Two Paths
Thanksgiving 2025 is now behind us. We all made many choices as to how we spent the day. Some we are grateful for. Some we regret. Am I the only one who may have chosen to trust my eyes more than my stomach? That’s a path I’ve gone down many times before, have regretted it every time, and yet find myself taking it time and again! Sigh...
Historically, the Thanksgiving holiday offers an interesting mix of things to chew on, doesn’t it? On the one hand, it’s a holiday that calls us all to focus on what we are grateful for, remembering that the settlers who came to North America hundreds of years ago took time to be grateful after surviving their first year on new soil. At least in our Hallmark version of history, it was celebrated with fish and foul with neighboring indigenous people. All was well with the world. Except it wasn’t, of course. The decision to leave countries where religious freedom was not tolerated – and quite specifically certain expressions of Christianity were not tolerated by the majority of Christians – led droves of people to try their luck in the new land. Along with their wares they brought their cultural worldview that dictated the path they would take once they made ground. They chose their path that led to all that followed. Looking back, I wonder if there were any regrets regarding how that rolled out?
Robert Frost, famed poet who penned the well-worn poem, The Road Not Taken, legally required to be used at every single graduation ever commenced (so it seems), was originally written for a friend, Edward Thomas. Frost and Thomas would take hikes together, and when they would have to make a choice when they came across a fork in their journey, Thomas would always lament that he may have taken the wrong route and missed something beautiful. He suffered from FOMO before the phrase existed! In case it’s been a minute since you’ve been to a graduation, enjoy the poem below:
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
When Forst would read this poem to various audiences, he would reference his friend and also hint that the poem carried meaning that is often missed in our commencement ceremonies where it is used to support forging our own way into untrodden paths. That’s not really what it’s about. It’s about the difference our choices make. We often assume that the difference Frost’s and Thomas’ decision was positive, but that’s not really stated. We just know that the choices made all the difference. Everyone can agree on that, I think, right?
Nearing the end of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offered more pointed advice for his listeners to consider when they find themselves at a fork in the road:
Go in through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road wide, so many people enter through it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow and the road difficult, so few people find it. – Matthew 7:13-14 CEB
Whereas Frost’s path choices seem equally unworn and the result seemingly benign, Jesus offers a warning. The well-worn, easily trod path, while clearly chosen by many, leads to destruction, while the one that is apparently much more challenging and clearly less taken leads to life. Biblical translator and interpreter Eugene Peterson offers this contemporized expression of Jesus’ advice:
Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention. – Matthew 7:13-14 MSG
This was more than a FOMO problem. Jesus was saying that much more than enjoying a lovely vista was at stake; life in some way was on the line. Taken in the context of his whole teaching in Matthew 5-7, we should not be surprised by his words. He has been offering wisdom and instruction throughout, much of it contrasting popular beliefs and practices. In his sermon he challenged how we determine who is blessed and discover that the script is flipped – the poor, the mourning, and the persecuted (among others) are blessed even though the popular view is that surely, they were not. His instruction to turn the other cheek to those who publicly humiliate you with a slap across the face, his direction to go the extra mile after being forced to carry a Roman soldier’s pack the first mile, and his hyperbolic call give the shirt off your back to the jerk who took you to court to take what very little you had was not about being a nice person, but rather a manifesto of nonviolent resistance. A different approach to those in power to bring about change. His structure of prayer was also different, addressing God and everything else in ways that were rooted in tradition yet not promoted or practiced by the Jews of his day. Taken as a whole, Jesus was describing the narrow path that leads to life.
The way he was pointing was the Way he lived, taught, and modeled. The Way provided the life Jesus found that intimately connected him with the Divine, reshaped his eyes, mind, heart, hands and feet with love for others, and also emboldened him to challenge those who were in the way of The Way. Nonviolent resistance was met with violence that resulted in his death. Jesus’ choices made all the difference. Jesus’ choices led to an incredible life even though it ended tragically. Jesus is inviting his listeners to consider their choices in light of all he taught. We are all going to make decisions about the paths we take. Those choices make all the difference. Like Frost’s friend, Edwards Thomas, we’re going to get to the end of our respective hikes someday. Will we find ourselves having taken the narrow life-giving path that few are on, or the much more popular one that doesn’t deliver the same experience? One may feel right given the mass of people with you, yet may actually rob you of some of the most beautiful, life-giving and life altering vistas from point A to B.
Years ago, we drove to Aspen, Colorado to vacation with Lynne’s side of the family. On the way there we spent some very hot days in Moab, Utah, to see Arches National Park. It was awesome. When we left Moab, we had a choice: take the freeway and make better time, or risk taking the scenic byway which may or may not be very scenic, but definitely slower. We chose the scenic byway and were not disappointed. The route followed the river that had carved its way hundreds of feet creating the canyon we traveled. Longer. Slower. More challenging. Way, way better. Our life choices are like that.
In his classic book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis notes:
The Ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this. We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else – call it “morality” or “decent behavior,” or “the good of society” – has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by “being good” is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call “wrong”: well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call “right”: well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them all right, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on. Because we are still taking our natural self as the starting point.
As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good, or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try to meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, “live for others” but always in a discontented, grumbling way – always wondering why the others do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you then you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish.
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself: my own will shall become yours.” Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your cross” – in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” He means both. And one can just see why both are true...
That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Christ work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne: 2001), 195–201. Copyright © 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.
The Way of Jesus is different yet better for us as individuals and communities and for all of creation. The Way is also bigger than Jesus, bigger that Judaism, and bigger than any single religion. The Way is born of the Divine Shalom that wants wellbeing for all. The Divine constantly calls, invites, and nudges us to follow the narrow path which is The Way Jesus taught and modeled.
If Thanksgiving in the United States is behind us, it means Advent and Christmas are before us. Every character involved in what we call the Christmas Story came to their respective forks in the road. Some embraced the invitation to be part of God’s unfolding story we call Jesus’ birth narrative. Some rejected it. Some violently rejected it. Yet all made their choice of which path to follow.
The Christmas Story can confound us if we get stuck on our modern Western need to take everything literally. As we consider the story in the weeks ahead, which will include a star shining brightly, leading the way to Bethlehem, I invite you to think beyond the literal story. What are the storytellers trying to tell us about God? What are the storytellers trying to foreshadow about Jesus with the details of the story? What are the storytellers wanting us to see about ourselves as human beings?
Elizabeth and Zechariah, Mary and Joseph, the innkeepers, animals, and shepherds in Bethlehem, the Wisdom Seekers from the East, King Herod and his soldiers all recognized that the proverbial star was guiding them to consider taking a narrow path. Some did. Some did not. And it made all the difference. The Star still guides, shining on the road not taken, the narrow path, inviting us to trust it and take it, promising not to disappoint. What does this mean for you today? How do you understand its implications for your life? For others? For all?
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” – Matthew 11:28-30 MSG