Sunday, January 25, 2026
Matthew 4:12-23 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
One of my favorite movies is the Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic Rear Window. Now, maybe you don’t like Hitchcock or haven’t seen that one but the scene I want to tell you about today is simple to follow, even if you’re not a Hitchcock fan.
Raymond Burr plays the bad guy and Jimmy Stewart plays a globe trotting, thrill seeking, photojournalist in convalescence after a badly broken leg. He’s wheelchair bound in his second story, city apartment and he’s feeling cooped up and useless. He’s so down in the dumps to have his wings clipped that he ignores his girlfriend, played by Grace Kelly who dotes on him daily while he stares out his rear window. That anyone, no matter how depressed would ignore a girlfriend as lovely as Grace Kelly is a sort of unspoken gag in this film.
In the penultimate scene, the bad guy has broken into Jimmy Stewart’s apartment and he is coming at Stewart in the pitch black of night. There must have been a power outage or he can’t reach a light switch from his wheelchair. So the character has been left alone and vulnerable.
But clever photographer that he is, he covers his eyes and explodes flash bulbs toward his nemesis. You may remember those exploding ball type of flashes they had back then. So these flashes in the dark temporarily blind Raymond Burr giving Stewart time to get another flash bulb set up, and he repeats this until he runs out of flashes giving him just enough time to stall before help comes.
The police show up just in time, though Stewart does fall over his second story balcony and ends up breaking the other leg. The happy ending is that he experiences a renewed sense of purpose in having solved this crime from the rear window of his balcony and so he cheers up and starts paying more attention to his friends, including Grace Kelly.
This may seem an odd anecdote for Epiphany. The epiphany moment in this story though is not just the happy ending of finding meaning when life holds you down. The image of the bad guy getting blinded by the light and slowed in his tracks by that light - that’s the kind of epiphany I want to talk about today.
I love movies. Filmmakers are storytellers. And we need storytellers. When the creative types among us tell stories, no matter how wild or bizarre their fictions may be, we come together as listeners.
We may disagree about the meaning or intention of the stories of our lives, but fiction and poetry and songs are things we cannot live without. We may argue about their meaning, but the stories themselves bring us together for discussion, for sorting out our divisions and for dreaming together.
Stories bring with them epiphanies. Stories bring new awareness of who we are, who we long to become or who we think we are and who we think we should become. Either way, stories give us a place for reflection on change.
Whenever there is a crisis, communities come together. When the floods came after Hurricane Helene soaked this region, people came together across their divides. People are looking out for each other this week with this winter storm. Whenever there are other natural disasters like tornadoes or blizzards or even drought, people come together to help each other.
This Sunday, when we tell again the age old story of Jesus calling his first disciples, we are called to lean forward in the pew to listen for what God has in store next for us.
Two things crossed my mind this week as I pondered these things. One was about doubt and the other was about repentance.
A couple of years ago, I joined a group discussion among a group of retirees. We were talking about aging and tossing around the question of how we have become more wise as we have aged. Or not. And for some reason, in the middle of this discussion, someone brought up the question of doubt and directed it at the ordained folks in the group. There were just a handful of us. The larger part of the group were retired college professors. But she specifically asked the pastors in the group, “is it ever OK to doubt our faith?”
In answer to the question, one small voice spoke up and talked about doubt as not only OK but necessary for faith. She said that doubt is actually a sign of growth in our faith. It seemed everyone easily agreed. And she is right.
On the other hand, we tend to so easily accept doubt as a part of our faith that we tend to take repentance for granted. It seems we are quickly OK with doubt and assume that the repentance part of our faith was a once and done thing we did at baptism. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t hear us talk very often about repentance.
You may have noticed that I regularly bring up questions about who we are and how we to are follow Jesus and yet I rarely offer answers. I have been intentional about this. I see these few moments of sermonizing as a time for weekly reflection. I try to offer you questions in the form of images and songs and stories and ideas to chew on. I hope you in turn take these questions and ponder them and do some seeking during the week for the answers. The answers are, in the end, up to the Holy Spirit who guides us and usually found in your heart of hearts.
But another preacher I once heard preach on this particular passage (a colleague named Barrie Bates) gave answers. Like me, he too brought to the pulpit his interpretation of this part of the story in which Jesus calls his disciples. He too saw this story as pivotal. He too made the point that identity is key - the who are we and who is Jesus and who are we in relationship with Jesus questions are important. But unlike me, he gave a clear answer.
And here is the answer he gave. This preacher answered all of this swirling mess with one simple word: Repent!
Jesus doesn’t just invite us to follow him like a bunch of kindergarteners on a field trip. Jesus invites these fishermen who immediately drop everything with full enthusiastic yeses and follow. But after saying yes to the initial invitation, there are some requirements in signing up. The first one is to repent. After that, Jesus makes a few commandments of all of us disciples. Stuff like love your enemy. Feed the poor. Turn the other cheek. It’s an invitation, but it’s not without some cost.
Then he shared a story about a farmer from a rural part of the country. This farmer comes to visit a relative in a major city. They’re walking down the busy and noisy main street, amidst the clamor and confusion and traffic and general hubbub of the city at rush hour. And just then, a fire truck goes by, siren blazing. And the farmer says, “Wait, listen: I hear a cricket over yonder.” The carefully conditioned city dweller replies, “How can you hear a cricket in the middle of all this?” The chirp of a cricket in the very core of a buzzing city — we can’t hear that, right? But the farmer, unfazed, says, “I figure you hear what you’re listening for.” And with that, he takes the spare change from his pants pocket and drops it on the ground. And at the almost imperceptible sound of a few coins hitting the sidewalk, people all around them stop in their tracks, heads turn, notice is taken.
Sounds accurate doesn’t it? Most of us would hear the coins and miss the crickets. “I figure you hear what you’re listening for.” That’s a powerful statement for us as Christians.
Jesus said it another way, in last week’s gospel he said, “What are you looking for?” And this is the challenge before us today: what are we looking for, who are we listening to, what are we valuing most in our common life together?
Clear and simple, unambiguous and direct, Jesus says it this way: “Repent.”
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Repent — for we are, all of us sinners, we have each one of us and all of us together failed to live up to our true calling, we have made mistakes, we have fallen down.
And Jesus says, basically, “Get up and try again.” Repent. We are forgiven, we are loved, and we are free.
Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” We are called — each and every one of us, and all of us together — to bring the light of lights into the world, to proclaim to all people the Good News of salvation, to make known the glory of God’s marvelous works.
Our calling as a Christian community is not to repair the roof, or balance the books, or print up the bulletin, though these things are important — essential to the building up of Christ’s body, really.
But budgets and reports and achievements — they are not our mission, they are not what Jesus calls us to listen to, they are not what our Lord and Savior commands us to value. When we follow, Jesus makes us fishers of people, ambassadors of Christ, evangelists.
So, how can we put this into action? Simple, just ask yourself these three simple questions:
Am I a sinner? If your answer isn’t “yes,” you are lying — to yourself, to others, and to God.
Do I want to change? If you answer isn’t “yes,” you need help — the kind of help that is offered at the holy table of God.
And, do I believe? — truly and earnestly believe in my heart of hearts — that God’s kingdom has drawn near? If your answer isn’t “yes,” you are exactly like all the rest of us, everyone — skeptical that God could love us so much as to allow us to make such important choices.
So we’re back to doubt. And it is OK to doubt because we know that this miracle of the life giving Spirit of God in Christ is unfathomable! It is unbelievable! It is too good to be true!
No wonder those first disciples were able to drop everything and follow immediately. They believed.
In the movie, Rear Window, the bad guy was blinded by the light. We too are often blinded in the same way. Those truths all around us pop up and explode before our eyes with such brilliance that we can’t see. And so we can’t believe it. And so we accept God’s Grace to allow us to doubt. And that’s OK. What’s not OK is that we are going to miss the boat if we don’t clear our eyes and drop everything and catch up with those disciples.
And in order to do that. We’re going to have to repent first. And then we’ll have to repent again. And again. And again. And this is the life of a disciple of Jesus.
So, simply put friends, repent. Turn around at the sound of a cricket, try again to hear God’s voice, try this time to move past the doubt, enter into forgiveness and reconciliation and just follow Jesus.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly
1 the Rev. Dr. J. Barrington Bates, https://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermon/repent-look-for-signs-of-the-kingdom-follow-jesus-epiphany-3-a-january-22-2023/