Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Speaker: Joel Miller
Of the four gospels in our Bible, only Matthew tells us much of anything about Joseph.
In Luke, the angel visits Mary. It’s Mary who must decide how to respond. And when she needs backup, Mary goes not to Joseph, but to her relative Elizabeth. There, pondering and pregnant, Mary declares, “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” In Luke, Joseph barely gets an honorable mention.
John’s gospel mentions Joseph only twice. Both times it’s when Jesus is referred to as “the son of Joseph:” By Philip (1:45) and then the crowds (6:42) trying to figure out where this upstart roaming rabbi and wonder worker comes from.
And Mark, the oldest gospel, remarkably, never mentions Joseph at all. When Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and the people he grew up with are astounded by his teaching, they say, “Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” In a culture where male lineage was everything, to refer to someone as the son of their mother was akin to calling them an illegitimate child. It’s no wonder Mark follows this up by saying “And they took offense at him.” The Greek word is skandalon. And they were scandalized by Jesus, the son of Mary.
Matthew not only mentions Joseph, but essentially tells the birth story from his perspective.
Matthew opens with “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah.” He starts with Abraham, and follows the male line through Isaac and Jacob, through Boaz and Jesse and David, through a line of kings which includes Hezekiah and Josiah, through a series of unknown names after the Babylonian exile all the way up to “Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.”
Now there’s a couple things that make this an unusual genealogy. One is the inclusion of four women – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Their stories are so interesting it’s like you could have an entire Advent season dedicated just to them. (We did this a couple years ago).
The other thing: This is a biological genealogy that leads to Joseph, who – everyone agrees – is not the biological father of Jesus. It’s full of complex characters, men and women, whose lives were defined by courage and cowardice, violence and reconciliation, faithfulness and scandal. All these characters from this line within the people of Israel are living inside the bones of Joseph.
Which makes us wonder – What kind of character is this Joseph character going to be?
Well, Matthew tells us right away. Or at least he gives us a word.
According to Matthew, Joseph was a righteous man. That’s what it says when we first meet him. A young woman named Mary was “found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”. Mary was engaged to Joseph. And Joseph was a righteous man.
It sounds like a good thing? Righteousness is a divine quality. Righteous can also be translated as just, and Lord knows we need more justice in this world.
A just person has a clear sense of justice. They have a firm conviction of what’s fair. They possess a strong inner compass of what is wrong and what is right. A righteous man.
In Matthew’s time, righteousness would have been closely connected with observance of Torah. Joseph is a Sabbath-observing, commandment-keeping man, committed to the sacred ancient teachings, which kept one in right relationship with God and the community. Joseph is a law-abiding citizen – a righteous man.
Maybe you’ve known a few righteous people in your life. Fully committed to righteousness. Or, like really convinced of the righteousness of their motivations. Maybe you’ve been one.
Have you ever thought yourself to be in the right, only to learn, suddenly, or perhaps over many years, that what you thought was right and righteous and just, was actually harmful?
Joseph was a righteous man, and there’s a few ways this could play out.
Let’s imagine Matthew chapter 1 from the ARV translation of the Bible – the Alternative Reality Version – which hasn’t been written but would make for a fun project.
Here a start – Matthew 1, starting with verse 18:
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah* didn’t take place. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, was a righteous man, a man of commitment, a man of honor. Joseph was a man of duty to the law of his people.
Mary – engaged to Joseph but not married – was found to be with child. Being a righteous man, Joseph knew what must be done. The law was clear, as firm as stone, faithfully transcribed through the generations.
As is written in the book Deuteronomy, chapter 22 regarding the young woman given in marriage. If evidence is found of the woman’s lack of sexual purity: “then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deuteronomy 22:21).
Mary was a pregnant unmarried young woman. Joseph was a righteous man. Convinced he was in the right, his fear only the holy fear of God. Joined by other righteous men, with a growing sense of righteousness, Joseph carried out the letter of the law. His honor restored. Evil purged from their midst. Now, the birth of Jesus the Messiah didn’t take place.
And this is from the NARV – the New Alternative Reality Version.
18 Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”
And this is what he did. He dismissed her, quietly. Quietly he dismissed her from the pledge of marriage. Quietly he sent her back to her father’s house without public accusation, without condemnation. Quietly Joseph moved on, went back to his life, back to work. Quietly Joseph the builder faithfully followed the blueprints handed to him. Chipping the stones just so. Fastening the wood according to another’s design. Quietly Joseph, the righteous man, found another woman to marry and quietly they lived their lives in the hills of Judea.
Quietly Mary returned to her father’s house. Quietly she gave birth to the fatherless child. Quietly she held him, and whispered to him: Quiet, you must keep quiet my child. Don’t cry out, don’t raise a fuss, don’t cause a commotion. You must live quietly my child.
Quietly Mary raised the child with the help of her family. Quietly the child grew to become a boy, a young man, an adult. Quietly he lived in the shadows. He stayed away from crowds. Quietly he observed the world, trying not to let the world observe him. Quietly he lived, quietly he prayed, quietly he died. Joseph was a righteous man, unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace. And so he dismissed her. Quietly.
And now this is from the NRSV. That’s a real Bible, by the way.
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah* took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’22All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah:
23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’
When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.
Jesus was born in the time of King Herod, in the town of Bethlehem. When Herod learned of this he set out to destroy him, and so Joseph, and Mary and Jesus became refugees, fleeing, finding sanctuary in Egypt, the same place their ancestors had been enslaved. Nights, Joseph would hold Mary, and Mary would cradle Jesus and sing that same poetry as when she was with Elizabeth.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
God has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of God’s mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever. Luke 1:52-55
As Matthew actually tells the story, to be righteous is to have an idea of what is right, and then to have that idea utterly and completely dissolved. By a child. By a partner. By a messenger, who arrives in your dreaming or any other time when your guard is down. It’s not so much that Joseph was wrong. It’s that his imagination of righteousness was too narrow.
The angel instructs him in the deeper, wider commandment. “Do not be afraid.” The angel gives him other sacred words to hold on to – from Isaiah rather than Deuteronomy. The angel reminds him of the most fundamental reality of all: Immanuel. God is with us.
And so Joseph, son of Abraham accepts the call. Joseph, son of Tamar, does not shy away from scandal. Joseph, son of Ruth, becomes a migrant. Joseph, son of David, uses his power for not violence, but for solidarity. And Jesus, son of Mary, adopted son of Joseph, proclaims a righteousness and justice so spacious there’s room for everyone.