Coffee With God

Reflection: Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25

Today’s Gospel describes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He does not begin his mission in Jerusalem, the religious, social and political centre, but in Galilee, on the outskirts, an area which the Jews had looked down upon. Jesus began his preaching from where John the Baptist had stopped: “Repent, because the Kingdom of God is at hand!” (Mt 3:2 & 4:17). From the beginning, the preaching of God’s Kingdom involved risks, but that dissuaded neither John the Baptist nor Jesus. By presenting it in this way, Mathew encourages the communities which were running the same risks of persecution. He quotes from Isaiah: “The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light!” and reminds the persecuted communities of his time that in spite of all the darkness of hopelessness that surround them, they have the light of Christ that saves them. Like Jesus, the believing communities are also called to be “the light of nations!” Starting from Galilee, Jesus teaches us that no one is excluded from the salvation of God, rather it is from the margins that God prefers to begin, from the least, so as to reach everyone. He teaches us his method, and the content of his Mission: that is the Father’s mercy. “Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel” (Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, n. 20). Jesus begins his mission not only from peripheries, but also among people who were of a “low profile”. While choosing his first disciples and future apostles, he does not choose them from schools of scribes and doctors of the Law. Jesus calls them from their places of work, on the lakeshore: they are fishermen. They follow him, immediately. Pope Francis reminds us that “The Lord passes through the paths of our daily life. Even today at this moment, here, the Lord is passing through. He is calling us to go with him, to work with him for the Kingdom of God, in the “Galilee” of our times. Let us reflect for a moment: the Lord is passing by me today, he is watching me, he is looking at me! What is the Lord saying to me? If you feel that the Lord says to you “follow me,” be brave, go with the Lord. The Lord never disappoints. Feel in your heart the call of Jesus to follow him. Allow the gaze of Jesus to rest on you, hear his voice, and follow him! “That the joy of the Gospel may reach to the ends of the earth, illuminating even the fringes of our world” (Evangelii Gaudium,n. 288).