God's Challenge in Micah

Initially, in preparation for Sunday's sermon, I have been focused on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5. But recently I've seen several colleagues write about Micah's distillation of what the Lord requires, and I'm starting to wonder whether I should join the Micah bandwagon and preach on doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. It is a beautiful reminder of what it means to be in a faithful relationship with the Almighty. Micah's poetic rendering seems particularly well-suited for a faded poster on the wall of a youth room. Steve Pankey shared the twenty-first century equivalent in a great pie-chart meme he created in one of his posts this week. Like many tidy summations, Micah 6:8 is catchy, powerful, and easily repeated. The only problem is that reading the Cliff's Notes without reading the book is a surefire way of making a C- on a book report.

We must remember why Micah offered these words. Start by reading the rest of Sunday's lesson. It's confusing. At first, it seems that the prophet is speaking on behalf of God, and then it seems like God himself is speaking directly, and finally it seems like the prophet has started speaking again but this time is replying to God on behalf of God's people. The reply is where the catchy little summary comes, but it might be worth noting what that reply is in response to.

Step back a little further and read the rest of Micah 6. Hear God say to God's people,

"Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,

    and the scant measure that is accursed?
Can I tolerate wicked scales
    and a bag of dishonest weights?
Your wealthy are full of violence;
    your inhabitants speak lies,
    with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
Therefore I have begun to strike you down,
    making you desolate because of your sins.
You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
    and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not save,
    and what you save, I will hand over to the sword" (Micah 6:10-14).

And it goes on and on and on. God is not happy. That shouldn't surprise us since it's a prophet who is writing this. Prophets never show up to tell us that God is pleased with us--always the contrary. Why is God angry? Why is God promising to punish God's people? And why is this summary of what it means to be faithful to God inserted here?

Because God's people have forgotten God. In a Jude-Law-plays-the-Young-Pope kind of moment, Micah is saying in a booming, thunderous voice, "You have forgotten God!" Your trade is dishonest. Your forgiveness is nonexistent. Your charity is lacking. Your worship is meaningless. Your self-righteousness is overflowing. God has saved you, and how do you respond?

God declares, "O my people, what I have done to you...? For I brought you up from the land of Egypt..." God has set his people free. God has rescued them from slavery and oppression. And what is God's people's response? All it takes, Micah reminds us, is to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly, but you can't even get that right!

The heading for this section in the NRSV on biblegateway.com is "God's Challenge to Israel." Yes, a challenge is an invitation--in this case a strong invitation to change or, at least, an invitation to recognize our tendency to get it wrong no matter how much we might want to get it right. This summary is damning to us. If all it takes to have a right relationship with God is those three little things, then why can't we get it right? Because we're human. Because we're imperfect. Because our best intentions are marred by our inadequacy, which is to say by our sin.

This quaint little summary exposes our weakness. It reveals our need for help. The good news of Jesus reminds us that God does step in to help us even when we are faithless. Don't read this three-fold summary and think, "Great! I can do that!" because that's not what Micah had in mind. And don't preach, "All we have to do is what Micah tells us to," unless you're also going to say, "But we can't, which is why we need Jesus." Micah 6:8 is a beautiful summary, but it summarizes our need for divine intervention. May these words point us back to God as we seek God's help in Jesus.

For Real?

The Beatitudes don't make sense. In Matthew 5:1-12, Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor...Blessed are those who mourn...Blessed are the meek..." And, on behalf of the disciples, I want to raise my hand and say, "Um, Jesus? I don't think that's right." Sure, after centuries of reading these words of Jesus, we've convinced ourselves that they make sense. We've allowed the familiarity of these nonsensical statements to become a substitute for comprehension. But if we look at the words and consider what Jesus is really saying, I don't think there's any way around them but to admit that they don't make sense.

When we encounter something that we can't wrap our minds around, there are a few ways to proceed. The easiest thing to do is just ignore it completely. If we pretend that it didn't happen or does not exist, then we can move on with our lives without having to engage that which we do not understand. I suppose I could ignore the gospel text and preach on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 or Micah 6:1-8, but a quick look at those lessons suggest that they aren't any easier to grasp. In fact, Paul's "message of the cross [that] is foolishness to those who are perishing" is pretty much the same thing Jesus is talking about in the first place (more on that later this week). Also, I'm not a big fan of ducking an exegetical fight, so ignoring the Beatitudes isn't going to work.

Another option is to convince ourselves that what Jesus was saying isn't what he really meant--that this was a hyperbolic illustration or a parable of some sort. In other words, we can decide to interpret these words as true in a larger sense without forcing any resemblance on reality. That way we can rest easy knowing that the poor and meek and hungry aren't actually blessed in their poverty, weakness, or hunger, but, in a more general way, God pities those who are in a place of struggle and that pity is itself a blessing. Not convinced? Neither am I.

A third possibility is to project the truth of these sayings into the future--that someday the poor will be blessed, the mournful will be blessed, the hungry will be blessed. This seems particularly possible in Matthew's version of the Beatitudes as each one, except the first, concludes with some version of "...for they will be comforted." Maybe the content of that blessing, therefore, is not to be received until Jesus comes back, until all things are completed, until the world ends, until these pour souls are dead and resting comfortably in the bosom of God. As a realist, I find this possibility very attractive. I do believe that someday all of those who are struggling in this life will have their struggles put to rest. I believe that the poor, the hungry, the meek, and the mournful will find their reward in the next life. But I don't think that's good enough for Jesus, and I don't think that it's good enough for God.

I think we're supposed to take Jesus at his word and let the incomprehensibility of his statements be the thing that teaches us. I'll spend the rest of the week trying to grapple with some sense of an answer--or perhaps a better way to put that is to say that I'll be looking for an effective way to communicate that irreconcilable struggle to a congregation from the pulpit--to the question, "How is that blessedness a reality here and now despite all indications to the contrary?" How can anyone say to a mournful widow, "You are blessed?" How can anyone say to the hungry, "Take heart: you are blessed?" In fact, I'm pretty sure James had something to say about this in James 2:16. But I believe that there is real, genuine, true blessedness in those states. As a wealthy, powerful, joyful, insulated-from-hardship, privileged man, that's a dangerous thing for me to say. But I didn't say it first. Jesus did. And my prayer is that God will help me see that impossible blessedness as a lens through which I get a glimpse at God's nature.

The Good News of Repentance

January 22, 2017 – The 3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany

Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

© 2017 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon is available here.

 

What does repentance look like? Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Rob Bell’s Nooma video “Bullhorn” several times, but, when I picture repentance, it looks like a middle-aged, well-dressed man with a large stack of flyers and a bullhorn, standing on a busy street corner, yelling at everyone who goes by that if they don’t repent they’ll go straight to hell. What about you? When you hear the word “repent” and you try to picture it, what image comes to your mind? Is it an angry, sweat-drenched preacher on public-access television? Maybe it’s a billboard on the side of the interstate with a message that’s designed to scare you into giving your life to Christ. Whatever it is that comes to your mind, the images of repentance that are most common in our culture are those desperate, emotional pleas that try to scare people into finding Jesus, and I don’t think they’re working.

Does anyone actually hear those attempts to scare the hell out of him and decide, “You know what: maybe I’ll give Jesus a chance?” Fear might get our attention, but fear on its own cannot lead to faith. There must be something more. If sweat-soaked preachers like me want to introduce people to Jesus, we need to give up on evangelical terrorism and look to the words of Jesus himself as an invitation to a hope worth believing in.

Today’s gospel lesson is all about repentance, but it’s not the sort of repentance we’re accustomed to. For starters, the call to repentance doesn’t come from the lips of an angry prophet but from Jesus himself: “When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee…and made his home in Capernaum by the sea…[and] from that time [he] began to proclaim, ‘Repent for the kingdom has come near.’” Does that sound familiar? The words are the same ones that John the Baptist used in his preaching, but, when John said them, he also called the religious people of his day a “brood of vipers!” John always had that edge to him, but I don’t usually think of Jesus in that way. In fact, I don’t think of Jesus as proclaiming that message of repentance at all. Instead, he’s usually the one eating with tax collectors and sinners—not telling them they need to repent. Jesus is the gentle one, the understanding one, the compassionate one—not the one who shakes a finger of judgement in their face. Why is Jesus picking up John’s message and telling the people that they need to repent? Because repentance is good news.

“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” Jesus’ ministry was defined by brining light and hope to dark places, and that is the real message of repentance. The word in the New Testament that is translated for us as “repentance” is a word that literally means “turn your mind around.” In the context of religion, it means turning around from a life that has been spent running away from God and embracing the life that God is giving you. As Jesus understood it, it meant turning away from a path that leads to darkness and hopelessness and death and turning toward the light and hope and eternal life that God wills for all of God’s children to have.

That means that repentance isn’t just a rejection of the former things; it’s also an invitation to new possibilities. And I think that the preachers who talk about repentance more than anything else often forget that turning around involves two directions—where you’re coming from and where you’re going now. The good news of repentance is a message of new possibility for your life. That message has been hijacked by those whose religion is built upon fear, and I think that it’s time for us to take it back. I live in a world that is desperate to know that things don’t always have to be this way. I meet people who want things to get better—people who don’t need to be reminded that the path we’re on is fraught with challenge and division and who want to believe that there is real hope out there for them. That hope isn’t coming from false prophets who peddle fear and fear alone—those who scare us but don’t have any real hope to offer. It comes from Jesus, who invites us into a life filled with light and hope and promise.

What does repentance look like when it comes from the mouth of Jesus?

As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

That is a story of repentance. It’s a story of Jesus coming alongside some people and inviting them into a new life of possibility and hope. Within this moment of turning around, there is a clear component of leaving the old life behind. Simon and Andrew must leave their nets and give up their life of fishing for fish in order to follow Jesus and fish for people. Likewise, we read that James and John leave their father and their boat in order to go with Jesus. But the hope that stands before them is what propels them out of their boats and into new life. Jesus doesn’t give them a diatribe about how their lives are stuck in a dead-end job and how they’ll wake up one day and realize that they’ve wasted their whole lives doing meaningless work. He simply says, “Follow me.” Behind those words was a promise of new life, and that invitation was all that they needed.

Jesus is calling God’s people to follow him out of fear and darkness and into new light and new possibility. Jesus is inviting us to be a part of God’s plan to bring God’s kingdom fully here on earth. And we know what that kingdom looks like. It means hope to those who sit in darkness. It means life to those who dwell in the shadow of death. To follow Jesus means to repent—to leave behind a way of living that says that things will always be this way, that fear will always win. And it means embracing our part in bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, and breaking the yoke of oppression. It means saying to the world that the kingdom of God has come near, and that God’s kingdom brings healing to all people.

Will we say yes to Jesus? Will we say yes to the good news of repentance? Will we show the world that things don’t have to be this way any longer—that it’s time for things to change? Will we leave fear behind and embrace the hope that only God can give us—a hope that God has given us in Jesus Christ?

Succession Plan

Businesses often develop succession plans--how leadership will pass from one individual or group to the next without disrupting the company. Churches, it seems, don't do as good job of this. Sure, individual clergy or congregations might have transition in their mind, but, in my limited experience, ministers and lay leaders get uncomfortable when one or the other starts asking questions like, "Should we begin thinking about our next pastor?" Even the most careful planning cannot guarantee neat and tidy clergy transitions, but, when clergy and congregations keep in mind the importance and inevitability of changes in leadership, the church is in a better position to focus on the unchanging gospel instead of the drama of the revolving door that can be the clergyperson's office.

In Sunday's gospel lesson (Matthew 4:12-23), we read about the end of a critical transition in leadership that enabled Jesus to take center stage while John the Baptist stepped out of the limelight. It helps to go back and read all of Matthew 3 & 4 to see how this transition happened. Remember that Matthew 2 featured the wise men, the Holy Family's flight to Egypt, and their return to settle in Nazareth. Then, in chapter 3, Matthew picks up the synoptic tradition and begins the mature account of Jesus' ministry with John the Baptist. Quoting Isaiah, he writes, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord." Just like Mark and Luke, this version stresses John's role as Jesus' forerunner. Although it seems that John was a historically significant Jewish prophet in his own right, the gospel tradition has always linked his ministry with that of Jesus, and Luke goes so far as to identify them as cousins. Perhaps there was a time when John was perceived as a rival of Jesus, but the gospel accounts go out of their way to show us a smooth transition.

John's preparatory message leads to Jesus' baptism in Mathew 3:13-17. The Spirit descending and the voice declaring become the legitimization of Jesus' priority. John sees it and recognizes it and begins to step out of the way. (Although different in many ways, John's account makes this even clearer as he encourages two of his own disciples to follow Jesus instead of himself.) When we turn the page and get to Matthew 4, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he is tempted by the devil and confirms his identity as God's anointed one--able to do battle with evil itself. And then we get to Sunday's lesson, which begins, "When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee."

This is where Jesus' ministry starts--where John's left off. Matthew didn't need to include this detail. Jesus could have simply started doing his miraculous works and teaching is captivating sermons. But Matthew wants us to see that Jesus picks up right where John stepped aside. When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he left the region of Judea and returned home to Galilee, where he gained the attention of the people. Notice later in the passage that, "from that time, Jesus began to proclaim, 'Repent, for the kingdom has come near.'" John himself had declared, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand," in Matthew 3:2, and it is no accident that Jesus not only picks up where John left off but actually picks up his very message. John's prophecy becomes Jesus' prophecy, and the work of God continues.

Last year, as a bit of a stunt, I announced to our Vestry, "I am leaving St. John's..." As everyone in the room gasped at the thought of having to manage a parish in transition, I completed my statement, "...someday." I don't have specific plans to leave my parish yet, but I trust that someday God will call me to serve elsewhere. I explained that I wanted all of us to remember that transitions happen. Together, we acknowledged that we need to use the resources God has given us at this time to do the particular work we are able to do and trust that the next chapter will bring its own resources and ministry. We still don't have a real succession plan in place, but we're shaping our shared ministry around the reality that, when a transition comes, the work continues. It's the same work. It may take a different shape or have a different tone, but it's the same work that God has given us to do. With God's help, the content of that work--the message of repentance and new life in Christ--will remain our focus no matter what sort of transitions happen in the people proclaiming that good news.

Celebrating a Confession

Today is the feast of the Confession of Peter--the day when we remember that moment, captured in all three synoptic gospel accounts, when Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" and Peter replied, "You are the messiah, the Son of the living God." Without reading an entire gospel account in one sitting, it is hard to stress how remarkable this moment was. Up to this point, Jesus had been properly identified by the demons he had cast out, but no one else had recognized his full identity. No one had put the pieces all together. And, after this moment, which serves as a turning point for the gospel story, things happen with stunning speed. Although there are still plenty of chapters left in all of the gospel accounts, after this confession, Jesus' ministry is Jerusalem-bound.

But today I don't want to focus on the role that Peter's confession has in the arc of the gospel. Instead, I want to celebrate the act itself as distinct from the actor. You've heard the tragic, uncharitable-masking-as-loving saying, "Hate the sin, not the sinner?" Well, today, I want to focus on what it means to "celebrate the confession, not the confessor."

In our liturgical calendar, we remember lots of saints. These are the holy people of God who have been made holy by the saving, redeeming, transforming work of Jesus Christ. (We can debate a theology of sainthood later.) When we celebrate the feast of a saint, we typically remember her or his life, witness, and death all wrapped into one celebration. Many saints are commemorated on the anniversary of their death, but that remembrance usually expands beyond merely the moment of their martyrdom and touches on the witness of their entire life. Occasionally, however, we remember a particular event above and beyond the life of an individual. For example, in the Episcopal Church, we commemorate the consecration of Samuel Seabury, our first bishop. In that way, the church is specifically saying that it is not the life of Seabury that reminds us of God's saving work in Jesus Christ. Instead, it is the act of his consecration and, through it, our larger participation in the universal Church that we remember. Although Peter himself is a Saint that is remembered on the feast of Peter and Paul, today we step away from the person and celebrate the moment. And I think there are theological reasons to retain that focus.

After Peter's clear confession of Jesus' identity, Jesus responds, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." Notice the content of that declaration. Peter is blessed--the mark of sainthood--but he is blessed because God the Father has revealed this truth to him. The action comes from the outside. The implication is that Peter could have spent all his energy focused on discerning this truth, but, without the inspiration of God himself, he could not have gotten to the realization. Sure, Peter is the vessel for this epiphany. His faithfulness--his openness to the working of the Spirit--plays a role in this, but, just as Jesus celebrates Peter as the vehicle for God's action, so, too, must we celebrate what God is doing in the lives of his saints and not what the saints are doing on their own. This is, after all, what it means to be a saint of God in the first place.

We are all saints. All of us who are reborn into the new, redeemed, transformed life that God has given us through his Son Jesus Christ and through the fellowship of the Holy Ghost are the holy ones of God. And what does that mean? Does it mean that each of us does incredible, miraculous things? Does it mean that we have supernatural, God-sent insights? Does it mean that all of us are willing and able to withstand torture or death for the sake of the gospel? Not necessarily. What it does mean, however, is that we, like Peter, are vessels for God's work. God has used, is using, and will continue to use us to bring his truth to the world. Like Peter, we have a confession to make--not merely a confession of our sin but also a confession of our confidence in God's forgiveness. We cannot make that confession on our own. God himself has revealed it to us. May we proclaim it boldly as his saints.

Invitation to Intimacy

St. Antony, Abbot in Egypt

1 Peter 5:6-10; Mark 10:17-21

© 2016 Evan D. Garner

 

Audio of this sermon can be heard here.

In Mark 10:17-21, Jesus offers a profound and challenging invitation to a would-be disciple. A man runs up to Jesus, kneels before him, and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus replies with a summary of the Law: “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.’” Quickly in his mind, the man runs through Jesus’ checklist, crossing off each one of the obligations as having been fulfilled, and says, “Teacher, I have kept all of these since my youth.” But there was more to it than that. Something had brought this faithful man to Jesus in the first place. He knew that something was missing, and Jesus shows him that it was something big, something demanding, something terrible.

With love for the man in his heart, Jesus looks at him and says, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Even before we get to those words, we know what comes next. Perhaps that is because we are familiar with the story, or perhaps it is because we recognize our own limitations and project them onto the man. Mark tells us that he “was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” Isn’t that our response, too? When confronted with the enormous cost of discipleship, whether financial or otherwise, aren’t we grieved? When we encounter any of the stories in which Jesus tells us to sell everything that we have and give it away or hate our mother and father and brother and sister or take up our cross or even give up our own life for the sake of the gospel, don’t we wish he would move on to something else? Isn’t the cost of discipleship always more than we are prepared to give?

Today, however, I hear a new voice within this familiar story. Today is the feast of St. Antony, who served as an abbot in Egypt in the fourth century, and I cannot help but notice that the gospel lesson appointed for his feast stops short of the man’s sorrowful reaction to Jesus’ demand that he sell all that he has and give it away to the poor. We know what comes next. We know that the man will not be able to fulfill what is being asked of him. But, today, we never get there. We stop with verse 21—with Jesus’ invitation to the man to take that next and essential step—and, because of that, I hear in this exchange new opportunity for me and my own faith.

When he was eighteen years old, Antony and his younger sister were orphaned, and they found themselves unexpectedly responsible for caring for their family’s large estate. Six months later, when he heard the story of the rich man and Jesus in Mark’s gospel account, Antony immediately gave all of their land to the villagers and sold most of his possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor. Still, for Antony, this was not enough. After further meditation, he decided to sell absolutely everything he owned, place his sister in a house for poor, unmarried women, and become an anchorite or solitary ascetic. He spent the next twenty years living alone in a cave, praying and meditating on God’s word, before emerging to found a primitive sort of monastery that was little more than a collection of individual cells for other solitary ascetics.[1]

Antony’s life was completely and totally dedicated to God. He was free from the burdens and distractions of money and relationships. He gave up not only his possessions but also his ties to family and virtually all interactions with the rest of the world. As far as was humanly possible, he sought to remove anything that might stand in the way of his relationship with God. He had heard Jesus call him to seek unencumbered intimacy with the Lord, and, rather than dwell on why that could not happen, he answered Jesus’ call and gave up all that he had in order to pursue that most important of relationships.

I do not know about you, but I am not prepared to sell all that I have and take a vow of poverty. I am not willing to leave my wife and children behind in order to pursue an unencumbered relationship with God. Partly that is because I have not heard Jesus call me to do those things, but, even if I had, I doubt my ability to answer that call. I am too deeply attached to the comforts that my wealth provides. I am too fond of the comfort that my family gives. But, today, as I hear Jesus inviting me to sell everything I have and follow him, I stop short of my inabilities and, instead, ask God to give me the strength and courage and resolve to do whatever it is that God is asking of me. Instead of saying, “No, that’s too hard,” I pray that God will help me eliminate everything that gets in the way of the pure, dedicated relationship with God that God is calling me to pursue. I know my flesh is weak, but I pray that God will make my spirit willing. As Jesus said to the disciples when they asked their master about this difficult teaching, “With mere mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27).
 
Perhaps God is calling you to sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor. Perhaps God is calling you to give up your life as you know it and dedicate yourself to God’s service in a new and radical way. Perhaps it’s something dramatic and huge, or maybe it’s something small and quiet, but I can guarantee that, whatever it is, God’s call will come as a challenge. Do not fall into the trap of dismissing God’s invitation because it seems too difficult. Yes, following Jesus is hard. Yes, being a disciple is costly. Indeed, it will cost you everything that you have. But don’t allow yourself to become paralyzed by the magnitude of that sacrifice. Instead, pray that God will give you the strength to say yes—one day at a time, one step at a time, one sacrifice at a time.

---

[1] Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Church Publishing: 2006, 130.

Smugness Revisited

Last week, when I read the gospel lesson for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany (John 1:29-42), I chuckled to myself. I had preached the week before on Jesus' baptism in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:13-17), but that next Sunday's passage was basically the same story told in John's gospel account. It wasn't my week to preach, so I chuckled halfway sympathetically and halfway triumphantly at my colleague who now had to craft a sermon on something the congregation had already heard just a week earlier. Well, now he's laughing because we're back in Matthew for another round of the same thing all over again.

On the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, we will read Matthew 4:12-23, which, among other things, details Jesus' calling of Andrew and Simon as well as James and John. That, of course, was the second half of yesterday's gospel lesson. And this repeated repetition has me wondering: is there a reason why the lectionary authors are moving this slowly?

The overlaps are astounding:

• Week One: Jesus' Baptism
• Week Two: Jesus' Baptism Revisited + Calling of Andrew and Simon
• Week Three: Calling of Andrew and Simon

It's as if we really, really need to hear about the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Forgive me if I'm ready to move past the first chapter. And, if I'm in a rush and the lectionary authors are forcing me to slow down, then I had better pay attention.

No, next week isn't another recap. It's the Beatitudes. So what is this week all about? Why are we being asked to linger here?

Did you notice the other connection with John the Baptist in this gospel lesson? After Jesus heard that John was arrested, he went back to Galilee and established a home in Capernaum. Matthew offers a bit about prophetic fulfillment--"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali..."--but it's the bit after that that catches my eye today. "From that time, Jesus began to proclaim, 'Repent, for the kingdom has come near.'" Wait a minute! That's John the Baptist's line. Is Jesus picking up where John left off?

It seems that he has. And this is an opportunity for me to rethink the shape of Jesus' ministry. In Year C, Jesus spent all his time with outcasts and sinners. But implicit in all of those encounters was a call to repentance. Jesus meets these people for transformation. In Year A, we see Matthew draw that out more clearly. Really, we still haven't gotten anywhere. We're still stuck in the beginning of Jesus' ministry, but hearing him shape his ministry as a successor to John--one who calls the world to repent--is an invitation to see the good news of Jesus Christ as an opportunity to turn around and start over. This is rebirth. This is repentance.