Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

8:30 AM traditional service – 12/23/01

by Gregory S. Kaurin

Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 

Texts: Matthew 1:18-25 (& Ephesians 5:8-14)

 

The Sermon:

When Joseph Awoke

 

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Let’s start with a show of hands.  How many of you want to do the right thing? …Well, then it seems that most or all of us can relate to Joseph.  That’s all he wanted that night, to do the right thing.  But he had a quandary.

We know, as we read the story that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph did not, so the scripture tells us, “Being a righteous man, Joseph was unwilling to expose her to public disgrace and planned to dismiss her quietly.”

Before going any further, I want to clear away this euphemism in our translation.  Saying he wanted to “dismiss her” makes it sound like he was going to leave a pink slip on her office desk.  No, it was more serious than that.  In Joseph’s day, you didn’t just call off the engagement; it was a bond, just about as serious as divorce.  He planned to break the bond quietly as quietly as possible, and that would be no easy task.

This passage describes a still deeper dilemma, and we often miss it because the text is almost always misunderstood.  We usually think this is a “causal” statement: because he was a righteous man, therefore he did not want to disgrace her, and so planned to break the engagement bond quietly.

I would argue with some interpreters to say that it actually is not causal.  It would be better translated as a “both …and” statement.  Joseph was both a righteous man, and he also did not want to disgrace Mary. 

I think it is even stronger than that.  It is almost opposite of the way we usually interpret it.  This passage described Joseph’s dilemma as a contradiction, an incredible moral struggle.  The best way to interpret this passage would be to say that Joseph was a righteous man, however—even though he was righteous—he did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace. 

The key issue is the word “righteous.”  The Greek word is “dikaios.”  In Joseph’s day, to be righteous, dikaios, meant to live by the law, God’s revealed and written law.  It is written, in both the ancient Hebrew and Greek, just as it is in our English translation, what you are supposed to do to a woman like this if you want to stay righteous.  Listen to Deuteronomy 22:23-24: “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife.  In this way you shall purge the evil from your midst.”

By Joseph’s time, they weren’t stoning to death every unmarried girl who got pregnant or was accused of adultery, or was quietly raped in town.  But the righteousness, dikaios, of scripture demanded at least a public examination, questioning, and some kind of public excising of this shameful thing.

This was his quandary when he went to bed that night.  He wanted to do the “right thing,” but what would that be?  The laws of God in scripture, society’s need for public examples and deterrence, and his own personal dignity, pride and righteousness all seemed to call for one action: public confrontation, judgment, and punishment.  At the very same time, Joseph’s sense of compassion and love seemed to call for something else.

Joseph decided to ignore his dikaios, his righteousness, and, as quietly as possible, to bury this embarrassment.  Mary would still be ruined for any other decent, righteous man, but at least the embarrassment would only be whispered rumors and sidewise glances.  She could live, though, and could try to ignore the rumors and looks.  She could grow old, taking care of her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews.  Joseph had made up his mind, but things were not settled.

 

An old gospel hymn sings, “Joseph never said a mumblin’ word.”  It’s true.  In the Bible Joseph speaks only through his actions and by what happens around him.  His actions spoke, “Obedience.”  Joseph’s obedience is what caused his dilemma in the first place.

That night, as he slept, Joseph learned something new.  In a real way, the Good News came to him, the Good News of Jesus Christ, his fiancée’s baby.  But he also learned a different kind of obedience, a more true and full obedience.

One way is to obey the surface of the law, the written words and interpretations.  The second is deeper, sometimes harder to know, but much more important: obeying the spirit of the law, obeying God and the intentions of God behind, through, and even beyond the apparent written words.

More than thirty years later, Jesus would say things to his followers, even quoting scripture, like: “You-have-heard-it-said …one thing, but I-say-to-you …something deeper, the heart behind the law.”  And elsewhere, to Scribes and Pharisees he would basically say, “Yes, I know what is said in scripture about the Sabbath, but I tell you there is a greater defining Law of Compassion.  When you break the Law of Compassion, then you break them all, the Ten Commandments, the rules of Sabbath, and even the greatest Commandment, the love of God.”  Obeying God runs much deeper than the surface.

 

Back to Joseph as he goes to bed that night: no, scripture doesn’t record any of his words, but he prayed that night.  In spite of his decision to break his engagement to Mary, he prayed for help.  His whole person was a prayer.  His sense of righteousness, his desire to obey God, his desire to be compassionate, these all cried out and prayed to God for help, a resolution.

And it came to him in a dream.  First and foremost, he learned of the resolution to all our fears and conflicts, the promise of eternal salvation and forgiveness of sins: Jesus Christ.  Second, the angel taught him about the third option, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.  You don’t have to 1) publicly shame her.  You don’t need to 2) quietly divorce her.  There is a third option.  3) Don’t hesitate; take her as your wife!”  The third option: “Take her as your wife; protect and name her child in the place of his Father.”

When Joseph awoke (some would use the jargon that is popular these days to say that…) when Joseph awoke his “paradigm had shifted.”  His sense of righteousness, his dikaios, included something new: mercy.  God’s justice, his righteousness, has always included something that none of us can survive without; it has always included mercy.

That’s what this child would be.  Even his name means it: God’s mercy in the flesh.  Jesus is a shortened form of the older Hebrew name for Joshua, and it means, “God saves.”

 

There is a reason that Joseph is the patron saint of good fathers and parents, of good husbands and spouses.  Without any recorded words, Joseph’s life and actions spoke powerful prayers and sermons.  He was obedient—not just to written words and societal demand—he was obedient to compassion, protection and love.

He began with a dilemma that we can understand.  Like us, we have a strong desire to do what’s right, for both God and our society, and we a strong desire to save personal pride, our own righteousness.  Often we go to bed in dark confusion, or sometimes with dark decisions. 

God calls us to wake up in Jesus Christ; wake up into his mercy and forgiveness.  We need to let his compassion transform us into compassionate, protective, healing, and concerned people.  We need to relate to Joseph’s dilemma and his resolution.  You and I need to wake up and let God set us apart, and let him use our whole lives and our actions for his compassion and mercy.

 

Please stand and pray with me… “Dear God, forgive me and use me to forgive others.  Show me your mercy and use me to show mercy.  Save me and use me to protect, serve, and raise up the Christ Child that I find in others.  Through your Son you have made me right before you.  Now, show me the right things to do.  Amen.”

 

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