March 30, 2025 Sermon

Transcript >

I recently discovered one of my favorite little regional oddities, and it's up in Frederick County off of Maryland 194. Right before you get to New Midway Elementary School, there is a very permanent road with a very permanent road sign.

And this road is called Detour Road. What's even better is that in digging into this strange occurrence and strange road name, I discovered that Detour Road leads to, of all places, Detour, Maryland.

It will not surprise you to know that Detour, Maryland, population somewhere south of 2,000 folk, is still unincorporated and still out of the way of most of the world outside its borders. Detour was and is aptly named. At the beginning of last century, the Pennsylvania Railroad built south into Maryland. And for some reason, in their infinite wisdom doing the surveying work that they did, they determined that this little out-of-the-way place was the perfect location for a station stop.

Even though it existed decently far from any of its antebellum neighbors—Thurmont, Emmitsburg, Taneytown, etc.—it was from the get-go an honest detour, a diversion from the long-established and expected pathways.

I've been thinking about that image of a detour this week as we reflect on the great parable of the prodigal son and our Lenten theme of quiet as returning. As a priest, it is almost axiomatic that detour is part of my life. I remember my first week of seminary. We broke out into small groups and shared our call narratives with one another—that is, our story of how and when we experienced our call to ministry. And without fail, I think every one of us had some narrative of, "I had a call. I detoured and tried to do anything else, but it just wouldn't go away."

I suspect that many of us can relate to this experience of detour as diversion. Like the prodigal son, we get off track pursuing desires or drives of our own making that get us tied into knots and disoriented. Only then, like all good detours hopefully do, to eventually find us back pointed in the right direction and back on track.

Like the prodigal son, the Israelites in our passage from Joshua today experience an almost instantaneous reprieve, a sense of relief that they are at least headed toward the light again. The Israelites are not yet fully in their new life in the land of promise, but they’re at least out in the wilderness, and they’re able to enjoy the first fruits of their return.

Even before reaching his father's house, the prodigal son has this sense of relief. He has this sense that he is finally going back to something that is better. That even if he returns as a laborer in the field of his father's house, his life will be better than it is now.

It's like those times when you take a detour, and the signs and guideposts seem to be taking you further and further away from where you thought you were supposed to be heading. And yet, at some point, there's that moment—that landmark or some sort of indicator that pops up—and you think, "Ah, I know where I am again. I now see the path of return. I now know how to get back on track."

There’s a sense of immediate relief in all of this. If you remember back to the very beginning of this season, we had a call to a holy Lent on Ash Wednesday. In that call, we are exhorted in this season to be put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the gospel of our Savior and the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

The detours we find ourselves on are journeys back to repentance and faith, moments of quiet as emptying, quiet as listening, quiet as waiting. Now, in this fourth Sunday of Lent, it is quiet as returning—the beginning of the process of renewal and getting back on track.

This Sunday, Laetare Sunday, Rejoicing Sunday—the Sunday when we are back on that final stretch, the final few weeks of Lent—our detour is finally showing us signs and guideposts that are familiar, welcoming, and recognizable. Our journey is not over, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm also, however, struck by detour as a destination in itself, as we find with Detour, Maryland. So often, we think about detours as the sideways, the indirect or alternative paths that we sometimes go down, where things sometimes go sideways, as it were, from which we return to the path that we were originally on.

But the root of detour is of Middle French origin, destourner, which does not just mean a temporary diversion but also a turning away—a reorientation into a new direction entirely. A detour that takes you in a different direction from the one in which you were headed, and possibly a direction that is new and different from the one in which you came.

I think about that sense of detour as we hear our epistle reading from 2 Corinthians, where St. Paul says, "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new." The detour is the new reality, the new beginning, the new way of life.

As is often observed, our Lenten disciplines are not just temporary acts of contrition or repentance, but they are an invitation into a new way of life. The hope, the aspiration, is that these practices we take on in this season will become our new normal. They will become the new way in which we live and move and have our being in God, and the way in which we communicate the gospel news of Christ’s coming among us to the world around us.

So this Sunday, as we focus on quiet as returning, as we consider the detours of life that we encounter—the ways in which we are brought back onto the pathway, or sometimes discovering a new pathway entirely, a new way of life, a new way of being—I invite us to embrace that return. To embrace the light at the end of the tunnel, to see the new path before us, the returned path, the love and light of God, which guides us into greater joy, greater love, and greater compassion.

And as we hear this invitation today, may we, like the prodigal son, like the Israelites, have a glimpse of that joy. This Sunday of reprieve, of rejoicing, may we rejoice too. Even as our journey continues, may we have that sense of elation that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.