Matthew 1_The Quiet One_Dec 16, 2018

The Quiet One

Matthew 1: 18 – 25

 

One of the best things about the Christmas season, for me, is the pageants that children put on at this time of year.  Pageants are dramatic on stage and off.  Feelings can run especially high when children try out to play the parts of Mary, Joseph, the tax collector, the innkeeper, and so on.  In one grade school pageant, one boy in the class wanted very much to be Joseph.  But another boy, his biggest rival, also wanted the part.  When the parts were handed out, that boy got the part and the first boy was assigned the part of the innkeeper.  He was very disappointed. His disappointment quickly turned to bitterness.

 

During the weeks of preparation, at each rehearsal, this boy kept plotting in his mind what he might do on the night of the performance, to get even with his rival, the boy who got the part of Joseph.  Finally, the night of the performance arrived.  The pageant began and Mary and Joseph came walking across the stage. They knocked on the door of the inn, and the innkeeper asked them gruffly what they wanted.

 

“We’d like to have a room for the night,” Joseph answered.  After all his plotting to put down his rival, the innkeeper was ready.  He threw the door open wide and said, “Great! Come on in!”  For a few seconds, poor little Joseph didn’t know what to do.  People in the audience were on the edge of their seats.  They held their breath as a long, awkward silence ensued.  Finally, thinking on his feet, Joseph took a look inside the inn.  He looked past the innkeeper, to the left, and to the right.  Then he said, “No wife of mine is going to stay in a dump like this.  Come on, Mary, let’s go to the barn.”

 

The real Joseph is the subject of our gospel passage for today, but Matthew doesn’t say he’s is good at thinking on his feet.  There’s a lot we don’t know about Joseph, but we do know that when he learned that his fiancé, Mary, was going to have a baby, it would have turned his world upside down.  He might well have thought that life as he knew it was over.  In Joseph’s world, an unexpected pregnancy was a shameful thing.

 

That’s partly because of what was expected of a couple when they got engaged in those days.  Being engaged is always a serious thing, but in Joseph’s time being engaged was a very serious thing.  It sounds old fashioned to us today, but the best way to describe the relationship between Joseph and Mary is our word betrothed.

 

In first century Palestine, where Joseph and Mary lived, a betrothal between a man and a woman was absolutely binding.  Usually a betrothal lasted a year.  During that year the woman and the man didn’t set up housekeeping together, they didn’t sleep together, but they were known in the community as husband and wife.  The betrothal could not be ended, except by divorce.  If the man died during the betrothal year, the woman would be known as a widow, even though no marriage ceremony had taken place.

 

Mary and Joseph were bound by a public promise to marry.  That promise was so strong, so binding, that when Joseph learns of her pregnancy he must feel horribly betrayed.  He’s a good man, a hardworking man.  Now his neighbors are avoiding him and laughing at him behind his back.  How could she do this to him?  In Joseph’s world, honor is extremely important.  Now, the honor of his name, the honor of his family, is in ruins.

 

Joseph does have recourse in the legal system.  He can put right this insult to his reputation.  He can go to the priests, accuse Mary of infidelity, and then stand back as she is stoned to death for her transgression.  But, as Matthew tells us, Joseph is a righteous man.  Joseph doesn’t want to hurt her.  He doesn’t want to subject Mary to great pain and public humiliation.  So he decides to resolve the situation by divorcing her quietly.

 

But that’s not the end of the story.  God has plans for Joseph.  An angel arrives on the scene, in a dream.  The angel says, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.  The child conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus.”  Does Joseph jump for joy when he hears the angel’s words?  It’s doubtful.  The angel might give him hope, but his life is still spinning out of control.  His orderly life is in chaos.

 

How does Joseph respond to all this?  He could have played the victim here.  He could have said, “Poor me!  It’s not fair!”  He could have gone into a downward spiral of despair.  He could have gone through with the marriage, but made each day with Mary a miserable mess of resentment and blame.  But Joseph chooses to act differently.  He chooses, as Matthew puts it, to take Mary as his wife.

 

Joseph does this without a lot of fuss or fanfare.  That seems to be his way: to act quietly.  If we look at the whole Christmas story, if we listen carefully, we’ll notice that Joseph doesn’t have much to say.  In that way, he’s different from a lot of the people in the story of Jesus’ birth.  We hear from prophets and angels.  We hear from Roman emperors and Judean kings.  We hear from John the Baptist.  We hear from Jesus’ mother.  When Mary learns that she is going to give birth to a baby, who will be the Son of the Most High, she bursts into a song of joy.

 

But, as the story unfolds, we don’t hear much from Joseph.  Maybe Joseph is too stunned to sing.  Joseph is a man of few words.  He is the quiet one.  But Joseph is also a righteous man and so, without songs or speeches, Joseph quietly does what God is asking of him.  Mary’s unexpected pregnancy has thrown his life into chaos, but he decides to trust that God is at work, even in the chaos.  Quietly, he takes his place in the story of salvation.

 

Joseph’s life was disrupted by Mary’s pregnancy.  But the disruption doesn’t end there.  Just as her due date is upon them, the command comes from the Emperor in Rome: everybody, back to your hometown to register for taxes.  No matter where you’re living now, you have to go back to the place you were born to register so that you can be taxed.  You have to pay taxes; you have to give the Emperor his due.  Joseph isn’t a wealthy man.  He’s just about getting by as it is, and now he has a baby on the way.  But he quietly helps his wife, now “great with child,” make the long journey down the rocky road to Bethlehem.

 

And so Joseph, the carpenter, quietly takes his place in God’s story.  Just putting one foot in front of the other, not knowing where things are headed, Joseph, the man of few words, follows into an uncertain future.  He quietly plays his part in God’s story of salvation.

 

Maybe you’re like Joseph, a person of few words.  Or maybe you know someone like Joseph.  Maybe you know someone who isn’t much of a talker.  At church, they aren’t big on committee discussions.  When it comes to Bible study, they don’t have all the answers.  They just do their best to be faithful, not knowing exactly where the journey will lead.  They are the quiet ones.

 

A woman named Susan Cain has written a book about quiet people.  The book is called Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.  In the book, Cain points out that our world tends to reward people who are outgoing and have a lot to say.  She writes, “I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they’re good talkers, but they don’t have good ideas.  It’s so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent.  Someone seems like a good presenter, easy to get along with, and those traits are rewarded.”

 

The talkers among us may get more attention these days, but God uses quiet people too.  God uses people like Joseph, who simply take their place in God’s story.  God doesn’t ask us to be eloquent speakers.  God doesn’t ask us to be experts or to have all the answers.  God simply asks us to be faithful, to follow, to show compassion even when it brings disruption in our lives, even when we don’t know just where the journey will lead.

 

Some years ago, one woman quietly showed compassion to a young mother and her two sons.  It was one of those freezing cold days when the snow made it hard to get around.  The young mother, whose name was Jennifer Diaz, was trying to walk back to her home after bringing her two sons to a dentist appointment in the next town.  Jennifer had a ride to the dentist’s, but she was hoping to catch the bus back home again.

 

But it turned out there wasn’t a bus that late in the day.  So they started walking.  Jennifer and her sons trudged along the road toward home, in the gathering dark.  When they were about halfway home, one of her sons had an asthma attack. They sat down by the side of the road.  That’s when her helper showed up.  The woman picked them up, brought them to MacDonald’s, paid for their dinner, gave them some cash, and brought them to where they could catch a bus home.

 

Jennifer was so grateful that she told the story to the newspaper.  That was the only way she could thank the woman who helped her.  The woman didn’t give them her name.  Maybe that woman is like Joseph: a quiet person.  Just doing what is needed, without a lot of fuss, willing to go through a little disruption in order to share a little compassion.

 

Friends, in these next few days, we’ll be preparing to receive the baby Jesus.  The story of God coming to us, coming to dwell among us, to live as one of us, is about to begin.  The story of God’s salvation is about to begin.  Will you find a place in that story?  Will you become part of the story of God with us in Jesus?  Even if you don’t know what will be asked of you, will you step up, ready to share compassion where it is needed?  Even if you don’t know where the journey will lead, will you put one foot in front of the other, and follow?  Remember: God doesn’t ask us to be eloquent.  God doesn’t ask us to be experts.  God simply asks us to be faithful.

 

Rev. Elva Merry Pawle

December 16, 2018

Advent 3