2. Interesting insights from the blog "Sacredise: Loving God, Loving World. Reflections on Transforming Worship" John van de Laar (a Methodist minister in S. Africa), http://sacredise.com/blog/?p=624 on the location of Capernaum as Jesus' base of operations on Matthew.
The Gospel of Matthew makes it very clear that Jesus settled in “Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali”. In the Isaiah prophecy that the Gospel writer quotes, this region is referred to as “Galilee of the Gentiles” – and here is the clue to the significance of this location. This region of Capernaum – the region of the two tribes Zebulun and Naphtali – was, it has been suggested, the place where the Assyrian occupation most impacted the people of Israel. Israelite people had been exiled from this region and many Gentile people were imported into the region by the Assyrians. This meant that it was a place inhabited by Jews, Gentiles and the Samaritan descendants of intermarriage. At the time of Jesus, though, it was a place where these groups lived together quite amicably. It was also situated on one of the busiest and most important trade routes, connecting the resident merchants with the rest of the world.
If Jesus was looking for a place to make a statement about what kind of ministry he would offer, this place would make it very clear. The ministry was to reach not just Jew, but all people. It would have impact not just for Israel, but for the world. God’s reign had come, and it was open for all comers – those of the chosen race, AND those who were hated outcasts and Gentile occupiers of the Holy Land.
Capernaum offered Jesus its hospitality – it became a home for him. But, far more than this, Jesus, by settling in Capernaum, offered the hospitality of God to the world. He preached the available reign of God, and then he began recruiting disciples – those who would become members of an alternative community in which this shocking hospitality is lived out and revealed in all of its messy, difficult glory. This is how it started – and I can think of no good reason to believe that anything has changed in Jesus’ agenda. If I am going to call myself a disciple, I am going to have to take seriously the shocking locations in which the reign of God is to be manifested and lived out. But here’s the good news. If Jesus offers hospitality to the world, then he also offers it to me. I can find a home in the reign of God, if I am willing to live beside neighbours who are different to me, who might offend or shock me. Even in the spiritual life, the question of location is a challenging one!
3. Shirley Guthrie (Christian Doctrine, 283) cautions against an understanding of the kingdom being already in place and waiting for the followers to complete it. That would make it an act of humans, and diminish the power of God to act. He also cautions against seeing it only as something in the future, because then it does not give credence to what God did in coming in Christ. he argues that the biblical text tells us that God has acted and the kingdom has arrived, but that we also know that evil is so strong, that the struggle will continue on earth until Christ's final victory. it means we take evil seriously, but not more seriously than we do God.
4. Kingdom of heaven is Matthew's term; other gospels use kingdom of God.
5. this sermon is not merely a doctrinal sermon about the kingdom of God/heaven, but about the role Jesus plays in pointing to the kingdom. Trying to remind myself of that and what that means to our everyday living.
6. Who are examples of people who point to things in our world?
7. notice that Paul is proclaiming the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the kingdom.
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