Fourth Sunday in Advent
December 23, 2007
Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
Hope. Peace. Love. And now, Joy. What a journey it has been since we began our walk through Advent on the first Sunday in December. We will soon arrive at the manger, but not before we hear Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth. A birth narrative which bears little resemblance to the story Luke will tell us tomorrow night. That is because Matthew is not writing a story at all. He is making an argument. Good lawyer and good Jew that he is Matthew is stating a case and providing testimony to argue a truth based on Hebrew scripture. It is important to know that Matthew is writing his gospel to Jews. Vulnerable Jews who have become followers of Jesus; he is writing his gospel to doubters and skeptical Jews, as well, and to Jews who resist believing altogether that this child, Jesus, is the Messiah they have been waiting for.
It is certain that Matthew’s birth narrative does not hold the beauty and awe of Luke’s story, but Matthew wrote the story that needed to be told to a people who needed to hear it. While Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth focuses on Mary and the actual circumstances of the birth, Matthew’s account focuses on Joseph and the difficult situation Mary’s pregnancy has placed him in. So, we come to this fourth Sunday of Advent, not to revel in a story, but to hear Matthew make his case to his fellow Jews that this God event really did happen; he wants to convince his people that Jesus is the Messiah promised to them in scripture. He knows that for a Jew, scripture is to be believed. So it is important for him to use scripture to make his case. Matthew also knows that while a faithful Jew is obedient to the Law, he must also be open to new revelation concerning the law, especially if that revelation can be shown to be an act of God. So Matthew will make his case for Jesus through Joseph’s faithful and obedient response to God’s revelation to him in a dream.
Matthew’s no-nonsense approach to introducing his birth narrative makes it clear that he is arguing a case. The narrative begins: “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.” And after he presents his case Matthew draws his important conclusion. “All this,” he says,” 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,’ which means, ‘God with us.’ ” Matthew’s reference to scripture gives testimony to the fact that Jesus will be born of a virgin. What Matthew must do is give testimony to Joseph’s role in this birth as an act of faithfulness and obedience to God amid circumstances which are totally unacceptable to Jewish law and culture. This is how he does it.
Jewish law says that when a man and a woman become betrothed, they are to remain completely faithful to each other; it is also a sign of faithfulness that they remain pure until they are married. The scripture passage Matthew quotes clearly defends Mary’s purity. And since Joseph is not the father of Mary’s child, his purity is a given. The challenge, then, for Matthew is that he must convince the Jewish community that this child is God’s son. And by virtue of the fact that Joseph takes Mary for his wife and accepts her son as his own, Joseph has responded to a higher Law; a request by God to play a critical role in salvation history.
Matthew hopes to make his argument convincing by the very nature of Joseph’s extraordinary action. By law Joseph had every right to have Mary stoned to death because a woman taken in adultery has not only broken the most sacrosanct of all purity laws she has betrayed her husband and brought him to shame and dishonor. A husband will make no claim on a child who does not belong to him. He will not give the child a name, nor will he ever raise him as his own. Because the child is illegitimate he becomes an orphan, and he cannot even make a claim on the state to care for him. So, do you see the severity or this problem? If an illegitimate child cannot claim an earthly father, how can he claim to be the son of God? To the Jews of Joseph’s community Jesus is an illegitimate child who, by the very circumstances of his birth argues against his being God’s son. Well, Matthew has an almost impossible task if he is to convince the Jews of his culture to accept this child, this son of God as their own. Again, this is how he does it.
You will notice in Matthew’s gospel account that he calls Joseph a “righteous man,” a man who is “unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace.” Matthew indicates that Joseph is a compassionate man, so while he will not consider marrying Mary he also doesn’t want Mary to be hurt. So Joseph decides to quietly divorce her. That night, however, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream. It is apparent that Joseph’s compassionate response to Mary is what assures God that Joseph has what it takes to be the earthly father of his Son. The angel tells Joseph to take Mary for his wife. Even more she tells Joseph to name her child, which is a clear sign that Joseph is to accept him as his own. The name Joseph is to give to the baby is “Jesus,” which means, “he who saves his people from sin.” Matthew places a seal of approval on this God event by quoting the now famous reference to Hebrew scripture which tells us that the child the virgin conceives will also be called “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” This should be testimony enough that Jesus is the expected Messiah, but Matthew testifies to Joseph’s role in this God event as one who is willing to be convinced by an angel in a dream that he should go against the law and risk his honor to claim the child as his own. This is a clear indication to Jews that God had intervened in Joseph’s situation in a way which called him to a higher obedience. But just in case this is still not enough proof that Joseph acted on behalf of God, Matthew adds that Joseph married Mary, but he remained pure until after the child was born.
So there you have it. Matthew’s birth account. Unfortunately history has shown that the message in Matthew’s birth narrative was by and large wasted on doubting, skeptical and unbelieving Jews, however Matthew’s message remains important to believers in every age. It is important for the simple fact that Joseph is the central character in Matthew’s story. And Joseph teaches us much by his role in it. By Joseph’s example believers hear an important message about faithfulness and obedience to laws and rules which govern human beings and human institutions. They are meant to be followed when they are a blessing to us. And they are meant to be broken when they are not. Laws and rules are meant to be followed when they reflect God’s good purposes for his creation. And they are meant to be broken when they don’t. This was the message of the prophets of Hebrew scripture, and this is the message Jesus demonstrated throughout his entire life and ministry. As we are well aware, God sent Jesus into this world to redeem us, and Jesus often redeemed people by breaking the rules of law and custom. Rules which no longer were helpful to the well-being of people who were made to follow them; rules which were even damaging and kept people enslaved by them. Rules which no longer reflected the culture of a people or the health of a society. Rules which people followed without even considering why they were useful, or helpful, or a blessing—or why they were not. Rules which continue to make us slaves to doing things a certain way because we have always done things that way.
I am reminded of the many books one can read which tell us how to live by time honored rules, even though such rules are no longer helpful or useful. Not to speak of the unwritten, unspoken rules we learn from our families and from out culture about how we should relate to each other in community. For example, I am always surprised when a couple comes to me wanting to be married in a conventional wedding ceremony which no longer reflects the social realities of our time. In a world where men no longer own women, the bride still wants her father, or her brother, or her son to give her away to the ownership of her husband. In a world where betrothal is no longer necessary for ensuring a commitment to marriage, a prospective groom finds it necessary to purchase an engagement ring to demonstrate marital intent. In a world where couples often live together long before they are married, the bride still wants to be regaled in white. And in an age where dowries are no longer required of the bride’s family to give to the groom, the wedding and reception are still primarily financed by the family of the bride as a way of demonstrating the value of what they are giving away to her groom. Perhaps most disconcerting for me as a priest in all of this rule and custom is that planning the perfect wedding can take months, even years, while so little time, or energy, thought or effort is invested in pre-marital counseling and in the religious ceremony, itself. Nevertheless, conventional weddings are comfortable and predictable because they meet our expectations of what we think weddings should be. Even though they reflect little about the way we live our lives or form our relationships. Even though it is hard to find the blessing in all the details which go into the rules for having a conventional wedding. So it is not easy for a modern couple to think outside of the box in planning a wedding.
It was not easy for the Jews of Matthew’s day to think outside the box when it came to the unconventional betrothal of Joseph and Mary, either. But where would we be today if Joseph followed the rules of betrothal and marriage? Where would we be today if Joseph did not act on his dream which enabled him to move beyond the rule of law and social convention of his time. How would Joseph have found his blessing? Where would we find our blessing this Christmas? Not in that manger.
Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth tells us where and how our blessing can be found. Like so many other faithful and obedient persons in scripture who challenged the laws and rules of their time, God depends on faithful people in every age who seek God’s righteousness to be open to be open to what God is saying to them. People who are willing to do the thing God is calling them to do rather than what is expected of them. People who are willing to take risks and live gracefully and graciously with the outcomes. And while it may or may not be true that God speaks to us in our dreams, we can be certain that God speaks to us. Our Jesuit friends explain God’s speaking to us as an act of discerning an inner urging, so strong and powerful that eventually it is impossible to doubt. An urging which propels us, regardless of the consequences, to do what God is calling us to do with a deep certainty of God’s presence in it.
I believe Matthew is urging us to journey with Joseph to the manger this year. Not only because we will find God there, but because God might find us there. Just as God found Joseph in his dream. Matthew would have us risk hearing the new thing God is saying to us so that we, too, will claim the child in that manger to be our savior and redeemer. So that we, too, can find new blessing in our life by becoming more than we are and more that we thought we could be.
We’re nearing the end of our journey now. Just one more day. But know this: when we arrive at that manger, we will find that, like Joseph, we have a choice. We can receive the God who awaits us there, or we can make our yearly visit to him and then just walk away and return to the comfortable and predictable life we came from. In any case, this Christmas, and for every Christmas to come, we can be glad of one thing: we can be glad that Joseph did not just walk away.