Inconsequential

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen.” (Matthew 4.12-16)

If we are to understand the passage of scripture that Matthew provides us today for our consideration, then we first must understand something about the region of Galilee. Without some knowledge of that area of Israel, we are apt to overlook a part of Matthew’s message in these few verses. As one scholar said, “The geographical dimension should not be neglected in preaching and teaching, for it is part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. . . All Christians need a basic familiarity with the land of Israel.”

So, let us begin with Galilee, the upper part of that region known as Israel by its native population and later renamed Palestine by the Roman occupiers. It was on the northern edge of the country, where in earlier centuries some of the so-called northern tribes of Israel lived, in contrast to the southern region known as Judea, which the southern tribes claimed as their own. After the conquest and deportation of the northern tribes by the Assyrians in the 8th century B.C., the area became populated with many non-Jews.

Over time, the region of Samaria–a swath of land that lay between Galilee and Judea to the south–became disconnected from Judea, in part because of intermarriage with non-Jews, in part because the Samaritans chose to worship at their own sacred sites instead of traveling to the Temple in Jerusalem to perform the customary religious rituals. 

However, Galilee, resting atop Samaria, maintained its connection with the Jerusalem temple, separated from it by its neighbor, Samaria, a no-man’s land so far as Jews were concerned, since their practices were not aligned with their Jewish neighbors to the north and to the south. That is not to say that Galilee was embraced by the Jews in Judea, even if the Galileans shared heritage and religious beliefs. Geography is always determinative. And a separation between regions by distance and by a meddling neighbor certainly influenced the Judean attitude towards the people of Galilee, resulting in a two-way tension between the Jews of Jerusalem and the Jews of Galilee.

Understandably, the Judeans–with Jerusalem as their capital city–assumed greater importance for themselves because they had the Temple. Also, as such, Jerusalem was the center, not only of religion, but also of politics and culture. It was the big city of its time, at least in its own eyes, believing itself better than the surrounding regions. As city people, the people of Jerusalem considered the Galileans to be country bumpkins or hicks, often mocking their dialect and their rustic ways. As we will hear later in the gospel, the Judeans were quick to say, “Can anything good come from Galilee?”

Galileans, on the other hand, held some resentment towards Judea, in part because Jerusalem was the primary pilgrimage site, hence an economic powerhouse; and also because of their believing and behaving as if they were better than everyone else. It should not be all that difficult for us to understand. We live in much the same situation today with the divide between rural America and urban America, bound together by certain commonalities, but at the same time divided by significant differences.

With this background, we now look at these verses found in Chapter 4 of Matthew’s gospel. In the prior few chapters, we were introduced to the birth narrative of Jesus, then to his baptism in the Jordan, and immediately prior to this text his temptation in the desert. In some sense, all of this has been a prelude. It is only here, with these verses, that the ministry of Rabbi Jesus actually begins.

So it is very important for what follows that Matthew begins the public ministry of Jesus with these words, “He withdrew to Galilee.” Almost the entirety of Jesus’ ministry will be spent in Galilee, an area that encompasses about 45 miles from north to south, bounded on the east by the Sea of Galilee, on the south by Samaria, and on the north and on the west by Syro-Phoenicians. In other words, Rabbi Jesus’ pulpit was postage-stamp size.

If we take a step back, we are probably perplexed and puzzled that Jesus would spend all his valuable time in this small, rural area and only go to the big city at the end of his ministry where, as we know, he endures an unfair trial and suffers the taunts of the Jerusalem power players, who ultimately put him on a cross because he is a bother to them and to their way of thinking.

Honestly, there is an odd juxtaposition between the importance of what Jesus had to teach, calling for a radical realignment of loyalties, and the relative insignificance of Galilee where he preached his message. He came to change the world, but he spent all his time in Rhode Island. What are we to make of this contradictory fact?

Well, Matthew provides us the answer. As he will do many times in his gospel, he harvests the ancient Hebrew scriptures for explanations. In this instance, he finds the 6th century prophet Isaiah suggesting that just such a situation will arise when the prophet foretells, “Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen.”

In effect, Matthew sees providence at work, Galilee not the place of Jesus’ ministry by chance, but by divine directive. And therein lies an important message that undergirds the whole of Jesus’ life and words–God’s preference for “the least of these,” as Matthew describes the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the ill, the imprisoned, and the stranger. Galilee, in effect, is representative of the least ones, itself written off and put down by bigwigs and by the high and mighty.

Pushed to the sidelines and ridiculed for its simplemindedness, Galilee becomes for Matthew the epicenter of divine grace, the Beloved Son breathing its air and walking its roads where he daily encountered the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely, extending compassion and acceptance to those typically ignored and dishonored for no other reason than they were poor, possessed, or powerless. And yet, these same least ones were the beneficiaries of divine mercy.

Inlaid smoothly and seamlessly into the text right at the start of the public ministry of Rabbi Jesus, this message will become the theme that continues throughout the gospel, often missed by us because we aren’t familiar with the geography behind the gospel and the fact that Rabbi Jesus lived his entire life in this inconsequential and inconspicuous place called Galilee. It would be there that “a great light had arisen,” as the prophet predicted, and it would be to the poor people of Galilee who had lived in darkness that the gift of light was given.

So what lesson can we draw from this Galilean emphasis that Matthew puts before us right at the start of Rabbi Jesus’ ministry? Probably the most important is that we can do our work as followers of the Beloved Son in whatever place we happen to live, even if it is a dot on the map or a one traffic-light town. Discipleship does not require that we pack our bags and move to the big city or, for that matter, to a foreign country.

As we might expect, Mother Teresa, for one, understood this point really well. Although her own mission was to the poor and dying of Calcutta, a city of 14 million people that encompassed an area twice the size of Galilee, she did not expect others to live there. After she had gained more of a public profile, she found eager people traveling to Calcutta wanting to join her in her work. Her typical response to them was, “What? Don’t you have poor people where you live? Go back home and serve the poor there.”

Direct as always, she made her point. Nobody has to travel miles or go to big-city ghettos or cross continents to become a follower of Rabbi Jesus. We can do the same work that he did in our little corner of the world, wherever it is, because the fact of the matter is that there are people in need in every zip code or in every place where people live. 

Yes, some need food and water. Some need shoes and a coat. Some need a kind word and a gentle touch. But regardless of geography, everybody needs to be loved. And it is our duty as disciples to extend that love to one and all, most particularly to the person who stands in front of us, or next door, or down the street. We don’t have to go in search of people who need a helping hand or a genuine smile. They are all around us.

The writer Kathleen Norris spent most of her life in South Dakota and she often speaks about it in her books. One of her books even carries the place name in its title, “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography.” Among other things that she said about South Dakota in that book, she wrote, “I prize the hiddenness of Dakota, and have grown protective of the silence here–the places that have become sacred to me, that in all likelihood few humans have ever walked.”

She continued, “When I was in Honolulu over Christmas, visiting my family shortly after “Dances With Wolves” came out, I went to parties where I was astonished to hear people discussing South Dakota. ‘I had no idea it was so lovely,’ one elegant woman said. ‘I never thought about South Dakota at all. Now I’d like to see it.’”

In Jesus’ time, many people said much the same thing about Galilee. “I never thought about Galilee.” And yet, as we know, Matthew tells us that Rabbi Jesus never left it until he went to Jerusalem to die. His footsteps were found in the dirt of Galilee. It was there that holiness walked. 

The lesson today is simple. We also can make holy the place where our feet walk, even if it is a place nobody ever thinks about. Following Jesus only requires that we do good wherever we are, bringing light to people in darkness just as he did on the backroads and in the small towns of Galilee, a place most people thought was godforsaken, but, in fact, was just the opposite.

–Jeremy Myers