Jesus did four things

I’ve never been arrested.  Not yet. 2020 might be the year.  I feel it coming. Sometimes you have to get arrested for change to come.  Christian history is full of arrests for the cause of justice and freedom and mercy.  John the Baptist was no criminal. John the Baptist’s arrest is a consequence of the Roman occupation and the oppressive policies they used to control the Jewish population in Palestine.  He was arrested for calling out, publicly shaming, or protesting the bad behavior of a certain political ruler--Herod Antipas. Jesus’ public ministry began as a response to John’s arrest.  And he begins to preach John’s message. Knowing that it was John’s mouth that put him in jail, he shouts it anyway! Change is coming, God is near! Change is coming, God is near. Change is coming, God is near.  He takes up John’s work, but he doesn’t stay in the predominantly Jewish south. He goes north to the Galilee of the Gentiles, so called because of the mixed population there. For over 800 years, northern Israel was ethnically mixed.  Judea and Jerusalem were much more Jewish. Israel was segregated, north and south. Some Jews were prejudiced against other Jews, and then there were the Samaritans. This is when oppression causes the oppressed to see themselves as inferior and divide themselves from one another.  It is always the powerful’s rule to divide the conquered in order to diminish them and weaken them, to hold them down.     

Jesus takes John’s message to a mixed community of Jews and non-Jews. Because suffering underneath was and is not an exclusively Jewish situation.  

Jesus invites fishermen to follow him.  He suggests that their skills as fishermen may become instruments of God’s work.  Their everyday skills and tasks could be applied to the mission field. They’re going fishin’.  Fishermen know the fish don’t come to you. You got to locate the fish, net the fish, catch the fish, clean the fish, fry the fish. Now I’m getting hungry.  And maybe that’s part of it. Are we hungry to connect with others? What’s our net? Where are the fish? Is the message so meaningful to us that we want others to hear it, know it, experience it?  And fishing is full of hard work and failure. You try one spot, nothing. Try another spot, nothing. Try another spot, jackpot! Go back there the next day, nothing. Fishermen know how to fail and keep going.           

Jesus’ followers observed that Jesus did four things.  He went throughout Galilee; teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom; curing every disease and sickness among the people.  These four things, Matthew says, characterize Jesus’ activity.  

1. He went throughout Galilee.  He is mobile. He travels. He does not stay in one place.  Galilee is like a county or a township, consisting of several villages or boros.  In this way, he is unlike a congregational or parish pastor, rooted to a place and a group of people.  For example, I will be preaching at St. Paul and Akron Mennonite Church in February, and offering a leadership retreat to St, Paul Lutheran Spring Grove in March.  And teaching an antiracism workshop at Zion, Jonestown tomorrow. 
2.  He teaches in their synagogues:  He acts as an itinerant Rabbi, teaching the Jewish population in their places of worship and study.  In this way he is like a teaching pastor or a preacher. Gathering and leading the congregation in the Word and prayer.  This sounds most like our understanding of church.  
3. Third, he proclaims the good news of the kingdom---this is public announcement, broadcasting language.  It is the way in which the Roman Emperor sent out news of their expansion and power. Evangelists were the 1st century news reporters.  The gospel writers tell us Jesus also acted like one of them--though his message was not about the power and expansion of the Roman empire, but of God’s Empire.  This is a public, political counter-message, suggesting that there is another power unleashed in the world--the power of God. This will get him in trouble. He preaches in the synagogue and on the streets.  
4. Four.  He cures diseases and sicknesses.  We think of Jesus as a personal healer, a faith healer, a physician.  Someone is sick and becomes well. So we pray for sick people to get better.  But Jesus is curing the disease and sickness that accompanies oppression, poverty, and despair.  Poverty breeds illness, because of malnutrition, lack of access to basic health care, and lack of access to clean water.  Oppression takes a toll on mental health, preventing whole communities from thriving. Just this week we heard a story about how racist policies of housing discriminiation and redlining in the 1930s and 40s created urban ghettos of predominantly people of color. Now climate change is having adverse affects on these places---because these urban locations are 5 to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding places.  The health effects are serious and mostly affect people of color. When Jesus cures sickness he is also denouncing a system of oppression that keeps people poor and denies them access to a quality of life.  

So, church what does it mean to follow this Jesus?  It means Movement. We are not settlers, but pioneers.  We have got to get out of the boat. We ain’t catching nobody in here.  Jesus’ message was for those inside the church and outside the church. Moving from in to out, not out to in.  It was a message for the marginalized, oppressed, and suffering. It told them that despite the brutally oppressive power of the empire, God was greater and God was with them.  He showed them by feeding them and touching them and speaking to them and noticing them and hearing their cries for help and relieving them in any way he could. He joined them in their struggle and invited them to join him in his struggle---to end segregation and hatred, to nonviolently oppose brutality and inhumane treatment, to relieve suffering and forgive because only forgiveness frees us from hate and the need to strike back.   

Can we reclaim all four parts of Jesus’ ministry as our own?  Can we be a public church? Can we become proclaimers? Can we confront and dismantle the systems that make people poor and sick and full of disease?  Can we Get out of the boat, drop our nets, and follow Jesus? Can we do that in 2020? Change is coming, God is near. Change is coming, God is near. Change is coming, God is near. Amen.