The term comes from the idea of ordinal numbers—first, second, third, etc. Rather than named for a season these Sundays were just identified by their place in a long series. But these are also ordinary Sundays in the sense that they are focused, not on the dramatic events of Christmas and Easter, but on the day to day ministry of Jesus.
I think there is something appealing about calling these Sundays ordinary time because it reminds us that most of life and discipleship is not high drama. Most days we are occupied with the routine tasks of existence. These Sundays in ordinary time show us how Jesus spent his typical day, so perhaps they give us some clues about what we should be about as his disciples.
In today’s gospel lesson we see the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. At the end of our text Matthew summarizes what that looked like: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” That’s how Jesus spent a typical day—preaching, teaching, and healing. Let’s look at those three things for a few minutes.
According to Matthew, Jesus had one major theme which he announced again and again, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” “Life is not going to be the same, because God is doing something which changes everything. Listen up, pay attention, get ready to go in a new direction.”
Every year about this time I get an email from an organization which monitors how the tax code applies to clergy. It is often a very short email because not much has happened. But sometimes the message comes with big bullets and bold type alerting me that there have been big changes; I can’t go on as before. It says, “You need to take action right now because the code has changed.”
That is the sort of urgency which Jesus has as he goes around Galilee. “The world may look the same,” he says, “but pay attention because God is on the move. God is not distant; god is right here if you have eyes to see and the willingness to respond.”
The danger of ordinary days is that we get lulled into inattention and apathy; we lose any sense of anticipation. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes we start to think, “What has been is whatwill be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.” Part of living as a disciple during ordinary time is cultivating a sense of expectancy and keeping it alive. More than that, we proclaim to our world that God has not gone fishing, leaving us to our own devices, but cares deeply about this world. We assert God’s vision of the world as one where justice will abound and mercy overflow. Though current events may tempt us to lassitude and despair, we proclaim hope.
Some scholars do not distinguish between the preaching and teaching of Jesus, but I think of the first as laying out a vision for the world and the other as fleshing out that vision with specifics. So, for example, Jesus preached that we love because God loves; he taught the parable of the Good Samaritan to show us what that looks like.
It is important to understand how important teaching was to Jesus. Theologian N.T. Wright has noted that sometimes the church acts as though the only reason Jesus came into the world was to die. We can put such emphasis on his atoning death that it is as though we skip directly from Christmas to Holy Week, feeling no necessity to pay attention to his public ministry. But as Wright notes, “It can be rightly said that Jesus’ death takes on it its true significance only in connection with that which he lived and proclaimed—God’s kingdom.” We can not understand what prompted the world’s violent reaction to Jesus unless we pay attention to his teaching.
Jesus was not shy about connecting the dots, showing in clear teaching how following him changes a person’s day to day life. He was not content with mouthing pious abstractions. There is no great risk in saying God loves everyone, but when he said love means caring for your enemy, means sharing your wealth generously, means standing up for the vulnerable—well that both excited those looking for a new vision and angered others who were happy with the status quo.
During ordinary times—around the coffee machine at work, hanging out between classes, meeting a friend for lunch—discipleship involves that same connecting of the dots. We constantly ask how the fact that we are a Christian changes how we see the world and respond to its challenges and pain.
Which brings us to the third thing Jesus spent a lot of time doing, healing. If the gospel narratives are to be believed Jesus thought it was very important to respond to human suffering. We see him exorcising demons, giving sight to the blind, and restoring lepers to health and their community. He opens the ears of the deaf, lifts up one bowed low by spinal deformity, and heals a woman’s chronic hemorrhaging. The point is that Jesus was concerned about more than just saving the mystical souls of his hearers. He was concerned about who they were at the core of their being, but he sought to reducetheir present pain wherever he could.
Most of us are not given the gift of healing by the laying on of hands. It is a rare gift, I think some do have it, but most of us don’t. But that does not mean we can not be healers. Suffering comes in many forms—physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological—and so too does healing. A call to the lonely, a visit the bereaved, a word of encouragement to one crushed by disappointment—these are ways to give healing. So too is making sure that everyone has access to the medical resources which cure disease. Jesus used who he was and the power he had to promote healing. We do not have the same powers, but we have the same mandate and opportunity to heal if we choose to follow him.
Preaching, teaching, and healing. According to Matthew that’s how Jesus spent an ordinary day, and discipleship calls us to the same tasks. Yet, there is one more thing Jesus did; he invited.
As our text illustrates with the call of the Galilean fisherman, Jesus preached, taught, and healed—and then he invited others to join him in this radical way of loving God and neighbor. He was not bashful. He did not apologize for suggesting he had a better way to offer. He dared to say, “Follow me.”
In our lesson four men drop everything and do just that, but I am sure that there were many who got the same invitation and went back to what they were doing. In like manner, if we invite others to share our community in Christ at Luther Memorial, some, perhaps most, will continue on with life as usual. But a few will discover a precious gift in our life together. They will glimpse the kingdom of God, a place where the spirit of Christ rules and they can find joy, purpose, and direction for living. That is not an insignificant gift and it is one which each of us can offer our friends and acquaintances.
Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese evangelist and social reformer observed, “I read in [the Bible]that a man called Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about.” During this “ordinary time” let’s not be content with just going about. With our Lord’s guidance let’s preach, teach, heal, and invite others to share community in Christ.