Readings: Isaiah 7:10-16; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
How many of you ever really think about Joseph when it
comes to the story of Jesus?
Joseph seems to be the supporting actor in the story. The
one who doesn’t get to say very much, who tends to be in the picture a lot, but
no one really gets to know all that well.
We really don’t learn very much about him in general,
except at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, which begins with Joseph’s
lineage. From Abraham to David, we are
told, are 14 generations. From David to Jechoniah,
at the time of the deportation to Babylon is another 14 generations. From Jechoniah to Jacob
the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called
the Messiah, (Matt. 1:16) another
14 generations.
Once we know the genealogy, we jump right into today’s
Gospel. It does not talk about the
annunciation, when Mary meets the angel, Gabriel, and becomes pregnant by the Holy
Spirit. We don’t hear about Mary’s
journey to Elizabeth where the babies in their wombs leap when they meet for
the first time. Instead, we learn the
depth of who Joseph is.
He is a righteous man.
He is afraid. He will name
Jesus. He is obedient.
Nothing in this little bit of the text tells us that he is
a carpenter. We don’t know about how he
met Mary. If he loved her. We don’t know how old he is. Could he have been married before, widowed,
and had other children?
He is
a member of the supporting cast of characters in one of the most pivotal
stories of our faith, and we just don’t know much about him.
So,
when we get a Gospel story that seems to be all about him, even though it seems
vague, our curiosity is piqued, and we begin to wonder.
It
began, for some of us here, at last Sunday’s Vestry meeting, where we opened this
Gospel reading and explored with some questions. First:
What
do you think it was like for Joseph raising Jesus, knowing that he was not his
biological child?
Let me
go back to where we learn a little bit about Joseph’s character. Joseph is a righteous man. We know this because he refuses to do what
many men in his position might when they learn that the woman they are going to
marry is pregnant, and they know it isn’t their child. He refuses to stone her to death. By the religious law of Deuteronomy, he could
do just that. Instead, he decides to let
her go on her way, quietly, without cruelty.
He makes this decision before he even knows the whole
story. Or, maybe Mary did tell him that she
had never had sexual relations with a man and that this baby is God’s baby. That Gabriel came to visit her and that the
Holy Spirit came to her and she became pregnant. Joseph might have thought she
had gone mad, and his compassion for her and the baby she was carrying might
have had more to do with her mental state than her pregnancy.
His behavior seems extraordinary, when you think about
it. He could make a big deal about what he
understands as infidelity and have her killed, but he must have cared about her
enough to not allow her, or the baby she was carrying, to be harmed.
While that doesn’t really answer the question about how he
must have felt to raise up this child who definitely was not his biological
child, it does set the stage for our understanding that this man was someone
with a different way of seeing the world.
To answer
the question, however, we might need to think about what the angel said to Joseph
in the dream. “Do not be afraid to take
Mary as your wife.”
Why would Joseph have been afraid? We might think it would be about feeling
angry or heartbroken or betrayed by Mary and that the shame of her pregnancy and
the weight of everyone’s opinions would cause him to fear. Those are reasonable responses to a
complicated situation.
But what if the fear was more about the responsibility of
raising God’s son? Or the idea
that he’s an ordinary man tasked with raising an extraordinary child. Could he be afraid that he is unworthy or ill-prepared
or unnecessary?
The angel makes it clear that Joseph is going to be the
father to this son when he tells Joseph that it is his responsibility to name
the child. This is pivotal because Jewish
fathers name their children. If Joseph
is to name this baby, it means the baby is his.
His responsibility and charge.
The angel tells Joseph to name the baby: Jesus, and that
this baby will save his people from their sins.
That could be a reason for Joseph to be afraid, too.
Then, as
we heard in today’s lesson from the prophet Isaiah: the baby would be named
Emmanuel, which we learn in the Gospel means “God is with us.” The idea that Joseph would be so close to God—God
who has always kept a distance from humanity, God who spoke through burning bushes
and clouds to Abraham and Moses, that God!
That God would be living in very close proximity to Joseph would be frightening,
indeed!
I want to note that this Gospel does not talk about the
census or the journey Joseph and Mary would take to Bethlehem. The next part of Matthew jumps to the story
of King Herod and the wise men. We don’t
get to know about the legal commitment Joseph makes to Mary when they travel to
where Jesus is to be born. We don’t hear
about shepherds or the lack of lodging when they get to Bethlehem. Matthew is matter of fact: Joseph is to wed Mary and raise her child as
his own, and that’s what he does.
The next thing we hear about Joseph is that another angel
comes to him in another dream and tells them to flee Bethlehem and go to Egypt.
Which leads us to the next set of questions posed in our
Bible study last week: Why do you think
Joseph is overlooked in scripture? From what we read in Matthew, what can we
learn from him?
Like I’ve been saying, Joseph seems to be a supporting
member of this cast. Even though he isn’t
completely overlooked in this part of the Jesus story, he’s one of those characters
that might need some fan fiction writer to explore his back story. If that were to happen, I think the few
verses we have here can give us a good foundation for who Joseph is.
He is committed to Mary and Jesus. While we don’t know if he and Mary had other
children or if he was widowed and had other children to raise, we know that
family is important, children are important to him.
He is obedient. He
did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.
He doesn’t even seem to question his abilities, like Moses did, or his
age, like Abraham and Sarah, or Jeremiah did.
He just does what God asked and expected him to do.
He is
faithful to God. He will raise this son in
the Jewish life, taking him to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to learn and to teach.
He is compassionate.
Knowing that this child is coming to save people from their sins, he agreed
to be the father this boy would need. He
would teach him about the world, about the widows and orphans, the immigrants
and migrants, about corrupt government, poverty, abundance, and loving one
another. Not that this Emmanuel, this
God is with us, needed to be taught any of these things, but some day people
would ask, “Isn’t that Joseph’s son?” and recognize the compassion the father
modeled for the son.
There is still much we do not know about Joseph. What we do know teaches us that he was willing
to raise God’s son as his own, to know God’s love anew, to be in the presence
of Emmanuel, God with us.
Let us pray.
Dear God, we thank you for Joseph, your chosen father of
Jesus, husband of Mary. We graciously
ask that we may exhibit just some of the compassion, righteousness, obedience,
faithfulness, commitment and love that define Joseph. For while we do not hear much of his story,
we see that he led his life devoted to you.
Help us to be so devoted to you. Amen.