I have to admit
When it comes to the story of Jesus’ birth
I’m a Mary Girl
I recall the annunciation
the angel Gabriel visiting Mary
Announcing that she is the favored one
And her response
Let it be it done unto me according to your word
I am forever challenged and stunned by her YES
I think of the visitation
Of Mary going off to see Elizabeth
The two miraculously pregnant women sharing their
joy
And of course
I picture Mary and Joseph and the donkey
wandering from inn to inn in search of welcome
and of course
The star
The stable
The manger
The swaddling clothes
The shepherds
The gloria
But here we are
It is year A
And I have to admit
I have rarely given Joseph a second thought
And I could do that
I could just say NO when the lectionary
Tells me it is year A
But now…I now have an obligation to engage Joseph
And his dreams
And his angst
I have an obligation to imagine the event of Jesus’
birth
From his perspective
And it is funny
It turns out to be a very timely year for that
imagining
With a pregnant daughter in law due in March
And a pregnant daughter due in June
I find myself more cautious...more realistic
I feel the tension
of to-be mothers and fathers
Am I ready
Will my body sustain this pregnancy
how will I balance work and family
and all those do's and don'ts
And so it is comforting
Matthew's picture of utter normalcy...
Surely every birth...while wonderful and miraculous
has a complexity, and confusion, and frailty of its
own
WHAT IS exceptional is
that God-With-Us
means the normal...the earthy...the unexceptional
is exactly where God chooses to dwell
and not only to dwell
but to love us into God's
very being
normalcy is where God chooses to draw near to us
Besides those two coming grandchildren
Our almost 18 year old son Joseph
Will hopefully be off to Purdue next Fall
And for the first time Rob and I will be empty
nesters
And that also involves a certain tension and angst
It is still Advent
And so we are listening with Advent tension
To Matthew’s story of Jesus birth
It is a concise story indeed
In fact it is pretty well captured in one line:
When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph,
but before they lived together, she was found with child from the Holy Spirit.
There is turmoil in the Holy Family
The potential for prime time, reality TV worthy,
high drama is obvious.
But that story line doesn’t get a nibble
We learn that Joseph is a righteous man.
That means he seeks to live according to the law.
The law gives two options
Public stoning or divorce
Let’s grant Joseph his distress
His sense of betrayal
And a host of other all-too-human emotions
Why?
Because Mary and Joseph
are more than pious statues or pictures from holy
cards
They are flesh and blood people
Like us
And if we can imagine them like us
Well…that makes it easier to imagine
How WE might be like them!
And so Joseph chooses carefully
He hopes to keep shame and pain at a minimum
It will be tricky
He will divorce her quietly
He must have deduced that she was unfaithful to him
What else would he think?
I mean she said it was the Holy Spirit but…C’mon…
If we want to learn something from Joseph
It won’t be from what he says
He never says anything
It is how he listens
And what he does
That speaks and teaches
Throughout the next chapter
We will hear about Joseph and his dreams
There is a history of scriptural Josephs having
dreams
And these are dreams that I would call 'intense
prayer experiences!'
God communicates to Joseph through these dreams
This is how Joseph comes to peace
In the dream Joseph's Law-Structured world
...perfectly legitimate Law-Structured world
is pried open to allow nuance
to allow for NOT having all the information
open to the possibility that the Holy Spirit really
might be involved here
Joseph's dream is powerful enough
He will take Mary as his wife
and the child as his
own
These powerful dreams continue
This is how Joseph learns
to slip down to Egypt to foil Herod’s genocidal
plan
This is how he learns that the coast is clear
and he can bring his family back
This how he learns
to steer clear of Bethlehem
and to settle in Nazareth
It all happens quite matter of factly in the story
But isn't it a tough task
To pick up on a new dream?
Don’t I have to be willing to let go of the old one
first?
From what I can tell Joseph didn’t have a lot of
time
He must have been holding his dreams lightly
No clenched fists
Joseph had to abandon the old dream first
But he also had to embrace a new one
A dream beyond his comprehension
And suddenly I am imaging this man
He is a worthy hero for me
...and all of us who love to plan ahead with
meticulous detail!
I have been very deliberate lately
About finding opportunities to tell Joseph things I
want him to know
Things I can’t be certain I ever said
Or things I may have said over and over again but
I’m not sure he heard
I want Joseph…my soon to be 18 year old Joseph…
To know why I care about the things I care about
Why the law of love will serve him best
Why forgiveness and reconciliation are worth the
effort
Why it is important to be humble enough to know
what you don’t know
Why changing your mind is a sign of growth
Why sex is dangerous and beautiful
Why, like Joseph, our certainties can't be the
whole truth
There must always be room for the Holy Spirit
I have had 18 years
But I can’t remember what I’ve left unsaid
I didn’t think to make a list
I have imagined St. Joseph
in his carpentry shop with Jesus
Maybe he’s 18
And getting ready to be off on his own
And maybe Joseph isn’t sure he has shared enough
about the important experiences of living and
loving
I especially wonder about how he would tell the
story of his birth
And how it changed his life
Now Remember, Jesus
No matter what you are doing
Leave a little room
...maybe it is an empty bowl
Leave a little room
for the power of the holy Spirit
to find a home
In my experience
it is prayer
that does the clearing
but my judging
fills it back up quickly
Feeling certain is a clue that the mind and heart have become
lazy
Go real slow then
There is always more and it won't be coming from
you
Judgement and certainty live in the world of
either/or
trust me there is always more
Either/or
leads to disgracing another
The law is a tool
it needs a person to use it wisely
it is a tool to create and craft
not to smash or destroy
Find a way, son
Find a way to honor the law
and honor the person, who
in our limited understanding,
has broken it
This is not easy
But when you do
there is a chance for
people to change...and the deepest change will be
in you.
Love takes the beam out of your own eye.
It does not focus on the splinters in the eyes of
others.
Once something happened
and I was tempted to judge and punish.
But I held back and waited,
and in the waiting,
room was made for the Holy Spirit
Your mother and you were there—
It was a dream...a prayer-dream
The beam was taken out of my eye
I could see farther and more deeply.
So see everything twice, Jesus.
See it once with the physical eye
and then see it again with the eye of the heart.
Look deeper.
When you see the loveliness, Jesus, embrace it.
Take it into your home.
Do not hesitate and do not ask questions.
Argue with everything else, Jesus, but be obedient to
love.
