Reign of Heaven: SALT's Commentary for Epiphany 3
Epiphany 3 (Year A): Matthew 4:12-23 and Isaiah 9:1-4
Big Picture:
1) Like last week’s reading from John, this week’s reading from Matthew focuses on Jesus calling the first disciples — opening up an opportunity to explore what it means to sense a “calling” or life purpose.
2) The reading from Isaiah is from an oracle for a king’s coronation, celebrating the beginning of the monarch’s rule and the people’s imminent restoration from oppression (“walked in darkness”) to a new day of liberation (“have seen a great light”) (Isa 9:2). The passage’s geographical details allude to Assyria’s military campaigns against Israel and Judah in the 8th century BCE — and thus to King Hezekiah, the Judean king who rebuffed the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem.
3) Accordingly, by citing this passage from Isaiah and linking it to Jesus, Matthew effectively declares that God is again at work in a similar way, with Jesus as the new sovereign and his ministry as the inauguration of a new, emancipatory reign — the “reign of heaven,” as Jesus puts it (Mt 4:17). It’s as if Matthew says: Look! Just as in the days of old, a new reign is beginning, a new liberation from oppression!
4) The Greek word here for “reign” — basileia — can also be translated “kingdom” or “rule” or “realm” or “empire,” which puts Jesus in conspicuous tension with the Roman empire in Matthew’s larger story. Indeed, just as Luke begins the account of Jesus’ birth with Emperor Augustus’ breathtaking, totalitarian attempt to register and tax “all the world” for the Roman basileia’s benefit, Matthew begins with Rome’s client king, Herod, frightened by reports of a new “king of the Jews” — so frightened, in fact, that he orders the slaughter of the innocents (Luke 2:1; Mt 2:1-3,16-18). Within that basileia of tyranny and violence, Jesus comes of age — and in this week’s reading, he steps into his public ministry and delivers his first sermon: “Repent, for the basileia of heaven” — not of Caesar or Herod! — “has come near” (Mt 4:17).
5) The image of “fishing for people” has an ancient pedigree — but not in the way you might think. In the Book of Jeremiah, for example, in the context of exile in Babylon (about 600 years before Jesus), “fishing for people” refers to God’s judgment: the unrighteous and unjust are caught by divine agents, “doubly repaid for their iniquity,” and only then rescued from the exile (Jeremiah 16:14-18). What’s Jesus up to here, as he borrows this provocative phrase? What signal is he sending? As we’ll see below, he’s inviting recruits into an adventure that ultimately ends with salvation — but includes plenty of struggle along the way.
Scripture:
1) Barbara Brown Taylor has famously called called this episode a “miracle on the beach”: as far as we know, these fishermen have never met Jesus, and yet after hearing just two words from him, they “immediately” leave everything behind — nets, family, friends, livelihood — and follow him. Read this way, it’s a story about the transformative power of God’s call, its capacity to turn us around in unexpected, sometimes surprising ways.
2) But the other way to read this passage is to say, Wait a minute: no-one “drops their nets” and walks away from everything they know without being good and ready to do so, without some kind of deep, pre-existing dissatisfaction, some longing for a different kind of life. Read this way, the story prompts us to wonder about those fishermen, about what it was that made them so ready and willing to hear Jesus’ invitation, drop everything, and go.
3) In Ched Myers’ remarkable post on Mark’s version of this story, he makes the case that fishermen on the Sea of Galilee in Jesus’ day were caught in an elaborate, oppressive basileia — and that’s exactly why they’re good and ready to move on. Fishing, Myers explains, was considered the lowest of the low professions, and so Jesus’ invitation was to leave that caste system behind and join him in ushering in a whole new way of living, economically, socially, and otherwise. Myers points out that in Mark’s story, the verb translated “they left their nets” (aphiemi, the same word Matthew uses) is used elsewhere in the Gospels in the context of leaving behind debt, sin, and bondage. Accordingly, aphiemi is what Myers calls a “Jubilee verb” — and it’s into a new Jubilee world that Jesus invites these disenfranchised people to follow him. It’s as if he says: Leave the basileia of Rome behind, and come, follow me — for the basileia of heaven, the Great Jubilee, has come near!
4) We can imagine a skeptic standing there on the beach looking on, saying, Sounds great — but why should we believe in such deliverance? Roman power is overwhelming! Matthew’s initial answer rings out from the reference to Isaiah, as if to say, God delivered our ancestors from overwhelming Assyrian oppression, and behold, God is doing it again! And likewise, Jesus’ answer rings out from the reference to Jeremiah (“I will make you fish for people”), as if to say, God delivered our ancestors from overwhelming Babylonian oppression, and behold, God is doing it again!
5) The upshot of all this is that the dawning “reign of heaven,” while ultimately emancipatory and restorative, will also involve struggle with forces of iniquity, injustice, and oppression. Just as it was in the days of Jeremiah, to “fish for people” is to enter into a struggle — not a military struggle, as we’ll see in the weeks ahead, but a struggle nonetheless, a wrestling match with the dehumanizing, death-dealing powers that be, both in our hearts (like shame, resentment, or contempt) and in our communities (like injustice, unkindness, or violence).
Takeaways:
1) Jesus steps into his public ministry proclaiming that “the basileia of heaven has come near,” setting up an immediate tension, and foreshadowing an eventual showdown, with the basileia of Rome — and by extension, with every death-dealing basileia, in every time and place. This helps explain not only why the first disciples so readily “left their nets” to follow him, but also why Jesus would seek them out in the first place, there at the supposed bottom of the status ladder. For in God’s basileia, the world is turned upside down!
2) Jesus’ call to discipleship is a call to participate in the struggle for justice, kindness, and humility, inspired and encouraged by past generations. For just as God delivered our ancestors from Assyrian oppression, and again from Babylonian oppression, so too will God deliver us from Roman oppression — and indeed from the even deeper, wider basileia of injustice, unkindness, and arrogance in the world and in our hearts. Heaven’s basileia is at hand! Come, follow me!
3) How do we discern and follow God’s call? One fruitful way of engaging stories like Matthew’s is to use them as spaces for reflection: Are there nets that God is calling us to drop today, ways of life we are ready to “immediately” leave behind? Has the decisive moment arrived? Do we hear an invitation from Jesus to strike out in a new direction towards justice, kindness, and God’s Jubilee? Have we been resisting this kind of call, or dragging our feet? Perhaps the best thing we can do to clarify our calling or life purpose is to keep these questions warm, returning to them again and again. And perhaps the best way to do that is to form a small group (even as small as two or three) intentionally devoted to this task, providing both ongoing support and accountability. A “calling” isn’t once-and-for-all; it’s ongoing, daily work. Follow me.
4) It’s worth thinking about that Jesus doesn’t say to the first disciples, “Believe in this way of thinking, and follow me” or “Sign on to this cause, and follow me.” He simply says, “Follow me.” The sheer minimalism of the call is striking. It may signal that while beliefs and behavior do play a role in discipleship, they’re not really the heart of the matter; rather, walking alongside Jesus is the heart of the matter: listening, reflecting, learning, and listening again. For the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the most remarkable thing about Jesus’ call is that it’s “void of all content.” There’s no program here, no platform, no set of opinions or list of rules. Only a call to companionship, to closeness, to living together as we walk toward heaven’s reign. Follow me.
5) God’s call manifests in a thousand different ways, and we respond in a thousand more, from courage to reluctance to hopping on the next ship out of town. But there’s at least one golden thread running through it all: God’s calling is frequently surprising and unpredictable, spilling over the edges of conventional wisdom in ways that are more than a little bit wild. Who is called? Not the supposedly elite, but those among the supposedly lowest on the social ladder (Simon, Andrew, James, and John). And to what end? For the sake of justice, kindness, and humility in our lives and our communities. For the sake of a world one day turned upside down in a magnificent Jubilee, “on earth as it is in heaven.” And indeed for the sake of the following itself, the companionship itself, the love and togetherness of walking humbly with God along the Way. Follow me.