A Visit with Joseph

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*Readings begin at 12:15

Isaiah 42:1-9

Matthew 1:18-24

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Today we transition from Old Testament to the New, from the Hebrew portion of our Bible to the Story of Jesus.  As we have heard the witness of these past many weeks of faithful people, Esther, Isaiah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and Micah, we have heard how they are not the only ones called to be God’s People with a Purpose – we too are called to be a Light to the Nations and Food for the Hungry. Today the great timeline of faith gets pinched together.  Two Kairos moments are picked up from the storyline of the Bible and are laid one on top of the other The first is the time of the Jewish people in exile, who are promised hope by Isaiah. They are described as the Suffering Servant who is a Light to the Nations in the midst of their own great darkness, God promises that they are made for a purpose, and their suffering will not be wasted.  That moment in time gets pinched together on the great timeline of faith with the coming Messiah who is already gestating in Mary’s womb. For this new human will fill full of meaning the promise that Isaiah speaks.

Just as it is Israel’s example as God’s servant in the world that will illuminate for the world who God is and how God continues to bring justice, righteousness, freedom, tenderness, compassion.  Who will not snuff out a smoldering wick or break a bruised reed. Who will be an example of what all the world hopes for: justice for all and freedom for the oppressed. Just as it is Israel’s example… all of God’s promised deliverance is embodied in the person of Jesus.  

Several hundred years are between the “pinch” in the timeline.  And now God comes to Joseph.  

Joseph: Hey!  Hey everybody.  Anyone need any carpentry work done?  I am expecting a child, you see, so any jobs I can get done now for you will help me support my little one. 

Pastor:  Hi! I’m Pastor Kirsten.  And this is Bethlehem. 

Joseph:  Bethlehem?  Wait… what? I’m in Bethlehem.  Must have walked a lot further than I thought!  Well, I’m surprised we’ve never met before. This is my hometown.  I’m Joseph, the carpenter.    

Pastor: We have just heard about you!  It’s so great to meet you in person! I’ve heard you are a great man, a great man. 

Joseph: Oh, you are too kind.  I am just an average Joe. Call me Joe, will you?  People have the worst habit of gossiping. Usually it goes in a bad direction.  With me, some people would like to make me into some kind of saint. So Please, Call me Joe. 

Pastor: Ok, Joe… Actually, we were really hoping you cold straighten out some of the rumors for us.  These folk have a communication covenant and they are really good about trying to go straight to the source for information.  They know it’s never helpful to participate in rumors.  

Joseph:  Well, what can I help you with?  Please don’t tell me what you’ve heard, I’d rather just tell you my story.  

Pastor:  Well that would be great!  We just want to know about the story when God’s messenger came to visit you.  Sounds like it was quite a shocker!

Joe:  Fright. Of. My. Life.  I tell you. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Pastor: No?

Joe: The visit from the angel was exhilarating.  Thought I was going to die, but once I realized that hadn’t happened, it was the sweetest relief I had felt.  It was agony before that.

Pastor:  Agony? Wow, that’s a strong word, Joe.

Joe:  Yeah…. To hear that Mary was pregnant, and I knew I wasn’t the father.  That was a scary time. I felt so angry and disheartened. It was so out of character for her!  Never would have imagined it. Yet, there I was, after living such a careful life of obedience and finally reaching the point of stability where I could marry.  Then that shocker. I never wanted to take it out on Mary, but I was pretty angry at the whole situation. Who would do this to her? To me? Steal my bride? Take away my joy?  And that was nothing to what it did to her. Not to mention this awful man’s son. Who was going to care for him – they would just be out on the streets. But there was nothing I could do at that point, at least, that’s what I thought.  In my culture, it isn’t respectable for a man to marry a woman who is already pregnant. I would be shunned. Would have trouble getting work, my friends and neighbors would think I had no self-respect.  

Pastor:  Wow. That’s intense, Joe.  I can see why you describe it as agony.  Losing your respect in the community, your livelihood and the marriage you were hoping for.  That’s a big hit, man. 

Joe:  It was the lowest point in my life.  I had many a sleepless night trying to figure out a way to take care of my reputation and keep Mary off the streets.  But there just didn’t seem to be a solution.  

Pastor: But then the angel came?

Joe: Then the angel came.  

Pastor: What was the message?  We’re dying to know.

Joe:  The angel spoke God’s very words to me.  This I know to be true. There is just no other way for all of what’s happened to have happened since.

Pastor:  What words did God have to say to you?  

Joe:  Words of absolute compassion and love. …It was incredible.  You see, I was sleeping, and the angel came to me in a dream.  It was vivid, so real. Like more real than even everyday life.  Do you know what I mean when I say that? [to congregation]  

The messenger called me Son of David.  Named my part in the body – the people descended from David, all of us we now call Jews.  “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.”    

Do not be afraid.  Those were powerful words.  The One who had sent this messenger knew who I was, knew how I would react.  And knew I needed assurance. Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife… 

“for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 

The baby’s name is Jesus – the rescuer.  Like our forefather Joshua. The one who rescued us in ancient days of Judges, before King David.  Who delivered to us our promised land, where we can be God’s holy people, set apart to share God’s ways with the world.  

Pastor:  And didn’t you say that the angel said the baby is conceived from the Holy Spirit?  What did you think of that?!

Joe:  Oh, you’re going to think I’m raving mad.  It sounds like lunacy, but its’ just simply true.  God intervenes sometimes. If we are lucky enough, it will be with us.  It rarely seems to be, I certainly never thought it would be me. But it’s true.  Sometimes God meddles with the human history. Not often, most often we live with the consequences of living in this sinful world, and I was sure that was what this pregnancy was… until that angel showed up.  And you know, however it all came about. The message from God was clear. This is God’s son. God’s Son. Jesus. And I am just lucky enough to get picked to be his earthly dad.

But you should know, the angel didn’t leave it just at that.

Pastor:  Really?  

Joe:  This was the clincher.  The messenger said that Mary’s son would be promised like the son Isaiah, the great prophet, refers to in Isaiah 7:14.  A baby named Emmanuel will be born, Isaiah says in the prophecy to King Ahaz. Emannuel, which means God-with-us, this baby is a sign that foreign kings will be overthrown – in Isaiah’s day that was Assyria who had us all in bondage.  Today… could it be? Could it mean that this baby would be born as…. As… as the…. 

Pastor: As the what?

Joe: [loud whisper, looking around] The Messiah!

Pastor:  A Messiah.  Huh. So you think this surprise pregnancy could result in the Messiah being born? 

Joe:  Shhhhhhhhhh…..! [looking around as if someone will hear them]  Keep quiet! The last thing we need are the Romans hearing us talking about the – you-know-what – and [pantomimes being hung on a cross].  

Pastor:  Yikes. That seems serious.  What are you doing?

Joe:  The Romans love to hang people on crosses who challenge their authority.  So if this kid is going to grow up to be our Messiah, our Savior, I got to get him to adulthood first.  Probably time for me to get back to looking for work anyway. 

Pastor:  Well, it sounds like you have a big responsibility to get to.

Joe: No question.  And hey, if you know anyone looking for a master carpenter, send them my way!

Pastor:  Will do. So nice to meet you, Joseph, I mean, Joe.  Thanks for coming by.  

Joe:  Just looking for work.  Have to head back to Nazareth now, time to take care of the donkey and get back to work.  Got to save up as much as I can for this special baby!

Pastor:  God bless you, Joe.

Joe: God bless you, Pastor Kirsten.  God bless you, Bethlehem. Enjoy my hometown!

Well that was cool.  So glad Joseph could help us see what it might mean to have a baby born that is the Rescuer, the Savior, the Emmanuel.  

God sure has blessed me today with this conversation – and all of us… seeing as we know the end of this story.  We know that Israel, the suffering servant is the model for how God works, the archetype. God shows up in human bodies.  In Jesus we have God…fully present, in a single person. God keeps doing this again and again. God incarnates in human bodies – the whole body of Israel, in Jesus, and in the whole Body of Christ!  In me and in my neighbor! God continues to Immanuel among us, through different people in various circumstances. God works through human bodies not just because it is beautiful, but because it is how he becomes accessible to us!  When he walked the same earth we walk, and when he offered his very body as food for the hungry. For we are fed here at this table by a God who wants us to remember that we are, like Joseph, a part of the community of believers that display God’s self to the world.  

So on this third Sunday of Advent we wait.  We wait for that baby born to Mary and Joseph.  That God-in-Flesh surprise arrival that catches everyone off guard and redefines everything about what it means for God to be among us.  Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  

Amen.

Advent Apocalyse

Jeremiah 1:4-10; 7:1-11

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
[singing:] Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!

This week I sang that song to Renate Lowy, a member of this congregation who is struggling with dementia.  She lives in a nursing home and only speaks to me in German.  I do not speak German.  But I can sing it.  And so I did.  I sang Silent Night to her, and she closed her eyes, and quietly, peacefully listened to the music in her childhood language.

Renate is not going to get better.  She is God’s child, she is beloved.  And she is trapped inside her own mind.  It is a situation many of us dread. Some might call Renate’s situation hopeless.  Some might be tempted to abandon her to the care of paid professionals.  She doesn’t know who I am, she may not even recognize her children any more.  She lives in the darkness of disease.

Darkness is all around.  This is the time in our year, the rhythm of our lives as a church that we have descended into darkness.  The days are shorter, the light eludes us.  Our awareness of darkness all around is heightened, we see what is happening in Jerusalem and on our border and for the people in Yemen and war about to break out around the globe.

In the midst of this darkness, we find ourselves in the book of Habakkuk today.  A book I am guessing most of you have never heard of.  We are in the midst of our so-called “minor” prophets… prophets who are called by God to speak into the darkness.  Prophets name the darkness, giving voice to the deep chasm between us and God.  Putting words to the distance in our relationship to God.  To our longing for spiritual vitality, to the longing we may not even recognize yet as longing.  Prophets speak into darkness…into that deep darkness, where all might seem lost, Habakkuk points to the hope… he delivers the message that God will bring justice and a whole different kind of world than what we are living in now. God will bring us what we long for.

In Habakkuk’s world we find ourselves in a cinematic scene of destruction and despair.  This is the Exile.  The lives of the people in Habakkuk’s world have been turned upside down and torn apart.  We stand with him at the end of an Armageddon movie, next to the man with his arms raised to the sky asking God, “Why?” We find ourselves in the flashing darkness of explosions and separation.  Children torn from their parents arms.  Tear gas spraying.  Hospitals incapacitated.  Starvation on the brink. Wars brewing.

In the midst of this, scene, there stands a man.  Lamenting.  Despairing.  And Defiant.  Demanding of God for help, for answers, for intervention, for hope. 

This is how we enter Advent.

We stand with that man.  The man of lament, despair, defiance.

You and Me.  We are standing in the midst of that apocalypse, that end of everything, and we raise our hands to God above.

In the midst of this scene, I stand behind this table of bread and wine and offer it to you.
In the midst of this scene, you ask “Where is God?”

In the midst of this, we stand together.  Stand defiantly in hope, in anticipation, with all expectation that the God we know shows up.  That the God we know never abandons those who are in darkness.  The God we know is present where we are overwhelmed.  The God we know comes to feed the hungry with his very own body!

This Advent we stand in witness in this church as a light in the darkness.  We stand in the dark and cold with scene those who need coats and visit Holy Trinity for the coat closet.  We stand in the dark and cold with those who need clothes and seek a new place for Bethlehem’s closet.  We stand in the darkest days of hunger and no heat and no rent and not enough food in the fridge and anyone who shows up at St. Vincent de Paul and we say in defiance… there IS ENOUGH.  We stand with the guests at St. Luke’s who have no homes and say in defiance…there IS ENOUGH.  We stand with the patients at Augusta Victoria hospital in East Jerusalem and say in defiance…there IS ENOUGH. We stand with the children in Yemen and on the border and around the world and say in defiance… there IS ENOUGH.

For the darkness is full of lies.  Lies about resources.  Lies about who we are.  Lies about the threat of the stranger.

But we know the truth.  We know there IS ENOUGH.  We know that God shows up in the darkness.  We know that God gives richly.  We know that God gives everything to us, even his very body to feed us! For the darkness has an insatiable hunger, it devours “widows, orphans and strangers” and it is coming for us.  But we stand in defiance and say… there IS ENOUGH.  There is enough to clothe the naked.  There is enough to shelter the homeless.  There is enough to feed the hungry.  There IS ENOUGH for us all.

We join Habakkuk first in lament, and then in defiance of the darkness.  For this is the call on our lives that Habakkuk reveals.  To live a life of faith.  This is living an Advent faith, our time of longing.  Longing for what God will do, living the life God has promised, defiantly claiming the hope that God gives us in the midst of darkness. 

Renate’s daughter, Barbara, visits Renate every day, twice a day, in fact, to feed her.  Renate eats best for Barbara, standing by her chair, lovingly suggesting this food and that. Barbara knows this will not take away the pain of Renate’s entrapment.  It will not take away the pain for Renate or for Barbara.  But Barbara, by the grace of God, is being a witness to Renate’s pain, and is being with her in it in the best way she knows how.  This is the life of faith.  By lovingly feeding her.  Barbara gives her the bread of life.  Food for the hungry. Barbara stands with her.  I sang with her – representing you.  We stand and sing together, simply as a witness to the love of God, in defiance of the disease.  In defiance of the darkness we stand where we know God is already, in faith and hope for Renate’s future wholeness with God.  We won’t get to see it in this life, and yet we witness to the defiant hope of it, together.

It is in this reality.  In seeing the pain and struggle of the world, the unfairness and injustice of it all and still holding tightly to the truth that God has promised us more than this.  God is in this pain and is working to transform it. And God uses us, God’s most amazing and flawed creation, in God’s work of transformation.  Starting with us standing, in defiance of the darkness, feeding in defiance of the hunger, and in so doing…proclaiming the truth of God’s presence, movement and power.

So let us stand and sing today.  For this is our defiant witness.  Whether we sing quietly in the halls of a nursing home or shout our song in the halls of justice.  This is the faith we live by. That, though we live in a mess of a world, this pain and destruction of our own making…it is God who will transform it.

Amen.

Will you sing with me?  We can sing in English this time.  Hymn 723 in your Red Hymnal, Canticle of the Turning:
My heart will sing of the day you bring, let the fires of your justice burn.  
Wipe away all tears for the dawn draws near and the world is about to turn.