Advent 4 Year A 2007 Matthew 1: 18-25

The Rev. Kristen Dobyns

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve but it is today that we hear the poignant story of Joseph, who decided to stand beside Mary and to follow the guidance of the angel in his dreams. Without Joseph, we might not remember Mary or Jesus. Without Joseph, the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy could have ended in divorce or more tragically with her death by stoning or by strangulation. Without Joseph’s protection Jesus, Mary’s child, would not have been born. Without Joseph and his ability to listen to his dreams and to the angels who spoke in his dreams, we might not even be celebrating Christmas Eve tomorrow.

Yet Joseph’s ability to hear and respond to his dreams changed his life in ways he could not have imagined. Instead of a quiet marriage, he had to take his new wife and child on a flight to Egypt. Later, he had to hear another angel in a different dream who told him it was all right to return to Israel. Dreams and Joseph went together throughout Jesus’ young life, and those dreams kept Jesus safe.

Mary was a young girl, probably between twelve and fifteen years old. She lived in a patriarchal culture, a culture with special codes of honor, with rules for behavior and rules for what to do when those rules were broken. Shaming a family’s name was a serious offence. She also lived as a Jew caught up in the maelstrom of Roman imperial culture. The emperor was God, and the emperor ruled heavily, with the help of small time kings such as Herod, with heavy taxation, and with a large army of soldiers whose visible presence could frighten anyone.

It is into this world, that God sent an angel to Joseph. Mary’s pregnancy was shameful. Because Joseph was known as a ‘righteous man’ he was going to divorce her quietly. We don’t know if honor killings were actually carried out at that time but we do know that honor and shame were bound into the culture of Jesus’ time. We also know that there are honor/shame cultures today where honor killings of young women do occur.

It is hard to imagine a more scandalous way for God to arrive into the world. For God to become incarnate, to be born as a human baby, through a young unmarried teenage woman is scandalous enough. For this woman to be part of what appeared to be an unimportant religious minority, oppressed by the largest empire of that world, is even more scandalous. For God to expect that Joseph will believe an angel who tells him to accept this baby and to name this baby Jesus, or ‘he who saves his people,’ is ridiculous, isn’t it?

Imagine, if this story were to happen today. What it would mean for Mary to be living in a small village in Afghanistan, or Pakistan, Iraq, or perhaps a Palestinian refugee camp? You know what can happen to young women who become pregnant out of wedlock in these places. In fact, for a young woman to be seen with a man in public can cause enough trouble. We know that the honor code is strong in these societies. Women’s rights to life do not compare with the families need to maintain honor among its neighbors. Imagine God choosing such a place for his Son to be born today. Would you believe it if you heard such a story on the evening news?

It boggles the imagination to believe that God would take the risk of sending Jesus to be born into such a hopeless seeming situation. God must have had great faith not only in Mary but also in Joseph. Fortunately, this Joseph was a dreamer who listened to his dreams much like the earlier Joseph, who was also a dreamer. That Joseph of Genesis who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers lived to save his family from starvation through his ability to listen to and interpret dreams.

This year, this story of Mary and Joseph seems so close to me because of current news of women and girls who were killed to ‘save’ a family’s honor in parts of the Middle East. It is easier for me to imagine what might have happened to Mary except for Joseph’s righteousness. {We know that each year thousands of women are killed by relatives in honor crimes when the woman is suspected of sexual activity[1]} Our world today has many dark spots where trouble, death, violence and murder, are the norm just as it did two thousand years ago.

We, of course, each have our own areas of darkness and despair in our lives and we experience this among our friends and families. We see it in the despair of illness, in loneliness, aging and death, estranged children, troubled marriages, and all the messiness of our lives.

Does it matter today that Joseph listened to his dreams? Does it matter that Mary lived and that Jesus was born? Does the birth of a baby two thousand years ago make a difference?

We all have dreams for the future. What could it mean to dream with God, to open our hearts, our ears, minds, and eyes to God’s spirit, to hear God’s dreams for us?

Today, my tutor is Joseph. Faithful Joseph, the righteous man who chose to marry his pregnant betrothed Mary even though he was not the father. Faithful Joseph, who listened when God’s angel told him, “Joseph, son of David, 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." Faithful Joseph, who did as the angel of the Lord commanded him when he took Mary into his life. Though Mary’s pregnancy was scandalous, though marrying her and taking the infant Jesus as his own son was a radical action, Joseph acted because he knew how to listen to the dreams of God. And because he did, God’s dreams to be born as a human child and to be as a savior to all people, came to pass.

I asked earlier, whether Jesus birth two thousand years ago, makes any difference for us today. This past week, to prepare for the sermon, I listened to Handel’s Messiah. I thought of all the music of the last two thousand years that wouldn’t be around without the story of Jesus. I thought of all the artwork that wouldn’t exist. I thought of the many faithful Christians through the centuries who have lived and worked in the hope of God’s coming again because of the power that Jesus’ birth, life, and death has on their imaginations and on their dreams.

I remembered the saints in our church calendar, the medieval mystics like Hildegard of Bingen and Brother Lawrence, and the modern faithful Christians like Festo Kivengere and Janawi Luwum of Uganda, or Dietrich Bonhoefer and Alfred Delp, both executed by the Nazi’s. I remembered Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas å Becket; C.S. Lewis, Desmonde Tutu, Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, Madeleine L’Engle. All faithful people of God who absorbed the message of God’s incarnation into their very core of being, and then who acted on that to shine God’s light into the darkness that can sometimes overshadow our world. I remembered faithful parents and caregivers, who taught the Christian faith and values to those in their care.

All of these lived in the faith that Jesus, the son of God, was born to save us all from our sins; to save us from the darkness of despair, of illness, of anger, of war, of whatever circumstance that we find ourselves. Because they were dreamers like Joseph, because they listened for the dreams of God within their own lives, they were able to share that dream with others no matter how bleak their own circumstances were.

Yes, without a doubt, the world would be a sadder and lonelier place without God’s incarnation into our world. We worship a God who chose to become fully human, who chose to experience the heights and depths of human life. Who else could understand us so well, but a God who loves us so much that God chose to be born and live as one of us? We worship a God willing to entrust Godself to two very human people, Joseph and Mary. A God who trusted that Joseph would listen to a dream from an angel, and ignore the scandal and shame of his pregnant betrothed young woman.

We all have dreams for the future. Sometimes our dreams seem unattainable. Our challenge is to dream with God, to listen for the workings of God’s spirit in our own lives, and to act in faith so that we can help create God’s reign or kingdom on earth. Our new dream (God’s dream) is for us to spread the love of God, the story of God’s love, through our lives, our dreams, and our worship. Our dream is to give hope to those stumbling in the darkness, to show the light of Christ to each other and to those in need.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4209463.stm