Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A

Matthew 4:12-23

Last Sunday we heard about John the Baptist testifying about who Jesus is. That was in the gospel of John. Now we are back in Matthew, whose gospel will be the main one of cycle A, the first of three annual cycles of readings. The Church hasn’t forgotten about the gospel of John; it’s very prominent in all three cycles during the period of time after Easter. So if you are at a party and there is a lull in conversation, tell them that a person who attends mass on all the Sundays and holydays for three years would hear 89.8% of the four gospels. At least that's what the internet told me.

In today’s gospel, Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is up there in the area of Capernaum because it fulfills a prophecy from Isaiah, that those northern provinces have been in darkness and now see a great light. With that as a prelude, Matthew describes the calling of four of the apostles. One of the themes of Matthew’s gospel is that Jesus is ushering in the kingdom of heaven. The signs of that are that the blind see, the lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. As Jesus goes about preaching and proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, we are supposed to notice that his presence and his message cause abrupt changes in the two sets of brothers, both of whom drop everything and immediately follow him. Later Matthew will tell us about his own conversion, using the name Levi, the tax collector who drops everything to follow Jesus.

But there is another character in this short gospel passage, a man named Zebedee. I can remember that whenever I would hear this gospel I would feel kind of sorry for Zebedee, watching his two sons leave the family business to follow a wandering preacher. I wonder how Zebedee felt -- angry? Disappointed? Maybe delighted to give up his sons to Jesus. But there must have been sadness.

Zebedee is an unusual name, not only in the bible, where it is used only in reference to the father of James and John, but also in the names that were popular at that time. The apostles, in fact, had common names -- in the writings of the Jews during those times, we find other men with similar names. And Zebedee never caught on as a name to give your child, unlike many Old Testament and New Testament names.

Zebedee was a real person. His name means “gift of God”. Other parts of the New Testament tell us that his wife was probably one of the later followers of Jesus, and her name was Solome. We find her mentioned in the passion stories as one of the women who met Jesus after his resurrection, and she is referred to as the mother of James and Joses, which was another name for John. She probably became a follower of Jesus because she had first followed her two sons. So she represents another loss for Zebedee.

I think a lot of us, probably most of us, can identify with Zebedee, especially those of us who are parents. As we raise our children, they gradually become their own persons. What we might want for them is often something they don’t want. We might like them to live close so that we can see them more often, but sometimes they move far away. Some of us, like Zebedee, might have built a business we would like to leave to them, and then we discover they don’t want to do that. Maybe we find joy in seeing how our kids turned out, but maybe there is a little sadness because they didn’t follow in our footsteps. When your last child leaves home, there’s a part of you that would like to see a time when the whole family got together again, not just for a day or so but like it used to be. Zebedee must have felt that way as well.

But maybe Zebedee, like his two sons, recognized that Jesus was ushering in the kingdom of heaven, and despite the sadness in his heart, he rejoiced that his two sons were singled out to be apostles, to help spread Jesus’ message, to guide the early church. But at the same time, someone had to run the boat, someone had to fish, because people depended on fishermen. Do any of you parents identify with Zebedee? I know I do.