Hi everyone, and welcome back to the podcast.
We're going to take a look at the Gospel reading from today's
mass, which is Matthew 4, verses 12 to 23.
So let's start by reading the text Hearing that John had been
arrested. Jesus went back to Galilee and
leaving Nazareth. He went and settled in
Capernaum. A Lakeside town on the borders
of zebulun and naphtali. In this way, the prophecy of
Isaiah was to be fulfilled. Land of zebulun land of naphtali
way of the see, on the far side of Jordan, Galilee of the
nation's, the people that lived in darkness have seen a great
light on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a
light has dawned. From that moment, Jesus began
his preaching with the message, repent.
For the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.
As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers
Simon, who is called Peter and his brother Andrew.
They were making a cast in the lake with their net.
For they were fishermen And he said to them, follow me.
And I will make you Fishers of Men.
And they left their Nets at once and follow him.
It going on from there. He saw a another pair of
brothers, James, son of Zebedee. And his brother John.
They were in their boat with their father Zebedee.
Mending their Nets, and he called them at once leaving the
boat and their father, they followed him.
He went around the whole of Galilee teaching in their
synagogues. Proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom and curing, all kinds of diseases and sickness among the
people. So that's our reading.
It's a bit of a longer one today, and this is in Matthew's
gospel, it's situated right? At the start of his ministry.
It's fairly similar to other passages in Mark and Luke.
Although Matthew here brings out that quote about the land of zef
zebulun and naphtali. So let's start at verse 12, so
hearing that John had been arrested.
So later on in the gospels, we find out why John the Baptist
has been arrested and we know that Jesus was quite effective.
To buy John's arrest. It appears that the arrest of
John, the Baptist is Jesus motivation to leave and to go
into Galilee. So at the moment before, this is
been in the wilderness where he's tempted in Judea and now he
hears about John the Baptist death and apparently that's what
makes him leave the Wilderness and come to Galilee.
Perhaps it's a case of Jesus thinking if John can no longer
preach the kingdom then I need to take his place.
Some schools also think that maybe Jesus was an actual
disciple of John the Baptist. And since John has been captured
now, Jesus is perhaps sort of running away to flee, the
authorities in that area who might come looking for John's
disciples as well, that's possible.
Anyway, something about John's arrest makes Jesus moved to
Galilee. So he's walking from Judea to
Galilee that's about 160 km or 34 hours of walking and he first
goes to Nazareth which is his family's Hometown.
That's when Mary and Joseph live.
But he's only there for a short time.
He then decides to move to Capernaum and he sets up his new
base in Capernaum, which is about 50 kilometers from
Nazareth. So Capernaum is a fishing
Village. It's reasonably large.
It's right on the Sea of Galilee, and it was quite a
thriving town that it's time. You can go see it today.
And it's where Peter lived and some of the other disciples live
there and Jesus makes this his home as well.
So this is his new base of operations for his ministry.
Jesus does most of his early ministry here from Capernaum.
And Matthew now tells us the Capernaum is in the territory of
zebulun and naphtali. So that's according to the Old
Testament, tribal divisions, each of the twelve sons of Jacob
was given a different share of land, two of his sons zebulun
and naphtali were given that area of land, that's now basic.
Well, that was basically Galilee in the time of Jesus.
So, Matthew mentions that he wants his readers to know,
Galilee is in the area, in the region of zebulun and naphtali.
So that the prophecy is about to quote, make sense verse 14.
Matthew says in this way, the prophecy of Isaiah was to be
fulfilled. So Matthew often does this, he
wants to highlight how the Old Testament, prophecies are
fulfilled in Jesus and he quotes from Isaiah 8:23 through to the
start of chapter 9. And in the context of Isaiah
chapter 8, it's the 8th Century BC, the land of Israel has been
overtaken and zebulun and naphtali was one of the
significant areas that saw a lot of Destruction.
It's saw a whole lot of people taken away to slavery, and
that's the reference to Darkness and death here.
And at that time, it had sort of been, a lot of Gentiles were
also in that area too. And certainly the time of Jesus,
it still had a lot of Gentiles as well.
So let's keep that perspective in mind.
As we read the quote, which is in verse 15, of our text, land
of zebulun, and land of naphtali way of this.
See, on the far side of Jordan, Galilee of the nation's, the
people that lived in darkness have seen a great light on those
who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a light has dawned.
So, Matthew sees this prophecy about the land of zebulun and
land of naphtali being shrouded in darkness.
But seeing a great light, he sees this as fulfilled in Jesus
preaching, because Jesus is the great light, and he now lives in
Galilee. The great light has moved and
settled in Galilee. Maybe Jesus chose this region to
live in deliberately, if you think about, he could have
chosen any number of places and some Scholars.
Think that because this part of Israel is everyone at NAFTA.
Lee was the first region of Israel to be judged by God and
destroyed. So when the armies came in in
the eighth Century BC and destroyed Jerusalem, sorry I
destroyed the northern part of Israel.
This was the area that was hit first zebulun and naphtali.
So maybe because that was the area of Israel that experience
God's judgment first, maybe Jesus gives them the chance.
Chance for a neural on repentance first.
That's possible. So he settles there in Galilee
and verse 17 from that moment, Jesus began his preaching.
So this is the beginning of Jesus public preaching here in
Matthew chapter 4. And we know that it's about
three and a half years long. And Matthew says that, a summary
of Jesus teaching, is this repent for the kingdom of God is
at hand? That's a summary of what Jesus
is all about. So the Jews did believe that the
kingdom of God was coming, that was part of the thinking Jewish
prophecy But they had different expectations of what the kingdom
would look like than what Jesus was going to tell them.
So that the Jews at that, most of them at that time, believed
that the kingdom of God was going to come automatically, all
the Jews would be part of it, and there was no role for
repentance in that Kingdom. But Jesus says, if you want to
be part of that Kingdom, you have to have repentance.
John the Baptist says the same thing.
So the core idea of the kingdom of God as presented to us in the
gospels is that God, is now establishing his will and Reign
on Earth through the Messiah. That's the idea of the kingdom
of God. He's establishing his will and
Reign on Earth through the Messiah in Matthew.
The kingdom of God is often translated as the Kingdom of
Heaven. It's the same thing, it's just
that Matthew because he's a Jew, avoids, you In the word God,
where possible. So that he doesn't offend
people, it's sort of a Jewish way of avoiding using God's
name, but it's the same concept. Now notice that Jesus message is
basically the same as John's message repent for the kingdom
of God, is here. Very similar to what John said,
so the strong continuity between Jesus and John so neat.
Now, in verse 18, this could be some time later.
Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee and that's New
component, where Jesus Lives. It's a relatively small Lake and
Jesus spends a lot of time walking around and preaching.
There, you can still go there today, can see the beautiful Sea
of Galilee with heels on either side.
And he sees Simon and Andrew, they're both professional
fisherman on the Sea of Galilee now.
They're not recreational fishermen, they're not there to
destress. This is their job to be
fisherman and it was quite common in that time for people
to be in the family business together and he sees them
casting their net into the sea. So probably a large circular net
and they're thrown from a standing position in the shallow
water and they gather a whole lot of fish and then they would
make money by selling the fish at the market.
It's and it says that Jesus saw these two men and that's
probably not an accident. Jesus is the son of God, he
probably knows that. He's going to find Simon and
Andrew there. Now Jesus is actually already
met Simon and Andrew earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus meets
Simon and Andrew just before Jesus own baptism.
And that's the time at which he gives the name Peter to Simon.
So he's met these guys before but he hasn't officially called
them now, he calls them So he says to them, follow me.
So at that time, Jews would have been familiar with this idea of
following a rabbi because they did, they could choose to follow
a rabbi. And there were lots of traveling
preachers moving around Israel, that people could choose to
follow. But what's different here?
Is that usually the student chooses the rabbi.
But here, the rabbi Jesus comes up.
To these men and says, follow me and they must be something quite
captivating about him because they immediately dropped their
Nets and they follow him, which is quite significant because
they're leaving behind their entire livelihood and they
choosing to follow Jesus. Wherever he goes, they don't
really know this man and they don't know what the future looks
like, but still something about him.
Makes them want to leave behind their old life and follow him.
And he says he's going to make them Fishers of Men.
So what that probably means is currently, you're fishing for
fish. I'm going to make you fish for
something far greater something far greater than catching fish,
you'll catch people. So what he means by catching
people is your bring them into the kingdom of God.
With your grace spiritual Nets, you'll gather people into the
kingdom of God. So this is the call of Simon and
his brother Andrew. Sort of the to innermost
disciples or two of them verse 21.
Jesus, now finds the other two close Apostles of Jesus and they
are James and John the sons of Zebedee.
So he goes on a bit further and he sees James and John who are
also fishing on the Sea of Galilee these two men, the sons
of Zebedee. Say goodbye to their father as
well as their business. This is probably quite a wealthy
business because they have men working with them and And they
say, have to say goodbye to their father.
So again, there must be something captivating about
Jesus, that makes James and John, these wealthy fisherman,
dropped, their Nets and followed Jesus.
So, who would James and John? Because there's a quite common
names in the New Testament. James, the son of Zebedee is
sometimes called James the great and he's not Jesus brother.
It's a different guy. He is later killed in the book
of Acts by King Agrippa. We don't hear a whole lot about
this particular James because he's killed early on one of the
first upon First Christians to be killed and his brother John
son of Zebedee. He's a lot more well-known.
He is usually identified with the Beloved disciple who is
mentioned in the Gospel of John and here's the one, John son of
Zebedee is the one who writes a lot of the New Testament.
So he writes the Gospel of John and then the three letters of
John, as well as the Book of Revelation.
So, John is very significant in our Christian theology.
Probably, the youngest Apostle and he appears to be the last
Apostle to die. So James it appeared.
Well, if you don't count Judas, James is the first Apostle to
die and his brother. John is the last Apostle to die.
So here we have the call of Peter, Andrew James.
And John, the first four apostles, who make up Jesus in a
circle. Some Scholars would say that
what we've just seen here with the calling of the for fishermen
is the first miracle in Matthew's gospel.
It seems like a supernatural call-and-response.
The fact that they just dropped their Nets and followed Jesus is
perhaps a miracle in itself. So that's your text for today.
How does the Catholic Church develop its teaching based on
Matthew chapter 4? There's a few references in the
catechism mostly to Jesus earlier in the passage.
Remember, Jesus is Calling people into the kingdom of God,
saying, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, and that's
taken up in paragraph 17 20, which says the New Testament
uses several Expressions to characterize the beatitude to,
which God calls Al's man such as the coming of the kingdom of
God, Etc. And then in paragraph 1989,
which is in the discussion about how men are saved.
It says, the first work of the grace of the holy spirit is
conversion affecting justification in accordance with
Jesus, Proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel, repent
for the kingdom of God is at hand, move by Grace man, turns
toward God, and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and
righteousness, from on high, Justification is not only the
remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of
the Interior man. And then in paragraph, 8 7 8,
which is in the section about the hierarchy of the church, it
talks about how the call of the for fishermen here is a personal
call that Jesus gives them. And in the same way each
disciple and each of Christ's ministers, the priests is also
called in a personal way. Just like those first four
apostles, So, I'll put all those catechism references in the show
notes for you to have a look at as well.
So hopefully you learn something new there about the start of
Jesus Ministry in the gospel of Matthew.
Thanks for listening.