Theme of the sermon borrowed from colleague, Tim Brown.
Advent 4
December 22, 2013
Matthew 1:18-25
I wonder sometimes about
Joseph. He’s probably the most
underrated character in the Christmas story. He really doesn’t even have many
Advent or Christmas songs written about him.
In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph only gets a cameo, a brief mention or two,
in a story that focuses upon Mary and the birth of John the Baptist as a
precursor to the birth of Christ. But
Joseph is only mentioned by name. Yes, he is mentioned in the genealogy of
Jesus, which ties him to the lineage of David,
But he has no voice,
There are no visits from
angels telling him what he should and should not do as Mary’s betrothed.
The shepherds and the
angels get a more important role in the story than Joseph does.
He’s really just a very
minor player in Luke’s version of the birth of Jesus.
After that, he’s generally
overlooked besides being the carpenter who stuck with Mary even though she was
scandalously with child, and raised Jesus as his own son…and from whom we never
hear again after Jesus begins his ministry.
Matthew, however, seems to
take a different perspective when it comes Joseph’s role in the birth
story. For Matthew, it’s Mary who gets
the cameo role in the birth narrative, while Joseph is the central character. But even so, Joseph’s role is still quite passive. I mean, the visits he receives from the angel
in the Gospel of Matthew happen when Joseph is asleep! You really can’t get much more passive than
that. And do you wonder what Joseph’s
first thought was when he woke up the next morning? Did he blame that flat bread stuff with the
sauce and the cheese that the Romans had introduced to them for the dream? (I
just learned this week that Pizza’s been around for 7,000 years…so it’s not
outside the realm of possibility).
Dreams are strange
beings. Sometimes we remember them and
sometimes we don’t. Sometimes they are
pleasant, sometimes they are unpleasant, and sometimes they are downright
weird. According to various theories
about dreams, they represent what is going on in our subconscious. A dream about losing teeth may be the result
of many changes in life…a dream in which you’re present at an event that is
coming up and everything is going wrong may indicate that you’re under a bit of
stress about that event. A dream about being pregnant may result from the desire
to be creative or have a part in putting together a new project. A dream about death often takes place when we
have reached the end of something, a relationship, a job, etc.
And if we were to read
Joseph’s dream purely as a dream, we can see some of the struggle that he is
having over what he should do in regards to Mary. Being the righteous man that he was, Joseph
had already decided that he was going to dismiss her quietly, to prevent Mary
from having to endure public disgrace.
Technically speaking, according to the custom of betrothal that was
present in the Jewish community of that time, Mary and Joseph were considered
husband and wife all social and legal matters, but there was a one year period
in which both the husband and wife prepared to cohabitate with one
another. This was usually the time in
which the husband prepared the home for his wife. The only way that the betrothal, and thus the
marriage, could be dissolved would be if either partner were unfaithful.
So if this were purely a dream,
we can see that the love and respect that Joseph has for Mary hasn’t changed
since he learned that she had become pregnant, and the child was not his. It
would seem that he did have a genuine desire to have Mary as his wife…but I’m
guessing the circumstances surrounding that engagement are not what he expected
them to be.
But we know that this was
not a dream in the sense of it being a natural part of our sleep cycles. Joseph’s dream was not due to pizza or
hearing the telling of a strange story right before going to bed. Joseph’s dream was, indeed, a visit from the
angel of the Lord that Matthew tells us about.
It was a dream that drew on God’s knowing of Joseph’s love and respect
for Mary. Oh yeah, and the child was
also God’s son…that might have a little something to do with it…
Joseph, could…and probably
should, have requested a divorce from Mary…that would have been the council of
many of the religious leaders, anyways.
But this visit from the angel of the Lord and the divine directive
revealed by the angel to take Mary as his wife change the tone of the
story.
And as important as
Joseph’s role is in this story, he still has no voice.
We have no idea how he
really feels about this whole mess of taking a wife who is pregnant with
someone else’s child, let alone the child of the most high God.
Was he angry?
Was he sad?
We don’t know.
We know that he followed
the divine directive from the angel of the Lord, took Mary as his wife, and
raised Jesus as his son. That’s about
all we know. We never hear from the
earthly father of Jesus.
But I don’t know if all
this would have happened, I don’t know if Joseph would have been as open to a
visit from the angel, if he had been awake.
I think that he needed to be asleep, he needed to be vulnerable, he
needed to have his heart open, so that the words of the angel of the Lord could
truly sink in and allow for Joseph to change his mind in regards to Mary. In the midst what had to have been a
stressful time for Joseph in deciding what to do with Mary, a divine directive
while he was awake may have fallen on deaf ears and a hardened heart. God’s
message wouldn’t have gotten to him in the same way that it did when he was
asleep.
And I wonder about all the
times when our ears our deaf and our hearts are hardened to the message of
God’s work in our lives, the calls that God issues to us to go out and change
the world in big ways and in small ones.
There’s too much that gets in the way of God’s words to us, stubbornness,
fear, our egos, anger.
So often it is so much
easier to pretend we are not listening, or to actually not listen, because we
know the transforming message of God’s work in our lives is going to change
us…and change can often make us uncomfortable.
And divorcing ourselves from the places in which God sends his messages
and divine directives to us can be easy, it’s easy to stop coming to church,
it’s easy to stop hanging out with friends, to avoid family…to harden our
hearts and close off our ears to God’s call that we be vulnerable.
But that’s maybe why God
came into the world in the flesh as a baby.
A baby is vulnerable, relying on its mother and father for all of its
worldly needs. But nothing melts a hard
heart or opens unwilling ears like the smile and the laugh of an infant. Babies allow us to be vulnerable. I once heard it said that you can be the
biggest, baddest person in the world, but the moment a toddler hands you a
plastic phone, you take it and say hello.
God was able to work in
and through Joseph by visiting him in a moment when he was vulnerable, and open
to God entering his conscious through a dream.
And when Joseph changed his mind and adopted Jesus as his son, he
changed the world. The Jesus story would
not have been the same without Joseph.
And it is not the same without us.
God calls us to hear his words of love and encouragement for us, words
that transform us and allow us to transform the world. But we have to be willing to fully hear them,
digest them and accept them if we are going to be open to God’s life changing
message. So God calls us to be
vulnerable, to be open and flexible, to fully take part in the life changing
and world changing love that he wants us to share with the world.
So when God calls, will
you answer?
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