Preached at The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta
Today is the day. It only comes one Sunday every three years—the day when we get to talk about Joseph. Luke’s Gospel focuses on Mary, the Gospels of Mark and John have no birth narratives. But today we hear from the Gospel of Matthew, and we hear about a just and righteous man, Joseph.
When my Bible study read this passage in the King James Version on Tuesday, the person reading aloud said: Joseph was just a man… instead of Joseph was a just man. That gave us a chuckle. Indeed, Joseph was just a man. He was just a just man. And Matthew would be ok with that turn of phrase. For he opens this story with a genealogy that reminds all of us that even the House of David has its flaws.
Our story today picks up at verse 18, but the 17 verses prior weave an honest and messy story—reminding us that Tamar (the woman who bore a son after her father-in-law thought she was a prostitute) and Bathsheba (the woman who David forced himself upon before having her husband killed in battle) are ancestors of Joseph, who is the husband of Mary, who bore a son named Jesus. It is only in Joseph taking Mary to be his pregnant wife, and in Joseph naming the child Mary bares Jesus, that Joseph claims Jesus as his own son and adopts him into the House of David.
Really, I think the author of Matthew’s Gospel could write for Bridgerton or The Crown.
So that’s where our story picks up. In the midst of this mess. And that’s how Jesus always comes to us—in the midst of mess.
Some of you may know that I like to call Joseph the patron saint of: I did not sign up for this.
I imagine all of us have had moments in our lives where we’ve had the same thought—I did not sign up for this. This is not at all what I was expecting. Where do I go from here? Perhaps a few months into taking a new job, or maybe many years into a marriage, perhaps after learning about a life-altering illness, or learning you have to move across the country for your wife’s job.
We all have moments that take us by unpleasant surprise, and every pathway forward is marked with difficulty. There is no easy out. Joseph’s story describes such a time. Here he is, a just and righteous man who presumably plays by the rules.
One of the non-canonical books of our tradition, the Gospel of James, describes in great detail the struggle Joseph must have felt. In the story, Joseph comes back from a building project out of town to find Mary 6-months pregnant. He throws himself down on the ground in anguish, crying out to God. Mary too, cries, defending her innocence. Joseph retreats, afraid, wrestling with the fact that hiding Mary’s “sin” would be against the law, but exposing it could lead to her death. It is in this place we find Joseph today, and in this place that the angel of the Lord comes to Joseph, saying “Be not afraid.”
Be not afraid? You might think with a preface like this, the angel would have some neat and tidy solution for Joseph—and Mary’s—predicament. “Don’t worry, Joseph! I’ve got the perfect fix!” But it is not neat, and it is not tidy. It is a hard ask.
Take pregnant Mary as your wife. Name the child she births Jesus.
I don’t know about you, but if I were Joseph, I’d still be afraid, or at least uncomfortable with this outcome. And yet, Joseph wakes up, does what the Angel tells him to do, and courageously obeys God alongside an equally courageous and obedient Mary.
Be not afraid. Just take this mysteriously pregnant woman to be your wife, and claim the child, who will save the world, as your own. Wow.
You see, despite the common refrain throughout scripture from angels, prophets, and even Jesus, to be not afraid, we are often asked to do difficult and even scary things. The phrase “be not afraid” is never a guarantee of an easy way forward. But it is an assurance that God is with us in the difficult steps ahead.
And they shall call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
God is with us. When you look at the Greek, there’s actually no verb—just simply God-With-Us. Every word in that phrase is necessary if we are to “be not afraid.” God—the most sovereign omnipotent power beyond our imagination. God with—as in right here, right now, present. God with us. Not God with me or God with you or God with him or her… but God with US. We, the gathered! We, the community! We, together! God. With. Us.
If you find yourself having conceived a child with the Holy Spirit: Be not afraid, God is with us. If you find yourself marrying a young woman despite her bearing a child you did not conceive: Be not afraid, God is with us. If you find yourself beside the bed of a dying friend: Be not afraid, God is with us. If you find yourself out of a job: Be not afraid, God is with us. If you find yourself questioning your identity: Be not afraid, God is with us. God is with us in these most difficult and messy times. God is born in these difficult and messy times.
Whatever mess you find yourself in, know that it’s not too much for God. If anything, it’s God’s comfort zone. It’s where God shows up, where God settles in, where God resides. Not despite the mess, but in the mess.
And no matter how difficult the path ahead, no matter the tears and struggle that accompany your next steps, God is already there, already in that next step.
Be not afraid. God. Is. With. Us.
When Joseph awoke from his dream, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded: he took Mary as his wife, she bore a son, and Joseph named him Jesus. Was he afraid? Maybe. Courage isn’t the absence of fear.
We can do hard things when we know God is with us. What hard things will you do? What hard things will we do? God is with us.
Amen.
lauren laughs 