The following sermon was preached on December 18, 2022 at St George’s Transcona. You can learn more about St George’s and find links to their YouTube channel by clicking here
Photo by Flávia Gava on Unsplash
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight O God, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Today’s gospel reading is taken from partway through the first chapter of Matthew. That chapter opens with a long list of names tracing the genealogy of Jesus. Genealogies, those long lists of names, many of which can be hard to pronounce, are usually not included in our lectionary readings and today is no exception.
Now you may be thinking, thank goodness! Who wants to read a long boring list of impossible to pronounce names anyway, but the original writers of the scriptures thought differently. The gospels weren’t composed on computers or in a world where paper was cheap and easily accessible. Writers like Matthew were careful not to waste a single word. These names weren’t included as filler, they were considered to be very important. They were included for a reason.
In this section of the gospel, Mathew is giving us Jesus’ origin story, and for Matthew, that means letting you know who Jesus’ ancestors were. It’s essential information for understanding who Jesus is.
Jesus’ genealogy lets us know who he is by telling us who he is related to. Jesus is related to a lot of traditionally important figures, like King David, but he’s also related to a lot of colourful characters who didn’t always adhere to societal conventions in Israel’s history. Matthew includes them all.
The authors of the Collegeville Bible Commentary describe it this way:
“The linear progression of thirty-nine male ancestors is broken at four points by the names of women. They are not the ones who would immediately come to mind as great figures of Israel’s past. Each has an unusual twist to her story.
Tamar (v.3). after being widowed, took decisive action to coerce her father-in-law, Judah, to provide an heir for her. (Gen 38) She conceived Perez and Zerah, who continued the Davidic line. Tamar is the only woman in the Hebrew Scriptures who is called righteous (Gen 38:26) a term that is of central importance to Matthew.
Rahab (v.5), a prostitute in Jericho (Josh 2), risked disobeying the orders of the king of Jericho and sheltered spies from Jericho to reconnoiter the land. She subsequently gave birth to Boaz, the great grandfather of David.
Ruth (v. 5) a Moabite woman, returned with her mother-in-law Naomi, to Bethlehem, rather than stay with her own people after her husband Mahlon died. In Bethlehem, Ruth presented herself to Boaz at the threshing floor and conceived Obed, who carried forth the Davidic line.
Finally, [Bathsheba], the wife of Uriah (v. 6) is the one who bore David’s son Solomon after David arranged to have Uriah killed in battle (2 Sam 11)
Each story speaks of how women took bold actions outside the bounds of regular patriarchal marriage to enable God’s purposes to be brought to fruition in unexpected ways. Not only were the circumstances unusual, but some of these women were also outsiders to Israel. Remembering their stories prepares us for the extraordinary circumstances of Jesus’ birth and the salvation he will ultimately extend to those outside Israel (28:19)
The women’s presence in the midst of the male ancestors of Jesus also signals the integral role that women disciples play in the community of Jesus’ followers. They remind the reader that women are not marginal to the history of Israel or of Christianity.” (Collegeville 8-9)
At the time of our gospel story, however, Jesus has not been born and therefore hasn’t been added to the list, the last name on this genealogy is Joseph.
Joseph whose life has just been turned upside-down by some unexpected news. Joseph who needs to make a decision about what to do next.
Today’s gospel reading began, “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 the Holy Spirit. (18)
This was not part of the deal. Mary should not have been pregnant at all, but if she did become pregnant, then Joseph should have been the father.
Joseph was educated enough to know how babies are made. Mary couldn’t become pregnant all by herself, a human male was required. This was definitely not his baby and Mary’s story about the Holy Spirit seemed sketchy at best.
So what do to?
First, you might be thinking, well, this is a tough situation but it’s not really a big deal. They weren’t married after all, they were only engaged. People break off engagements all the time.
And while it may be more common now to break off an engagement than it was in Joseph’s day, that doesn’t make it any less painful for the people involved.
Additionally, our understanding of what an engagement is has changed over time. The dating scene in first-century Palestine looked a lot different than it does today.
The patriarchs of two families would come together and make an agreement that their children would be married. After that agreement was reached, a marriage was a two-step process.
The first step included a legally binding ceremony that took place in front of witnesses. This step is sometimes translated into English as an “engagement.”
The bride would return to her father’s home for another year or so and then another ceremony would take place when she formally transferred from her father’s care to her husband’s.
How romantic.
Today’s story takes place in between these two stages. Although they don’t live together yet, Mary and Joseph are legally married and everyone knows it.
Joseph can’t simply break off an engagement. If he wants to end his relationship with Mary, he needs to divorce her.
Divorce has never been an easy or simple thing, but it was different in Joseph’s time than in ours.
If Joseph divorces Mary, there will be judging eyes and wagging tongues. His life will not be easy and he will likely be the subject of gossip and social isolation, at least for a period of time.
But the road will be a lot harder for Mary. And Joseph knows this and he has compassion for her. As a righteous man who wants to remain faithful to what he understands to be God’s law, he must divorce Mary. But if he does, that same law says that Mary must die. (Deut 22:23-27)
The law is clear. Mary is pregnant and Joseph is not the father; therefore she has committed adultery, therefore, she must die.
And Joseph doesn’t want that to happen. He doesn’t want to be married to her anymore, but he doesn’t want her to die either.
But his choices are limited and so Joseph decides that he will divorce Mary “quietly.” He can’t divorce her secretly, people already know they are married and two witnesses are required for a divorce to be legally recognized. But he can divorce her and refuse to give a reason why. There won’t be a trial and Mary and her child will be allowed to live. She will most certainly be socially ostracized but she and her child will be allowed to live. (Deut 24:1, Num 5:11-31)
The only way for Mary and her child to avoid public shame would be for Joseph to complete the second step of the marriage and adopt Mary’s unborn child.
And even then, there will be talk. Most people are able to do some basic math and the dates of their marriage and the birth date of this child will not add up to a respectable number.
And Joseph is not prepared to remain in this marriage. He is not prepared to adopt Mary’s child.
But before we judge him too harshly, think back to the genealogy that Matthew opens this chapter with.
Forget everything you know about our modern blended families – how beautiful they can be, how they prove that it takes more than biology to create a family. Forget all of this and try to imagine a time when family meant something different.
Imagine a time when a genealogy was so important that you would use precious and limited resources to write it down. A time when you assumed people would think that a list of names was important enough that they would want to read it. A time when who you were was determined by who your father was.
Try to imagine Joseph, a man soaked in that culture, a man who wanted to do the right thing, imagine him coming to terms with the idea that everything he had hoped for, had planned for, had worked for is now gone in an instant because of someone else’s choices.
He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s not his fault that Mary is pregnant. And that pregnancy will change his entire life, no matter what he decides to do.
Because now he can never be “Joseph that righteous and respectable man with the perfect family.” From now on he will either be “Joseph whose first marriage failed,” or “Joseph who adopted that bastard child.”
He had not planned on any of this.
He had planned on a life with Mary that would have included a biological son whose name would appear after his in the family genealogy.
Joseph lives in a patriarchal culture where it was incredibly important to have a first-born son. The first-born son inherited your property. The first-born son carried on your family line. It was their name that would appear in a genealogy after yours.
And while Matthew shows us that Jesus’ family tree will include a wide cast of characters, Joseph isn’t likely thinking that way at this particular moment. He likely doesn’t want to stand out, he probably wants to blend in.
Quietly divorcing Mary was the most sensible and compassionate thing he could do in order to try and get his life back on track.
But then, life throws Joseph another surprise.
After having made his decision to quietly divorce Mary, an angel appears to him in a dream. (v 19)
The angel assures Joseph that the impossible is indeed possible. Mary is blameless and her child is from God.
There is no need to fear. There is no need to divorce. Yes it is unusual, yes there will be some difficult times ahead, and yes, the neighbours will probably whisper behind his back for years to come.
But the angel makes it clear that Joseph is not out of step with God’s plan if he remains with Mary and adopts her child. In fact, this is exactly what God wants him to do.
And Joseph does as he is told. He honours his marriage commitment, and he adopts Mary’s son as his own.
Today we’re looking closely at Joseph’s story, but over the next few weeks as we continue to walk through Jesus’ origin story in more detail, notice how many of those stories include people whose plans are interrupted by unexpected circumstances.
When was the last time you were sure you knew how something in your life was going to turn out, only to be surprised by an unexpected sequence of events that changed everything.
What was that like? How did you respond? What did you learn from the experience?
At the risk of tying this story into a neat little bow, I like to imagine that one thing Joseph learned from this story is that the safe and respectable road is not always the best road to follow. Joseph is a background figure from here on in the gospel story, but I like to imagine that his life with Mary was a happy one, that he loved Jesus as if he was he own son. I like to imagine that Joseph continued to care more about what God thought of him than what his neighbours thought of him.
One final thing I want to make note of. We are in the season of Advent, and during that season the church and the lectionary are supposed to be encouraging us to stay in the season of Advent, to not rush straight to the Christmas story.
So did today’s gospel reading strike you as odd? Did you notice that we’ve cheated a little bit?
I mean, the reading begins, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way..” and ends with “until she had born a son, and he named him Jesus. (18, 25)
And we just read it and I’ve be preaching about it like it was Christmas Eve or something.
What is going on?
OK, so we cheated a little bit, but I think we can get away with it both because it’s really important to hear Joseph’s story, and because Matthew really buries the lead in his account of Jesus’ birth. Although the story begins, “Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way…” Matthew literally does not include a single actual detail about Jesus’ birth. We hear about his genealogy, we hear about Joseph’s decision-making process, and then we hear that at some point, in some way, Jesus was in fact born.
Matthew cares about who Jesus is, the details of his birth are unimportant.
Well, they are unimportant to Matthew. Scripture does contain more details about the events surrounding Jesus’ birth and in less than a week on Christmas Eve we will all gather again to re-tell that ancient story together.
And I hope you’ll join us when we do.
In the name of our loving God who Creates, Redeems, and Sustains. Amen.