Advent 3: The Response of Joseph
Sermon Preached by Reverend Michael Hillier on Sunday, 15 December 2024.
Matthew 1.18-25
In the first Address, we saw the angel visiting Mary and her response. In this Address, I want to focus on Joseph. What was his response to the news? Let me begin by reading Matthew 1:18-25, even though we are familiar with the story.
Sometimes, I think words on a page don’t do justice to the actual situation, and I think this is one of those situations. Think about what is happening here!
The situation seems to be vastly different these days, with most people, it would seem, being quite happy, even delighted at a child born out of wedlock. Thirty years ago, it was very different, and I can remember the trauma it caused within families.
How could a girl tell her father? What happened when the father of the child didn’t want to know and dropped out of the girl’s life?
Mary has to tell Joseph, to whom she was betrothed, that she is pregnant. Their relationship was in the second stage. The first was their engagement, which may have occurred when they were both children. An arranged marriage then being common in that society.
At some point, as young adults, they had to agree to the next step, which would be marriage.
There was probably pressure on them both to agree, though there was always the possibility of saying ‘no’. But having taken this step of betrothal, they were locked into the next step of actual marriage, and now, to separate could only happen by divorce.
Joseph would take Mary from her family home at some stage now, and the relationship would be consummated in marriage.
Mary and Joseph probably grew up together. Did they love each other? I don’t think love entered into it. It was a pre-arranged marriage that would have been convenient to both their families from an economic and social point of view. Romantic love only evolved later and then only in certain sections of society.
No, Joseph would have needed a wife to bear his children, carry on his lineage, and keep house for him. Mary needed a husband to provide economic security and physical protection. It was a functional relationship.
But now Mary comes to speak to him privately. It was fine while the angel was there; she was also a young woman with great inner strength. But now that she comes to speak with Joseph, she must be very nervous and fearful. How would he react?
Would she see a side of him that she had never seen before? Would there be violence either at his own hands or that of someone else?
The Law stated he could have her stoned to death in front of her father’s house! What were her parents going to say when they found out? And what about the neighbours?
Gossip like this travels very quickly. She was on the edge and uncertain—way out of her depth. Think of family honour in, say, Pakistan and what happens there even today. We then get an idea of the tension and the possibilities.
So, was Joseph furious? Angry? Disgusted? Disappointed in her? We are not told, but possibly the latter. We are told that he was a just man who didn’t want to see her brought to shame.
What he felt he needed to do, he would do quietly. You see, his honour was also at stake. People would think he obviously couldn’t control his wife-to-be.
Eugene Peterson’s text says Joseph was ‘chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced’. Even without stoning her, it’s hard to see how disgrace can be avoided.
Much tension is hidden in our reading; today, we usually don’t do justice to it, particularly in the tinsel, glitter, and bonhomie of the secular Christmas.
As Joseph ponders the insoluble, which must have seemed like one of those Japanese koans – what sound does one hand clapping make – as Joseph ponders, God acts.
I don’t know about you, but there have been several times in my life when I have made an important decision, and it’s become very clear to me that I have jumped the wrong way.
It’s as if God has been quietly waiting in the wings, observing all. I have had to really struggle; I have had to make a decision. And because I have desperately wanted to get it right, God has acted to make it right. In the process, I have learned much about myself.
We do not learn so much from experience; clearly, we often don’t. But we learn from reflecting upon our experience. I had to struggle and decide – and then God acted. I don’t know whether you can identify with that or not. We can all get it wrong. God can live with that. It’s what we then do about it that counts.
Back to our text. I think that helps to put the angel’s response in context. Joseph was about to make a significant mistake that would have significantly interfered with God’s plans.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I want God to spell it out clearly. Tell me what to do in a step-by-step fashion! Discernment is never easy, for it’s always about choosing between two ‘goods’, not ‘good’ from ‘evil’.
Despite all this clarity from the angel, it still would not have been easy for both Joseph and Mary. Mary is pregnant, and Joseph is not the father, and he will never be able to claim the child as his own. Much later, in a throw-away line, Jesus is accused of being a bastard (John 8.41).
There was still society to contend with, and community opinion was powerful.
However, community opinion and support are only sometimes hostile to situations. How often have we seen community and friends rally around to support when there is need? How often have we given that support and been on the receiving end?
Put simply, we don’t live this life alone; community is vitally important to receive from and give to. It is a great tragedy today that there seem to be so many takers in life and so few givers.
Individualism seems rampant, and that’s not healthy for any society.
Let me try to connect some of this now. Last week, I mentioned how Mary could say ‘yes’ so readily and easily because she was in a relationship with God.
Like many women, more so than men, she was ahead of Joseph on that one. Women have an inbuilt advantage in this. Women usually seem more open to things of the spirit than men, perhaps because of the power imbalance. They are more at the edge and more likely to be poor in spirit, that is, recognising their need for God. Men – well, we battle on regardless, don’t we?
So Joseph, I think, was a bit behind Mary on this notion of relationship with God. But it was still there; he was in a relationship with God. And he has just taken a giant step forward, but not without struggle.
A relationship sometimes involves struggle, even power struggle, and I think that happens for us all in our relationship with God. We want a wonderful relationship with Him – but on our terms.
We are too sophisticated and proper in our relationship with God to throw the tantrum of the three-year-old to try and get our way. In our relationship with God, all we often want is to feel good about ourselves rather than make the difficult journey to union.
I think we all need to be authentic in our relationship with God. It needs to be an honest, full-on relationship, not a syrupy one where we take care not to upset Him. Dom.
Chapman once said: pray as you can, don’t pray as you can’t. That may seem obvious when stated like that, but how often do we forget it?
Since I am talking about pregnancy, let me tell you a story about pregnancy I read, which I think says what I have just been saying very well.
A woman and her husband had been trying to conceive a child for three years. The woman had been trying to bargain with God: do this, and I will trust you for the rest of my life. But no response. Things came to a head. As she told it, she was sitting at her kitchen bench, alone in her house one cold May day, her head in her hands. She had always been polite to God about her deep need to be pregnant, but now she was angry, and she let rip, pouring out all her frustration and disappointment and hurt at Him. Then she sat back, almost daring God to strike her for her impudence, for it seemed so terrible to be angry at God.
But instead of being hit by a bolt of lightning, she had the unnerving experience of God chuckling at her, perhaps even cheering that she had finally been able to confide the truth about her feelings. She was astonished that He welcomed her anger.
Now, they had the basis for a genuine relationship. She began to weep the tears of a lifetime.
She knew that God profoundly and powerfully loved her. Some months later, she became pregnant but was unsure whether the two events were related.
The message to all of us, me included, is – to get real in our relationship with God. Don’t play ‘nice’ games. Don’t be on your best behaviour with polite questions as when you had to visit an elderly relation when you were small and the afternoon tea was served with the best china. And there was a list of things you were not to say because almost divine wrath, or at least that of your parents, was hanging over you.
Let me leave it at that. Relationship is vital. But it’s risky, and it has to be honest.
That’s true of life, and it’s true of our God relationship. In responding to God, I think Joseph was confronted with this head-on.
I encourage you to think about your relationship with God. Is it honest and authentic? Are you polite and careful in what you say and think about God? Or is it meat and three vegetables – tasty, nutritious and filling?