Advent IV, December 22, 2019 St. John’s Episcopal Church, New Milford, CT Matthew 1: 18-25 Robert W. Woodroofe
What about Joseph?
I have a joke that at least at its beginning seems to fit the darkness of this – the shortest daylight day of the year in the northern hemisphere. An extended family has gathered in the ICU visitors’ room when the doctor emerges looking somber. “I’m sorry,” he says. “There just doesn’t seem to be anything we can do unless you were to agree to a brain transplant, but it’s highly experimental, risky and costly.” In the stunned silence that follows, a person asks, “How much would a new brain cost?” “Well,” he says, “for a female brain it would run somewhere around $20,000. For a male brain, it would come in at the neighborhood of $50,000.” A child asks, “How come they’re priced differently?” To which the doctor replies, “Well, it’s a standard pricing procedure. The males’ brains are generally factory fresh, but we mark the female brains down because they’re used.”
I’m not one hundred percent in agreement with the worldview reflected in that joke, but I did find it funny. It pokes fun at this male dominated, patriarchal world we live in. I thought of the joke because today, perhaps more than any other day in the Christian calendar just prior to Christmas, Advent IV generally brings to the forefront an extremely important woman, Mary, the mother of our Lord, as saint and a hero well deserving of our praise and gratitude.
The theme of the gospel on this final Sunday of Advent, after all, is generally dominated the Virgin Mary and her delivery of Immanuel, God with us. Orthodox Christians have given Mary the nickname of “Theotokos – the God bearer.” Such is Mary’s courage, her willingness to obey the Holy Spirit and her trust in God’s goodness that she submits her body and her very being to the purposes of God in a way that has moved and witnessed to Christians ever since. If anyone can qualify for owning a well-usedbrain and heart in Christian lore, that would be Mary.
Nevertheless, in the Gospel of Matthew, the account we follow this year, and every third year, the disclosure of the coming birth of Jesus is made not to Mary but rather to Joseph, her intended husband. It happens in a dream. And the result delivers a different tone to this day.
You will recall that Mary, upon hearing from the Angel Gabriel of her unique calling and task, replies, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” In St. Matthew’s Gospel account, rather than hearing of heroic witness and submission, we encounter the story of Joseph’s confused and troubled conscience, his lonely test of faithful trust, and an angel’s call to action so as to further God’s purposes. All of this is prompted by a dream experienced by Joseph; it’s a message which Dr. Freud might be convinced came from Joseph’s own unconscious self, but which he, Joseph, takes straight-forwardly to be an angel’s urgent message to him from God.
Joseph was promised to Mary in marriage, yet they had not had occasion to physically live together as a fully married couple. Here was Mary already expecting a child. Who might the father be? Joseph draws some understandable conclusions that it is not he. There’s no indication that he and Mary sat down and discussed together what was going on. Yet, he is well aware of the laws governing pre-marital sexual engagement in Judaism. Here is a relevant passage from Deuteronomy: “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife.” Mary in her unexplained pregnancy is apparently guilty of fornication. A capital crime may be lurking here. Joseph, perhaps in not a little fear with a higher loyalty to the Law, initially figures that by acting quietly and discretely to withdraw from their engagement he at least might be spared.
Instead, Joseph is urged by the angel to take action. He is to stick with this mysteriously pregnant young woman. The angel explains that God’s Spirit is the source of Mary’s expected child, and that he’s to be named Jesus, a name describing One who will save the people from their sins, their wanderings far from their Creator God. This is only the first of three dreams for Joseph in which he is guided by a messenger of God to take action in behalf of the divine will.
In my experience, Joseph remains an otherwise fairly shadowy figure. By the time Jesus reaches maturity and begins his ministry in Galilee, we hear no more of him. That’s probably why Joseph is so often pictured as so much older-looking than his wife. During Jesus’ public ministry, only Mary remains along with Jesus’s younger brothers and sisters.
Our tradition hasseen fit to honor the Holy Family, the trio of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, and on March 19 every year we remember Joseph among the calendar of saints. The collect for that day nicely catches the essence of Joseph gleaned from today’s gospel account when it says, “O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother; give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands…”
So the prayer stresses and imagines Joseph as a nurturing and protective father to Jesus even as he remains a faithful and loyal husband to Mary: this is a tall order in any age, and a laudable image for any man to which to aspire who is called to a life of marriage and parenting. Still, there are other qualities in him of a more general nature: qualities that can be worn comfortably and faithfully by married and unmarried, by women as well as men. These are qualities that Jesus himself would uniquely stress and teach through his own ministry. They are teachings and of Jesus through which he uniquely brought out and further developed the Jewish-grounded laws already revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Here they are in a nutshell: first, by not allowing himself to leap to conclusions, Joseph avoided the mistake of passing judgment on others, especially Mary. “Judge not …” Second, in spite of this unexplained pregnancy placing him in dangerous bind, he receives her in a forgiving mode. Whether or not there’s really anything to be forgiven, there’s the appearance of it that can so easily damage human relationships. God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of one another is surely central to the Christian life. A third characteristic of Joseph is his gentle steering clear of violence, something Jesus would repeatedly warn us to avoid. And finally there’s a cloak of humility that surrounds Joseph and his actions. He does not take the path of protective dominance supplied by his own peoples’ patriarchy, but rather quietly and supportively picks up his cross and gets himself into the line. By accepting the pregnant Mary, the threat to them both really never goes away. Humility takes that sort of courage. So, non-judgmental, ready with forgiveness, non-violent in action and humble to the core: those are Christ-like virtues which Joseph embodies to which we all can aspire.
Thinking back to those less-expensive, used women from my initial story, I note that the term “used” as in “used car” has been superseded by the term “pre-owned.” Now that’s a description that can fit men and women, married or single, parent or child: pre-owned. Our previous owner, our Creator God, has brought us into being, set us free to find our way, and now promises the succor of forgiving grace along the way – guided by these Christ-taught virtues that Joseph so faithfully modeled. May we all find in St. Joseph a person of rectitude and inspiration for us to practice non-judging forgiveness, gentleness and humility. Amen