Third Sunday after Epiphany – Year A
January 25, 2026
Gospel Lectionary Text
Matthew 4:12-23
4:12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.
4:13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
4:14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
4:15 "Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles
4:16 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."
4:17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
4:18 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 fishermen.
4:19 And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people."
4:20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
4:21 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.
4:22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
4:23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
Context
Welcome to the third week after Epiphany. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus is choosing his team. He begins the selection process in an unlikely place, choosing unlikely people.
The recruiting ground for the movement is the region of Galilee. It was known for its impure mixture with gentiles — a place of “darkness,” covered by the “shadow of death.” Matthew is giving us a lesson in sacred geography. He refers to “Zebulun and Naphtali,” the first of ten tribes invaded by Assyria 700 years earlier. Their defeat was seen as a sign of God’s judgment for unfaithfulness.
Within this cursed region, Jesus chooses some unlikely people. His first picks were two sets of brothers who were common fishermen. He would soon add five others we know almost nothing about, along with a treasurer who would eventually betray him. And, just for good measure, Jesus insists on choosing two sworn enemies: a zealot and a tax collector, the latter a constant source of shame to the Jewish community.
And then there were the women. By first-century standards, they played unusually prominent and controversial roles, including funding the movement from the most unlikely sources. One of those sources was Herod’s own household (see Luke 8:2-3 for the reference to Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s chief of staff). Joanna, along with Mary Magdalene, Suzanna, and “many other women“ who were cured of “evil spirits” funded the movement. Jesus’ fledgling community looks more like the Bad News Bears than the Dream Team.
From the outset, Jesus’ team reveals the DNA of the church… and the delight of God. This ragtag gathering of natural enemies is invited to undergo the long, slow process of reconciliation, becoming a sign of God’s unity at work in the world. This is how God’s light shines in the darkness. And, apparently, it makes God very happy.
Question
Every great adventure begins with assembling the team. In Matthew, the call scenes come without fanfare, nothing dramatic like in the other Gospels, just a simple invitation to become “fishers of men.” Yet the response is "immediate." How does this resonate with your own sense of call in the everyday ordinariness of life?
Reflections
Beyond Guilt
By Kristy Humphreys |
The Kingdom of Heaven coming near is the beginning of God’s new creation where God can come and dwell with His people forever. In other words, the party has already started, and we are all invited whether we are attuned to that reality or not.
Team Jesus
By Kris Rocke |
It’s when we’ve done just about all we can do to screw things up and yet still discover ourselves loved, forgiven and trusted at our most untrustworthy worst, that the Spirit is fully unleashed.
What About Church Out Here?
By Lina Thompson |
One Sunday afternoon, I was driving through the neighborhood with a car full of local kids that were a part of our ministry. We pulled up to a four way stop. Now mind you, at the time this neighborhood was deemed an “at-risk” area and had all of the trappings that come with that label-gang…
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
Christians often use a saying, equally pithy and profound: “Already, but not yet.” Pithy, because it seems to dodge the question of how grief and injustice continue in a redeemed world. Profound, because it dares us to look “not behind but within” a world where horror persists, where “killings continue” – yet are rendered “transparent” to “blessedness” and “bliss.”
How does Levertov take up this challenge to see what is both “already” and “not yet” here? Are there places in your context, full of pavement and jackhammers and parking lots and “hideous concrete,” where you might also search the dust for a real, present Paradise?
City Psalm
by Denise Levertov
The killings continue, each second
pain and misfortune extend themselves
in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly,
and the air bears the dust of decayed hopes,
yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged
pavements among crippled lives, jackhammers
raging, a parking lot painfully agleam in the May sun,
I have seen not behind but within,
within the dull grief, blown grit,
hideous concrete façades, another grief,
a gleam as of dew, an abode of mercy,
have heard not behind but within noise
a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.
Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;
not that horror was not, not that the killings did not continue;
not that I thought there was to be no more despair,
but that as if transparent all disclosed
an otherness that was blesséd, that was bliss,
I saw Paradise in the dust of the street.
Prayer
This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Prayer of Vocation: Call to Creation
YHWH, in the beginning you formed us from the dust of the ground and breathed into us the breath of life. Breathe on us, in us, and through us now, that we might embody our most sacred vocation to become fully human: to be one with you, and with all creation, and to do things we never thought possible.
