Tag Archives: Joseph

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CE, YC, December 24, 2015

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In many ways, the story that we tell tonight is rather ordinary.  As the story begins, the government is doing what the government does – finding ways to tax the people.  And so the people without influence are herded – herded back to their hometowns to be registered so that the Emperor can be certain he is getting all he is owed.  But anytime you move masses of people, you get overcrowding.  That is what happens in Bethlehem this night.  Though Joseph’s extended family is expecting him, they run out of space.  Though the story says there is no room in the inn, the more likely scenario is that the family guest room was already full.[i]  So Joseph and his pregnant fiancé get the leftovers – the area of the home meant for the animals.  We’ve had those moments – when your delinquent uncle or your slacker friend shows up unexpected.  You grab a pillow and a blanket and offer space on the couch – or the floor if the couch is already taken.  This is just an ordinary night of making the space work.

Of course, no woman would want to give birth under these conditions, but that is the funny thing about birth – births happen all the time, whether people are ready or not.  Though every time a baby is born we marvel at the miracle of life, births are really much more commonplace that we give them credit for being.  Just like any other birth, Mary finds a place to lay the baby, and just like any other mother, Mary finds a way to swaddle the baby so that he can ease off to sleep.  And so in the messiness of managing civic life and familial life, here our story has us working through the ordinary mess of reproductive life.

And in case we were to get too excited about our story, God decides to reveal the occurrences of that night to even more ordinary people.  Enter the shepherds.  These are ordinary men, doing the necessary work of shepherding.  In fact, these men are so ordinary, they are almost invisible to the outside world.  They are not busy heading to their home town to be counted because according to the day, they are not worth counting.[ii]  They are the migrant workers that do the work no one else wants to do.  So while everyone is sleeping, or eating, or enjoying the warmth of a fire, the shepherds are out tending their flocks, focused on the ordinariness of agricultural life.

Of course, the story becomes interesting when we hear about all of the extraordinary parts of this story.  Yes, there is the same greedy government, the same crowded family, the same new parents, and the same business of farm life.  But something extraordinary breaks into the ordinary this night.  In the midst of everyday lives, God breaks in through the ordinary and proclaims good news of great joy.  The Messiah has been born – the long awaited Savior who will change everything.  In fact, the angels are so blown away by this extraordinary moment in time that they break into song, praising God.  That is what we do when faced with the extraordinary.  We praise God for God’s goodness and mercy and grace.  God takes on human flesh for us, and the angels do the only thing they can – they praise God in gratitude.

The shepherds’ initial reaction to the same news is quite ordinary – they go and talk to the family.  They tell Mary and Joseph what they saw.  Again, the scene is quite ordinary – a travel-worn family making due in rustic quarters having a conversation with equally worn shepherds.  No one is out of place in this scene – everyone is equally ordinary.  And yet, the extraordinary lights up the room.  So extraordinary is the night that the shepherds leave, glorifying and praising God.  They echo the response of the angels, expressing their overwhelming gratitude in the only way they know how – praising and thanking God.  Mary too knows how extraordinary this night is.  She treasures this extraordinary moment in her heart, left pondering what new thing God is doing.

That is what we love about this story:  the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the extraordinary.  The ordinary part we know intimately.  We too find ourselves living ordinary lives.  We work, we play, we laugh, we cry.  We pay our taxes, we deal with family, we go through labor pains.  We come to church, we pray together, we read scripture together, and we feast on the holy meal.  With the exception of a few fun vacations, nights out on the town, or the wedding of a friend, our lives are relatively ordinary.  I am pretty sure most of us have not witnessed a heavenly host bringing us good tidings of great joy.

We do not get the extraordinary most days:  except, of course, when we do.  Even in our ordinary lives, God breaks in with the extraordinary.  Just a couple of weeks ago a parishioner was telling me about how our conversations at church had finally worn him down.  When he ran into a homeless person on his walk in the City, he decided to finally give him some money – a practice that he never endorses.  Something about his experience with God was softening his resolve and he was able, in a moment of clarity, to see the humanity of the man.  Or the other week, I was talking to a teacher about the profound things her children sometimes say.  They sometimes say things that stop her in her tracks and make her reevaluate her way of being.  Or a few months ago I was talking to another person of faith about her prayer life.  She confessed rather sheepishly that sometimes in her prayers, especially when she makes room to listen to God, hears a response back.  She felt like she could not really explain the phenomenon well, but she knew the voice must be from God because the words rang so true and were nothing she would have come to on her own.

That is what happens in our ordinary lives – God breaks through again and again, overwhelming us with the extraordinary.  Those moments are gifts that we celebrate an honor, because they are just that – gifts.  That is the same reason we celebrate tonight.  We honor the gift that God gives us in Christ Jesus.  For all intents and purposes, Jesus is just another baby born under ordinary circumstances.  But we know that he is so much more:  God Incarnate, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Tonight is about honoring the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary.  Tonight is about claiming the joy that can only come from extraordinary acts of God.  But tonight is also about claiming the joy of a community that invites us to praise – to glorify God as we go our own ways this night.  We are blessed over and over.  In the trials and tribulations of ordinary life, we are so blessed by our extraordinary God and the community of faith that gathers with us.  In fact, the extraordinary nature of God hallows our ordinary lives, making them anything but ordinary.  Tonight, I invite you to embrace the extraordinary in our midst, to honor the holiness of the ordinary, and to find ways to share that extraordinary in our ordinary lives tomorrow.  Amen.

[i] Richard Swanson, “Commentary on Luke 2:[1-7] 8-20,” December 25, 2013, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1880 on December 22, 2015.

[ii] Michael S. Bennett, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 118.

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CE, YA, December 24, 2013

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

How many of you know the story of your birth?  My mother tells me that I came three weeks late!  Doctors will not even let mothers go that late nowadays.  Even at three weeks late, my mom still had to be induced, have her water broken, and then eventually have a c-section.  My sister-in-law, on the other hand, came very early.  She was so early that she had to stay in the hospital for a very long time.  She had a long tough road, including having her brother give her chicken pox while she was in the NICU.  But eventually, she came home and grew into a healthy child.  There are countless other stories like this:  kids who came so fast that their mothers delivered in a car, kids delivered at home before even a midwife could arrive, or even kids being born on a plane.

We all have a birth story.  Some are more dramatic than others, but all are unique to us and usually our parents tell us the story year after year.  What is funny is that many would argue that our birth stories tell us a little about who we will become later in life.  My late birth and my refusal to come even when encouraged has led many people to insist that my stubbornness was obvious from a very early age.  My sister-in-law, who survived for months in the NICU proved to be a fighter for the rest of her life – determined to make her own way.  Some of the children born of exciting births tend to be adventurers or to be spontaneous and full of surprises.  I often wondered if the child born of a woman whose water broke during our prenatal yoga class ended up being very Zen-like in life.  Regardless of your story, my guess is that your family believes your birth story says something about who you are and how you behave.

Today we celebrate a particular person’s birth story.  Jesus’ birth story is another one of those exciting stories.  You can almost imagine how Jesus’ family recounted the details every year.  They knew Jesus was going to be trouble when Mary showed up pregnant while she and Joseph were betrothed.  They probably reminded him of how when the government crack-down happened, poor Mary had to travel with Joseph on that donkey while nine months pregnant all the way to Bethlehem to be registered.  Surely they told Jesus how when they finally survived that long journey, the town was so full that they had stay with the animals; Mary even gave birth to Jesus in a stable and he had to sleep in a manger!  To top that all off, these filthy shepherds came later than night ranting and raving about how angels had appeared to them and told them that Jesus was the Messiah.  I imagine the family laughed and laughed about that crazy night.  I also imagine his family kept a wary eye on him – such a dramatic start is usually a sign for more drama to come.

So if our birth stories say something about us, I wonder what Jesus’ family thought his birth story said about him.  First, they must have known that Jesus would be no stranger to scandal:  his conception was scandalous and he would continue to scandalize the faithful with his radical teachings and way of life.  Second, they could probably see that Jesus and the government would be in constant conflict.  That suspicion is immediately confirmed when his family has to flee to Egypt to avoid persecution.  We know that later Jesus would have many a run-in with leaders who do not like people calling Jesus a King.  Third, Jesus’ family probably imagined that Jesus would always be very grounded and a friend of the poor.  His birth was about as poor as you can get, including those first visitors, the poor, lowly shepherds.[i]  Finally, perhaps Jesus’ family believed that Jesus would inspire others.  The clues were many:  from his mother who ponders things in her heart, to shepherds who praise and glorify God for all they see and hear, to angels who come in multitudes with a glorious song.

Although we know how Jesus’ story ends, we do not really celebrate his entire life story today.  Instead, we celebrate his birth, and the hope that comes along with that celebration.  We celebrate the hope that, in fact, Jesus’ life will be so radically different, welcoming, and forgiving that we will be glad to call him our Messiah.  We celebrate the hope that Jesus really will be a different kind of King than our earthly kings.  We celebrate the hope that Jesus really will continue to be a friend to the poor – because that means that we all have the chance to be loved by Jesus, no matter what our lot in life.  And we celebrate the hope that Jesus will inspire us to greatness too.  Tonight we celebrate the hope and the promise of this Savior who begins life as we all do – a child born to a family who will retell his birth story over and over again.

But tonight we also celebrate our own birth stories and the promise that our own lives have.  No matter what your birth story is, those initial signs about identity can always be used for good.  That fighter for survival in childbirth might end up to be a fighter for others’ survival later in life.  That adventuresome baby’s birth might lead to a life of reaching out of one’s comfort zone to share the Good News with others.  Even that stubborn kid might find a way to push back when others tell her something is impossible.  Our birth stories might point to the types of people we will become, but we determine how those traits will be used.  God intends for all those traits – the Zen-like person and the person always in a rush – to be used for goodness.  Our invitation this Christmas is to consider how God is calling us to use our own birth story for goodness. The birth stories themselves can never change; but how they are interpreted, what we do with them, is always open for reinterpretation.  Amen.

[i] Charles M. Wood, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 118.

Sermon – Matthew 1.18-25, A4, YA, December 22, 2013

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

So there he is, betrothed to Mary.  The way betrothal works in those days was that the husband and wife, or often the husband and the wife’s parents, enter into a marriage contract.  From that point on, the couple is considered married for all intents and purposes.  Any breaking of the contract would require a divorce.  During the betrothal period, the man prepares financially for his marriage, and the woman grows a bit more into womanhood, since she usually enters into the contract right after beginning puberty.  Some time later, the couple completes the marriage process with some sort of celebration or feast; then, the groom takes his wife into his home and the couple is considered fully married.[i]

Joseph had done everything by the books.  He is a righteous man, which means he follows the law to the letter.  Everything is heading in the proper direction, going as planned, according to schedule.  And then he gets the worst possible news.  Mary is pregnant.  Since Mary and Joseph are betrothed, but not yet in the stage of marriage where they have consummated the union, there is no way Joseph is the father of the child.  He can only assume Mary has been unfaithful.  Joseph has two options: he can have Mary stoned or he can divorce her.[ii]  He is well within his rights to utilize either path, and would not receive criticism by other faithful Jews.  But Joseph is one of those rare treasures who not only knows the letter of the law, but also understands the spirit of the law.  Instead of a brutal, public punishment for Mary, he decides he will divorce her quietly, hoping to help her avoid the full force of cultural judgment.

Joseph makes a well-informed, respectable, and compassionate decision.  He makes his decision and then rests his weary mind and body.  That is when life changes yet again.  God appears to Joseph in a dream, and explains that Joseph’s decision cannot stand.  This child in Mary’s womb is special, and not only is Joseph not to divorce her, he is to legally claim the child as his own by naming the child.  So what does Joseph do?  He bends even further than he already has, and takes Mary as his wife.

When most of us think of the Holy Family or even that holy night, we have a pretty romanticized picture of their life.  Our joy about the Christ Child seems to erase the reality of that poor family.  In fact, the Holy Family was a bit of a holy mess.  Mary is in the extremely vulnerable position of having her body taken over by the Holy Spirit and this child, all without the promise of a willing partner.  And Joseph is in a legal and cultural predicament.  I am sure that anyone in their community could do the math about Mary’s due date and wonder why Joseph stays with her, let alone assume ownership of the child.  Despite being obedient to God, I cannot imagine that Joseph’s dream wiped away all the tension between Joseph and Mary.

Of course, we are no stranger to this kind of messiness in families.  We all have experienced tensions in our relationships with parents, partners, siblings, and extended family.  Sometimes the tensions are from minor issues that eventually get resolved.  But sometimes the tensions break down communication, create broken relationships, and have ripple effects in our families.  Just this week, I have had conversations with people about an aging mother who is creating tensions among her children; a couple struggling with infertility; parents navigating the sexual orientation of their child; and a single person who feels lonely and hopeless.  We all know the messiness of life – in fact, we may have begun to wonder whether our dreams of peace and concord among our families is just a pipe dream.  Or maybe we would rather just divorce ourselves entirely from what our lives have become.

In the midst of messiness, another way emerges.  Joseph, a man who we know to be righteous and faithful makes a choice.  He had nothing to do with the messiness in his life, and he has every reason and right to just walk away and find a much neater, tidier life and a more conventional wife.  But Joseph makes a choice to believe God.  Joseph chooses differently.  “He claims the scandal, he owns the mess – he legitimizes it – and the mess becomes the place where the Messiah is born.”[iii]  Joseph’s choice is unconventional, a bit radical, and perhaps even a bit illogical.  But Joseph, having no idea where the choice will lead him, or how he will navigate his relationships once his decision is made, chooses to believe and to follow God right into the heart of the messiness, trusting that God will sustain him in the messiness and make something beautiful out of the mess.

Of course, Joseph had reason to believe that God could make a way through the messiness.  Just a few verses before the text we hear today in Matthew, Matthew lists the genealogy of Jesus.  In that genealogy, Jesus’ heritage begins with Abraham, goes through David, and ends with Joseph.  But in that list of forty-two fathers, four women from the Old Testament are also listed – all of whom had a history either before marriage or childbirth that made their story either strange or scandalous.  Take Tamar for example.  She was found to be pregnant long after her husband’s death.  Her father-in-law denounced her until he realized that he was the father.  Or look at Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah.  She became pregnant not by her husband Uriah, but by David.[iv]  Joseph comes from a long line of messiness and scandal, and yet, God moves through the messiness to create something new and powerful every time.  Perhaps a family history of messiness and divine action leads Joseph to take that leap of faith with Mary.

I wonder how all of this messiness resonates with your life.  We are still wrapping up Advent, and not quite yet to Christmas.  Like Joseph, we are not quite at the manger, finally arriving at our destination.  Now I recognize that some of you will be blessed by a blissful, picturesque Christmas with nothing but familial harmony.  That kind of reality may be entirely due to some good luck, and if that is what your Christmas looks like, then praise be to God.  But most of us probably are approaching Christmas with our fair share of messiness.  There are relationships to navigate or perhaps relationships that have entirely crumbled over the years.  You may have lingering questions about how God will act and what kind of goodness can come out of your mess.

Our invitation today is to remember that God still speaks to us in the messiness, and that God can still work not in spite of our mess, but through our mess for goodness.  And if you not convinced, perhaps then Joseph might be your best companion in the coming days.  Perhaps Joseph can journey with you as you wade into the messiness of your life, praying to hear God’s words for you.  Perhaps Joseph can fill you with hope and promise that your messiness, which may or may not be as severe as some of the Biblical messiness we have heard about today, has surely been seen by and blessed by God.  Perhaps Joseph can hold your hand at the stable, like he did with Mary, inviting you into a sure, steady trust that your God can do infinitely more than you can ask for or imagine this Christmas.  Amen.

[i] Arland J. Hultgren, “Commentary on Matthew 1.18-25,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/ preaching.aspx? commentary_id=1936 on December 18, 2013.

[ii] David Lose, “Matthew’s Version of the Incarnation,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft. aspx?post=2961 on December 18, 2013.

[iii] Martin B. Copenhaver, “Jesus’ Other Parent,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 31, no. 1, Advent 2007, 35.

[iv] Raymond E. Brown, “The Annunciation to Joseph,” Worship, vol. 61, no. 6, November 1987, 483.