December 19, 2010
Text:Matthew 1:18-25 (The Message)
The Birth of Jesus
18-19The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.
20-23While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God's angel spoke in the dream: "Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to get married. Mary's pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God's Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—'God saves'—because he will save his people from their sins."
This would bring the prophet's embryonic sermon to full term: Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us").
24-25Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God's angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.
My beloved brothers and sisters, I thank you all for this wonderful invitation to bring a message to Eighth Day Church during this season of Advent, a time of where we celebrate with celebration and relive the expectation again of our Saviour’s birth. The Gospel lesson, coming from Matthew 1:1-25 is a story from the Bible that most of us can recall with a great deal of familiarity. With that in mind, let us see if it is possible to draw some fresh water from an old well in today’s teaching. Please indulge me for a moment as I quote from the classic novel written by Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
I believe that those words, penned by Charles Dickens in 1859 still apply to our world today. There are many things for us to be thankful for; great scientific discoveries abound to help us attempt to solve many problems in life that vex our society. There are archeological discoveries that support the validity of our Christian Holy Scriptures such as the discovery of the possibility of a great flood, or the historical record of ancient civilizations that corroborate the Biblical accounts of the Gospels. We can be thankful for individuals and institutions that win Nobel Prizes for the work of peace, except of course if you hail from the country of China.
Yet, some use scientific discoveries for capitalistic gain and the growth of empires to built upon weak foundations of ambitions with limited morals. Some do not honor peace treaties and treat them as worthless as the paper they are written upon. If you will allow me to add the golden thread of a proposition to Dickens writing, we are still living in a state of moral decay fueled by relativism. It isn’t popular to take a stand unless it is based on a certain political agenda. Relativism allows vacillation on any issue without committing to anything. I believe there comes a time when we must go against what is popular, and take the moral high road and do what is right not just for the majority or those in power, but based on what is best for the community as a whole. I believe that we morally have an obligation to take a stand, in the face of powerful opposition because it is just.
The Rev. Dr. Martin King said, and I quote, “Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”
Relativism takes the power out of intentional expectation because it makes expectation impotent and causes reliance upon those with power. People are more concerned with being politically correct than speaking the truth to power based on a wellspring of unconditional agape love. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass was correct when he stated, “power concedes nothing without a struggle.”
We continue to flounder in relativism listening to experts provide guidance to help us make good choices. Well, I remember Gordon Cosby saying more than a few times, “it is the experts that got us into this mess!” Consider the evidence, if the experts were so smart, why are we in such a global mess all over the world? Experts on economics has not prevented us to fall into this recession with a high rate of unemployment. Experts in diplomacy have not figured out how to achieve peace in the world. Experts in education has not been able to close the gaps on the disparities between good schools in certain neighborhoods compared to bad schools in other areas. I believe that Joseph will provide some help for us today.
I love this passage because it speaks about Joseph, who I think often gets the short end of the stick, and has been left out of this nativity story throughout history. Let’s face it, Joseph is a minor player in this epic drama that features an immaculate conception to a woman highly favored by the Creator of the Universe! Supernatural angelic beings bring messages from heaven, and of course, the arrival of the Savior of humanity in Jesus Christ. Please allow me to use my imagination here and say that if a movie were made about the scripture lesson in Matthew, Joseph would be a bit actor whose name would not appear on any marquees or movie trailers. But, I believe this small time player, is the one that we relate to the most in this epic saga. I certainly cannot intellectually understand the virgin birth, though I am aware of parthenogenesis, where the egg can be fertilized without the male, it is difficult to understand this concept. I struggle with saving my community from destroying the ecosystem, or eradicating poverty, or bringing about reconciliation on many levels, so I know I am not the savior of the world J. I don’t know what it feels like to fly back and forth between heaven and earth not limited by space or time.
I can relate to trying to make the best decision based on information I have, which is what Joseph did. I can relate to not embarrassing someone I care deeply for, I understand the wrestling with God, from what I want to do, and the voice I hear, that is holy, leading me to a place that I wouldn’t go.
It is that crazy concept called faith, belief and understanding without any qualifiable evidence that I believe it happened. Joseph had to face the hand he was dealt in life, I don’t know about you but I have been there, fairly or unfairly. Life has a way putting you in situations and positions that were not caused by you. Joseph was an innocent bystander, trying to do the right thing, yet he had to face something so ridiculous that he probably scratched his head in disbelief with the scary thought of trying to explain what happened to his friends. Joseph must have been a man or moral integrity because the scripture says that he wanted to divorce Mary quietly. There is a school of thought that says he was saving himself from his own embarrassment, but the world was much more paternalistic and the odds were in his favour as a man according to the law, therefore he could have divorced Mary with little opposition. In Matthew chapter 1 verse 19 it says that Joseph was a righteous man. There must have been an interesting struggle between doing what was right in his eyes as opposed to what the Lord would reveal to him in a dream.
The interesting question that came to my mind in this pericope was, -why was divorce necessary when Joseph and Mary were only engaged? His wife to be was pregnant, and her child wasn’t his, a societal disgrace in any era! Well, unlike today, first century engagements were binding premarital contracts leading to marriage. During the year of engagement, the couple behaved like husband and wife, except they did not live together or have marital relations. To break off such an engagement, a divorce was required.
As Joseph slept, divine instructions came to him in the form of a dream and he hears the words telling him not to fear. In the epistle of Timothy, Pauls says, God has not given us the Spirit of Fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind, three attributes that Joseph needed desperately. I would have been afraid, felt powerless, unloved, and insane! And he tells him, you will call the babies name Jesus, the Greek form of Joshua which means the Lord saves.
The dream was the catalyst that provided the Power of expectation in Joseph, and gave him the basis of what he needed most to survive in this impossible request…”THE POWER OF INTENTIONAL EXPECTION!”
When he awoke, Joseph obeyed the divine directive and took Mary home as his wife.
Sometimes a change in our planned direction is God’s redirection to provide us an opportunity to go in the divinely inspired right direction that provides the expectation that God will make a way in spite of the circumstances. It is no wonder that in scripture it states, “God uses the foolish things to confound the wise.”
This intentional expectation provided Joseph with the power to act, and the rest as they say is history! We have access to this type of benign power to help and expect our community to be a better place for all. There is Power in intentional expectation when we not only help the poor, but we understand mutually liberating relationships by crossing the threshold, dare to make friends, and eat together as a community. When we allow our kids to eat with kids in areas of town that are poor, we should expect a diverse community coming together with strength.
With the power of intentional expectation we move from theoretical practices of reconciliation to practical steps of reconciliation, and expect people will begin to learn how to get along with each other, help solve problems more from a communal aspect as opposed to an individual position.
With the power of intentional expectation we move from the cowardice of war to the heroic place of peace…William Sloan Coffin once said, “war is for cowards who are not brave enough to deal with the problems of peace.”
With the power of intentional expectation we love the Lord our God with all of our hearts and all of our minds, and our neighbors as ourselves and expect that love to bring forth a healing that is badly needed in a world diseased with racism, classism, unjust power dynamics, and other social ills destroying us.
If I may end with a quote from another Dickens novel, Great Expectations, another classic novel whose title speaks to Joseph’s faith and ours. “That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."
Let us live, to the best of our ability in the Power of Intentional Expectation, with courage to act, faith to believe, and prayer to sustain us as we make our communities models of God’s grace.
Amen