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Foundry United Rev. |
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Birth Announcements: To an Upright Man Sunday, December 24,
2006 |
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Matthew 1: 18-25 Rev. |
The
Gospels tell us very little about Joseph. Mary is intricately a part of the
Jesus story from cradle to cross, appearing again and again in Jesus’ life
and ministry, but we don’t know much about Joseph. We have
the passage that is our Scripture lesson this morning and a few other things:
that an angel told Joseph to take Jesus as a child to Egypt to save his life
from King Herod and then, after King Herod died, an angel told Joseph to
return again to Israel (Matt. 2: 13-15; 2: 19-23); and that Joseph was a
descendant of David, Israel’s greatest King (Matt. 1:15; Luke 2: 4). This is
why Jesus was born in The
only other time Joseph is referred to at all is when Jesus tries to preach
and teach in his hometown and people scoff and won’t listen because he was
just “the carpenter’s son.” (Matt. 13:55) But
Joseph is one of those to whom the angels announced Jesus’ birth. Our
theme during this Advent / Christmas season is birth announcements. The
nativity stories in the Bible are full of birth announcements by angels and
stars and heavenly hosts. And one
of the people to whom the angels announce Jesus’ birth is Joseph. The
nativity stories are some of the purest theology in the Bible. These stories
were written after Jesus death and resurrection by the first Christians to
articulate the truth of whom they believed Jesus to be, and thus their
theological understanding of the heart of God that Jesus reveals. What
are the theological truths within the story of the birth announcement to
Joseph? The
Gospel of Matthew emphasizes this about Joseph: he was an upright man…a righteous
man. The Greek word is Dikaios [dik'-ah-yos]. It means one who obeys the commandments,
someone who follows the rules, who does what is right according to the
understanding of right and wrong that he has learned from his religion and
tradition. Furthermore, it implies someone who can be trusted to do this,
someone who has a reputation for dependably doing what is right and proper. Joseph
was a dikaious man, an upright man,
a righteous man. And
this is no small thing. Commandments and rules are important. It was
commandments and rules that took At the
heart of Commandments
and rules are valuable and important. They are checks on our human capacity
for self-justification – our almost infinite capacity to rationalize whatever
it is that we want to do for the sake of our own desires, and greed, and
neediness. The
“creative accounting” that has brought major public corporations to ruin or
near-ruin and destroyed the careers of some of our nation’s top executive’s
in recent history is a reminder that rules, such as the rules of accounting
and auditing, exist for a reason. Scandals
within the churches and within the political realm remind us that rules exist
for a purpose. Commandments and laws and rules are important. Joseph
was a dikaious man, a trustworthy
man with a reputation that he could be depended upon to obey the commandments
and to follow the rules. Reputation
is important. Who of us does not value our reputation as trustworthy, honest,
dependable, competent, caring? Shakespeare wrote: “Who steals my purse steals
trash; …But he that filches from me my good name…makes me poor indeed."[i] In
whatever we seek to do with our lives our reputations are invaluable. Reputation
is important. Joseph
was a dikaious man, an upright man
who followed the commandments and the rules with a reputation as an upright
and righteous man. And in
the nativity story in Matthew what Joseph is asked to do is to sacrifice both
his uprightness and his reputation for the sake of what God was seeking to do
in the birth of Jesus. Joseph
was engaged to be married to Mary. Before they had lived together Mary became
pregnant. Being an upright, righteous man Joseph resolved to end the
engagement because of Mary’s apparent breach of her promise. He intended to
do it quietly in a compassionate way, but this was the least that the rules
required. To be a dikaious man, an
upright and righteous man, meant holding others accountable to their promises
as well as being trustworthy to be faithful to his own. And not
to end the engagement would be to sacrifice his hard-earned reputation,
because it would be a public admission that he had broken the commandments,
the law, the rules, by fathering a child with Mary when he was not yet
married to her. But
this is exactly what God’s angel asked Joseph to do in a dream when the angel
announced to Joseph Jesus’ birth. The
key, I think, to understanding the significance of this for us today is the
words spoken by the angel. The angel said in Joseph’s dream: “Joseph, son of
David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife...” Do not
be afraid. It is
risky to give up rules for the sake of principles. We want to know what we
should and shouldn’t do written down in black and white in one of the books
we use. Clear and direct answers. But God
apparently doesn’t want robotic obedience. God wants partners. We
perhaps don’t really know ourselves until we are in a situation in which
choosing to do that which is right and good forces us to break the rules. We
don’t really know ourselves until doing that which is right and good may lose
us our good reputation. Joseph, son of David, dikaious
man, do not be afraid to break the rules, do not be afraid to give up your
good reputation. There is something larger at stake here. Jesus
said he had come not to destroy the law but to fulfill it. His life was a
judgment of those of us who obey the letter of the law but miss its deeper
meaning. Jesus’
coming was an expression of God’s deep longing that we might live together
finally not merely following rules but committed to the principles of
integrity, faithfulness and caring that the rules are meant to facilitate….Not
letting either rules or reputation get in the way of profoundly honest and
caring relationships. Bill Coffin
used to compare commandments and rules to the stakes you use to hold up
tomato plants when you are growing a garden. When they are young, the stakes
keep the plants from falling, but when the plants become strong the stakes
become unnecessary. Jesus
is an expression of God’s deep longing not to regulate us but to live inside
of us, to grow inside of us and among us, to be Emmanuel – God with us, God
in us, God through us. www.foundryumc.org |
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