Bethlehem, where tradition has it, Jesus was born, is also surrounded by a wall. This wall isn’t ancient, like the walls surrounding the Old City, it’s relatively new, erected by the Israeli government to keep terrorists at bay, to secure the safety of the Israeli citizenry. The Palestinians say that the wall was erected to further thwart the agreed upon return of Palestinian land taken in one of the several intifadas (wars) between Israel and Palestine.
Regardless of the why, the wall casts a long and foreboding shadow over the whole of Bethlehem.
Nazareth, where Joseph brought Mary and Jesus to live after their escape from Herod, is, when you drive up from Jerusalem and Bethlehem like a breath of fresh air. Nazareth is nestled into the Judean hills—the only walls surrounding it are made of rocks, cactus and desert sand dunes. While much less oppressive than Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Nazareth is small and I can imagine, for a young Jesus trying to find his way in the world, Nazareth might be a bit confining.
Capernaum resembles a resort town. It’s flat, it’s bright and it sits right on the banks of Lake Kinneret, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee. The views are stunning, the water is warm, the beach inviting and the light pronounced. Capernaum is nice.
And it’s where Jesus retreats when his world begins to fall apart, as we hear in today’s Gospel.
We may not like thinking of Jesus as rattled, scared, lost, or questioning but, and you’ve heard me say this many times, since Jesus was fully human, he had all the emotions, all the moods, all the frailties that we have. A big part of our human existence, including Jesus' experience, is spent figuring out who we are, who we want to be, what we want to do. It's about noticing, realizing, understanding and acting.
Epiphany is about all these things: understanding for Mary and Joseph about who this son of theirs was, understanding for us about who this savior of ours is…understanding for Jesus about who He is…understanding for the Body of Christ, the Church, about how to be Christ in the world.
Epiphany is about noticing, realizing, understanding and acting. For us and for Jesus.
When Jesus heard that John was arrested he noticed that the movement John headed quickly fell apart without John at the helm; he realized that he was going to have to be a different kind of prophet; he understood that this was not going to be easy. He noticed he realized and he understood, but was he ready to act?
While Jesus knew, on some level, that he would eventually take over for John, it seems clear that Jesus wasn't expecting such an abrupt changing of the guard. I think it caught him by surprise.
“Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested he withdrew to Galilee. He LEFT HIS HOME IN NAZARETH and made his home in Capernaum, by the lake."
After John’s arrest, Jesus pulled up stakes. He went from the dusty workshop of a stone-mason
to the water workshop of fishermen. He left his home and began something altogether new. He withdrew from the familiar and went to someplace unfamiliar and in many ways, foreign.
It was his turn. He needed to step up and take the mantel handed to him…but he had to do it differently, he had to learn from John's mistakes and create something as bold and challenging as John's, but somehow make it more user friendly. John blustered his way through the Jordan valley with sermons of fire and brimstone, baptisms of life risking submersion. People didn't so much engage with John as they watched and listened slack jawed and a bit shocked.
The noticing, realizing, understanding and acting of Jesus, plays out in response to John's arrest.
Jesus noticed that when John was no longer in the picture, the movement fell apart.
Jesus noticed that it fell apart because it relied wholly on the person of John to work.
He realized that to make his own ministry work he needed to lead in a different way. He understood that he needed to knock down some walls: the walls of expectation regarding how a prophet behaved, the walls of what people thought a messiah would be and do, the walls of home and family, the walls of personality driven movements. He had to break down the walls of expectation and tradition and create something all together new.
So he moved to the Lake attracting with love and light and healing instead of fire and brimstone. Teaching more than dictating,
engaging in relationships more than wowing with rhetoric.
On some level Jesus understood that his movement needed to be one that was of and in community. That the light of salvation wasn’t his to bestow and others to receive, it was his to share and others to spread.
And it worked. For 2000 years people have been invited to join this movement, they've been attracted to this movement, they've been saved through this movement.
Jesus says to Andrew, Peter, John and James: Come and follow me, I’ll show you how to be fishers of people.
Jesus says to you and to me: Come follow me, I'll show you how to be fishers of people.
So, go out from here, illumined with the light and love of relationship to spread the Good News of Christ.
To notice the hurts of this world
To Realize that you have the power to do something about it, and
To Understand that you cannot wait for others to do the work we've all been given to do, that we all must Act.
It's what Jesus encouraged his ragtag band of apostles and disciples to do in Capernaum and it's what he encourages us to do now-- notice, realize, understand and act....so let’s get goin’…. it's time to knock down some walls and go fishin'.
Amen.
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