By Another Road

Matthew 2:1-12

I’m glad to see you all again. I haven’t seen many of you seen Christmas, and a lot has happened since then. Last time I saw you we were huddling around candlelight trying to sing Silent Night together. From up here, it looked kind of comical, and I’m glad we got those lights fixed!

Since the last time I saw you, most of you have probably put away your Christmas trees and nativity scenes. Your family has come and gone, or, perhaps, you have traveled afar to see loved ones. Some of you even left the house once to come to church last Sunday—even though it was frigid, icy weather. It is also a new year.

And while it is good to see you again, I have a confession: I hope you are not the same person you were 12 days ago. Don’t get me wrong: I liked you before. And I hope celebrating Christmas changed you in some way. It is a religious holiday, after all. It didn’t end until yesterday on Epiphany—when the magi arrive in Bethlehem.

 Where do you find yourself now that Christmas is over?

 My hope is that you find yourself alongside the magi.

They can be a comical bunch, too; you’d get along. The children today made excellent magi. Matthew’s portrayal of these people is a little outlandish. They are astrologers. They come bearing smelly things and gold. We have made up names for these people. We’ve given them all sort of titles. Matthew really wanted to drive the point home that these were the most Gentile Gentiles possible. They might as well have  been wearing Hawaiian shirts.  These Gentile Gentiles were coming to welcome the newborn king of Israel.

And the image of the magi that remains with us is an image of them on their knees. It is a good image. It is biblical. “Falling to their knees, the magi honored the Christ child.” But that’s NOT the end of the story. There’s no reason for us to stop right there.

Christmas does not end with us on our knees. Christmas involves adoration, but that’s not where the story ends. The magi get up by the end of the story.  What was the first step like after getting up from their knees? When the magi rose, they had been given a new way.

When we celebrate Christmas faithfully, I imagine that we might find ourselves at the same place the magi are at the end of this story: returning home by another road.

And that is why I hope to find you among the magi at the end of Christmas.

By another road—such a strange way to end this story. The magi didn’t return the same way they came. They are different people now.

By another road—there was no reason for them to fall down before this supposed king of the Jews. They were simply foreign dignitaries coming to welcome the birth of new royalty. They were serving as ambassadors. They probably didn’t know the gifts they brought fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy.

Something else must have happened. Something must have changed for them.

By another road—do these words get lost in this larger than life story? We don’t lose the star. We don’t forget the confused, insecure Herod. We remember the frankincense, gold, and myrrh. We even add camels and names and numbers are sorts of details. However, we sure do lose those last three words.

By another road­­—those words are so fascinating because Christianity was once called the Way. And the phrase could have just as easily been translated by another way.

When this story was first told, Christian faith was often called “the Way”—or the Road. It’s the same word for the road and the way. The magi come looking for Jesus, and Jesus gives them a new way. The first thing Jesus does in the Gospel of Matthew is give the magi a new way. This makes sense for a child who grows into an adult who says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

By another road—I imagine we came here today by a lot of different roads. I imagine that we come to God in a variety of ways. That’s okay. It is really not my place to judge. Flannery O’Connor once said, “Must of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow.” But it doesn’t really mater how we got here, because once we are felled in the presence of God, Jesus Christ shows us another way.

By another road—I remember the first time I went home by another road. It was likely the first time that I had left the house without my family. It was the first day of kindergarten. My mother escorted me to the bus that morning, and I became a proud pupil in Mr. Hinkle’s class. When the morning kindergarten dismissed at Stewart Elementary School, we were guided back to the yellow buses and boarded them. Once I was on the bus, something strange happened. Some kids were getting off the bus and going home. Others kids were getting on the bus to go afternoon kindergarten.

No one ever told me to get off the bus. I rode the bus all the way back to kindergarten! I returned the same way I came.

The bus pulled into the parking lot. I got off and went to back to Mr. Hinkle’s classroom. I didn’t know what else to do. Meanwhile my mother was terrified that I had not gotten off the bus. She refused to leave the house—hoping for my imminent arrival. She called a friend whose daughter was in my class, and my mom’s friend was waiting for me when I returned to the classroom.  She had come in search of me. Then Mrs. Harmon took me home by another way—by another road. My mother’s friend came to show me the way home. She rescued me from aimless wandering.

By another road—that’s a perfect place to end Christmas.  We see that God has come to show us the way home. Like the hug I got on the first day of school, God welcomes us home like a mother welcoming kindergartener.

By another road—the magi could save just dropped off their gifts on the doorstep the way they came. They could have returned to life just as they had known it. We could so the same thing. We could come and sing to God this morning, and return home like it didn’t matter. You could serve someone and then forget about them.

Frederick Buechner once quipped that “a Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who at least was some dim and half-baked idea on who to thank.”  

And the more I stumble across these words “by another way,” I become less concerned about what we bring to God at Christmas. I just hope we are on another road with some notion of who to thank.

I doubt these Gentiles knew they were fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah with these gifts. What if this story is not about what the magi brought to Jesus, but it is about what God gives to the magi? It is about what God gives to us.

God gives us another road. God shows us a new way.

That’s where I hope we end on Christmas—on a new road alongside the magi. We don’t have to go home the same way we came; it might not even be possible.

Or as Anne Lamott once put it, “God loves us enough to meet us exactly where we are, but loves us too much to keep us there.” 

* * * 

Of course, this is no inconsequential thing for the magi. If they return the way they came, Herod would try to quash the Christ child. He tries anyway.

To return the old way would be to compromise the birth of Jesus Christ. There is no return home by the old road once we encounter God.

There are plenty of examples of this.

 Here is the life on the old road: Love your neighbor and hate your enemies

And here is going home by another road: Love you enemies as yourself and bless those who persecute you.

Here is the life on the old road: The Emperor is the son of God, and you owe him homage.

And here is going home on another road: A poor Palestinian Jew by the common name of Jesus—born to an unwed mother—is the son of God; and you are a child of God.

Here is the life on the old road: Everything is defined by fear and scarcity.

And here is going home by another road: The lion down with lambs. Swords beat into plowshares. Scarcity overwhelmed by abundance.

 Here is the life on the old road: The poor go hungry. The foreigner overlooked. Widows forgotten. Lepers outcast.

And here is going home on another road: The last shall be first. The hungry filled with good things. The lowly lifted up.

Here is the life on the old road: You are burdened with sin and shame.

And here is going home on another road: You are forgiven.

And here is life on the old road: That which is dead is defeated. There is no hope—only despair.

And here is going home on another road: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Christ is risen. Alleluia.

The magi had two roads to choose from. They could accommodate of the ways of Herod, and return to the old world. They could pretend like this encounter of God never happened, and return to the dissatisfying yet familiar ways to which the had grown accustomed.

Or they could listen to the dream God had placed in their hearts, and take the new way home. If this truly is the first act of Jesus Christ, then we, too, are faced with the truth that Jesus comes to take us home.

Jesus comes to take us home by another road. Jesus comes to take home by a new way. Jesus come to get us off the bus and deliver us back home. Jesus comes to restore us to God and ourselves and one another. Jesus comes to welcome us home.

* * * 

If you didn’t end Christmas rubbing shoulders with magi by the other road, it is not too late. Even though Epiphany was yesterday, we’ll celebrate today to give us a little extra time to catch up with the magi.

When you come to this table today, you can leave it by another road. Jesus Christ shows us a new way at this table. We meet Jesus here, and his first act is to show us another way. Jesus wants to take us home.