Community Church Sermons

Year A

December 26, 2010

The First Sunday after Christmas

Home by Another Way

Matthew 2:13-23

Rev. Dr. R. Tim Meadows

It is one of those life events that I will never forget. Shannon and I were making our way “home” to West Tennessee from our seminary home in South Louisiana to visit with our parents. We had stopped at our college alma mater to visit with friends there early in the day, as we left there and made our way to my parents home, the weather took a violent and unexpected turn for the worse. By the time we reached the county that separated our college from my parents’ home we found ourselves in the middle of some significant flash flooding. We were only mildly concerned by this however, since both of us had driven this particular stretch of road, so often, that we could almost drive it in our sleep. (Truth is we probably had done that a time or two but that is a whole other story.) Our mild concern however, changed abruptly, when we saw him. He was a Tennessee State Trooper, posted on this familiar stretch of road, to inform us and others who were travelling, that the road we knew was too flooded to travel any further, and if we were going to continue our journey, we would have to go home by another way.

Twice connected to the birth of Jesus these same instructions are given. Once to the family of Jesus and once to those we have come to call wise men. In both cases, the instructions are given to protect Jesus from the wicked intentions of the ruling Herod who wants to destroy him. Our New Testament lesson today focuses on the instructions given to the family of Jesus. The instructions given are designed to protect his young life and ultimately to get him home by another way.

Though not presumptuous enough to compare my earlier described journey with the journey of Jesus, I learned some things in that journey which I think are also true about this Jesus story. I learned that:

- Sometimes another way is the safest and most secure route, even if it is not the most familiar. In our stormy journey that evening we covered terrain that I had never seen before or since. Terrain that without clear direction would have left us hopelessly lost, even on a clear day, but the path had been marked and well prepared and despite our unfamiliarity we arrived at our destination in a timely fashion. Life sometimes lures us to the familiar even when it is dangerous, and our temptation is to go with what we know, but like Mary and Joseph, and myself, we have to see that sometimes another way is best.

- Going home by another way reminds us of the sheer uncertainty of daily living. In truth, the patterns we work so hard to establish and become comfortable with, are always being interrupted. As I reflect on that road that I was certain I was familiar with, I must confess that in the years that I travelled there, that road had been in constant change. Bypasses had been established to make it more efficient. Stores and motels had opened and closed. Houses had been constructed and deconstructed, it truly was not the same stretch of road it once had been. Change was in fact its only constant. By the time the family of Jesus gets this, the latest revelation from God, they are no doubt accustomed to change. Life is just like that. Sometimes it takes an uncertain journey home by another way to remind us that life is better lived as an adventure than as a detailed plan.

- Going home by another way makes us dependent on strangers. We learn in these journeys the value of community and relationships. We are reminded that God never intended us to live in isolation and that on our own we are quite deficient at living life fully and effectively. As they went home by another way Jesus’ family found themselves dependent on the kindness of Egyptians and adoption by Nazarenes. As we made our stormy journey toward our destination, I was never so happy to see a uniformed state trooper demanding that we stop for his instructions. We humans are always averse to strangers until we need them, or they need us, and then strangers become friends and friends form relationships as community. (Sound like any place you have ever been?) Sometimes we have to go home by another way for that to happen, but when it does it blesses us, and pleases God. AMEN!