The Road You Didn’t Plan to Take

New years come with new resolutions. Get back on track. To do the thing – lose the weight, read the book, hit the gym, skip the drink, manage the time,… Have you noticed that most new years’ resolutions are based in self-discipline, self-control? We assume that life is linear. If I do these things, my path will be straight and I’ll meet my goals. Kayla Craig is a devotional writer who shares these wise words, “As we embrace another new year, we often look at what was, so that we can more surely enter into what will be. Our paths are rarely linear, woven with threads that twist and turn unexpectedly.”

On Epiphany Sunday, we celebrate the wise ones who traveled to worship the newborn King of the Jews. Historians tell us that they were looking for something…or someone…different than they found. The wise ones came from Persia, which almost 300 years early had come under the rule of Alexander the Great, and part of the Greek Empire of Macedonia, which after about 100 years had fallen to the Roman Empire. So, Persia had been living under occupation for 300 years – the first 100 years had been Greek, the last 200 years had been Roman – and they longed for their culture to be restored, to have a Persian ruler who would respect their practices, their way of life, and their religion. So, when they saw a bright star appear in the night sky, that seemed to be moving, they followed it West, hoping it meant a new king in Judea. Kelley Nikondeha, author of The First Advent in Palestine, argues that they weren’t looking for a new king for themselves but for a break in the Roman Empire, an opening for a new king for themselves and a restoration of Persia.

At first, I didn’t like the idea that the wise ones weren’t looking to worship a new King of the Jews. But, then I paused and really thought about it. Isn’t this the way God leads us? We go seeking one thing for ourselves – they went to honor that the Jews had a new king now and would be breaking free of the Roman Empire, hoping that it meant new freedom for them as well. And, that is exactly what they got, only not in the way they expected, and so much more than they expected. Even at his birth, God was expanding the narrative. The Jews believed that they were people of God and Gentiles were not. Yet, when the long-awaited Messiah was born, he was worshiped first not by Temple authorities – chief priests and elders – but by shepherds who were not allowed into the Temple courts and foreign Gentiles. The wise ones came and offered their gifts to him not realizing that he was not just King of the Jews but King of Kings, and he would indeed change the political and religious dynamics of their world, but not in the ways they expected. So, what do we learn from their journey?

1. The wise ones surely created a strategic plan for their trip, but the result of their travel was not what they expected. Not only was it ok, it was beyond what they could have planned.

2. They didn’t know the direction to take, except to follow the light. Their long and winding journey reveals the truth that life’s path rolls out in front of us with unexpected twists and turns. Not only is it ok to feel uncertain or lost, we can only see as far as the light falls. There is no way for us to have everything figured out.

3. They listened to God’s nudge in their dreams to go home by another way, even though it required them to disobey Herod to protect the child. Presbyterian pastor Rev. Lisle Garrity offers this correlation between the experience of the wise ones and ours: “We will surely encounter barriers, detours, and deterrents along the way. And if we’re listening closely to God’s still, small voice, we may find ourselves stepping on a new path.” Not only is it ok if your path hasn’t led where you thought it would, may you have the courage to be open to where God might be leading you to protect the vulnerable.

4. And when the wise ones left, an angel came to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and become asylum seekers – escape across the border in the night into Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for this child to kill him.” So he got up, took the Christ child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where they stayed until the death of Herod. Leave – everything you have ever known, your people, your homeland, and go live at the mercy of your people’s former enslavers. Go to Egypt – with no plan for feeding your family, for a place to sleep – as undocumented immigrants. Not only was it not the road they planned to take – it wasn’t smooth, and it wasn’t safe! Yet, they didn’t go alone. God went with them and made a way.

There is a line of a prayer that comes to mind whenever my heart wants to ask God WHY THIS path? O God, you know the lives we live and the deaths we die – woven so strangely of purpose and of chance. We would like to comfort ourselves that everything happens for a reason – and many things do. My washing machine started making a terrible sound this week – there’s a reason – I don’t know what it is, but there is one – probably a belt or a bearing or the motor. And if we figure out the reason and repair it; it will stop. That is the why we like to figure out the reason – we think we can get ourselves back on track.

What is going to happen, though, if you drop a glass ornament? It’s going to break. Cause and effect. We know the reason, but we can’t fix it. Yet, when I dropped one of the glass balls as I was decorating the Christmas tree this year, it bounced and did not break. When I was diagnosed with cancer the first time, Lizzie was 4. She wanted to know what caused it, and whether she could catch it. It wasn’t genetic. It wasn’t a result of anything I did or was exposed to. No reason that we could name, and no guarantee that we could fix it. It just happened. Life interrupted…detour…possibly meeting back up father along the way, but certainly not travelling the road we planned. There are some “life interrupted” turns that are communal, you may remember the Thanksgiving tornado of Germantown, the Memphis ice storm of 1994, Hurricane Elvis of 2003, Germantown floods of 2017, March 2020 COVID shutdown. But many are personal. When has your life been interrupted?

Woven so strangely of purpose and chance. God created us with free will, so much in the world is the consequence of chance, how the ornament bounces, who will experience a traumatic event or diagnosis…

Just like Mary and Joseph as they fled to a foreign land with their infant son, God goes with us.

Just like the wise ones ready to go home, God leads us even when we need to take a different road.

Just like the wise ones when they arrived in Jerusalem, unsure where to go next, there is no way for us to have our path fully mapped out.

Just like the wise ones, we come from our struggles, hoping for Jesus to make a way for things to be better, and God responds as we offer the broken pieces of what has broken – some of it we know the reasons it has broken, some of it is cause and effect, some of it is chance – and when we trust and love God, every road we did not plan to take is able to be purposeful, used for good. The difference isn’t in the origin of the interruption, the difference isn’t in the reason for life interrupted or the detour we are taking. The difference is in the way we choose to travel. Thanks be to God. Amen.