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Matthew 1: 18 – 25
18Now 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. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But 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. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; he named him Jesus.
"Nativity Poem,” by Louise Glück
It is the evening
of the birth of god
Singing &
with gold instruments
the angels bear down
upon the barn, their wings
neither white
wax nor marble. So
they have been recorded:
burnished,
literal in the composed air,
they raise their harps above
the beasts likewise gathering,
the lambs & all the startled
silken chickens . . . . And Joseph,
off to one side, has touched
his cheek, meaning
he is weeping –
But how small he is, withdrawn
from the hollow of his mother’s life,
the raw flesh bound
in linen as the stars yield
light to delight his sense
for whom there is no ornament.[1]
And there he is. Joseph. Off to one side. Off to one side. That’s Joseph’s place in the story. To the side. He is a supporting character. An accessory. But I love the way the poet describes him. Moved, vulnerable, joyful.
But still, to the side. We don’t normally talk about Joseph, do we?
In fact, how often do we hear this passage about Joseph?
It’s not one that gets covered with great frequency, so much so, that I remember the very first time I heard it.
I was in the seventh grade, and it was a rehearsal for a Lessons and Carols worship service.
Growing up, I attended a 12-year Episcopal School in Charleston, South Carolina (Porter-Gaud), the same school my eight-year-old nephew Everette now attends. It was a school that placed a high priority on tradition, and one of those traditions was a festival of nine lessons and carols presented each December at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul. Processing in full cassock and cotta. Singing carols and hearing the words of scripture. And our directors did not play. We even rehearsed how to say the Lord’s Prayer. In rehearsal, nothing was abbreviated. It was in that rehearsal that I clearly remember hearing this scripture for the first time and perking up as I heard it mention Joseph. I didn’t know he had any more to do with the story than simply marrying Mary! But here he was, his own storyline. I knew the words of Luke’s story and Matthew’s magi, John’s Word made Flesh, but this was new to me, a cradle Presbyterian. How had I missed it?
In all likelihood, it had been skipped. While it’s one of the “proper” Lessons & Carols readings every year, it only appears in the lectionary once every three years, and then on the fourth Sunday of Advent, when other scripture texts often get the spotlight.
Joseph doesn’t get a lot of ink. Spotlight. Screen time. When do we pay attention to Joseph? Joseph usually gets the most attention at one moment of the year. When we have to decide who are the shepherds and who is Joesph when we put up the nativity scene.
This is not a new situation.
When I looked for art for today’s cover- it was quite a challenge to find a good image of Joseph and Jesus. If you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art website you can easily find images of Mary and Jesus – there are more than 10,000 in their collection. There are less than 200 of Joseph and Jesus.
The story of Jesus is told by the gospel writers; Joseph is mainly an accessory.
How different it was for Jesus. For Jesus, Joseph was at the center.
It was Joseph who made it possible for Jesus to be of the House of David.
It was Joseph that guaranteed that Jesus had a home and an earthly family and that he was not born the child of an unwed mother without means of support.
It was Joseph who would rescue Jesus from the wrath of Herod, taking his family to Egypt. And then back to Israel. And then to Nazareth. Each decision was based on what would be safest for this son who was not actually his son.
It didn’t start out that way. Joseph, as anyone might understand, had cold feet. When the woman he planned to marry showed up pregnant. He didn’t know whose baby it was, only that it wasn’t his. And so, as Matthew tells us, he planned to dismiss her quietly.
It was the nicest way to do it, and it was the righteous thing to do, but it still would have increased Mary’s challenges exponentially. Without family. Without support. She could have easily slipped away, at best, or at worst experience some serious legal trouble.
And then an angel appeared in a dream. Not just any angel, the angel of the Lord.
"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.”
Joseph took the angel’s advice, and it earned him a place to the side. A place of caretaking. Protecting and nurturing the life of Jesus so that he, like Mary, could watch the son he raised choose friends, make statements, and perform deeds that would lead directly and unavoidably to death.
From the brief moment in Matthew in which we are told that Joseph considers exiting himself from the story, there is nothing that indicates that he was anything but “all in” from this point on.
And this year, Joseph might be the Christmas character we need the most.
The one who, when faced with the unknown, unexpected, chose a love. A faithfulness that superseded the law.
The angel tells him that his life is not going to turn out at all as he’d thought. But that God would be there. And that he would need to make a choice.
My colleague Jenny McDevitt preaches:
“That Joseph says ‘yes’ to this just might be the biggest miracle recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. It is certainly the biggest miracle you or I have the capacity to replicate.”[2]
How do we, how will we respond when faced with a situation like Joseph’s? When the obvious, even right choice isn’t really the faithful one?
When do we have to accept that our lives aren’t going to turn out the way we thought they would? That’s when looking at, following, Joseph comes through in the clutch.
The truth is, there are Josephs all around us if we pay attention.
Did you read about the man in Arizona who saw a red speck in the grass while he was out walking his dog, and discovered a Christmas list tied to the shredded balloon, the list of a little girl just across the border? The man went home and told his wife all about it. Their tree had gifts, but no child to give them to, so they decided that they would find her, and bring her the gifts, and more. And with only a name to lead them, they found her, a border that could not stand in the way of sharing love.[3]
Or something that happened at a Waffle House in Alabama recently. There was a mix-up. Late one night, well, early in the morning, a man on his way home decided to stop and get something to eat. It was your normal 1 am weekend Waffle House crowd.
People on their way to work.
People are on their way home from a party.
People dressed up.
People dressed down.
All of them wanted to eat.
Only, there was a problem. There was only one person working. Ethan would later find out that there had been a mix-up in the schedule. A crew had left before the next crew was scheduled to arrive, but that didn’t arrive.
There was just one man working to feed this entire restaurant, Ben.
What happened? You might think that there was outrage. People left, without their food. Went to find somewhere else. No. A man, waiting for his food, seeing Ben hustle, asked Ben for an apron, and he started busing tables.
Washing dishes.
Doing whatever needed to be done.
The man didn’t work there.
Ben hadn’t asked him for help.
He just saw that Ben needed help and he helped.
And over the next hour or so he did what he could to keep things running
so that Ben could take orders and cook.
A couple of other patrons got in on it too, one of them a woman in an evening gown.
They kept it going, volunteers each in their turn, until the next shift arrived and Ben was relieved, in more ways than one. You’re not supposed to do that, but they did. Noticing the one who often goes unnoticed. Helping because it’s the faithful thing to do.[4]
Even churches can follow the way of Joseph. A town a few states away experienced an epidemic of Jesus stealing last year. And some churches responded by bolting their Jesus’ to the nativity scenes and others made a more Joseph choice and simply bought more Jesuses, knowing that there is always enough Jesus to go around, enough Jesus to share.[5]
Small acts like Joseph, Miracles like Joseph’s, to choose something greater, bigger, that sets aside previous plans or expectations and allows God to set the path.
Paying attention to stories like Joseph. Narratives that can easily be missed, but are stories that need to be heard. Told.
None of them, on their one, are things that will stave off climate change or get rid of our nuclear weapons, or make republicans and democrats get along, but I can’t help but wonder if we want those things to happen we have to start by refusing to paint people with a broad brush and pay attention to the details, particularly those that are the easiest to ignore.
Isn’t that what God did, by who was placed at the center of the stories we tell today and in the days ahead?
An unmarried pregnant teenager
A father-to-be who by all rights should have walked away.
Common laborers out in the field.
Foreigners who are told they do not belong.
Heavenly host that keeps the mystery alive.
An unlikely community. But one that Jesus calls together.
The lessons Jesus teaches, the lessons Joseph starts teaching him from before he is even born. The lessons he can teach us.
Let us notice Joseph. Not just at Christmastime, but at all times.
And choose as he did.
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel commanded him.” Amen.
[1] Curzon, David, ed. The Gospels in Our Image: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts. New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1995. Page 23.
[2] McDevitt, Day One.
[3] https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/arizona-man-finds-balloon-with-letter-to-santa-brings-gifts-to-girl-in-mexico
[4] https://www.al.com/life/2019/11/covered-waffle-house-customers-step-in-to-fill-gap-at-birmingham-restaurant.html?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=aldotcom_sf&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2ge-6fi5f0FprPDpVk7KK84qT5ET_qfGrc4BZQcOU-FLvD3aOs-Ve7M-8
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/11/11/lone-employee-busy-alabama-waffle-house-was-swamped-so-customers-jumped-behind-counter-help/
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/23/us/nativity-jesus-thefts-christmas.html?unlocked_article_code=0vGFcjYnlGYBIw7O_9pOoI-muWtI43lGEwbyb-dU__kWbVJ3rd_dqIJETCP1luilD9sMLhD-m6CvSQhdjwSEwmx7zS8SA_oq8Bk4OtP4HmSHL2Vk2uWiX3RysEdj2Bc6ugN_5ZMjz6vZ1KYL9OdNmomyCagXJOIEAbfotdN5kwqS9P2BVOo7D7zGWh06HF0r-_zLE12CHBnLLUTrBcES0KUFYd0rJZW4QclJFYvLa-Ehxu3XNOY0F023bSZ7jaVN5sPtkuPjKqVStlrd3aiLABkQmJkWJPiPgsqhny3ckuu5Ece0ruoQiwZObCF9vIIQJ4_CitZdcmMAvvZX4CGLB0Auv3o&smid=share-url
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