Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 2:1-12:
Most of us have particular roads on which we like to
travel. For the most part, we always go
to and from work the same way, we go to the grocery store the same way, we go
to church the same way. We do this so
much that there are times when we totally disengage while driving and we end
up, usually at home, and we don’t remember doing the drive at all. We know the route so well that we don’t even
really have to be involved in doing it any more. Now this does not mean that this route is necessarily
the best route to take, the easiest or the quickest, although we would probably
argue that it is, but it is the route that we are most used to and so it’s what
we do. And we stay on that route unless
something pushes us off of it, construction, and accident or perhaps a major
snow storm. Normally, there are multiple
ways to do something, multiple routes to take, but we don’t take them because
it’s not how we normally go and we don’t really want to change anything. We like our particular road just fine, thank
you very much. Even if it’s not really
working for us anymore, we’re going to stick to it, because gosh darn it we’re
not quitters. Finding a different road
isn’t really all that hard, most of the time, but it’s making the decision to
go home by a different road that’s the tough part.
Of course the church is not necessarily the best place to be
talking about trying new things, not just because new things tend to be
resisted by many people, although I haven’t yet heard any complaints about the
new seating arrangements, but even more because the church itself likes to keep
things the same. It’s part of that whole
tradition thing, and we could sing right along with Tevye, and the fact that we
celebrate the same things every year, and so we find ourselves today, just like
this time last year, celebrating Epiphany which is the arrival of the wise men
who come to see and worship Jesus. The
actual celebration of Epiphany is January 6, as today is only the tenth day of
Christmas, and I hope to find my ten lords a leaping wrapped in my office after
worship, but we celebrate epiphany today since I don’t figure most of you would
be here for worship on the 6th, plus the fact that the 6th
is the anniversary of Linda and my first date and so she wouldn’t be really
happy with me if I was to be here.
