2024.01.05 | Another Road

Good morning, beloved. I greet you in the name of the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life—Jesus Christ, born into a world of injustice and oppression, but whose love for us calls us to a different way. Peace be with you . . . It’s good to be with you this morning. 

This past Advent season, we journeyed to Bethlehem. We had an excellent tour guide and bus driver if you recall. We prepared ourselves to receive the light of God in the form of the birth of the Christ Child. We beheld the glory of God in the form of a gentle babe. The candles of our souls were lit. But now, as the story of Jesus’ birth unfolds, we find ourselves confronted with the journey of return, and with a need stronger than ever to keep the light going. Let us follow the lead of the magi. 

These foreign visitors, wise ones from the East, followed a star to find the newborn King. They stop in Jerusalem, where they ask King Herod where this new King is to be born. Herod, paranoid and power-hungry, asks the chief priests and scribes, and they point him to Bethlehem, just as the Scriptures foretold.

Herod, feeling threatened by this news, asks the Magi to report back to him once they find the child, so that he too may worship Him. But the Magi, warned in a dream, do not return to Herod. They take another road—an alternative route of the beaten path that avoids Herod’s reach.

This little detail is significant. This decision—this defiance—is significant. In this simple act, the Magi embody a form of civil disobedience. They choose to go home by another road to avoid reporting back to Herod, the ruthless ruler who would stop at nothing to destroy the newborn King. The wise ones could have easily gone back the way they came and reported Jesus to Herod, not rocked the boat, collected whatever reward was due them and continued on with their vocations with minimal interruption. But they chose a road less traveled, one that undoubtedly could have wrought real consequences, in spite of their privilege. This was not quiet quitting, they went all in. They chose risk and uncertainty in an attempt to uphold both the dignity of the innocent and the glory of the divine. 

En las últimas semanas hemos viajado a Belén y recibimos la luz de Dios en la forma del nacimiento del Niño Jesús. Pero ahora nos encontramos frente al viaje de regreso. Vamos a ver lo que nos pueden enseñar los reyes magos de esto.

Estos visitantes sabios de Oriente, siguieron una estrella para encontrar al Rey recién nacido. Se detuvieron en Jerusalén, donde preguntaron al rey Herodes dónde nacería este nuevo Rey. Herodes, paranoico y ávido de poder, preguntó a los sumos sacerdotes y escribas, y ellos le indicaron Belén, tal como predijeron las Escrituras.

Herodes, sintiéndose amenazado por esta noticia, pide a los magos que le informen una vez que encuentren al niño, para que él también pueda adorarlo. Pero los magos, advertidos en un sueño, no regresan a Herodes. Toman otro camino, una ruta alternativa que evita el alcance de Herodes.

Este pequeño detalle es significativo. Esta decisión, este desafío, es significativo. En este simple acto, los magos encarnan una forma de desobediencia civil. Eligen volver a casa por otro camino para evitar informar a Herodes. Eligieron un camino menos transitado, uno que sin duda podría haber tenido consecuencias reales. Eligieron el riesgo y la incertidumbre en un intento de defender tanto la dignidad de los inocentes como la gloria de Dios, el niño Jesús.

Have you found yourself at a fork in the road? Confronted with quiet quitting or taking the off-ramp completely? This choice of going it via another road has everything to do with us today. As we stand at the dawning of quite frankly a new political era, we too find that neither can we go back the way we came. Business is no longer being conducted as usual in our own system of government. Indeed, if we are making the road by walking together, we may find that we need to assess its carrying capacity.

The threats of oppression from the incoming administration are not just threats. Nothing is ever just racist rhetoric. Rhetoric itself is not passive, but performative, meant to elicit actions. We have years of evidence to substantiate the transition from previous threats to things more menacing, from pathetic policy to mangled memories of four years ago; epiphany flashes before us and reveals things as they truly are before they even come to pass.  

Many of us are already feeling the weight of the challenges ahead, some more than others—whether it’s new policies that harm the vulnerable, continued rhetoric that divides us, or old systems that perpetuate inequality. In this moment, the example of the Magi calls us to a deeper question: How will we respond? How are we going to go about a different road so that our light is not snuffed out?

In the months ahead, we will face difficult decisions. We may very well be asked to cooperate with systems that we know are not serving the common good, to remain silent in the face of abuses and injustice, or to participate in policies that harm the most vulnerable. But like the Magi, we are called to answer to a higher power, to a God whose vision for the world is radically different from the powers of this world.

Will we bow to the powers of this world that seek to control and oppress? Will we submit to the unjust systems that perpetuate harm and exclusion? Or will we, like the Magi, choose to take another road—a road of resistance, a road of disobedience to the powers that seek to destroy dignity of life, a road that aligns us with the God of liberation and justice? And though it may be filled with obstacles and set-backs, along the way we will celebrate joyously.

For God’s kingdom is not a kingdom of force and fear, but of peace and righteousness. God’s kingdom is not one of division, but of reconciliation. As followers of Christ, we are called to walk in the way of Jesus, who turned over tables, who confronted the powers of his time, and who called us to love our neighbors as ourselves—yes, even our increasingly socially marginalized neighbors. 

Are we willing to make a way with the poor? Are we willing to make a way with migrants? Are we willing to make a way with our trans siblings? Jesus was and so will we.

En los próximos meses nos enfrentaremos a decisiones difíciles. Es muy posible que se nos pida que cooperemos con sistemas que sabemos que no sirven al bien común, que permanezcamos en silencio ante la injusticia o que participemos en políticas que perjudican a los más vulnerables. Pero, como los Reyes Magos, estamos llamados a responder ante un poder superior, ante un Dios cuya visión del mundo es radicalmente diferente de los poderes de este mundo. Vamos a ser como los Reyes Magos que elegiran tomar otro camino: un camino de resistencia, un camino de desobediencia a los poderes que buscan destruir la dignidad de la vida, un camino que nos alinee con el Dios de la liberación y la justicia. Y aunque pueda estar lleno de obstáculos y reveses, a lo largo del camino celebraremos con alegría.

Porque el reino de Dios no es un reino de fuerza y ​​temor, sino de paz y justicia. El reino de Dios no es un reino de división, sino de reconciliación. Como seguidores de Cristo, estamos llamados a caminar en el camino de Jesús, quien dio vuelta las tornas, quien enfrentó los poderes de su tiempo y quien nos llamó a amar a nuestro prójimo como a nosotros mismos, incluso a los marginados.

After journeying, one can never return home the same. In this case, we were changed by the glory of God revealed at Christmas. And so as we return from Bethlehem, we too, as were the Magi, are called to take a detour my friends. We are called to resist the powers that seek to harm, to be agents of justice in a fragmented world, and to answer to a higher power—the God who calls us to love and seek justice for all. It might be bumpy, but we’re gonna get there. Because our God is a God that lays low the mountains and lifts up the valleys to make ways out of no ways. Amen? So, let’s go tell it on the mountain! Let’s share the light with the whole world. And I’ll tell you this, I’m grateful to be on the road again with each and every one of you!

May we, like the Magi, find the courage to take another road—one that leads us toward the kingdom of God, a kingdom where peace, justice, and love reign for all, not just for some. Amen.