Setting Up Shop in Capernaum II

Geography is the obverse of the coin of danger. Danger leads one either to confront or withdraw. Jesus chose the latter, and so the place to which he withdrew becomes the focus of Matthew's words. Note that the place to which he withdrew is also the result of a wise, thoughtful, "politic" choice of Jesus. Matthew justifies or explains it by mentioning the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. The light will come from someone who has withdrawn to the ancient regions of Zebulon and Naphtali, to a place by the sea, in the land of Galilee.

But the point not to be missed here is that Jesus didn't withdraw so far from the place of John's ministry so as to preclude his own work; he didn't withdraw to the place of his youth (Nazareth), which by this time was just a small Galilean village. Instead he withdrew to Capernaum, a bustling town of several thousand crucially situated on the Sea of Capernaum. Capernaum was a Jewish town, in contrast to the Herodean cities of Caesarea on the Mediterrean coast or Tiberias on the lake. Those cities were built by the Herods and were places where the international "jet set" would meet in the land of Israel.

Jesus, in contrast, picked a place where he was free from the immediate danger of exposure on the Jordan River (we don't know exactly where John was, but it seemed that the only "action" around John was his ministry) to a town where he could both have freedom to act but, at the same time, be sort of "protected" from Herodean oversight. It is a clever move, one that also demonstrates Jesus' political sense. RT France, whose massive new commentary on Matthew (2007) will set the standard for years to come, has this to say:

"Capernaum was an important settlement on the northwestern shore of the lake, and the presence there of a centurion (8:5) and a customs post (9:9) indicates that it was a local administrative center. The population in the first century was perhaps as high as 10,000, substantially bigger than Nazareth. While Capernaum had its resident Roman officials, it was a traditionally Jewish town, very differnt from the newly established Hellenistic city of Tiberias a little further down the western shore," The Gospel of Matthew, 140-141.

All of us need a canvas on which to "paint" the work of our lives; Jesus was sage enough to select a place of large Jewish population (indeed, those were the people to whom he was sent), with enough people to justifiy his ministry (he wasn't called to minister to the plants and birds), and enough distance from the political hot spots (this was not Jerusalem) to allow him "space" to develop.

It brings up the point to us of how or whether we have reflected much on the geographical importance of our ministry. Are we in the "right place?" Does the place "match" us in terms of its size, culture, people, opportunities to use our gifts, etc? Perhaps you have met people (or are such a person), where s/he/you just seems to "match" the place of service. I had a friend who for 35 years was pastor in a college town of about 50,000. He himself was not an intellectual star, but he wanted to be around those that were, and he had enough political and intellectual skill to be able to attract and keep a wide variety of people who tend to gravitate towards that type of town. In short, he had found a place early in his ministry where he "fit," and for the rest of his life he just lived in the freshly buoying waves of that place. Others of us, to be sure, haven't had such good fortune with "place," but it is something that deep relfection on Jesus' "withdrawal" to Capernaum makes us notice.

IV. Demand

It is only when Jesus finds his place that he finds his voice. Verse 17 says, lterally, "And then (my emphasis), Jesus began to preach..." Once he found his place, his message flowed effortlessly. It is a similar message to that preached by John, but it would be done in a different context and with different practices. Instead of baptizing, Jesus would gather followers. Instead of simply excoriating the people, Jesus would also teach and heal. But it is clear in Matthew that his ministry really began once he had found a "place" in the world.

The greater focus of Matthew in this passage is on Jesus' ministry as "demand." We often think of the selection of disciples as a sort of gentle invitation give to them, but the language of the Greek is more insistent: "Come, follow me." The verbs are in the imperative mood. It isn't as if Jesus is making an "offer" to which they are free to reject or accept. It is a demand that requres obedience. Instead of mending the nets, instead of throwing them on either side of the boat, they would be fishing with words, ministering in a new type of "boat" (the fact that in church architecture the "nave" is the sanctuary witnesses to the reality of "boat" terminology that goes all the way back to the picture of Jesus).

But we ought to be more precise in defining the nature of Jesus activity with disciples. Jesus' ministry seems so unlike that which is possible in a modern information-age context. Jesus gathered people who would be with him. We can't, in general, have that in our culture. The reality of families, of bureaucratic structures, of committee meetings and writing reports, of so many other assumptions of life would make it probably impossible to have anything similar to Jesus' "community" with his disciples in our day (I had friends, as perhaps some of you did, who decided to form "intentional communities" in the 1970s, where Christian community/fellowship could be celebrated in the framework of a large home or even a rural setting. Often these experiments, beginning idyllically, ended in coruscating failure).

But there are three things that stand out to me that will characterize Jesus' ministry with his disciples. He wants them for at least three reasons: (1) to teach them; (2) to have them for "witnesses" to what he has done; and (3) to enjoy a community/fellowship with them. He would begin his teaching ministry in the next chapter, in the Sermon on the Mount. He wanted them as witnesses not only to the marvelous talents and powers gifted him by God, but to the way that people misunderstood and, eventually, wanted to do away with him. Finally, he wanted them, as Mark's account of the call describes, simply "to be with him" (Mark 3:13). It would have been nice had the Gospel authors recorded some more of the "informal times" enjoyed by the disciples and Jesus. I think the emphasis on teachings, miracles wrought, healings, etc. tends to confirm the impression that it is only the "divine" side of Jesus that ought to attract our attention. The older I get the more I am interested in the way that Jesus struggled as a human to understand and fulfill what he understood his call to be.

Conclusion

We are at the beginning of a big thing that will be happening in Capernaum and the surroundings. By joining in imaginatively "on the ground floor" with Jesus and the disciples, we can still feel the danger, understand the geography and respond anew to our call. It is an exciting possibility to realize that the call comes to us afresh, even if we have been in our ministry for decades. And, the fact that we have the "liturgical year," where things are repeated, not only "reminds" us of things we have forgotten of the life of Jesus, but teaches us that we are, even as we are "veterans" in what we do, just beginning on the way of faith. May you experience some of that freshness of discovery and learning today.

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