Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18
“Another Road”
Phyllis Diller once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans.” Throughout the history of humanity, we have—all of us, tried to predict or even prescribe what God will do. Some, in the stories we are told, have tried to become God—like Adam, like Eve, like the snake in the story—by taking something they believe belongs to God. Some, like those in the story of the tower of Babel, have tried to move into the place where they believed God lived. Some, more subtly, have tried to amass a certain amount of power so that they could pretend they have no need of God—like merchants who cheat their customers, like governments who try to control their peoples, like men or women who try to control their families and not simply teach them.

We even try and control what we believe about how God comes to us—even in this time when we celebrate Jesus’ birth, God’s coming into the world, we like to push ahead—look forward hoping for more. We like to use the stories of Jesus coming again to persuade people that they need to change before they are ready—we like to be the ones to bring people to God, we think, instead of letting God work how God will work. You can’t rush God—as I said in last week’s sermon.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.

But it’s not just about speed, the work of God is often mysterious because we don’t and can’t understand the process that God is taking us through. And it’s not just about me or you individually, the journey of humanity as a whole is the journey that we are on.

What often amazes me is the convoluted thought processes we often go through to try and make ourselves understand the situations that surround us. I don’t believe that we should give in to unjust situations—when we or others are taken advantage of by powerful situations or people then we should struggle against injustice. And the good that can come out of those situations even when they are difficult is often unimaginable. What I am talking about is the pain and suffering that is often associated with life. I have heard this illogical yet common statement about suffering and pain, “It must be God’s will . . . .” But pain and suffering are not God’s will—they may be inevitable when God’s plan meets sin and evil—but they are not God’s will.

The gospel of John opens with a prolog, not a description of the birth of Jesus into an earthly family. It remains mysterious about Jesus’ earthly origins, perhaps intentionally, focusing on the spiritual work of Jesus, not on his particular human existence. The whole gospel tends toward a spiritual objective rather than a physical description. This gospel, all by itself, takes another road toward understanding Jesus than Matthew Mark and Luke. The other three gospels, called synoptic gospels, have the same or similar synopsis or plot line. For example, Jesus clears the temple at the beginning of John’s gospel, braiding a whip and throwing out the merchants. In the other three accounts, Jesus clears the temple just in the week before his death on the cross. From the beginning, the gospel of John sees Jesus’ opposition to the power mongering of the religious and political hierarchy as symbolic of God’s opposition to evil in the world. Yet God’s purpose for Jesus’ existence is love—according to John 3:16, “For God so love the world, God sent his son so that all who believe in him would not perish but have unending life. God sent Jesus not to condemn but to save.”

Each one of us, as each one of the gospel writers, has been given a particular road to follow in our life of faith.

The title of today’s sermon comes from the idea that the magi who were following the star of Bethlehem were given a dream to take another road home. Though the governor of Judea—Herod, who called himself king—wanted to know about the royal birth they were following, God had other plans for them. God called them home by another route—so that they and the baby would survive for the purpose God had given them.

But we can’t predict or prescribe the other road we will be given. If you had asked me 8 months ago what I’d be doing January 31st I would not have said getting married, but I believe that Carl and I are gifts to one another—and that we have a God-given purpose that can be fulfilled together. I don’t know what that purpose is—but I hope with all my heart to find out with Carl.

The road I’m beginning is a little scary—and I’m not alone in thinking that—but no choice I’ve ever made has ever been without anxiety. I had to pick a major in college and it took me 2 years. I had to find a job when I graduated with my education degree and I was terrified. Then I quit and applied to Phillips Theological Seminary—I didn’t tell ANYONE because I was afraid of what I was doing. And choosing to come to Cuba was one of those big, scar propositions, too. No choice of any worth that I have ever made has been easy, and I don’t think I am alone in feeling that way.

The mystery of God isn’t always in the actions of God, but in the response we have toward God’s actions in our lives. For example, a wise man was once asked if he thought that AIDS was given as a punishment by God. He said, “No, it may be an opportunity for God to judge the church though, as it decides whether to make a compassionate response to the pain, suffering and death that it brings.”

The paths we travel often become routine—we don’t like to take unfamiliar roads. The vision of epiphany is the opposite, experiencing God as God bursts into our lives—often without warning and always without our knowledge of how it would turn out. “With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

The fulfillment of God’s plan never turns out exactly as we expect and never as we plan. Though prophecy reveals God’s plan—even that doesn’t give us all the details we might like to have from God. During the time preceding Jesus’ birth, the Messiah was expected—but how the Messiah would be revealed was still unknown.
8See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
those with child and those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.
9With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.

The prophetic word of Jeremiah also described the return of the exiles to Jerusalem and to the whole Israel homeland. It explains that God will bring all of them back—the strong and the weak, the healthy and those who are vulnerable as well as the sick and those who are in need of the support of the community like the lame and those who are bearing children.

This word looks forward to the birth and salvation of Jesus—yet it described the contemporary work of God in the land of Israel—in the land of Joseph’s son Ephraim, often used to rename Israel, but actually the portion of Israel that contained Zion or the city of Jerusalem. The people of Israel were returned home by way of a decree made by Cyrus of Persia, but remained as a vassal.

Prophetic word was fulfilled—and yet more was to come. The road was leveled—God walked home with them—yet the road was still a mystery.

The roads that we have taken thus far in our lives have revealed how God has worked within us and with those that we love. Yet we are called upon to continue to seek God as God works within us and in the people and places that surround us.

God often reveals paths to us—calling us to respond in new ways. When we are called to be sons and daughters of God—as Ephesians states—we are called to reveal God in ways that we may not have even conceived of before. We are often called beyond our comfort zone to recognize roads that God may want us to walk. “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before God in love.” We are called upon to recognize that all can be called as holy and blameless before God. In Ephesians, in the gospels, in scriptures we are called upon to open eyes, hearts and minds the possibilities that God places before us in all those we meet.

We are often called to take another road than the one we’ve always planned to take. Some may be called to leave the comfortable and familiar and become the word of God beyond what they know. Some may be called to stay and take root—becoming a part of the family of God wherever they are, though they may have thought God would take them away.

God’s call may come at any age—think of Abraham and Sarah and their son, Isaac, of Zachariah and Elizabeth and their son, John—even of Mary in her youth and Joseph who did not expect the call of God either. The magi, the disciples, the earliest churches were not expecting God—yet God was revealed all around and within. God was revealed unexpectedly and full of grace.

Let us open our eyes this season of Epiphany—looking for God, expecting God but not predicting or prescribing what we will find.

To the glory of God—hope in despair, grace in condemnation, and love amid loneliness. Amen.