The Land of Deep Darkness
by Taylor Burton-Edwards
We hear in Matthew’s account this week a reference from Isaiah of the territories of Zebulun and Naphtali in Galilee as “Galilee of the Gentiles” and “land of deep darkness” (Matthew 4:15-16, quoting or paraphrasing the OT reading for this Sunday from Isaiah 9:1-2). But just why did Isaiah describe this territory that way, why was it still relevant in the time of Jesus, and why does this designation matter for the story Matthew tells about Jesus, in essence, setting up his base camp there? [Read more]

In my first appointment, I met an extraordinary young man named Scott. Scott was away at college when I first went to the church, and so I didn’t meet him until he came home for summer break. Scott was a student at a conservative Christian college. When I first met him, he described himself as an evangelical. He was on fire to spread the gospel. He had been very involved in the youth group in high school and had become active in collegiate ministry at his school.

During his senior year, Scott began to feel strongly that God was calling him to the mission field. He came to talk to me about possibilities for service through The United Methodist Church. I shared with him what I knew about United Methodist programs and gave him website information.

After Scott graduated, he returned home and he and his sister began attending a class I taught on Wednesday mornings. In the class, we read and discussed books on Christian history and theology, biblical studies, and other topics of interest to the members. During the time when Scott and his sister came, I believe we were studying work from the Westar Institute: Marcus Borg, Stephen Patterson, Dominic Crossan, and others. Scott was intrigued by these thinkers, although he often found himself in strong disagreement not only with the authors, but with members of the class.

In the meantime, Scott continued to investigate potential mission programs. I was very surprised when he decided to serve through a Mennonite team that was known for their radical actions and their service in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. Scott went through training and was soon reporting back from his post in Chiapas, Mexico, where he and other team members were serving as international witnesses to atrocities being committed against indigenous people by paramilitary groups. I kept in touch with Scott, and our study group prayed for him. We were all amazed as he became fluent in Spanish, even as he became fluent in issues of injustice and oppression that most of us have never even heard about. The next year, I flew down to visit him and learn more about the work his organization was doing so I could share his work with his home church more succinctly.

Scott continued to serve in Mexico for several years. Then 9/11 happened. As the drumbeat for war in Iraq increased, Scott’s organization began making plans to serve as witnesses in the emerging war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though we knew it was a possibility, I don’t think any of us were really prepared when Scott announced that he would be leaving for Baghdad so that he and others could be in place when the United States and our allies began making airstrikes in 2002.

I prayed and worried about Scott as I watched the twenty-four-hour coverage of the bombing of Iraq. I knew he was there, sitting alongside Christians who had lived in that city for many generations, joining in their suffering and putting his own life at risk to provide a witness. I am grateful that Scott survived the many weeks and months of bombing, and eventually was able to make his way out of Iraq, by way of Jordan, although the story of his escape is incredible in and of itself.

After Iraq, Scott went to Arizona to work along the border with Mexico for a number of years. Then he went to seminary. He did not pursue ordination, but instead continues to work as an advocate for the poorest among us in a major city in the United States. He has married a woman he met while serving in the mission field. They have settled down to a more normal life and are raising a son together, but these two people are different sort of Christians than I have ever been.

When I read this story about these four men—Simon, Andrew, James, and John—and others, men and women alike, who left their jobs and homes and families to become disciples of Jesus Christ, I am reminded of my friend Scott and the sacrifices he made to answer God’s call on his life.

While Scott’s story is certainly unique and dramatic, as are the stories of the fishermen, all of our stories of answering Jesus’ call to “follow me and I will make you fishers of people” are equally important. If someone is sitting in the pew, it is because he or she has heard the call to serve God by serving others. Perhaps our greatest service as disciples comes not from big and dramatic things, but from the small acts of kindness and compassion and the one-to-one acts of justice that we practice every day.

Jesus’ call to “follow me” is for each one of us, and he calls us to answer that call in the specific context in which we have been placed. We don’t have to go to a war zone to follow Jesus. We don’t have to go to another country, or another city, or even another neighborhood. As my father always tells me, all I have to do is hoe my own row. I have to tend the garden in which God has planted me. I have to nurture the people God has placed in my community. I don’t have to try to do it all! I just have to concentrate on my row. But just think: If each one of us hoes our row, imagine how that can change the world! Greg Garrett reminds us:

Joseph Campbell, who did groundbreaking work into the archetypal stories found in cultures around the world, spoke of the beginning of something as a Call to Adventure. In this opening moment in the ministry of Jesus, when he has begun to call others to join him, we can see the moment when things begin to change: "From that time Jesus began to proclaim, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near'" (17). Campbell said that such moments signify "that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity to a zone unknown." All of us face such a moment in our lives (or many such moments) that challenges our center of gravity, that wants to shift it from a story of self to one that will mean something in a larger context.

What things in your community are struggling to be born? Is your community beginning a major program or project? Have spiritual seeds been planted in your community just waiting to sprout? Are there particular calls that individuals or the larger community might need to hear?. . . (“Homiletical perspective for the Gospel reading, Third Sunday of Advent, Year A,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett, Westminster Press, 2008)

"Healing" in Matthew 4:23
by Taylor Burton-Edwards
New Testament Greek uses a variety of verbs to talk about instances of healing. One is “iaomai” and its derivatives, which typically point toward cure. Another is “swzw,” which speaks of healing as deliverance.

The Greek participle in Matthew 4:23 translated “curing” in the NRSV or “healing” in some other translations is “therapeuwn,” the root of our word “therapy.” This word in Greek has a double usage, and the second informs the first. [Read more]

Jesus calls some of us to the adventure of serving in the mission field in a foreign land. Others are called to adventure closer to home, serving God’s people through service organizations and schools, through foodservice and legal assistance, through volunteering and voting, through offering prayer and healing. There are so many ways for God’s people to follow Jesus into the adventure of serving.

Where do you hear God calling you to join Jesus in the adventure of being his disciple? What row is yours to hoe? What need in your church, or community, or in the wider world, cries out to your heart? How can you respond?

The good news is that Jesus came to bring salvation to all people, no matter who they are, no matter where they live, and no matter what kind of life they have led. He came especially for those who struggle in this world: for minorities, women and children; for those who have known trouble and are paying their debt to society in prison; for those who find themselves struggling to make it through the day because of sickness, or addiction, or depression, or disability, or mental illness. The Use and Ultimate Rejection of the Diatessaron
by Taylor Burton-Edwards
The gospel readings last week and today present contradictory accounts of Jesus calling his first disciples. In last week’s reading from John 1, Jesus calls Andrew, then Andrew invites James. And these first acts of calling appear to happen in or near Judea, where John was baptizing. In Matthew 4, which we read next week, Jesus calls Peter, James and John at the same time, and this happens not in Judea, but along the north shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum. From a historical perspective, these two accounts cannot both be correct. [Read more] He came for those whom the culture has judged negatively or sought to hold back or oppress. He came for those who will never even have a chance to learn about him. He came for all people, for all of God’s children, all across this world. He came for you, and he came for me, and he invites each one of us, no matter who we are or what we’ve done in this life, to join him in the work of discipleship, to join him in the work of transforming the world.

Answer the call from Jesus to “follow me!” Take that step to join in the adventure of serving in the name of Jesus! All we have to do is answer the call in the way outlined by Jesus’ own practices in the final verse, where he models discipleship for us:

Go throughout your community, teaching in many different contexts, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ through your words and your actions, and attending to every disease and sickness among God’s people!

The Land of Deep Darkness

by Taylor Burton-Edwards

We hear in Matthew’s account this week a reference from Isaiah of the territories of Zebulun and Naphtali in Galilee as “Galilee of the Gentiles” and “land of deep darkness” (Matthew 4:15-16, quoting or paraphrasing the OT reading for this Sunday from Isaiah 9:1-2). But just why did Isaiah describe this territory that way, why was it still relevant in the time of Jesus, and why does this designation matter for the story Matthew tells about Jesus, in essence, setting up his base camp there?

Let’s start with Isaiah. During the time of Isaiah’s prophetic work in Judah, Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria, had conquered and annexed the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali and exiled many of its people, never to be heard from again (726 BC, I Kings 16:29). At the completion of the invasion of Israel and its complete subjugation and exile, Shalmaneser V, King of Assyria, ordered multiple other captured people to be relocated into the captured territory, including Zebulun and Naphtali, which was already a ruins (722 BC, I Kings 17:5, 24 ff). This was typical Assyrian policy. Take over territories, exile the strongest of the natives, leaving the “poor of the land,” then resettle the area with people groups of other languages, cultures, and religions so that they are all thoroughly disoriented and demoralized, and thus unlikely to be able to work together to rebel against the king’s sway. No wonder Isaiah called it “land of deep darkness.” It wasn’t an ethnic or racial epithet. It was a reference to just how difficult and gloomy life had become there, and there appeared to be no near term likelihood of any improvement.

Things never substantially improved for this region of Palestine, even centuries later by the time of Jesus. It was still a multi-ethnic blend of peoples who had little wealth or power and no resources to defend themselves against whatever the next overlord (whether Babylon, or Syria, or Greece or Rome) would do to them. It was still “Galilee of the Gentiles” or “Galilee of (many) nation(alitie)s.” Under Roman occupation, it had become a place of relative peace, no more wars fought there by other powers, no more resettlements of other peoples by other peoples. But the history had left its deep wounds. The scars were still everywhere and still wreaking damage on the image of these people.

It was still a “land of deep darkness.”

And it was precisely to this place, in the heart of Herod’s territory-- Herod the governor who had just arrested John the Baptist-- that Jesus established as the center of his public ministry.

“Healing” in Matthew 4:23

byTaylor Burton-Edwards

New Testament Greek uses a variety of verbs to talk about instances of healing. One is “iaomai” and its derivatives, which typically point toward cure. Another is “swzw,” which speaks of healing as deliverance.

The Greek participle in Matthew 4:23 translated “curing” in the NRSV or “healing” in some other translations is “therapeuwn,” the root of our word “therapy.” This word in Greek has a double usage, and the second informs the first. The first is, as many biblical translations have it, “healing.” The second is “serving,” and more specifically “attending to the needs of.” So the idea of the healing involved is this verb is healing that comes as a result of attending to the needs of others.

“Jesus went around everywhere throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and attending to every disease and every sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23, translation mine).

Matthew’s choice of verbs to describe the healing ministry of Jesus among a people known as living in a land of deep darkness, a people at best seen as second class citizens of Judea and perhaps lower among the religious leaders in Jerusalem, couldn’t be better. These people didn’t need another teacher and a preacher, nor even a miracle worker. They needed someone to attend to their needs. They needed someone who would listen and respond to their pain, their loss, their suffering. They needed teaching and proclamation of good news, yes. But the healing they needed most of all was the kind that comes from listening and caring. They needed therapy. And that’s just what Matthew says Jesus offered them.

The Use and Ultimate Rejection of the Diatessaron

by Taylor Burton-Edwards

The gospel readings last week and today present contradictory accounts of Jesus calling his first disciples. In last week’s reading from John 1, Jesus calls Andrew, then Andrew invites James. And these first acts of calling appear to happen in or near Judea, where John was baptizing. In Matthew 4, which we read next week, Jesus calls Peter, James and John at the same time, and this happens not in Judea, but along the north shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum. From a historical perspective, these two accounts cannot both be correct.

It was in part to bring about a harmony between otherwise contradictory stories in the four gospels that a second-century Christian leader named Tatian, a student of Justin Martyr, created an alternative version of the gospels known by its Greek name, “Diatessaron” (literally, “through the four.”) Tatian’s Diatessaron became used in various places either as an alternative gospel book for study or worship, or in the case of several churches in Syria into the fifth century, the primary source of gospel readings for Sunday worship.

The use of the Diatessaron in those areas that used it, notably in the Syriac churches (Syriac was the common language of Eastern Churches from Palestine to Iraq), became curtailed rather dramatically after one of the Syriac bishops, Theodoret, began to take seriously the accusations of some of Tatian’s contemporaries (notably Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria) that Tatian was a heretic. He subsequently ordered the removal of hundreds of copies of the Diatessaron from churches in his diocese and replaced them with copies of the four gospels. His action led other Syriac churches and ultimately churches worldwide that had adopted some form of the Diatessaron to do likewise. (Source: http://earlychurch.org.uk/tatian.php)

One effect of Theodoret’s action across the larger church was the assertion of the primacy of the gospels themselves for authoritative teaching about Jesus. That approach to the gospels continues to this day.

A corollary effect is that Christian churches and theologians, faced with four different accounts, have generally chosen not to try to harmonize differences, but instead treat each gospel and each account within it on its own merits. Truth is sought less in the specific historical details, independent of the gospel accounts, and more in the context of the narratives each gospel writer has put forward.