I have to admit…When it comes to the story of Jesus’ birth
I live in the Gospel of Luke…the Gospel where Mary is center-stage
The drama, and extraordinariness, the miraculous
The star…The stable…The manger…The swaddling clothes
The shepherds…The gloria
But this year
Something is different
The very ordinary story from Joseph’s perspective
Has a powerful, if silent, word for us.
Joseph has no lines…He does not speak
Could it be that the cultural noise
Has reached a feverish pitch and our ears…our lives
Can’t take any more in?
I’m showing my age
But I bet many of you remember that haunting song from the 60’s by Paul Simon:
Hello darkness my old friend
I’ve come to talk to you again
In a vision softly creeping
Left is seed while I was sleeping
And a vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
I don’t know what Paul Simon was calling to mind
But the Gospel gives us a silent Joseph
Silent but attentive
The scene is not crowded with the sights and sounds and smells of our favorite nativity scene
no angry inn-keepers or wandering shepherds or smelly cattle, or off-beat drummer boys.
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 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?
And suddenly I am imaging this man Joseph
He is a worthy hero for me
...and all of us who love to plan ahead with meticulous detail!
Years ago…I came across a reflection by storyteller John Shea
He is imagining the scene when Joseph tells the young adult Jesus the story of his birth
And how it changed his life…
It goes something like this:
Now Remember, Jesus
No matter what you are doing
Leave a little room
Leave a little room
for the power of the holy Spirit
to find a home
In my experience
it is prayer…quiet prayer
that makes the room
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
Righteous 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]
[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!
No comments:
Post a Comment