December 18, 2005

Matthew 1:18-25

    Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

Sermon 

Joseph the Silent 

        Well today, finally, we’re singing the songs of the angels.  You may have been wondering when I was going to get around to the hymns that are a little bit more Christmas-y.  And the fourth Sunday of Advent has been the time when I do.  And the hymns that I feel are most appropriate for this Sunday are the angel hymns, even though the scripture I’ll be talking about is about somebody different.  But, angels figure into his story in a large way, and so there’s a connection there.  And then, also, I think, in our own hearts as Christmas approaches the songs of the angels is a part of our own inward preparations for Christmas.  That doesn’t mean that everybody feels the same way as Christmas approaches.  It simply means that there’s some sense in which God takes over in our emotional and mental and spiritual preparations.  There’s a sense in which for the forthcoming event, that our momentum is picking up we’re gathering speed and strength as we move finally toward the celebration of Christmas Day.  And in that dynamic inside us is the song of the angels, and also, the earth.  Maybe in a way that’s a little more similar to how Joseph heard the songs of the angels. 

        Joseph doesn’t have many lines in the Bible.  If you want to hear about Joseph was saying things, you have to go to a totally different person, the Old Testament Joseph.  Joseph, the one who is considered the father of Jesus; Joseph, the dad of Jesus; the one who raised him and taught him and showed him how to do things as he was growing up; that Joseph doesn’t have any speaking parts in the Gospel story. But, we do see the workings of Joseph’s mind, and the decisions that Joseph makes, and the way in which Joseph was motivated and instructed to do what needed to be done by him in God’s unfolding gift; God’s unfolding story.   We see how Joseph was deeply involved, even though we don’t hear the words that he says.  So, when I refer to him as Joseph the Silent, that’s all I mean; that his actions are what speaks, not his words. 

        Joseph the Silent, when we’re first introduced to him, the narrator of the story is giving him a very large compliment.  He calls him a righteous man, a just man.  That word is only elsewhere in the Gospel Matthew when applied to Jesus himself; when Pilate says, “I find no fault in this just man.”  So Matthew calls Joseph the same thing that Pilate calls Jesus.   Both of them are using terms of praise to describe a person who was simply good. Joseph the Silent was also Joseph the Good.  And we can see his goodness in the way in which he tried to deal with the embarrassing discovery that his betrothed was pregnant.  He wasn’t the father, she was with child.  What should he do about it?

        The Law of Moses allowed capital punishment for those who commit adultery; both the man and the woman are to be stoned to death.  We can safely assume that that wasn’t normally practiced by the time of Jesus’ day. That wasn’t the usual behavior of the Jewish communities and towns and villages of Galilee.  But, still, I think we can also assume that when a woman was found to be with child and not married or the father was not her husband; when that was the case the woman was shamed, disgraced, and cast out for all intents and purposes.   Joseph, being a just man, wanted to do more than what the law specified.  Joseph being a just man was unwilling to put Mary to shame.  You see justice in pity, justice in mercy, justice in kindness walk hand in hand in a person who is truly good.  And so he resolved to break off the engagement. 

        The English language says “divorce her quietly”, but there is more complication than that in the covenants surrounding Jewish marriages in Biblical times.  And so it’s not technically a divorce, yet, although it’s something a little bit stronger than breaking off an engagement; it’s kind of in between the two.  But the point is that Joseph resolved to do that.  Because clearly, he couldn’t go ahead and marry this person, he couldn’t go ahead and be the father of the child when she had done this thing that Joseph thought.  And yet, at the same time he didn’t want her to suffer in the eyes of the community.   He didn’t want her to be shamed and disgraced in that way.   So he wanted to divorce her quietly.  That was what he resolved to do; that’s what he decided to do; in other words, that’s as far as his thought processes had gone.  We see him at work coming to that conclusion, and then he begins having dreams. 

        In the very first dream, the angel tells him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”  And then the angel goes on and tells him the purpose of this child coming into the world; who the child is; what the child will do; and that implies all kinds of things for what Joseph’s role will be. Joseph will be as fathers were according to Jewish custom and law; Joseph will be the name-giver, so the angel told Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus.”  The father does that, somebody needs to step in and do that in Jesus’ case.  And Joseph will also have to care for the child the rest of the years in which he is growing up.  Joseph will have to provide the sheltering protection of a father’s good decisions to give Jesus the upbringing that he needs to have. 

        And we see decision after decision that Joseph makes.     First of all guided by the angel, and then concluding in a decision in which Joseph goes on his own.    But we see a sequence of decisions that Joseph makes, all of which have the purpose of keeping his family out of harm’s way.  So that God’s great gift to the world would be sheltered and protected.  And the world would be preparing itself, without knowing it, for that day when the gift would finally be revealed, when Jesus began his public ministry.  Those were decisions were first of all to flee; to flee to Egypt.  Herod put out a decree that all children under a certain age in and around Bethlehem were to be killed.   He had been tipped off by the wise men, who did so unknowing that they were going to set about such a tragic chain of events.  The wise men coming to Herod had tipped him off to the fact that a miraculous birth was taking place.  .

        Herod, who had been put on the throne by the Romans, was extremely jealous of his title.  He felt that some legitimate heir might likely come along and raise a large following of the Jewish people, who never really considered Herod to be one of them.  And so Herod decided that he would do this incredibly brutal thing, killing all infants in and around Bethlehem.  And Joseph and his family escaped just in time because Joseph was instructed by the angel.  Joseph’s earlier decision making had been added to by the angel.  It’s a horrible story, but the story of the world is filled with horrible stories.  And Joseph and Mary and Jesus had their mysterious sojourn into Egypt. 

        We can only think and speculate on where they lived, what they did, what life was like for them.  The Bible passes over it quickly, and tells us that after Herod died, the angel came to Joseph again and told him that now he needed to move back to Israel.  Because that’s where Jesus needed to emerge from; that’s where Jesus was rightly placed.  And so Joseph and Mary and Jesus moved from Egypt back toward Israel, or Palestine you might say.   And when they got to that territory, the Romans have carved the territory up in different places, in different ways. 

        And a portion of that territory was under the leadership of one of Herod’s sons, Archelaus.  And when Joseph realized that Archelaus was still on the throne; and Joseph probably reasoned, like father like son, Archelaus would be a danger to Jesus, as Herod had been.  When Joseph reasoned that way, then Joseph made that final decision on his own, the decision to move to Nazareth.  Nazareth was under Roman governorship; it was not under the leadership of Herod and his family.  And that would be a safe place to keep this secret hidden until the time came for it to be revealed.

        So, we see Joseph in this sequence of decisions – to flee to Egypt, to come back to Israel, and then to go to Galilee.  We see Joseph make these decisions first of all tutored by angels, and then finally, making one final decision on his own.  And that final decision, the Bible tells us, was just as much in line with what God had prophesied as all those other decisions that Joseph made along the way.   That is Joseph’s witness to us, this string of decisions. 

        And the purpose of the decisions was to care for the wonderful gift that God had given; caring for Mary, caring for Jesus; providing whatever protection, shelter was needed.  Not much was required, Joseph would not have been a better man if he had provided Jesus a nice house to be born in, or a nicer house to live in as he was growing up than the one that they probably had.   God wasn’t looking at him that way at all.  What God was looking at in Joseph, I’m sure, was the human qualities that he had; qualities that the narrator identified as being a just man.  God wanted this sort of person to be the one who provided shelter, protection and care for Jesus.   So that Mary, providing the nurture – doing her own share of caring and sheltering as well – providing the nurture, and Joseph together could bring Jesus up to adulthood.    Joseph the Silent is still a very active Joseph; and someone whose life I think we can tap into.

        Thinking in my own life about the people who have been important to me, thinking about this scripture in relation to that, I’ve thought about a lot of very meaningful moments with my own family, and with the older ones in my family- my parents, my grandparents.  I’ve thought about many very meaningful moments that did not involve words.  We adults usually think that our words matter a great deal, that what we say will always be remembered and certainly there’s a truth in that.   We say things that children will remember and then sometime later throw them back to us.  It’s often, in fact, the more negative things that are remembered, that are brought back to our memory by the way in which our kids reflect on their past with us.  I made a teasing remark about the Olympics to my daughter one time; she’s been teasing me back about that ever since.  It was about the rules for ice dancing, I think I told her the opposite of what the rules are as a joke and she took it seriously.  And for a long time believed it and then later she realized, and maybe thought I was an idiot for thinking that those were the rules for ice dancing.  But the point is that we have no control over which words will be remembered, and we don’t really have any control over the other things, too; the things we remember more than words.

        I remember one day, the only time I remember touching my father with an affectionate kind of touch, we have this kind of awkward hug that we give each other now.   But I remember slipping my hand in my father’s hand when I was very small as we were crossing the main street of our hometown on a busy weekday afternoon.  I remember feeling that that was a normal thing, how that gave me a sheltered and protected feeling. 

        I remember a vision of my grandfather, who died when I was quite young, so I only had the most fleeting contacts with him, and then my other grandfather died eight years before I was even born.  So I remember this one grandfather standing outside the door of the cabin in Canada, originally his property, while we were there on a summer vacation one time.  I just remember him standing there, and my image of him, my knowledge of him, is limited to the things that I saw – the cap on his head, the kind of wise and non- humorous look on his face; and now as I look back on it I think of the uncanny resemblance he has to my mother.  I remember that vision of him, but there are no words attached now for me that I can remember. 

        And I think that it’s usually that way with the dear ones who went ahead of us.  We remember doing things with them, we remember being places with them, we might remember the tone of their voice better than we remember their actual words.  But it’s all these kinds of things that are involved in being a part of a physical world.  Where we do have contact with each other through our senses.

It’s all these kinds of things that keep us together and make meaning for us out of life.  And I see a connection between the way in which people in my life have influenced me and have had an impression, I see a connection between that and the fact that Joseph, of all the characters in this story of the birth of Jesus, is the one that doesn’t have any lines.  And yet his presence in the story is crucial and then dominating.  And as I think about that, I also think about how deeply responsible I am to the things that I do, the activities that I perform, and sometimes even the way I look, the expression on my face.   I feel very responsible to those things, even while I acknowledge that I can’t help how I look. 

        I was in a church several years ago, doing a campaign for a capital fund drive, and they did a very slick film presentation that was built on a succession of snapshots that they faded in and out of.  And they were talking about how important it is to have a worshipping place for the ordained ministers that give us leadership.  I was one of the associate pastors so I felt very flattered to be the person whose image was on that video sequence.  It was a picture of me leaning over and holding out bread for Holy Communion.  Only it was from the angle of my image that I hate the most.  Do you have one of those for yourself, perhaps?  You like the way you look head on, that’s the way I am; but if you’re looking at me from that angle back there, I don’t like to see a snapshot taken of me from that angle.  It’s not what I consider my best looking angle. 

        Anyway, that picture was that way in the film, and I realized, the people who made this movie thought that that was perfectly okay.  They thought that the way I looked from that angle was something that evoked for them the presence of my ministry in the church, and the presence of Christ’s ministry more than just mine.  That my own view about how I looked was something that really wasn’t important, and I couldn’t control it anyway, but it didn’t really matter that I couldn’t control it.  I had to realize that how I looked to people and the way in which I stand, the way in which I talk, the way in which I structure a sermon or a Sunday School lesson, the way in which I give any kind of leadership that I give is a part of the image and impression and the lasting legacy that I will leave. 

        I can’t control some of the things about that; but the one thing that I think I need to control as much as I possibly can, and beg forgiveness when I don’t, is that everything that I do in my capacity as your pastor as well as in my other relationships, everything that I do comes from the motivation of caring; wanting to provide care for the people to whom I’m responsible.  Whether it’s you my congregation, or my family or friends, whatever it is, whoever it is, I am walking in the footsteps of Joseph when I’m not even thinking about what words I’m saying, but I’m making sure that my actions, my relationships, my activities with other people come from that motivation of providing shelter, protection, and care. 

        However that’s appropriate in our different relationships, it’s appropriate in different ways,  but we all care for each other, and we all are responsible for caring for each other.  And in that sense we are all not simply following after the example of Joseph but also in continuity with Joseph.  We are continuing the work that Joseph began.  Because in caring for each other within the community of Christ, or in being Christians out on our own caring for others, we are doing something that first began with Joseph caring for Christ.  We are caring for Christ.  In our silence, and yet in our active decision making lives, we are caring for Christ. 

        So when that angel song is running through your head, whichever of the hymns sounds most like the angel’s song to you, when the feeling of the angel hymn is beating with your heart, what I think it’s reminding you and all of us, is that the purpose of God coming into the world, this making us people who are united with each other by the act of caring that God began and that reverberates throughout the rest of eternity in the actions, the words, the attitudes, even the postures of us, God’s creatures, who bear his image and are one day to be united with him in a fuller and deeper unity in which our own personalities remain even while we are joined with all the others.  Until that mysterious and wonderful day, in the meantime, in everything we do, let’s remember Joseph the Silent.  And let’s walk in his footsteps, doing what he did for the one who was born in Bethlehem.  Amen.