This year, Route 66 marks 100 years, and so I was pretty excited when I realized that it would make a good sermon illustration for not just one, but several of my sermons. 🙂 nothing like jumping on the bandwagon, right?
When Route 66 was first completed, in 1926, it took 1 ½ to 2 weeks to travel the entire 2,448 miles. The route wasn’t yet fully paved then, and vehicles then weren’t capable of going as fast as vehicles are capable of today, and there were too many sharp twists and turns to go very fast, anyway.
But as the years went by, cars got faster, and improvements were made to the road. Parts of it were realigned, to bypass cities, smooth out the curves, and shorten the distance.
And travelers, I’m sure, were grateful for the improvements, which shortened the duration of their trips considerably.
Then, starting in the 1950s, the interstate highway system began to replace Route 66. The interstates were faster and safer. One could now travel all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica in just a few days. Route 66 became obsolete, and, in 1985, was officially decommissioned in 1985.
So it is somewhat ironic that many people today—and, especially, this year—will go out of their way to follow the historic route, as much as they can, even though it takes longer. They could stick to the interstates, go all the way in just 3 days, give or take; yet they purposely extend that to 2 weeks or more, taking what is now a more roundabout way to cross the country. From a strictly logical standpoint, it doesn’t make any sense.
And yet, for many, it makes perfect sense. Because their goal isn’t just to reach their destination. Their goal is to make the most of their journey.
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It’s funny. This sermon is out of order.
This is the last sermon based on a scripture we’re using at camp this summer. I was going to preach on this scripture back on April 26. That would have kept all these scriptures in the same order as they appear in the camp curriculum.
But April 26 ended up being music Sunday, so I kept all the other scriptures where they were, but moved this one to the end.
Which means this sermon has sort of taken its own roundabout way; or, we’ve taken a roundabout path to get to this scripture.
Just like the longer, roundabout way people still use when they try to follow the historic path of route 66…
Just like the Israelites, who followed a roundabout way when they left Egypt.
Yet even though this scripture and its focus on the roundabout way got moved to today, the idea of following a roundabout way has been popping up in our life together throughout these past weeks, has it not?
I mean, we continued with New Beginnings, and began meeting in house groups, where we were admonished to resist the urge to jump ahead, but to instead just follow the path, trusting that there is meaning and purpose in the journey itself, and not just at the destination.
And, a little more personally for me, I discovered, during these past few weeks, that I could walk to church from my new home, and that it really didn’t take all that long.
It does take longer than driving; but that’s kind of the point. Right?
I found value in the slower way. I discovered that it’s a good time for me to pray, meditate, and listen for God. It’s also a good way to learn new things about our community, since driving takes you too quickly to notice all the things you pass by on your way.
Depending on my schedule and the weather, I now try to walk to church at least once a week.
To some, that may not make sense.
It didn’t make sense to me, when I was a child and first started hearing and reading stories from the Bible, that it would take the Israelites 40 to travel from Egypt to the promised land.
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I found the maps in the back of my Bible, and I looked at them and calculated how many miles (approximately) that journey entailed, and I figured that it should have taken a lot less time than it did for them to reach their destination.
And then I remembered that, earlier in the Bible, there is the story of Abraham—I think he was still called Abram at that point—and that God called Abraham to leave his home and to journey to a new land… And the Bible says that Abraham and his household journeyed by stages.
“Journeyed by stages?” Why didn’t they just do it all at once, just complete the whole journey, get it over with?
No. They “journeyed by stages,” a little bit at a time, which means it took a lot longer for them to get to their destination than it needed to.
How many great, epic stories involve a journey? A hero’s journey? A monomyth?
A character leaves their ordinary world, faces a series of trials, undergoes a transformation, and returns with a gift to share, a gift that benefits their community or the world?
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So many movies tell a version of this story:
Star Wars. Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings. The Lion King. Moana. The Wizard of Oz. Dune. And, coming soon: The Odyssey.
They all involve a journey—often a literal journey, but sometimes a metaphorical one—a journey that necessarily takes time. A journey that involves challenges and obstacles and tests. A journey on which the challenges they face all help them grow stronger, and discover who they are; discover the gifts they possess, and how they are to use those gifts.
And the journey cannot ever be rushed. Everything that happens along the way is a necessary and important part of the journey.
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The Israelites needed their journey. They needed to take the roundabout way. They needed to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
Because they needed to discover who they were. They needed to learn that they were God’s people, that they were meant to be free, and that the gifts they had as a people were to help them be a blessing to the nations.
Along their journey, they faced battles. They faced uncertainty. At times, they became disillusioned, and even longed to go back to Egypt when the going got tough.
Every hero on a journey has that moment when they long to give up and go home.
Yet every hero persists. Every hero endures the tribulation. Every hero learns to rely on their own strength, and also to rely on the strength of strangers and friends they encounter along the way.
I’ve heard it said that it didn’t take 40 years for God to get the Israelites out of Egypt; it took 40 years for God to get Egypt out of the Israelites.
Egypt was within them. Egypt was in their hearts and their minds. They couldn’t just shake Egypt out of themselves, like a dog coming out of a pond and shaking the water off.
It took some time. They had to learn to let go of Egypt and Egypt’s ways.
And letting go takes time.
Today’s scripture says that God led the Israelites the roundabout way because God wanted them to avoid having to face the Philistines. They had just left Egypt. They hadn’t even made it to the Red Sea yet.
In fact, they probably wouldn’t have had to cross the Red Sea at all, had they taken the most direct route to the promised land.
But the Philistines were in the way. So the Israelites took the roundabout way, and the roundabout way led them directly to the Red Sea.
And at first, it must have seemed to them that things had just gone from bad to worse. They were not ready for the Philistines, but how could they cross a sea? They had no boats.
And as they approached the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s army came up behind them; now they were trapped.
Wouldn’t it have been better for them to take the direct route, and take their chances against the Philistines?
The roundabout way often does not make sense to us. Not in the moment, anyway. In the moment, there appears to be no good, logical reason to be in the place where you are at: your destination is in one direction, and here you are, having gone in the opposite direction, and now you’re stuck. Trapped, with no way of escape.
The Israelites saw no possible way out. They complained to Moses, saying: “Was it because there were no GRAVES in Egypt that you brought us out here to die in the wilderness?”
But the first lesson of their journey was about to take place. And that lesson was: When it seems there is no way, God provides a way.
The Israelites needed to learn to rely not only on their own strength, but on the power of God.
Following God’s command, Moses led the people right to the water’s edge. Then Moses lifted his staff, and stretched his hand out over the sea; and the sea was parted, with a path going through the middle of the water. And the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians. And the people, it says, believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
Lesson learned.
For now.
I say that, because it wasn’t long before they again began to doubt themselves, and doubt God, and doubt that this journey would succeed. They needed to learn to rely on themselves, and rely on God, over and over again.
Which is why their journey took so darn long.
We often have our sights fixed on our destination; and that’s good. We need to know where we’re going, otherwise, how will we ever get there?
But often, we overlook the importance of the journey it takes to get there. We fail to appreciate all there is to learn and experience along the way.
Maybe, sometimes, that’s why God keeps us where we’re at, instead of letting us move forward. Oh, God will take us forward eventually, or push us forward, or something… but not until we’ve learned what there is to learn in this moment, in this place.
And then, when we do, finally, arrive at our destination, we will arrive having learned all that God wanted us to learn. We will realize that we are more capable than we thought; more powerful; with more wisdom.
We will recognize the gifts we have that we didn’t even know we had.
And we will know that we are indeed truly blessed, not just because we have reached our destination, but because of the journey it took to get there.
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