"The Geography of Grief and Good News”

He [Matthew] gives specific geographical details when he sets up this story. Jesus’ presence matters, but so do the places. And he wants you to notice them!

[1] “Calling Disciples” by He Qi, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

Matthew 4:12-23

January 25, 2026

Dr. Todd R. Wright

Place matters.

When people sing “Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong,” they are testifying to a complicated relationship with this place – a place that contains the people and geography that formed them; a place that cannot provide for all of its people so it casts them out into the world to seek opportunity or jobs, only to exert a magnetic force drawing them home; a place filled with stunning natural beauty and ruined streams running down from flattened mountains. In short, a place that provokes nostalgia and frustration, pride and grief... all with an undertow of love.

So it was no surprise that when a group of us went to New Orleans to help with the extended response to hurricane Katrina, we were invited to a cookout at the home of a couple from WV. They were generous hosts. We filled our plates with an abundance of food and all the asked in return was that we sing them “Country Roads”. We did so with gusto!

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Matthew would have understood. He is in tune with the importance of geography to people.

So while we might be tempted to skip over the geographical notes, anxious to get on to his account of the calling of the disciples, we shouldn’t.

Scott Hoezee muses,

“We’ve come to call it ‘the Holy Land.’ From the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the country of Jordan in the east, from Syria in the north to the Sinai in the south, travel companies, tour groups, and tourists treat this piece of Middle Eastern real estate as a unity. It’s where Jesus walked and that’s what now makes it ‘holy.’ It’s essentially one place with Jerusalem more or less as its center.

[So it follows that] it matters little to most folks precisely where this or that gospel event took place. It’s all the Holy Land, after all. Jericho or Jerusalem, Capernaum or Bethsaida: the places matter little compared to the presence of Jesus in those places.”[2]

Matthew doesn’t believe that for a moment. He gives specific geographical details when he sets up this story. Jesus’ presence matters, but so do the places. And he wants you to notice them!

Specifically, he says that after John’s arrest, Jesus withdrew from Judea (in the south) to Galilee (in the north), to the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.

Now on one level it sounds like he could be describing the homesteads of a couple of uncles – you know, Uncle’s Zeb’s place up the holler next to the creek or Uncle Naph’s cabin deep in that grove of cedars. But there’s more to it than that.

Zebulun and Naphtali were two of Jacob’s twelve sons. When Israel entered the Promised Land, these two tribes received portions to the west of the sea of Galilee and settled in.

That was a high point. Things got worse. Scholars tell us that …

“After the death of King Solomon, the Israelites separated into the northern Kingdom of Israel (representing 10 tribes) and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. [About 200 years later] the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III gained control over the entire northern kingdom. Israelites, [both those] deported into slavery and those who remained behind, were gradually assimilated by other peoples. The tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun lost [their] identity and became known in Jewish legend as [two] of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.”[3]

So when you hear these two geographical references, you should think of places like land mine strewn Cambodia or Afghanistan whose history of war lingers dangerously decades later; or Ukraine or Gaza where an invading army brought utter devastation; or Sandy Hook or Columbine or Parkland where violence not only brought death but unmasked the failure of earthly leaders to do anything to prevent it from happening again.

Matthew knows all this history. He knows what those names trigger. But he also knows that Zebulun and Naphtali were mentioned by the prophet Isaiah. He describes them as a people who have sat in darkness, who have sat in the region of the shadow of death.

Sounds grim doesn’t it? But then Isaiah says, those same people have seen a great light!

Darkness will not last forever, he promises. Dawn is coming!

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So when Jesus moves to Galilee, to the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, Matthew notices.

This land scarred by violence and exile; this land once occupied by one foreign power and now occupied by another; this land sitting in perpetual eclipse, is about to experience a new dawn!

After all that grief, Matthew is convinced that they are about to experience good news!

As evidence, he points to Jesus moving into the neighborhood and immediately announcing that the kingdom of heaven has come near!

God is on the move!

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And it’s not just Matthew that notices.

Two brothers are fishing and when Jesus invites them to follow, they do!

Two other brothers are mending their nets, along with their father. They also left everything to follow him.

All four sense something in him. All four are part of a people who have been yearning for this, like those who wait desperately for the dawn. All four have been watching the horizon for someone who will fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy.

In Jesus, they have found what they are looking for!

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So Matthew tells this story and scatters geographical breadcrumbs. He hopes they will

spark something in his listeners. He hopes we will hear and make our own connections.

We may not live in Zebulun or Naphtali, but many of us know what it is like to find ourselves stuck in the dark; we know what it feels like to dwell in that dark, dark country of death.

We have lived with grief and loss; we have been stung by violence; shocked by sickness that arrived out of the blue and refused to leave. We have suffered seasons of hopelessness and traveled through valleys of despair. We have been failed by leaders and cursed gridlock and empty promises.

Matthew hopes we will recognize something in this Jesus and follow him.

He hopes we will be drawn by the light. He hopes we will marvel at the healing that takes place. He hopes that the kingdom of God will take root in the soil of the places where we live!

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But let’s be clear. Even those who faithfully follow Jesus will not always be certain.

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, theologian, mystic, poet, and social activist, prayed

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think that I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road …

Therefore will I trust you always

though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”[4]

May that be true for you too. Amen

[1] “Calling Disciples” by He Qi, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

[2] From his reflections on the text for cepreaching.org, 1/26/20

[3] See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twelve-Tribes-of-Israel

[4] “The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude