From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.
From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 4:12-17, excerpt from Sunday’s Gospel
We have our plans, but then God has his plans for us.
When the wise men inquire about God’s plan for a future, saving king of David’s line, they are told he will be born in Bethlehem of Judea, only a few miles from Jerusalem. Undoubtedly the scribes and Herod, as well as the Jewish population at large expected the new successful king would be raised there, too, as David had been. This was the short, direct, “logical” and typical human response. Short…and incorrect.
Instead, the holy family takes a couple of years detour to Egypt and, upon returning to Israel, they settle many miles north, in Nazareth, a small town amid a mix of populations, lands originally apportioned to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. Those tribes that had never been strong enough to oust the pagans from their territory. They had been largely expropriated and exiled by the Babylonians, and for many centuries after had lived cheek-by-jowl with the various ethnic groups making up the Hellenistic culture imposed by Alexander the Great and his heirs. How did this area look to serious Jews further south in Judea and Jerusalem? Since the time of the prophet Isaiah, it had been described as “Galilee of the Gentiles,” and, later, when Philip invites Nathaniel to come hear Jesus, Nathaniel retorts with a common proverb, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:45-46)
We have our plans, but then God has his plans for us. Ours tend to be short and direct. I want to become a whatever—I’ll major in the right degree plan to become a whatever. Or I’ll apply for a whatever job. Instead, I’m not accepted for the program that does that. Instead, in another happenstance, I’m talking to my girlfriend’s dad and realize he’s into something that might be an alternative. Or a friend will say, “let’s take a little trip to city X and meet some people doing an interesting thing you might also like” and…things take an unexpected turn. Looking back, 20 year later, we can see a step-by-step connection we would not have grasped at first, but which now has brought us to a place that “fits” for us. Not short and direct, but rather indirect, often long, and with unlooked for benefits earned from surmounting difficulties.
When Herod and the scribes look at God’s plan, they think short and direct—they think Bethlehem is the whole story. Their idea of God’s plan is simple: military victory for David’s heir. God’s actual plan is so much larger: everlasting life for all his people. As we read in Isaiah 49:6
It is too little, the LORD says, for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
God’s plan must fit the Jews—but also the pagans. It has got to be “translatable,” One key element is that David’s heir must be able to talk to both Jews and pagans, must be comprehensible to his own people and to those who are not. Step one, then—if you grow up in Nazareth, you speak Aramaic (as the Jews of the day did) but you will also know and likely use Greek, the language of Alexander’s far-flung empire. Nazareth may look like a detour, but it was the direct path to what God knew was needed.
We all must plan our day, our month, our year, and that is good. From God’s view, our plan may be “too little” whether our plan is for something large and long range or some something we regard as small and immediate. We must learn to leave all our plans open to the unexpected twists and turns God pulls us into for some even greater good.
For further reflection:
God loves us here and now as only God can–massively, completely. We need to realize this means He sees our faults, weaknesses, blind spots, and out-and-out sins thoroughly and completely, too. He knows all the things about us that must change if we are to live in the total joy of heaven with Him forever. Much needs to be corrected, much growth must take place, “holes” in our growing up must be filled in and integrated into our total being. Every single one of us is a big project. Healing, growth, insight, handling forgiveness, etc. all these things take time. God is working on us, with us, for us in a dozen different ways every single day. No wonder things cannot go smoothly as we hope and tend to expect! Often, we will experience the beginning of His work on us as a new challenge. Given how reluctant we are to change, this should not be a surprise. Our prayer should be “God, help me to work with you on this today.”