Heart Hands

Matthew 4:12-25; Psalm 27:1,4-9

Thursday’s prayer vigil here in the sanctuary was both solemn and light-filled. We counted 68 clergy and parishioners from north and south Huntsville churches, communities, the synagogue. In the same way Martin Luther King, Jr. called the clergy of the country to come to Selma, the pastors and rabbis, bishops and pujaris, priests and imams of Minneapolis called clergy from all over the US to come stand shoulder to shoulder with them Thursday and Friday. The attendees who came here Thursday wanted to pray in solidarity with them - for their city in a crisis that has been long in the making. (You can support just laws and what ICE is supposed to be doing, without supporting what you are seeing them do!) I pulled an outline of a service together without asking anyone to preach specifically. One of the retired Lutheran ministers (Bob Loshuertos)  who attends Southeast Clergy meetings told me when it was all over that I should know better than to offer an open mic to a room full of preachers.  In retrospect I wouldn’t have done anything differently. When we issued the call to a wide swath of clergy to gather, I didn’t know who would show up in the middle of the week and workday. Still being rather “new” in town, I didn’t choose to ask people to speak in advance. I decided to create a framework for the vigil that encouraged anyone who had something to say along the lines of shared lament, concerns, prayers, and hopes to speak as they felt led.  But I led with this quote by Deitrich Bonhoeffer:

 “Listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening. But [people of faith] who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God. The death of the spiritual life starts here, and in the end there is nothing left but empty spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words. Those who cannot listen long and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will even notice it. Those who think their time is too precious to spend listening will never really have time for God and others, but only for themselves and for their own words and plans.”[1]

 I guess that set the tone along with the invitation to be both, speakers and listeners. There was a generous spirit in the room once folks began sharing why they had come, what lament, or heartbreak, called them to this space for prayer. When folks spoke from the heart, the rest listened with their heart. In the end, many came forward to light candles as they named what action they felt called to and what light they hoped to share in the greater Huntsville community. It was not a revolutionary gathering, but it was sincere and meaningful. It felt like a reboot of interracial, interdenominational, interfaith  connections across the city, from north to south, that could make a difference, especially in the lives of the immigrant population, if we will support one another and work together. I’m  so grateful that Weatherly provided this much needed space for clergy and others to gather.

 On this 3rd Sunday after Epiphany, we are listeners in Galilee beside the first disciples. Listen to what Jesus says in four key phrases I want us to pay attention to today from the fourth chapter of Matthew’s gospel:

“Change your hearts and lives!”
“Here comes the Kingdom of Heaven!”
“Come, follow me.”
“I’ll show you how…”

When Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, he went to Galilee. Matthew makes the geographic distinction to demonstrate how Jesus is fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah. I want us to notice it because it’s like Jesus is heading to a city like Minneapolis today. Galilee was a hotbed of anti-imperial sentiment.[2] It is always tense, due to Roman occupation and it's a place where Herod Antipas keeps things stirred up by arresting those who speak out against him, like John. Jesus is not running from trouble or sneaking off to hibernate, with the news of John. Making this move, he is actually stepping in to continue the good trouble that John had started.  

Jesus has a message for these troubled people in a troubled city: Change your heart and mind! (Repent!) For the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Matthew’s use of Kingdom of Heaven vs. Kingdom of God elsewhere, is keeping with the Jewishness of his Gospel as Judaism did not pronounce or write the Divine Name.  But scholars agree that a more action oriented translation of the phrase is better, such as the Rule of God, or the Reign of God.[3] It’s not a stationery place, but a movement, God’s way of being here and now! Jesus’ announcement  was intended to convince hearers that “no other ruler or government or religion or hierarchy could hold sway over their lives; only God could.” IF they could only have a change of heart.
Metanoia (Gk), most often in modern Bibles, is translated, repent. It means to change one’s mind, to have a change of heart, a change of perspective. Jesus’ main message to the colonized people was to get them to see themselves differently, to see their oppressors differently, to see God’s love differently. If they could see themselves as no one’s helpless victims, but as the beloved of God, then their lives would have new meaning and purpose both internally and externally. THIS is the salvation that Jesus is offering – a change in perspective that saves a person, freeing them from that which holds them down.  In the reign of God, the place where God rules, there is freedom and salvation for all people. Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the Reign of God!

Jesus goes to the waterfront where he finds a couple of fishermen, who some make equivalent in society to money lenders, greedy thieves who tip the scales at the fish market. They are doing what they must as the empire’s demand of them is oppressive: Not only must they supply enough fish for themselves and the city, but they must pay tax upon what they retain and tax upon what they transport. Their situation is” economically precarious.”[4] They are just above the fish in the social food chain. So, of course, this is who Jesus starts with – some of the lowest ranking in society, and those who carry the heaviest burdens.

To Peter and Andrew, James and John, he says, “Come, follow me.” It’s an invitation, plus two words that signal Jesus wants to dislodge them from their current station in life to go with him. The Greek word for follow takes its root from the word that means road. “Follow me” is an invitation to share the same road with Jesus, to go where he is going.[5] With him, the past is in the past and what matters most is what lies ahead.  He tells them that he’ll show them how to fish for people.

I believe that we have misrepresented what Jesus meant by this. In our evangelical background, we have been convinced that fishing for people is saving souls from hell, “winning them for Christ.” That we have aimed to catch as many as possible in our nets of the gospel, without actually doing anything to pluck them out of harm, out of danger, out from under the weight of overbearing societal oppression. 

Jesus said, Follow me… I will show you how… Jesus’ first actions, after this scene, embody what the reign of God looks like. “People brought to him all those who had various kinds of diseases, those in pain, those possessed by demons, those with epilepsy, and those who were paralyzed, and he healed them.” (v.24) He taught in the synagogues and announced the good news, that the reign of God is here and now. (v. 23)

In our post-evangelical thinking, in our progressively Baptist context, we wonder – if we are not witnessing to the lost, what are we supposed to be doing? The answer is here (and I don’t declare answers so easily derived very often ), but I believe that the way to follow Jesus is by walking with him, and by doing all we can to lift our neighbors out of what paralyzes them – disease, pain, spiritual darkness, poverty, exclusion. On the road with Jesus means doing what he did. Some might say, “I can’t do that!

I hope you notice that Peter, Andrew, James and John didn’t wait until they could follow him perfectly. They didn’t wait until they had tied up all their loose ends, or gotten approval, or until they had seen a fully mapped out plan. They dropped their nets and followed him immediately. The reign of God is here and now. Let us not be the ones standing in the way of its fulfillment.[6] Let us not miss out on the road with Jesus because we won’t allow him to change our perspective… about ourselves, about our neighbors, or about the love of God. The call to follow him begins in our own hearts.

Travis Norvell is pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist Church in Minneapolis. He recently wrote that he’s been praying that the current situation they live in ‘just might make Christians out of us yet.’ He meant that the cruelty they witness (way beyond enforcing just immigration policy) is forcing us to look to our faith, the core of Jesus’ message, to see if there is a power greater than anger and frustration. Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel, assures that there is power in changing our perspective, in letting our hearts come fully under the reign of God, The week after Renee Good was killed, Travis walked through a neighborhood, shoulder to shoulder with others to take a stand against the violence. He saw a Hispanic family in the window of an apartment building, watching them walk by. “They were  making hearts with their hands. Those hearts are worth our lives,” he wrote.  They are the people Jesus came to save, body and soul.

 God is still speaking to each of us in the words of Jesus.

“Change your hearts and lives!”
“The Reign of God is here and now!”
“Come, follow me.”
“I’ll show you how…”  

Perhaps our response to his call looks like this (lift heart hands). We lift our hearts to God to be changed with the words of the Psalmist, Come, my heart says, seek God’s face. Lord, I do seek your face!  (27:8) AMEN.

[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together

[2] Bohache, Thomas, Queer Bible Commentary

[3] ibid.

[4] Chakoian, Christine, Christian Century, In the Lectionary Jan 25, 2026

[5] Campbell, Ernest T. A Chorus of Witnesses, sermon Follow Me

[6] Rothaus, Kendall Rae, Sojourners, Living the Word, What is Calling You Now? Jan 2026