A Place for Joseph

Sermon Matthew 1:18-25 December 11, 2016 Advent 3A

A Place for Joseph

Often life gets in the way of our perfect dreams.

We hope for order.

We seek peace.

We yearn for love.

We desire joy.

We want a place to call our own.

We want a place that offers us opportunity.

We want a place that provides us space for our perfect dreams to come true.

More often than not our place is found in the unexpected.

Our dreams are met through imperfection.

When we think about Joseph,

the one engaged to Mary,

we wonder what place he had in the story of Jesus our Savior.

Where does he fit into the narrative of Emmanuel, God with us?

We struggle to answer the question of who he is.

When we talk to our children about him as we put the nativity pieces together, we stumble over our words, “He’s, umm, he’s uhh, well, he’s Jesus’ earthly dad.” “He is the one who raised Jesus and taught him all he needed growing up.”

But, there is more to Joseph than this.

There is much more to tell about him as we listen to the words from the gospel of Matthew. Joseph is probably the one in the nativity who is given the least attention. He is the one who we rarely talk about as we go through Advent and Christmas.

And he is the one who does not have much place in our conversations about faith and life and salvation.

Joseph, we read, is a righteous man from the house of David.

He knows his family story and his family name and has lived his life accordingly. He is an upstanding citizen known in the community and is a fine carpenter. He is engaged to a beautiful young woman named Mary. He is a man of faith. He has been raised in the faith, gone to school to learn the Word of God, publicly professed his adherence to the Law of God and has lived a righteous life.

His life has followed the ‘proper order’ and it appears he has a future where his perfect dreams will come true.

And yet, as we learn from scripture the life of Joseph and his perfect dreams, becomes anything less than perfect. There is a huge cloud of trouble that descends on this sweet couple.

Thanks to the artists of old we have a painted picture of perfection in our minds of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Yet, the birth of Jesus was anything but idyllic.

As a matter of fact, Jesus was born into a family that was subject to scandal, gossip and disgrace.

This couple found themselves torn and in turmoil.

Joseph was caught in a crisis!

The relationship of Joseph and Mary was at stake.

His fiancé was with child and he was not the father!

All honor, faith, and righteousness disappeared in the announcement of this impending birth.

Every dream Joseph had was immediately dashed.

Joseph was caught in the midst of a very messy family drama (and we all know what that’s like) and there appeared to be only one way to handle this mess.

Being a righteous and honorable man Joseph realized he only had two choices according to his faith. -He could break the engagement, dismiss Mary and send her away in quiet disgrace.  -Or he could also implement the Law and have her publicly accused of wrong doing and have her stoned to death.

Either way, his choices were honorable, and righteously just. It was crucial for the sake of the family and the a descendant of David to follow the rules, to maintain his place in his family and society.

We still live like that today. (And that’s a good thing) We still want to maintain honor and dignity and follow the rules. We want to live lives of integrity and maintain our places in society and our families.

Yet, we know that life is messy.

Families are anything but perfect.

There is always drama, turmoil and crises.

I find it reassuring that our Savior was born in real life, flesh and blood circumstances. Jesus was born into real and honest family relationship crises.

Can you imagine what the parents of Mary and Joseph were saying?

What I appreciate most about our Father God is that he loved us so much that becoming one of us meant becoming part of the mess! God came into the midst of real life drama, suffering, scandal, gossip, and relationship struggle.

Joseph makes a choice of his place in this salvation story of God by hearing the word of the angel and doing the unthinkable.

Before Jesus turned the tables and the world upside down,

Joseph turns the tables of what doing right is all about.

His actions were the beginning of an upside down world of grace!

Caught in the tension of the Law and the command from God, Joseph moves from doing what is right to doing the right thing.

Sometimes grace is counter to justice.

Sometimes grace is contrary to righteous rules.

Sometimes grace is converse to accepted traditions.

Sometimes grace is clashing the proper order.

And all the time grace breaks through the messy,

the crises,

the tension,

the expectations,

the perfections,

and dumps out love,

pours out compassion, interrupts the norm, offers the unexpected, gathers the lost, unites the lonely, brings together the broken, and lifts up the outcast.

Joseph makes the intentional choice of love to be a husband and a father despite all the oppositions around him. Without this most unusual offering of Joseph, the holy family might not have been as we know it today. Perhaps the words we hear from Jesus about love and grace were first heard while he sat on the knee of his earthly father Joseph.

As we look at our nativities we can look at the place for Joseph as one of great love and grace. May we be as willing in our place to hear the words of the angels and allow God to enter into our messes. May we be willing to be the ones who offer grace all the time. Amen.