Love Reborn
A sermon
delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson
December 23,
2012
at Gordonsville
Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia
Genesis 3: 8-13
Matthew 1:18-25
Let us pray,
Help us to see despite our eyes
Help us to think outside of our minds
Help us to be more than our lives
For your eyes show the way
Your
mind knows the truth
Your
being is the life.
Amen.
18 Now the
birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had
been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be
with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a
righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to
dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is
from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name
him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this
took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look,
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph
awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as
his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had
borne a son; and he named him Jesus. [1]
It is interesting the details that
the different Gospel writers choose to include in their accounts of Jesus'
birth. Mark includes no mention of the birth and John employs the famous and
poetic in the beginning there was the word prologue, leaving the story to be
told by Luke and Matthew. They go together in that they share details that are
in no ways at odds with each other, but they simply include different parts of
the story. They both have Mary as a Virgin. They both have Bethlehem, but only
Luke explains why they young couple is heading there, and they both have the
character of Joseph, but there the differences begin. Where Luke mentions the
Roman Governor Quirinius, Matthew mentions the rule of Herod. Where Luke shows
Shepherds and the Angel Choir, Matthew shows the Wise Men, their gifts, and the
star. Where Luke includes much singing and songs of great joy, Matthew's
account echoes of the screams of mothers of murdered children, all very
different, but the difference I want to focus on today is that Luke seems to be
about Mary and her role as the mother of Jesus, Matthew seems to focus more on
Joseph, a man who is not the father, nor yet a true husband, but one who
reveals dedication, trust, selfless sacrifice, strong and careful protection,
wise decision making in crisis, and most importantly, as all of these reveal, a
reborn love.
Why do I say reborn love? Let's just
say that such devotion of a man for a woman is hard to find in the Bible before
this point. Let's take a walk through
some of the Old Testament relationships between women and men. The first starts
off good, helpmates and partners and naming the animals, but the precedent set
by Adam and Eve is one of distrust and blame. Then Abraham and Sarah, though
they walk together and go through many things side by side, their relationship
is hardly what we'd call functional. Abraham lies about Sarah calling her his
sister at one point, takes on a second woman to mother a child for him at
another point, and then takes the kid they have together off to a mountain to
sacrifice him. You have a triangle between Jacob, Leah and Rachel, the
misfortune and mistreatment of Tamar, David's obsession with Uriah's wife, and
the list goes on and on. There are a few exceptions but for the most part the
relationship patterns are troubling.
The biggest parallel though is that
first one, with Adam and Eve. I thought about titling this sermon: a Tale of
Two Husbands. The I could start with an homage to Dickens with It was the best
of times it was the worst of times, It was a garden plush with virginal beauty
and freedom, it was a desert, tan and sandy occupied and oppressed, but in line
with Dickens' love for ironic twists, you will see the man in the best of times
behaving badly, without faith or devotion, and Joseph in the deserts of Roman
Occupied Judea, acting as a truly righteous saint. You have Joseph showing
total devotion to Mary, and true faith in God as well. Let's take a look at the
situation.
In the text we get a glimpse of Joseph's original
intention. It says, that Joseph "being a righteous man and unwilling to
expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly." Why should
he get himself caught up in such a mess? He's a good carpenter, a good catch,
he thought Mary was someone he could trust, he could love, he could marry, but
events had proven that incorrect, and now the best thing is just to pretend it
didn't happen. He doesn't bear her any ill will, just the disappointment you
find when someone is not what you thought, in fact less, it hurts but the first
step in the healing is to move on, so that is his plan. The Angel appears to
him in a dream and tells him to reconsider. The angel in the dream tells him
the truth about the child, a wild story about his betrothed wife and the
pregnancy: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your
wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She
will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people
from their sins.”"
In a dream. . . I'm sure we've all
here had dreams we remember. Now maybe dreams where angels appear would be
different, but my dreams have details that are foggy and strange and hard to
understand, even the ones that seem to be real and based on real stuff that I
have going on, even the ones that seem so real it's hard to distinguish them
from reality, but at the end, when you wake up, it is real easy to dismiss your
dreams as, well that was just a dream, and then you go about your daily life,
so Joseph's mind changing encounter with the Angel is part of his dream. Mary's
on the other hand is a middle of the day, totally awake encounter. She also has
the experience of actually being pregnant to give her another clue that what
the angel says is actually true. She knows she has never been with a man, and
now she is pregnant, she's jammed straight into the middle of a miracle that is
impossible to deny, but Joseph isn't. He can get out, but he doesn't. He
chooses to stay, he chooses to sacrifice, he chooses faith rather than mistrust
and blame, very different from the first relationship as it broke apart in the
garden of Eden.
There is something different going
on here and it is an important part of the story of Christmas because without
Joseph there is no story. Joseph gives Mary the cover of legitimacy in her pregnancy, when illegitimacy would have
resulted in her death either by exposure by being exiled and banished, or the
more direct route of being stoned. Then Joseph saves the day again later in
Matthew when in another dream he is told by the angel again to get Mary and
Jesus out of Bethlehem before Herod comes with his murderous henchmen. So
Joseph on two accounts, believes enough and saves the child, whom he did name
Jesus, there in the manger in Bethlehem.
Some of you may know, if you came to
the first of the Advent Study sessions that I have been borderline obsessed
this Christmas season with a poem by W.H. Auden entitled "For the Time
Being: A Christmas Oratorio," that first session we read part of that
poem, but we didn't read the part about Joseph. Incidentally, I'm currently
writing a devotional book based on the poem, and this week I've been wrestling
with the Joseph portion. Providence strikes again. I want to read that section
of the poem for you and insert some of my commentary in the middle because it
really seems to capture for a modern audience part of what Joseph must have
been going through.
The section is titled "THE TEMPTATION OF
ST. JOSEPH," and it envisions a
modern version of Joseph, in the midst of a Hard Day's Night, and all he wants
is to meet his love for dinner, but some strange events bring doubt into his
mind, he speaks three times, and each time the Chorus of his thoughts and the
voices all around him speaks. I want to share those three Chorus statements,
and then Joseph's prayer following directly:
CHORUS (off):
Joseph, you have heard
What Mary says occurred;
Yes, it may be so.
Is it likely? No.
CHORUS (off) :
Mary may be pure,
But, Joseph, are you sure?
How is one to tell?
Suppose, for instance . . . Well . . .
CHORUS (off):
Maybe, maybe not.
But, Joseph, you know what
Your world, of course, will say
About you anyway.
So then Joseph prays. .
.
Where are you, Father,
where?
Caught in the jealous
trap
Of an empty house I hear
As I sit alone in the
dark
Everything, everything,
The drip of the bathroom tap,
The creak of the sofa
spring,
The wind in the
air-shaft, all
Making the same remark
Stupidly, stupidly,
Over and over again.
Father, what have I
done?
Answer me, Father, how
Can I answer the
tactless wall
Or the pompous furniture
now?
Answer them . . .
GABRIEL:
No, you must.
JOSEPH:
How then am I to know,
Father, that you are
just?
Give me one reason.
GABRIEL:
No.
JOSEPH:
All I ask is one
Important and elegant
proof
That what my Love had
done
Was really at your will
And that your will is
Love.
GABRIEL:
No, you must believe;
Be silent, and sit
still.
Do
you hear it? "No, you are on your own with this, you must believe. You
must do what Adam couldn't do." Adam chose to throw Eve under the bus when
pressed by the circumstances, Joseph has to believe in Mary and take her fate
as his own, assuming her plight as his own, assuming either her sin, or her
blessing as his own, and not because he knows, not because an angel came to him
in the middle of the day and without question let him know the deal, not
because he was forced to, but simply because God through the angel planted the
seed of faith in his head and love in his heart. It sounds an awful lot like
Jesus, the word made flesh assuming the sins of mankind, doesn't it. Why again
because of love, and its marriage with faith.
The
poem goes on from here and the narrator comes on and explains to the audience
the theological situation in more detail, he is talking about what Joseph must
do, as if it were a complete role reversal of man and woman and their
understood roles since the fall. Again it reflects the idea that Joseph is
assuming Mary's experience, living it right beside her. I will focus on just
the concluding lines of the four stanzas the narrator speaks, cutting out some
complicated modern juxtaposition of the story to focus on the summaries of the
conflict.
Today the roles are
altered; you must be
The Weaker Sex whose
passion is passivity.
You must learn now that
masculinity,
To Nature, is a
non-essential luxury.
Forgetting nothing and
believing all,
You must behave as if
this were not strange at all.
Do you see the role
reversal? He finishes the speech with the following.
Without a change in look
or word,
You both must act
exactly as before; Joseph and Mary shall be man and wife
Just as if nothing had occurred.
There is one World of Nature and one Life;
Sin fractures the Vision, not the Fact; for
The Exceptional is always usual
And the Usual exceptional.
To choose what is difficult all one's days
As if it were easy, that is faith. Joseph, praise.
Joseph and Mary's relationship and Joseph's faith and trust
with her, his blind belief, his ability to love her unconditionally, even
though the world would think he was crazy, because it is difficult, not many
people would do what he did, but Joseph raises the standard for men and women
and their relationships, a very big part then of the overall redemption of the
world. Love through example. Love, Love, Love, Love, Love. . . many people
would say that Matthew includes the story of Joseph because the details about
his part of the story echo the details foretold by the prophets because he so
often says, "All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the
Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and
they shall name him Emmanuel" or This was to fulfill what had been spoken
by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son," but
I think that Matthew includes it because not only does it echo the prophets it
also foreshadows the love that Jesus will show throughout the rest of the
Gospel, and the love Jesus is, God's love made flesh.
I share this poem by Auden with you because art like this invites us into the
situation of the text that much more. Allowing us to think a little more about
a story we know so well, and therefore never wonder about. And though there
aren't many Christmas Carols that raise up Joseph, there is much in his story
about what it means to be in a relationship, the faith, the trust, the
sacrifice it takes, and Joseph does it all, a true example of the Christian
love that his adopted son will work so hard to embody. Joseph very much stands
up to the Marks of a True Christian, like we studied for so long. As we step
forward toward Christmas, tomorrow is already Christmas Eve, may we strive in
our relationships to be more like Joseph, and give of ourselves, and give
completely of our love. Could it be that Mary bore Christ, but that Joseph is
the first Christian?
[1]The
Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mt 1:18-25). Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers.
No comments:
Post a Comment