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What About
Jospeh?
by the Rev. Rich Smith
December 23, 2007
Matthew 1:18-25
When one reads through the Christmas stories in the
Gospels, you find that almost everyone is singing! Mary sings the
Magnficat on learning that she is to be the mother of the son of
God. The angels sing to the shepherds and give glory to
God. An old man, Simeon, sings when he encounters the infant when
he is brought to the Temple for his presentation on the eighth
day. Lots of singing, and no wonder, for these are events worth
singing about, and it’s a tradition we carry on quite well!
About the only character who doesn’t sing is Joseph
– in fact the Gospel texts give him no spoken lines at all. He is
a very nuanced character to play in the Christmas pageant – he does it
all with facial expressions. He looks alarmed. He stews; he
resolves; he accedes to the Lord's will. But he doesn’t sing.
As Presbyterian pastor and poet J. Barrie Shepherd
put it,
Now Mary has her role;
that’s clear and obvious enough.
She bears the child,
wraps him in swaddling cloths,
and lays him in a manger.
The shepherds also...have their part to play,
as they hearken to the angels
and come rushing from the fields
...telling all along the way of the stirring message they have heard.
And then having seen the holy infant
they go forth again, still glorifying
and praising....God.
The wise men from the east–
appearing on the scene a little later–
they too have lots to accomplish,
as they bring their royal gifts,
present them to the child,
and work together to outwit
the wily plotting of King Herod.
But Joseph, so far as we can tell from the Biblical record,
Joseph stands there,
simply stands there.
(-Faces at the Manger)
Of course, maybe having done all the hard work
earlier (other than the actual giving birth, of course) Joseph is just
too wrung out to say anything at all. He’d already had to deal
with the news that his fiancee – as young and innocent and pure as
Jamie Lynn Spears – is pregnant and he’s not the father. He then
had to lead her all the long and rocky way to Bethlehem on the eve of
her giving birth, and search in vain for a suitable place to stay in a
crowded village. Then all these visitors show up. Maybe he
just was too tired to say anything.
It is left to later poets and song writers to
speculate on what must have been going through his mind, or what he
might have said or sung had he been given the chance.
I have a number of "Joseph's Songs" in my
collection. Mostly, they are awe-filled renderings about what
it's like to be a father, and not only a father, which is awesome
enough, but the father of the Son of God. I’ll read one
momentarily, but first, a bit of background. The Bible tells us
almost nothing about Joseph. And what it does tell us is
considered by scholars to be mostly the stuff of legend, not
historically reliable. So we are not bound to be over-literal
about it. I think you know that our church has no requirement
that any of us believe Jesus was actually born of a virgin without the
DNA of a human father. In fact, when Matthew quotes Isaiah, as in our
scripture lesson, he actually quotes a Greek version, and somehow the
Hebrew word meaning simply “young woman” becomes “virgin,” and from
that flows all kinds of problematic theology. So Matthew has
taken some liberties. But it is a good story, telling a deep and
profound truth, which we should not ignore, even if we’re not too sure
about things like angels and virgin births. And so just for today,
let’s not look through our historical-critical lense and simply enjoy
the wonder of the story.
One of the things the story tells us is that Joseph
was from Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David. In fact, some
genealogies trace his ancestry back to David and even beyond him to
Abraham and even Adam. It is also mentioned that he is a
carpenter by trade. I can relate to that -- my grandfather was a
carpenter, and as a boy I would spend many hours in his shop,
attempting to make things, toys, small pieces of furniture, etc..things
I'd insist on giving as Christmas presents to people who probably
already had all the grotesque bookends they could use. I'd have a
great concept in mind, but invariably my grandfather would have to
finish the job for me! We still have some of the results. I
like to think that Joseph was a lot like my grandfather -- older,
wiser, patient, with rough but gentle hands. In college I took
one of those aptitude tests that shows not what you have the skills to
be good at but what you have the psychological temperament to be good
at. Carpenter came out at the top of the list. Well, I have
managed to build a few shelves. Pam will tell you that they’re
not my best work. So instead, I've opted to work for a carpenter!
Anyway, Joseph was a carpenter, and beyond that, not
much else is known about him. After an incident when Jesus was
twelve, in which Mary and Joseph lost him and later discovered him in
the temple, Joseph just disappears from the narrative altogether,
leading to speculation that he was probably a bit older than Mary, and
died, leaving Jesus to take up his trade and support the family;
perhaps that's why Jesus' ministry did not begin until he was
thirty--he had to provide for his mother and brothers and sisters,
before he could go running off on his wildly improbable and decidedly
un-lucrative mission.
But the most important bit of information the story
gives us about Joseph is this: He was a righteous man.
Generally, whenever we encounter the term "righteous" in the Bible we
should not read that to mean "holier than thou", as in
"self-righteous". Nor does it mean that he was a "nice
guy." It simply means he was just; he attempted to be a good Jew
and wanted to do the right thing.
That's not always easy. Imagine the scene,
updated a bit by a former colleague of mine, how it might have played
out if Joseph were a more typical fellow –
"You're what?"
"I'm pregnant," she quietly whispered, looking down
at the ground, then gradually raising her eyes to meet his,
"But how?" he demanded. "Who else have you
been with? You know I'm not the father!"
Her pounding heart dissolved into a painful
loneliness. His reaction confirmed her worst fears. One
more try. "I'm sorry. I had a dream....and..."
"Oh, I see," he smirked. "The man of your
dreams came by. And now you're pregnant. So what are you
going to do?"
"I don't know. I can't tell my parents, and
I...I want to have this baby."
"Well, if you think I'm staying around to raise
someone else's kid, you're crazy! How do you know you didn't get
AIDS from this guy? Did he show you his Good House Sleeping Seal
of Approval?" He turned away to stare out the window, then turned
back and took her shoulders. "Look, I'm sorry. I know this
must be really rough for you. It is for me too. I'll make
you a deal. If you'll get tested for AIDS and if you're negative,
and if you'll have an abortion, then I stay by your side through the
whole thing. But no baby, understand? I'm not ready for
that yet, even if it was mine."
God had it rough. How do you get yourself into
the world without being misunderstood? How do you implant
yourself in humanity without being washed away in a stream of anger,
anxiety, and ignorance?
Here were Mary and Joseph: Engaged but not living
together. Pregnant but not living together. That didn't
carry the social stigma you think. Jewish law recognized that an
engaged couple might well have “relations.” As long as the man
followed through and married the woman, there was no legal
penalty. Not the ideal sequence of events, but not a great crime,
either.
But Mary's predicament – being pregnant by someone
other than her espoused – did carry a penalty, as stipulated in the
book of Deuteronomy. She could have been stoned, or at least put
"to public disgrace." Yet because Joseph was not only a righteous
man and just man, but also a good and compassionate man, he resolved to
quietly dissolve the engagement and help her start a new life. It
seemed the decent thing to do, the right thing to do, if not exactly
what the Law demanded.
But sometimes even the right thing isn’t
enough. God wanted more than that. God knew the plight of
people like single parents, widows, and foreigners. Mary needed
stability and security as she became a mother. Jesus needed all
the support in his formative years he could get. He certainly
wasn't going to get it from his friends as an adult.
And so, responding to new, however incredible,
information given him by an angel in a dream, Joseph chose to remain
faithful to Mary, to stand by her and take her as his wife, even in the
midst of his own confusion. No abandonment, no abortion, no need
to test for AIDS. He listened and obeyed. And Jesus was
born into the willing arms of two people who chose commitment to their
God and to each other over their own fear and anxiety. And this
child came to be known as the Christ and understood as the Savior of
the world.
Given all of that, what kind of song would Joseph
have sung? We have used words to describe him like righteous, and
just, and compassionate and faithful. As the poet puts it,
There is something more to be discovered in
the role of Joseph, simply standing there,
silent and so still.
There is, if we look carefully,
a light, a kind of radiance,
that shines upon his worried face,
a glimpse, a snatch at least--
beyond the weariness--
of something close to wonder.
Or as my children used to say when they were really impressed by
something: AWESOME! Normally that word is used in connection with
the Boston Red Sox, or walking in the National Cathedral for the first
time, or standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or listening to the
music of Mozart or the late Pavarotti. AWESOME is a word
that describes almost indescribable feelings of deep and speechless
wonder. Childlike feelings of being overwhelmed in a positive and
trusting way. When we grow up, we get a bit jaded, and don't find
things as awesome as we used to. We've seen it all. We're
seldom surprised. We seek self-protection, don't want to appear
vulnerable. Sometimes it takes something incredible, like the
birth of a child to re-introduce us to awe. As Brian Wren's
version of Joseph's carol puts it:
You were a child of mine.
I watched you born, and wept
with joy to see your sticky head.
I held you in my arms.
I watched you, awe-struck, as you
slept.
I love you, Son of God:
You were a child of mine.
You were a boy of mine.
You wallowed in the sand.
You copied me at work, and played
with hammer, wood and nails.
You talked to me, and held my
hand.
You were a youth of mine.
Quite suddenly you grew.
You sought and questioned wiser
men.
I felt you breaking free.
I raged, admired -- and
feared for you.
.
You were a son of mine,
full-grown, my hope my pride.
You went your puzzling way, a man
so ready, fine and young:
life broke in me the day you died.
You are the Lord of all--
My child, my man, my son,
You loved and gave yourself for
me.
Now I belong to you--
new worlds are born, new life
begun.
I love you, Son of God:
You are the Lord of all.
It really is awesome, when you think about it.
Awesome that God would chose to enter the world in the simplest and
most vulnerable way possible, in a child born in unlikely circumstances
in an out-of-the-way place, a child who would grow up and gather a few
people around him and remind them who God is and how God cares.
He would reach out to the most unlovable, heal the sick of body and
soul, challenge the powerful not with force but with his simple witness
of love. He would tell stories that tease us still. And he
would finally lay down his very life, be crucified, and rise
again. It is awesome that God would choose to enter the world in
this way, and care about us in this way.
And what is more awesome is that it keeps
happening. God still comes to us in the stranger, the homeless,
the child, in the most quiet and simple and vulnerable of ways.
And God still calls you and me, like Joseph, to stop and listen and
open ourselves to the mystery and help bring it to birth, the Mystery
and Love whose name shall be called Emmanuel, God-with-us.
And that is an awesome thing, indeed!
.
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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