Called Out

 

Matthew 4:12-23

 Galilea was historically the place of Gentiles after the Assyrian exile, though in Jesus’ time it was mostly Jewish.  This quote from Isaiah 9 conjures up that memory and, no doubt, the current situation under Rome’s occupation.  Jesus invokes this history in a current context of occupation and oppression.  Jesus then calls for repentance (metanoia) to change one’s mind so that one’s direction will follow.  For one empire had conquered and exiled God’s children in this Northern part of the Kingdom, and now it was occupied by new oppressors.  The people should change their thinking regarding empire itself, and resist its evils. 

 Empire means that the few benefit at the expense of the many, and because they have military control they can exploit and abuse whomever they choose.  The people were taxed heavily.  It is a peasant economy, and the people at the bottom who struggle to survive under it are powerless to change their plight.  The darkness in which the people sit has been the norm for a long time.  They are stuck in it.  Whatever living they used to make has been taken away to feed empire, its wealthy elites and its soldiers who brutally enforce order to maintain the status quo.

 Capernaum was by the sea.  It was also occupied territory in that it was a center for imperial political control.  Jesus locates Himself with the poor and exploited and dwells with them, and with the words of Isaiah challenges the status quo of empire.  His Good News is the light to the darkness of empire.  He calls for the people to repent and focus their lives on the tenets of God’s empire, rather than Rome’s.  The Kingdom has come near in Him, and God’s activity to save the people is being seen already.

So, when Jesus calls the fishermen, He calls men who have little to lose to follow Him in a new direction and vision for humanity.  The taxes imposed on them for empire’s revenue forced them to try to work as a fishing cooperative in which they shared resources in order to cut costs and bring in enough for their families, but it was no longer viable.  Fishing was on the low end of economic security to begin with, and now it was just not sustainable for a living wage.  Perhaps their leaving would mean fewer mouths to feed for the sake of their families.  Jesus calls them to leave the livelihoods that they have known all their lives and at which they can no longer make a decent living, to change the world and its values so that all can have enough and well-being.  He calls them to abandon the futility of trying to survive under empire’s unjust and exploitative system and build a new system based on the agaph of Jesus.  He calls them out, to be ekklesia (those called out from the world) to engage in Kin-dom of God work and life. 

 They did not volunteer.  They were called out to live a very different way than the normative status quo of empire.  Instead of oppressing the poor and needy, they would now be about the business of collecting and gathering them to build a new community and a new social system based on the justice of God.  They were called to change their minds and their direction so that they would leave one way in life that was divisive, desperate, and destructive, to another Way, the Way of Jesus.  It was an immediate call and it would mean sacrifice for the sake of all others around them who also suffered under the oppression of empire.  To punctuate the wholeness, completeness, and well-being (Shalom) of life under this new, sustainable Way of Life in Jesus, people were healed.  Their lives were restored to them.  They had hope.  The people who sat in darkness had a great light.  Rabbi Jesus taught it in the synagogues, this Good News of God’s Empire come and God’s Will being done on earth as in heaven.  Jesus, son of God, brought the power of God to work in the lives of those who most needed it.

 This was done in Galilea, which had a history of oppression in the Northern Kingdom, in Capernaum which had a present oppressive presence.  Lives were being changed and a movement began to transform the world in Good News.  Light instead of Darkness.  Justice instead of Oppression.  Hope instead of despair.  Community instead of scattered individuals.  Enough instead of lack.  God’s Kin-dom instead of empire.

 In our own land, occupied by those who give their devotion to empire and its values, the Good News of Jesus still applies.  Across the world as in our own land, those who are held down, back and out from having Shalom need to have some Good News applied.  Those who are the ekklesia (called out- the church) are supposed to give our devotion, our effort and energy and our lives to the living of this Good News Way of Jesus in agaph. Many still sit in darkness and need this light.  We who are called out, are chosen to give it to them.  Instead of living status quo lives under empire or participating in it in the hope of being the few elites who benefit from it, we are called out of it to share Jesus’ Way as the alternative for sustainable life.  We are called to repent, to change our minds so that our direction will change, and follow Jesus’ Way to transform the systems of the world that oppose God’s Will.  We are called to leave them all behind and establish God’s Way for us to live as children of God in this part of God’s Kin-dom, here and now.

 It is about life and life abundant.  It is about life forever.  It is all about living the agaph of Jesus as faithfulness to God.  It is about leaving the exploitation, oppression, and division behind to gather and unite and lift up the lives of God’s children, our sisters and brothers.  That is Jesus’ Way.  We who are called out, are called out to follow Jesus in establishing and living it in God’s Kin-dom, here and now.