Title: Joseph's Dream (8:30 am service only)
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25
12/19/04 Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
Today is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, a season for naming our dreams and deepest hopes. Advent is a time which cycles around each year giving us another opportunity to consider what it might mean for Christ to be born in and through us to a world in need of Spirit; in need of hope, peace, joy and love.
I have concentrated my preaching on a dream (or two) I have found in the scriptures each week, trusting that the dreams and deepest hopes of our foreparents will have something to say to us today in our own dreaming and hoping. This has been a positive process for me this year in the midst of the kind of political challenges we have faced this fall and the ongoing war in Iraq - it has been good to dream and hope.
Today I want to take a look at Joseph and the dream he has while sleeping, of an angel coming to him and telling him to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife, that she is to bear God's child and Joseph is to name him Jesus. I also want to take an opportunity to reflect on Joseph as a man.
We do not spend much time on Joseph in the Christmas story and he essentially disappears in scripture after Joseph and Mary lose the teenage Jesus one-day when he stays behind in the temple. But in the birth story as it is told in the Gospel of Matthew, we can gain some insight into this mysterious man.
In today's reading we are told that Joseph was “engaged to Mary” and was a “righteous man”. When he discovers that Mary is pregnant before they were living together in marriage, he decides to break the engagement but do it in a quiet way so that she would not be harmed. Joseph is committing an act of religious disobedience in this decision, for it was the custom to stone an adulteress woman to death. Matthew tells us that Joseph's decision to not have Mary stoned is a “righteous” one.
This tells us that there was debate in those days around religious laws and customs, that everyone did not agree - it also tells us that Joseph was courageous enough to go against his own religious traditions.
But before Joseph can even dismiss her quietly, he is visited in a dream by an “angel of the Lord” who tells him to not be afraid and to take Mary as his wife. This is one of three dreams that Joseph is given according to the first two chapters in the Gospel of Matthew. Three dreams that Joseph received from an “angel of the Lord” that guided him in his decisions regarding Mary and the child Jesus.
This tells us that Joseph is open to mystery, to God speaking to him, knowing full well that that was not something he would be able to prove to others the next day, nor did he need to.
Some might say that this reflects the naivete of a man of his day, I would claim that it reflects the deep spirituality of a man that has reached a grounded place in his own life. Joseph has come to see and understand that some things cannot be proven or explained with rational certainty and he decides to embrace them anyway, as a part of the great Mystery that is God.
Where would our world be without men or women who were willing to listen to the dreams that mysteriously enter their minds and hearts?
When I was a pastor in Oregon I was sharing a cup of coffee with a husband and wife in their kitchen one afternoon. The husband's name was Greg and we were talking about their two children. He proceeded to tell me about a time when they were under a great deal of stress over the health of one of their boys. Their young son was suffering from some kind of neurological disorder that was impacting his ability to walk and run - he had gone from being a very active little boy to one who was unsure of his legs as they were growing weaker almost daily.
Greg worked the night shift at the local sewage treatment center. He came home tired and crashed on the couch, not wanting to wake up his wife. During the night he was awakened by a bright light and a voice, telling him to go to his son's room and lay his hands on him and ask for him to be healed.
Greg got up and did as he was told and then went to bed and fell fast asleep, completely forgetting about what had happened.
Less then two weeks later when he was once again sleeping after a long night shift, his wife ran into the bedroom and woke him up - proclaiming that they had just returned from the doctor and the most recent tests on their son were completely clear and they had no way of explaining why.
Greg, having forgotten that night - it had come rushing back to him and he began to cry. He told his wife what had happened and they held each other in amazement and thanksgiving. Their son never suffered with the disorder again.
Greg, a man that loved numbers and logic, was also a man of deep faith and also believed that there would always be mysteries one could not explain.
Greg could have just as easily turned over on the couch that night and wrote it off as a figment of his imagination, but like Joseph, he said yes and his family's lives were forever changed.
Joseph's willingness to pay attention and even be directed by his dreams tells us something about him and tells us something important about how God works in our lives. Dreams - waking or sleeping may contain important messages that can help us, particularly in times of significant discernment. Perhaps we might need to pay closer attention to our dreams. It's something to think about. (It also tells us that this inner, intuitive stuff is not for women only! Men have it too!)
By now Joseph is becoming more than just a shadow in the back of the nativity scene, right?
He is a “righteous” man that is courageous enough to go against his own religious laws and traditions by wanting to excuse the pregnant Mary quietly.
He is a man of deep faith that is open to mystery and to God speaking to him through dreams and helping him discern what to do in a difficult time.
In closing, I want to invite you to consider a couple of other things about this man Joseph:
The first one may fall in with the “righteous” part, but I want to call it kindness. I am so aware of his desire to protect Mary from the beginning. First he does not want her to be stoned to death; he is risking his own wellbeing by making that decision. It would also be the norm that only the man would travel to Bethlehem for the census that was to be taken, but he took Mary with him. It is believed that he took her with him in order to be assured of her and the child's safety. If he was to leave her behind, there is a chance that the gossip would have put them in serious danger.
We may not think this is so remarkable, we may think - well of course! This is his “job” as husband and stepfather! But in that culture and in that time, women and infants were nobodies - obviously Joseph did not believe that either - or he would not have risked his life in these significant ways.
Perhaps this tells us something about God too; that the religious laws and cultural traditions that we make do not always reflect God's dream of how we are to live in peace together.
If we look close enough, it can certainly challenge us to wonder what we are doing in our own so-called “Christian nation” and right here in our own state of Washington- where over 134,000 children are going without health insurance.
Perhaps that seems like too big of a leap for me to make - but there is something about Joseph's care of Mary and the child Jesus that speaks to me of God's dream of how we are to care for the vulnerable one's among us.
In closing, there is a Canadian author by the name of Ralph Milton that writes about Joseph and the impact he may have had on Jesus as he grew into a man. In one of Milton's books he considers that perhaps Joseph was the one who impacted Jesus' treatment of the woman caught in adultery who is brought to Jesus before she is stoned. Ralph Milton believes that in the face of that woman, Jesus saw what could have happened to his own mother Mary, and in his own heart he was able to find the courage to save her life because of the courage of his mentor Joseph to save Mary.
As we consider this man Joseph, a man who is often no more than a shadow in the back of the nativity scene, let us behold the power of his dreams and his willingness to listen to God's guidance in his life. Let us also remember the personal impact he had on Mary, on the life of Jesus, but also - on the world.