December 17

December 17, 2006

Joseph, Son of David (Once Again, Not About You-Know-Who) a sermon on Matthew 1.18-25 by David C. Mauldin Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

Above the city of Montreal, on the slope of Mount Royal, from which that city takes its name, stands a beautiful and imposing house of prayer called St. Joseph’s Oratory. An oratory is a place to pray, a church building without a regular congregation. St. Joseph’s attracts more than 2 million visitors per year. Most of these are pilgrims, or at least tourists who have come to pray. Some come for the view of the city, but the feel you get when you go there is prayer, not tourism. Many churches I find in large cities have become little more than tourist attractions. St. Joseph’s is not like that. Most of the visitors climb the 283 steps from the street to the 2200 seat basilica and stand under the grand dome. If you go there, you won’t forget it.

I was there with Rosalyn in May 2005. Joseph—our Joseph—was with us too; but he had not been born yet, and he was not named Joseph. The oratory was built by Catholics, so there are numerous statures and pictures. One in particular struck me. Joseph, holding baby Jesus. Jesus was an infant, but old enough to sit straight in Joseph’s arms. Joseph was young and strong. He was powerful, masculine, and good. I am not sure how the statue conveyed a sense of his goodness, but there it was. You felt safe in the presence of this Joseph. He was a guardian, a protector.

Our sermon this morning is about Joseph, the often unsung member of the holy family. Jesus and Mary get a lot of press. Joseph is just kind of there. He is not, after all, Jesus’ real dad. No gospel but Matthew takes an interest in him. And we know very little about him. Just a few verses, a brief introduction, and then he is gone. Somewhere, somehow, between Jesus’ visit to the Temple at age 12 and the start of his ministry, Joseph drops out of the picture. Most likely he died, but we simply do not know.

I admire Joseph. To me he represents what a man should be. And I like the way Joseph is portrayed in that statue. It is surprising. Catholics believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary. For this reason, Joseph is often portrayed as an old man, more a caretaker for her than a husband. There is even an ancient Christian legend that presents Joseph in just this light. But there is no biblical warrant for this assumption. In fact, when the Bible talks about Jesus’ brothers, the most likely explanation is that Mary and Joseph went on to have children in the normal way after Jesus was born. The Joseph I meet in scripture is young, like Mary. He is strong and just and honest. Think of Michael Landon as Charles Ingalls in “Little House on the Prairie,” if you are old enough to remember that show. Why don’t we have fathers like that on TV anymore? What has our image of fatherhood become?

I admit that my soul-stirring experience at the oratory may have been influenced by my own impending fatherhood. What kind of father do I want to be? And there, as if in answer to my question, is St. Joseph. Admittedly it is an idealized Joseph. But there he is, representing what men, what fathers ought to be.

This sermon, however, is for more than men and fathers. It is for all of us. In my reflections on the biblical Joseph, I have been surprised by two things. The first is how God allowed Joseph to do for God what God usually does for us. That is, Joseph is a man who does for God what God does for men—and women. The second is how what God does for Joseph, God does for us. So these two observations become the two points in this sermon: How Joseph is like God, and how we are like Joseph.

We begin exploring these by remembering Joseph’s part in Jesus’ birth. Here is a funny thing: Matthew tells us all this and focuses his attention on Joseph because he is concerned to show that Jesus belongs to the house and lineage of King David. This was part of God’s promise. The Messiah would be from David’s house. We may not get bent about such things, but Matthew did. Nothing less than the faithfulness of God was at stake. Jesus is the answer to God’s promises, and Matthew was careful to show how. Matthew is more worried about this than about the virginal conception of Jesus. He just took that for granted. And I think we can too this morning. I have preached before on why we can and ought to believe that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. Basically it comes down to this: There is an indication in the traditions about Jesus that something about his birth was unusual, but this alone is hardly sufficient to justify believing in something so miraculous. However, we do have ample historical grounds for believing that Jesus rose from the dead. So I piggy-back the virgin birth on the resurrection. We know Jesus rose again and lives today, so why not a virginal conception? Both miracles are simply God giving life where there was none. So, like Matthew, we can simply accept that and move on.

At first, of course, Joseph does not know Mary’s pregnancy is the work of God. He has to assume … well, we all know what he assumed. Now he has a serious problem. Joseph and Mary were first century Jews. Their culture had certain rules. One was the binding nature of an engagement. Marriages were generally arranged by the families. Agreements could be made quite early in a young person’s life. “When you grow up, you will marry Joseph, the carpenter’s son.” Years later, when the age for marriage grew near, the couple was betrothed. This engagement was considered binding. It could be broken only by divorce. The couple did not yet live together or consummate the marriage, but they were legally bound. It is at this stage in their relationship that Joseph discovers Mary is pregnant.

Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. Now, however, his reputation and his honor are in doubt. Social relationships in that society were regulated by a system of shame or honor. When the Book of Proverbs said, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,” everyone in Joseph’s world would have agreed.

Two paths lay open to Joseph. He could expose Mary publicly and denounce her. She and her family would be utterly disgraced. Worst case scenario would be she loses her standing in the community and her family kicks her out into the streets. Or, he could quietly divorce her, sparing her the anguish of public mockery and making it more likely her family would not throw her out. Joseph would benefit by denouncing her. First, the marriage contract the families would have made stipulated a certain payment that had to be made if he divorced her. Letting her go quietly might have cost him money he didn’t necessarily have. Second, he could wash his hands publicly of any hint of scandal, something most folks would have found desirable. And third, some men would have been personally offended. Most men in that society would have. Don’t discount revenge as a motive for putting her through the pain of public scandal.

Keep in mind that there was no TV back then. No radio. No newspapers or books. What did people do for entertainment? They gossiped, of course. Because of the carefully structured nature of that culture, unwed pregnancy was very rare. Mary set tongues clicking and heads wagging throughout Galilee.

The one thing Joseph could not do was go ahead and marry her anyway. For two reasons. One, to do so would have been to condone sin. This is half of what the word righteous means in the verse. This simply was not done. An unfaithful wife had to be divorced. If Joseph married her and he were not the father (and he knew he wasn’t), he made himself unacceptable to his family, to his community, to himself, and in his eyes also to God. Because Joseph was righteous, he cared what God thought. Two, marrying her would be an admission of guilt. It could mean only one thing: Joseph was the father. Otherwise he would never marry her. So, ah ha! He is the guilty one after all. In our culture, if an unmarried young man and woman get pregnant, then they marry, no one gives it further thought. They made it right. We want the child to have a mother and a father in a stable home supported by the privileges and responsibilities of marriage. Not so in Joseph’s culture. If you grew up in a small town, you know how people know all about you, and they remember it for good or for ill. Joseph and Mary would have been remembered for this. It would change the way people treated them for the rest of their lives. Because he was righteous, if Joseph had been the father, he would have married Mary and shared her disgrace. But he knew he was not, so he did the best he could, he decided to divorce her quietly.

This too was righteous, because it was merciful. He had no doubt that she had sinned terribly against God and against him. But he was not vindictive. He resolved to do what he had to do with the minimum of suffering to Mary.

God, however, had other plans. I read you the story. An angel appears to Joseph, and he reacts exactly the way Mary does when the angel appears to her in Luke’s gospel. Every time God tells him to do something, Joseph says Yes and obeys.

You may not have noticed it, but the kicker in this passage is right at the end: “until she had borne a son, and he named him Jesus.” Once again, in Joseph’s world, this was a significant act. By giving Mary’s son a name, Joseph acknowledged the boy as his own. “This is my son,” was what his act of naming meant, and when a man made this claim in such circumstances, that settled the matter. Jesus’ birth certificate, if they had issued birth certificates back then, would have been a work of fiction. Joseph was his father, not biologically, but legally.

Now that we know the background to the story, let’s get down to business. What I find so amazing about Joseph is this: God lets him do for God what God usually does for us. I see this in three actions: adoption, protection and nurture, and sharing humiliation.

First, adoption. John 1.12 tells us, “But to all who received Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” Paul writes in Romans 8 and other places about our adoption as God’s children, and Jesus taught us to call God “our Father.” Adoption is such a strong New Testament word for what God does for us that it is more than a mere analogy. It is literally true. Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father. He invites us to share that relationship. He is the only begotten Son; we are adopted sons and daughters.

Like us, Joseph got to be God’s adopted son, but he also got to adopt and be the father of God. Jesus is God. When God proved his great love for us by becoming one of us, Joseph was his father—in every sense of that word except the biological.

We are spiritual orphans. We don’t know who we are. Are we really anybody? Do we belong? Are we worth anything? Does anyone love us? We live these haunting questions, and then God adopts us as his children, gives us a name—the name Christian—and gives us a home—the church while we live on earth and heaven when we die. Yet there was a time when God came to us as a tiny, vulnerable baby—weak and helpless in a big cruel world. Joseph adopts him, gives him his name—the name Jesus—and provides a home for him. That amazes me.

Second, protection and nurture. I speak often of God’s work in our lives. The Holy Spirit is at work in you. God gives us birth into new life in Christ through baptism and faith. Then God nurtures us in the Christian life, transforming us slowly but surely into the people he created us to be. God is either calling you to faith in Christ or, if you have already come to faith in Christ, God is making you more and more like Christ. Jesus spoke poetically of God’s fatherly care for us in the Sermon on the Mount. We will revel in that next month. God watches over us, takes care of us, and works in us. How wonderful this is!

Yet this is the very thing God allowed Joseph to do for him! Joseph cared for Jesus, provided for him, fed him, clothed him, washed him, taught him to walk and talk, taught him about God and the scriptures, took him to worship, taught him the trade of a carpenter. Do you see how special this is? These are things every good father does for his children, but Joseph did it for God. The man deserves more recognition than we usually give him!

Third, sharing humiliation. After the angel explained things to him, Joseph knew what he had to do. He had to go ahead and marry Mary. He could proceed in good conscience because he now knew that this was what God wanted. In his own eyes, therefore, and in the eyes of God, Joseph was still a righteous man. Only now his family and community would not think so. How could he explain it to them? “This baby is the Savior. The Holy Spirit is responsible for the child, not me. God just chose me to act as father.” That kind of crazy explanation, while true, would have only made things worse. Joseph claimed responsibility for the child, and that meant sharing the scandal surrounding his conception.

Ironically, this is the very thing Jesus came to do for us. On the cross he suffered degradation. He was punished for something he did not do. He was mocked and ridiculed. And he did it for us. As Paul wrote: “For our sake God made Jesus to be sin, although he knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” [2 Cor 5.21]. It is one thing, if your neighbor is in need, to share from your abundance to help him or her. It is quite a different thing to share in his or her humiliation. This is what God did for us. It is what Joseph did for God.

I see I will need to be quick about the second point, how we are like Joseph. As I said, Joseph inspires me as a father, but I know he can inspire every Christian, because I find Mary inspiring too. Both Joseph and Mary set an example of how we ought to respond ot the gospel. What did they do when God sent them good news? They believed. They answered, “Here I am. Whatever God wants, I am ready to do.” And then they obeyed right away. God calls every human being to faith in Christ, to holy living, and to service in his name to others. God has called and is calling you. That is how you ought to respond: Believe, submit, obey. It really is that simple.

Beyond this, however, Joseph’s experience gives us a heads-up about the sort of thing God is likely to do in our lives. On one hand, God greatly honors Joseph. Joseph gets to play a very important part in God’s great plan. God makes Joseph somebody. He has a vital job to perform. His life is meaningful because he gets to help make God’s plan a reality. On the other hand, it is a difficult job that costs him plenty. I can tell you from experience, being a father is not easy. It’s a lot of work and worry. Add to this the scandal Joseph stepped into. He did it because he knew that what God thinks is far more important than what other people think. That’s easy to forget. So he did it, and because he was righteous he knew that God’s will for him was best, but he might have wanted something different. He might have wanted to be given wealth or power or a life of ease. He might have wanted God to exempt him from suffering and hardship. Why couldn’t God do something like that?

A lot of people approach religion looking for what they can get out of God. Maybe God will make me happier or solve my problems. But that is not the deal God offers. God’s love does not mean God gives us what we want. It means he gives us what we need, which is what he wants. Most of the people in the Bible who served God found out the hard way that what God gives can be painful and costly. Jesus told would-be disciples to take up a cross.

So God says, “I am doing something wonderful beyond your imagining, and I want you to be a part of it. It will, however, cost you plenty. Are you willing?” If we are righteous … if we are like Joseph … we will know that God is our loving Father in heaven who gives us what we need, even if what we want is something different, and knowing this we will do what Joseph did. We will believe, submit, and obey.

This year, when you look at the nativity scene, don’t overlook Joseph. Jesus is the reason for the season, and Mary is so pure and holy and beautiful. But Joseph was a righteous man who obeyed when God called. God does not ask, nor can we hope, for more than that. Amen.
rev_mauldin@yahoo.com

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