Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Advent 4A - Silent Attention (late upload)

Fourth Sunday of Advent
Year A



I have to admitWhen 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 starThe stableThe mangerThe swaddling clothes

The shepherdsThe 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!

 

 

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