A Father and A Son*

4th Sunday of Advent

Matthew 1:18-24

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.[1]

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[1] Adapted from the story by John Shea in, “Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels, Year A”, On Earth as It Is in Heaven, Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN, 2004, 47-48...a very opportune find!