Detour
The Macedonian Call, tile mosaic, The Altar of St. Paul, Berea, Greece, courtesy of Edgar Serrano, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ click on img to link to the source.
I’ve paired this reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans with the first reading from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. The first reading records Paul’s experience of a God-inspired detour; the second records his later reflection about such detours: For those who love God, “everything that happens fits into a pattern for good.” I think it’s instructive to look at them together: the experience of faith during an unexpected journey, then, later, the theological reflection about what it all meant.
All this puts me in mind of GPS mapping technology, like with a Garmin device, or Google maps on an iPhone, which gives us a new way of appreciating what this experience feels like. You set out to travel from point “A” to point “B,” and you select a route that looks promising. Then, somewhere along the way, a little electronic voice tells you there’s been a change. Perhaps there’s been a car accident, and the highway you’re on has been closed. Or, perhaps it’s rush hour, and the route that seemed best now has traffic moving along at a snail’s pace. Maybe you just missed your exit. The software recalculates the way to your destination, and the little voice tells you that you’ve been rerouted.
Just so, in life’s journey, a path that initially looks promising may turn out to be a blind alley, and a route that appears to be a dead-end broadens into a wide avenue to your destination. When I reflect back on a month’s activity, I realize this sort of thing happens relatively often. During the day, I often note activities accomplished and people visited that were not on the agenda when the day began. In one respect, my calendaring work is an exercise to discern the hand of God at work in what may feel like a zig-zagging journey.
In the text (Jay/Grace) read for us, we see evidence of how Luke, too, sought to discern the hand of God directing the apostles during what we call “the second missionary journey.” Paul, Luke, and their team wanted to go into the region of Bithynia. But, says Scripture, “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” Instead they went to the seaside community of Troas. While there, Paul heard the call to a new ministry location.
Why did God prevent Paul from going to Bithynia? John Calvin, in his commentary on the passage, struggled with this question. He felt the passage pointed to the free power and calling of God, who is not obligated to abide by human standards or wishes.[1]
The simple answer is that we don’t really know, anymore than we know why some people get to their goals quickly and easily, and others experience many twists and turns in the journey. But sometimes, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see how the rerouting “fits into a pattern for good.”
Commentators have pointed out that the Macedonian Call marks a major turning point in the Christian Story. Because Paul went to Troas rather than Bithynia, the Christian Faith passed from Asia into Europe. Then, because the first missionaries entered Europe and presented the good news of Jesus to Lydia, Christianity expanded westward, and not just eastward. That westward movement means that all of us who trace our roots to Europe owe a debt of gratitude to Paul for obeying God’s call to take a detour.
While Paul’s actions changed history in a dramatic and unusual fashion, the essence of his story is not as rare as it may seem at first glance. We can look relatively close by to the communities struck by recent tornadoes. Our friends in the Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church lunched that day with beautiful blue skies. By dinner time, many of their homes had been damaged, and their church building shattered by the EF3 tornado. They’re struggling with what this detour means for them, and praying for God to bless this unexpected journey to fit into a pattern for good.
Taking a broader view of our life journeys, many of us have traveling a path through life in a certain direction. Then one day we were met by an obstacle. We tried to find a way around it, over it, underneath it, or through it. But this obstacle was one that, for one reason or another, we couldn’t overcome. Finally, we found ourselves moving in a new direction along a path that was not our first choice.
Some of you may have planned to retire, but some unanticipated change in your cash flow means you are still working. Some of you may have planned a certain kind of family life, but a broken relationship destroyed the dream. Some of you may have planned a new venture of one kind or another, but family illness or death made it unwise or even impossible to move in that direction.
How do we live in such circumstances? What do we do when we want to go down one path but have to travel another? How do we deal with the disappointment of being rerouted?
Among other things, we do what St. Paul did. We remember that even when the situation is so bad that we can’t understand it, God can. We remember that even when we can’t overcome the obstacle in our path, God is in control in ways that take that experience of an obstacle, and fit it into a pattern for good.
If you are someone who is in one of those uncomfortable, disappointing, confusing places on life’s journey, I invite you to do the same. Remember that everywhere you are, God is there too. Pray, listen, and learn from conversation with the trusted people in your life. Look for the rerouted path that will get you to the destination God has in store. By God’s grace, may you find that the change in life’s path brings an unexpected blessing to you, and makes your life a blessing to others.
NOTES
[1] John Calvin, “Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles,” chapter 16 verse 6.
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