Change of Plans

Isaiah 7:10-16

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying,

Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.

Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.

Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph,

but before they lived together,

she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Her husband Joseph,

being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace,

planned to dismiss her quietly.

But just when he had resolved to do this,

an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,

"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,

for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

When Joseph awoke from sleep,

he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him;

he took her as his wife,

but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;

and he named him Jesus.

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret about me.

This is something I don’t talk about too much,

         because it tends to shock and even dismay people

         who think they know me pretty well,

and especially when they are people who for one reason or another

         sense a need to be able to count on me to get things done.

So brace yourselves: here it is.

I think planning is mostly a waste of time.

Now, some of you might be thinking, wait a minute!

Didn’t I hear that you spent most of your first career

         in strategic planning?

Well, yes, that is true.

And then you might have some of those famous sayings about plans popping up in your head:

“Nobody plans to fail, but lots of people fail to plan.” Stuff like that.

But here’s the thing.

The problem with the plans we make is that once we make them,

         we have this compulsion to follow them to completion.

And way too often,

         this compulsion closes ourselves off to God’s plans,

while we are busy trying to make sure that our plans get done, hopefully just the way we planned them.

And this is especially true

         because God’s plans almost always include

         something totally unexpected,

and our plans are almost always made

         in order to keep the unexpected from happening.

Let’s consider Joseph.

Joseph’s plan for his life was taking shape, step by step.

No doubt he had been educated as he grew into manhood,

         not only in the Law, the Torah, but also as a carpenter.

Once he was able to make a living,

         he was ready to marry and start a family.

And he was engaged to be married to Mary.

We can imagine that he had plans for a house for them,

         plans for children who could learn his trade

         and carry it forward.

The kinds of basic plans that most human beings

         have in their heads for a good life, a happy life,

         a life with some essential elements of meaning.

And then he learns about something that blows all his plans apart – his fiancée, Mary, is pregnant.

Now, the Law allows him to have her stoned to death for adultery – and that is what this is considered.

But Joseph, we hear, is a righteous man.

He can’t bear to have her hurt.

So he decides on Plan B – he will quietly divorce her.

He does not want her to be publicly disgraced.

But then, an angel comes along in a dream

         and changes his plan again.

This change starts with a reminder

         that gets to the heart of most of our planning –

“don’t be afraid”.

Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife.

And then comes the shocker – the unexpected, really unbelievable part.

The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. The prophecy you know so well is being fulfilled.

When her son is born, you will name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

So Joseph accepts God’s plan to start his family

         in the midst of what will appear to everyone around him

         to be a scandal, a messy, complicated family situation.

Joseph is obedient to God, and participates in God’s plan,

         even though it blows his life’s plans completely apart.

And we don’t hear it in this reading, but we know

         that this does not result in an easy life for this family

         by any means.

They begin their life together as refugees.

Jesus is born away from home,

         and before they can journey back home

         they are forced to flee from the plans of Herod,

         plans which were developed specifically to eliminate Jesus.

They become refugees in Egypt,

         unable to return to their home until the hateful king has died. When we try to imagine what their lives may have been like,

         we only need to look at the conditions

         that refugees are experiencing around the world today.

We only need to consider

         how we each would embrace and help someone

         who was here in our midst, seeking asylum and a better life, even though we thought they did not belong here.

This was the birth and early life of our Lord and Savior.

Not anything like what his parents would have planned.

But God’s plans are not our plans, and God’s ways are not our ways.

God’s ways are full of unexpected things.

Let’s see in this video how Christmas itself is filled with unexpected things.  This is a short Christmas pageant performed by a church in New Zealand, so listen carefully – the accent is a bit, well, unexpected.

The Unexpected Christmas

God’s ways are unexpected.

And God’s ways are good.

We hear from the prophet Jeremiah,

         “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,

         plans for your welfare and not for harm,

         to give you a future with hope.”

I have come to believe that clinging to our own plans

         tends to close our hearts and minds to God’s plans.

It keeps us heading down paths of our own choosing,

         paths created to pursue the desires of our own hearts.

It causes a noise to grow within us that keeps us from hearing,

         truly hearing, what God is planning for the world,

         what God is calling us to do to participate in that plan.

But preparing is a different story – preparing is different from planning.

Toward the end of my career in strategic planning,

         I was working with my friend and colleague Roland Loup,

         who many of you met earlier this year

         as he facilitated our congregational workshops earlier this year, when we developed this church’s mission statement

         as a guide for our future work.

Roland’s research in executive leadership has moved away from developing strategic plans, and now instead emphasizes strategic purpose, as a way of preparing for the unexpected.

What is the purpose of your organization,

         whether it’s a company, or a church, or a family, whatever,

         that you need to stay focused on

in order to keep centered on what matters most,

especially when the unexpected happens,

when things change and you must turn in a different direction?

How do you prepare for that?

I think this idea also works for followers of Christ.

Through Christ, God has given us the structure

         for the spiritual purpose of our life.

And it is based upon the two commandments

         Jesus told us were the greatest:

Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength;

and Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

This is how we prepare during Advent for the coming of Christ.

When Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him,

         he was acting out of complete love for the Lord God

         in his obedience,

and he was acting out of love for Mary, 

         caring as much about her well-being as his own.

If he had followed through with his own plan,

         Mary would have been alone through her pregnancy and birth. We can question whether she even would have survived it.

It’s hard to imagine that Joseph saw these changes of plans as ones that would make his life easiest or best.

It’s easy to see how any one of us would have turned away from such a situation.

But a spiritually prepared life,

a life of spiritual purpose,

lived in openness to the work of God through the Holy Spirit,

is a life that is shaped around the life and model of Jesus Christ.

trusting in the grace and mercy that alone saves us..

So let us welcome the unexpected changes of plans

         that give us the chance, over and over, to turn,

         to follow Christ, to walk in the light.

Let us be prepared for the unexpectedness of God’s plan.

God has a plan. God’s plan is us.

God’s plans are filled with unexpected things.

May we be always prepared, so that through us,

God’s will may be done. Amen.