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“Rescuing Joseph”
Matthew 1:18-25
December 23, 2007
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 free 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 Joseph named him Jesus.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Searching for Joseph
There are so many good sermons that jump off the page from today’s text: Mary’s miraculous pregnancy, the angels, the dream, the prophecies, even the name Jesus itself. But this week as I read through Matthew’s words, I found myself noticing that the main character in today’s little play isn’t the one I expected. Mary’s there of course and the angel, and the narrator. But the one standing in the spotlight is Joseph. And as I considered preaching a sermon on Joseph, it occurred to me that I don’t know a great deal about Joseph. Do you?
There’s not a lot of talk about Joseph, and even less singing about poor Joseph. When I flipped through our blue hymnal, I found the lyrics we sang earlier: King of kings, yet born of Mary.
I ran into “To a Maid Engaged to Joseph.”
I sang through “What Child is This…who laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?”
I found “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child—lowly in the manger…”
I hummed the tune to “Still, still, still, he sleeps this night so chill. The Virgin’s tender arms enfolding, warm and safe the child is holding.”
And I ended with “Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright, round yon Virgin, mother and child…”
But where is Joseph?
He’s got to be there somewhere. Last Sunday I was nervous enough having to sing Mary’s part in the children’s play. There’s no way I would have done it without a Joseph singing with me!
I think most of us know the gist of the nativity story by now, whether we studied it in Scripture, or heard it read by preachers, or watched our children act it our year by year in Christmas pageants. One way or another, we’ve already met the characters:
The Shepherds, with their walking-stick crook and cottony sheep;
the Wise Men, with their exotic clothes and gifts;
the angels, with their construction paper halos and white bed sheet robes;
and certainly the animals—as we saw last Sunday: the sheep and lion and hawk and cow and dove.
They were there, along with doe-eyed young Mary, gazing with adoration at the holy bundle in the manger. We even know what to do with fictional characters like the little drummer boy. We know his lines and costume and props! But what, what about Joseph?
Has he ever been the focus? Well, as far as I can tell, not often. He’s had a few moments of fame, as in the mid-19th century, using the ideas and rhetoric of Karl Marx, some churches were built in industrial communities with politically-charged names like The Church of St. Joseph the Worker. Interesting trivia I guess, but not too glamorous, when we think of the attention Mary—the Holy Mother—has gotten over the generations. But do we call St. Joseph the Holy Father? Not really.
Though I am reminded of the chaotic colicky months right after our little bundle was born, when I spent untold hours rocking and nursing, and Kyle—bless his heart—was transformed overnight into a Worker Bee: cleaning bottles, assembling strollers, dashing to the store for diapers! And as often happens, mother and child were showered with attention, but rarely did people ask how the sleep deprived New Father was doing.
Does Joseph Meet Our Expectations?
Joseph, who has a starring role in today’s text, has been left in the shadows of our Nativity Story, relegated to the far corner of the Church’s Worship Life. But why?
And I don’t know for sure, but I wonder whether, in part, it’s because Joseph doesn’t do exactly what people wish he would do. Not us people now, and certainly not the people then.
The Post- Modern culture in which we live today assumes an unwavering commitment to individualism and relativism. If it feels right to you, it is right, for you. But the Christmas story from today comes from a vastly different context. And it doesn’t sound like any box office romance I’d want to plunk down $7.50 for.
When I hear this story, here and now, the romantic in me wants Joseph to hear about Mary’s unplanned--possibly unwanted—pregnancy, struggle mightily between his hurt and his deep love for this bride-to-be. Finally after a conflicted hour and a half, he would decide to thumb his nose at the world’s old-fashioned conventions, and whisk Mary away to some new life together, where they can be young and in love and free to be who they were meant to be! That’s a Hollywood hit I’d put on my Netflix queue. But that’s not what actually happened.
In our text today, Joseph learns from someone that the young unwed Mary is with child…from the Holy Spirit. And I don’t pretend I’ve ever stood in his ancient shoes, but wouldn’t it be interesting to have been a fly on the wall that day? Perhaps Joseph yelled or cried, perhaps he stomped out and slammed the door, or walked silently through the night streets in prayer. We can’t know what furor and fears filled his mind.
Matthew tells only Joseph’s decision, which by the time it’s echoed through 2000 years of tradition and translated into modern English, sounds at best lukewarm, and at worst, some thin-skinned compromise.
“Mary’s husband Joseph, being a righteous man AND unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. .
Joseph won’t touch her now, that’s obvious. Won’t build a life with her now. Like any honorable man then, he will dismiss Mary…but privately. Like any righteous man then, he will leave her…but quietly.
There is a measure of real compassion, but from my own
perspective, thinking of young Mary,
I want something more from Joseph. I want more compassion. But then again, I’m
not the only one unsatisfied. Joseph’s contemporaries 2000 years ago were
equally unimpressed.
We have to remember that Mary and Joseph were betrothed to one another, which meant a bit more than our modern notions of Engagement. Through betrothal, a woman was bound to a man through their shared verbal consent. And it was often arranged when the woman was no woman at all, maybe not even a teenager yet. Even though she did not yet live with the man, she was already viewed by society as his wife. Later on, the young woman would move out of her family’s home into the home of her husband. At that point of Marriage, and only then, would children enter the picture.
But they’re not there yet. Young Joseph and Mary are somewhere between Betrothal and Marriage, between the promise and the reality. And a child, at this point, changes everything.
One thing on which the 3 synoptic gospels are crystal clear is that Joseph was a “righteous man.” A man of righteousness, which means that from top to bottom, inside out, he is dedicated to keeping the commandments of God. And that’s where the tension starts.
For as soon as the light bulb flickers on (Mary’s pregnant and I’m not the father) Joseph knows precisely what the law commands. He’d long ago memorized that step-by-step recipe for religious righteousness, and knew. According to the Law, there were two options: he must turn her Mary out or put her to death. Not much wiggle room in the law back then. And for many lawful men then (and still today in some places) that would have been that. And Joseph is righteous. Joseph will keep the law.
But he’s also a man of Compassion. So when he releases Mary from the betrothal, he decides to do it quietly. He decides to take half the heat—in that shame based culture—on his own innocent head!
And even then, his contemporaries weren’t entirely happy with him. They saw him willing to satisfy the law, but not the way they interpreted it. Not to the extent they would want. They wanted more from Joseph-more justice.
Joseph: Living in the Tension
Joseph is a difficult character to explain. He’s not just this. He’s not just that. He’s both.
A man of the law and a man of compassion. A person of duty and a person of grace. Trying to a life a life somewhere between black and white. In the tension of the holy uncomfortable gray.
According to Matthew, it was just after Joseph made this difficult unpopular decision, that “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream…” And I realized that I’ve always assumed the angel came right then because Joseph was doing something really WRONG. But this week I wonder:
What if the angel came then to Joseph because he was doing something really right?
It would have been easier to be either black or white on this, either cold or hot. To hide behind the law, or act out of blind compassion.
But to live in the tension of those two, well, that took a man of real righteousness, not just being right-ness. That took someone dedicated to God’s Law, not just human legalism. Mary is not on stage alone. Joseph too, it seems, was exactly the kind of person and father for whom God was searching.
And the angel 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, Joseph, YOU, are to name him Jesus,
for he will free his people from their sins
Joseph isn’t some minor character here. Joseph is a hero in this story, not in spite of but because
he was someone who dared to live in the between. Not sitting on the fence, but in the tension, between being Right and being Kind; between Love and Justice; between Belief and Doubt; between all the black and white answers, the artificial dichotomies that present themselves to us.
Joseph was righteous, a man of the Law. And Joseph was compassionate, a man of Grace. Both imperfectly, striving and failing. Both, stumbling and bumbling. Both, at the same time.
Joseph: Open Mind, Open Hearts, Open Hands.
I put no title on this strange sermon, but if I had to I’d call it Rescuing Joseph, because it is time for Joseph to come out of the corner. He has a lesson to teach us today, if we could but hear him.
For like Joseph we too are called to live in the in-between. Not sitting on the fence, but walking a journey of faith that takes seriously our identity as a people called by God though Christ to live a particular kind of life. That means taking seriously the Law of God passed down to us from our ancestors in the faith. AND, at the same time acknowledging that that law, at root, is more about love than legalism, more about relationship than being right. We are called to acknowledge our unique faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, while at the same time acknowledging that Jesus is the One who included, not excluded, the great giver of grace for ALL peoples.
The lesson of St. Joseph, as I see it today for us, is about traveling our own unique journeys somewhere in between the convenient labels:
Christian Right & Christian Left;
Evangelicals & Progressives;
Liberals & Conservatives.
and certainly the list could go on.
What’s important is that we walk that path and that we—you and I together--are brave enough, like Joseph,
to find our way in between. Not some straight easy path, but a holy authentic path like Joseph’s that requires Open Minds, and Open Hearts, that by the grace of God, we may hold with Open Hands, the Christ child once more.
Mary-the Holy Mother- was exactly the sort of person God was seeking: willing to follow where God would lead, no matter what labels the world would throw at her, despite the pressures to conform, resisting the too-easy answers, living a life of “both and” rather than “either or.” She was willing to be an instrument of God.
And so was Joseph.
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife, but had no…relation with her until she had borne a son. And Joseph named him Jesus.”
May we hear the ancient echoes of Joseph this Advent, and may we together, follow in his steps.
Amen.
***Inspired by T. J. Wardlaw’s work “Preaching the Advent Texts.” Journal for Preachers, Volume XXXI, Advent 2007, pp 3-10.