December 26, 1999

Douglas S. Long

North Raleigh United Church

Children are so wonderful at Christmas time. There is nothing quite like a young child whose face is full of wonder and excitement. Just seeing a child well up with expectation and glee enlivens us all. I want to say once more how much I appreciate the work that those of you involved in the programs with the children. The tableau was so meaningful.

Sandra, Rebecca, Victoria, Sandy, Glen , Jim, all others of you who volunteer regularly to teach and learn from our children… thank you.

…and there is always something to learn from children.

A grandfather told me this story a couple of years ago.

Seems his son… then about 40 years old himself, a week or two before Christmas sat his 5 year old son on the couch and said…. "You know, son, I love you more than you love me."

The 5 yr. old son… "Oh no, daddy, I love you more than you love me."

"No," said the father, "I'm sure I love you more."

"No daddy," the son insisted, "I love you 1000 infinities."

"A thousand infinities," mused the father… Now he had two children, the five year old son, and a 12 year old daughter. If the five year old son could come up with a concept like 'a thousand infinities'… what possibly might the 12 year old say?

He sat the 12 year old on the couch.

"You know," he began, "I love you more than you love me" … to which the 12 year old responded:

"I know."

We never stop learning from children. When we think we've heard it all, a child will say something completely fresh ….and informative. "I know."

I want to suggest this morning that, like a child that continually surprises us, the Christmas narrative too, no matter how many times we may have heard it, contains scores of nuances yet to inform us. Ponder with me a few moments.

We tend to romanticize the text, the scripture so much, that we forget the human drama that had to occur. In the birth story of Jesus we mix one account with another (which is to say Matthew and Luke because John and Mark have no account of Jesus' birth) and lay a tremendous amount of tradition over it all. It becomes truly difficult for us to separate the account we receive in the Gospels from that we inherit from our parents or culture. For those of you that were a part of the first session Denise led on the birth narratives of Jesus in the Sunday forums earlier in the December you'll remember an rather eye opening quiz she shared with you on the story of the birth of Jesus as it is actually recorded in the Bible…. And though for some of you it will be repetitious for the great majority it is not… so let me share a couple of the questions in this 'quiz' with you now.

-True or false… Mary rode a donkey to Bethlehem.

Answer… No one knows. The Bible records nothing about it.

-What did the Innkeeper tell Mary and Joseph? He said…

1. You can use my stable
2. Come back after the Christmas rush
3. We have no room in the Inn.
4. other….

The answer is D. We don't know. No words are recorded.)

-Which animals were present at Jesus' birth? Another multiple choice…

A. Cows and Donkeys

B. Sheep, goats, and camels

C. Sheep, goats, and cows

Actually, no mention is made of animals.

-The wise men found Jesus in … a manger, a stable, a house, a good mood?

(Matthew says very clearly it was a house.)

-How many wise men were there anyway?

There is no mention of a number.

Tradition.

No question about it, traditions have sprouted that are as near and dear as the story itself… but when push comes to shove, we realize that much of the tradition is based on speculation, solid speculation perhaps, but speculation all the same.

But what does our tradition… not the text, but tradition… tell us about Joseph? Old, silent, anything but central Joseph.

I want to think a little more carefully this morning about a very neglected but I think incredibly important part of the Christmas Story. I want to take a closer look at Joseph.

One of the interesting developments of the recent children's tableau was that each Sunday all the little girls wanted to be angels… angels are beautiful, they have wings and pretty white costumes… During the Sundays of Advent, the time of waiting, not many of them clamored to be Mary (no wings, no white)… but on Christmas Eve night… oh, I understand we had Mary's coming out of the wood work then… Why? Well, the baby of course… and a real baby at that.(Thank you very much, Melissa)

I'm curious though, was there any scuffling for who would dress the part of Joseph, Rebecca and Sandra… Probably not.

No one really cares to be Joseph. Not a very glamorous history…

When you think about it… we've been awfully hard on Joseph. I mean, Mary is venerated as the very Mother of God and all that goes with it… while Joseph, for many of us, becomes an old man with only a few hospitals named after him. We depict Joseph in Christmas pageants as the silent one, the one who is there out of necessity but who bears little import.

I want to claim that the Christmas story would not have happened without Joseph… that there is no more important person in the narrative, no one more crucial, than the little spoken of Joseph…. That the story could not have happened without him… and let me tell you why.

We are accustomed to pondering the things in Mary's heart. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to ponder those in Joseph's either.

Judaism was, without any question, a patriarchal religion. The laws of Judaism gave little if any right to women. A woman, in fact, found her meaning in her relationship to the men in her life. Obeying her father and serving her brothers. Later obeying her husband and raising her sons.

You may not like it (OK Jessica, you don't like it.)… and indeed it grates on our 20^th, soon to 21^st century sensibilities, but that was the culture of the day.

…and Joseph was, as far as we know, a good God-fearing young man, with all of his life ahead of him, engaged to be married, when his wife-to-be became pregnant. …and it wasn't his child

Now you can romanticize this all you want, but let's not get too carried away with the story we've learned to love and accept. Look at the text:

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph…

( a word of explanation here… betrothed in this sense was stronger than what we today would classify as engaged but still not legally married. Most probably a dowry had been partially paid and while Joseph was coming up with the remainder of it Mary continued to live with her parents. Still, the betrothal was binding even though the marriage had not yet been consummated.)

…back to the text:

But before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

Now folks, I don't know how Mary broke this news to Joseph… Frankly, I don't think it would fly too well today. Do you?

Put yourself in Joseph's shoes… seriously… try it for a minute… You're engaged… any of you ever been engaged?… You're engaged and your wife-to-be says…. "Honey, I'm pregnant, but before you jump to conclusions, let me explain…' Right.

And the text tells us that Joseph was no fool either.

Her husband Joseph (the betrothal was so strong you could already refer to each other as husband and wife)… Vs.19 Her husband Joseph, being a man of honor and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally.

Understand what's going on here… God's entire Messianic plan rests in the hands of this simple man Joseph.

Mary comes up to Joseph and says … "Joe, I got something to tell you…"

That's what she'd call him today… Joe… These are real people… not some holy puppets in a nativity play… think about what's going on here…

So Mary comes up to her beloved and says… "Joseph I'm with child…"

And in this patriarchal society, what does the law require? What is the expected response of Joseph? What does his culture and tradition call for?

Deuteronomy clearly spells out the options for a bridegroom that has been betrayed… He is to take the offending woman to be judged before the elders of the town and if her guilt is established… which is not hard to do when she is several months pregnant… if her guilt is established… well, let me quote from the book of Deuteronomy… Chapter 22: 21…

No one, absolutely no one would have faulted Joseph if he had chosen to uphold his own honor by punishing Mary as the law proscribed. In fact, for those bound by legalism, it would have been the proper thing to do.

The law is just… the crime has been committed… the penalty is death.

Open and shut case with no question of innocence. She is pregnant. The child isn't Joseph's. Electric chair for you, Mary.

[No… not the electric chair, nor lethal injection… nothing so civilized as that…

This Christian nation has so far yet to go….]

No, not a single soul would blame Joseph for dragging Mary to her father's door, picking up the first and largest stone, and beginning the culturally called for execution of this offensive woman.

I can only imagine that the distraught and angry Joseph tossed and turned more than a night or two deliberating what to do. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Could get no rest… until finally, some peace of mind came to the honorable Joseph when he decided to ignore the law and divorce Mary quietly. I say Joseph must have loved Mary deeply… and though his heart was crushed by her apparent indiscretion, that love spoke more loudly than the law.

The Christmas story is rooted in the love of Joseph.

…and then came the dream in which Joseph encountered more fully the spirit of God. The Gospel account continues:

Verse 20 Joseph, son of David, Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife …

That's what Joseph wanted so much to hear I believe, permission from a higher authority to not be afraid to take his wife home… to not be afraid to do what, despite what those around him expected, to not be afraid to follow the law of mercy and love and throw out the rigid law of judgment… I don't know if Joseph was able to hear the rest of the message or not… or if it even really mattered to him…

I confess that my faith doesn't hinge on this part of the story…

I don't know exactly what happened at this point. I don't know all the details…. But it doesn't take much to understand that Joseph embraced Mary deeply… I would call it forgiveness… His eyes did not lie to him. She was pregnant. His mind knew how such things happen…

But he took her to Bethlehem, where all his family, aunts, uncles, third cousins and beyond were gathering for an official census. It was a family reunion of epic proportions… and Joseph took Mary, nine months pregnant, to meet them.

The Christmas story is rooted in love… and forgiveness. …the love and forgiveness of Joseph.

And you think he wasn't a proud father? Oh, Joseph had come far too far in this business of love to not beam with joy at the birth of this child…

Oh, I don't contend God wouldn't have broken into the world in love in some other way, at some other point…. But don't underestimate the importance of the loving Joseph in what happens here.

Did Joseph believe Mary was a virgin? I doubt it. …but did he love the child as his own? …Had he not intended to, he could have stopped the birth from happening at all. Joseph is an amazing man.

There aren't many paintings in western art of Joseph holding the Christ child, though there are a few. … possibly Michelangelo's 'Doni Tondo' the best known among them… A much later painting by Carl Muller, I'm told, depicts a toddler sized Jesus being cuddled by Joseph. But in the vast canvas of religious art, portrayals of Joseph and Jesus are tragically rare. It's a shame we haven't acknowledged more often the wonderful contribution of this man… and the awkward dilemma that he and Mary surely faced. The 14^th century German Carol does… Mary sings the first verse:

"Gentle Joseph, Joseph dear, stay with me, for the baby's near; God will surely your goodness hear, as you will love this new born child," says Mary."

To which Joseph responds, perhaps after much deliberation and prayer, perhaps after an encounter with the very spirit of love which is God,

" Gladly Mary, Mary mine, I will cradle the child divine, here will heaven and earth combine, for you will bear God's child, O dearest Mary."

There is yet one more of "Joseph's lullabies" I have recently come across. This one written just a couple of decades ago by Ron Klug---- I can almost see Joseph peering over the baby Jesus as he whispers…

Sleep now, little one.

I will watch while you and your mother sleep.

I wish I could do more.

This straw is not good enough for you.

Back in Nazareth I'll make a proper bed for you

Of seasoned wood, smooth, strong, well-pegged,

A bed fit for a carpenter's son.

Just wait till we get back to Nazareth.

I'll teach you everything I know.

You'll learn to choose the cedarwood, eucalyptus, and fir.

You'll learn to use the drawshave, ax, and saw.

You arms will grow strong, your hands rough-- like these

You will bear the pungent smell of new wood

And wear shavings and sawdust in your hair.

You'll be a man whose life centers on hammer and nails and wood.

But for now,

Sleep, little Jesus, sleep.

It is not far fetched in the least to think that Joseph's dream, his great encounter with the God of mercy and love, served as a catalyst for the rest of his life to be lived in that knowledge. What a wonderful context, what a marvelous father figure for Jesus.

In the nativity story of Jesus', we have fostered a tradition so remarkable and lovely. We can visualize Mary on a donkey, the inn keeper shutting the door, the straw and sheep, …specific numbers of Magi, even give them names….

Should we not also see a man of remarkable character and grace… who loved the mother and child into being.

When I have the chance… when the opportunity comes… for love to win over vengeance

…for forgiveness to drown out all spite…

In next year's nativity, and tomorrow's real life drama…

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