God's Servants: Joseph by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

Don’t you just love all the ads this time of year of the perfect families? They are around the Thanksgiving table with a beautifully set table, a golden baked turkey, all the food, the people in their matching holiday sweaters, all smiles and happiness. Then there are the Christmas ads with well-dressed families around designer Christmas trees opening gifts that are perfect – “just what I wanted!” The kids are all well-behaved. Everything is all color coordinated.

Who are these people? They have obviously never been to my house where we open our gifts in our pajamas with no make-up. Trash all around from kids opening toys and not caring where they throw the packaging. They haven’t been to my Thanksgiving dinner where I am sweating to get all the food on the table at the same time. They clearly have not been to those families where someone is missing because there is a family feud going on. Or to the family dinners overshadowed with grief because this is the first holiday since a loved one died. They don’t show the table where someone is sitting alone because they have no family to share the holiday with. I look at the picture perfect holiday families and I wonder: “Who are these people?” and “Do they exist?” I don’t think so. They are some perfect family made up in our imagination to make us feel bad when we can’t match up.

The truth is, there are no perfect families. We are all a bit crazy, with our faults and our foibles. We are human.

Pastor Marci Glass writes that God must have known this when God chose a family for Jesus to be born into. If God wanted a perfect family for Jesus, God would have had Mary and Joseph be high school sweethearts and they would have gotten married before word got out that she was pregnant. They would have lived in Rome or Jerusalem or some powerful city, not in the hinterlands of Galilee. (Source: http://marciglass.com/2013/12/01/the-perfect-family/).

But God chose Mary and Joseph because God knows we are imperfect and so we need a story of a savior born in imperfect circumstances. Just look at his lineage. We did not read the first chapter of Matthew but in it is the list of “begats” that tells the genealogy of Jesus. Included in his bloodline are people like Rahab, who seduced her father in law because he wouldn’t give her in marriage to one of his other sons after her husband had died. Then there is Ruth, a foreigner, and the grandmother of David. Then, there’s another woman, Bathsheba, who was basically raped by King David after he saw her bathing on a roof, leading David to have her husband killed in battle. This is not a savory cast of characters. (ibid.)

Jesus’ genealogy ends with Jacob the father of Joseph and the husband of Mary. Did you catch that? The bloodline comes through Joseph, not Mary. But the Holy Spirit is the father. Joseph is the ADOPTED father. The only way for the lineage to turn out this way is for Joseph to adopt Jesus. But as the story goes, it almost did not turn out that way.

When Joseph finds out that his fiancé is pregnant and he knows that he is not the father, he determines that he will take care of things quietly. He had every right to end the engagement and send Mary away. In fact, by law, he should have had her stoned to death. But he was a righteous man so he did not want to do that.

Then Joseph goes to sleep and he has a dream. An angel appears to him and says:

“Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This is to fulfill the prophecy “Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).”

Joseph wakes up and does exactly what the angel told him to do. He marries Mary. He answered the call upon his life to be the adopted father of Immanuel – God with us – the Savior of the world. But in answering the call, he shames his family. Think about it. He was of good lineage – a descendent of Abraham. What do you think his parents thought of all this? We don’t have any report that an angel came to them. They must have been beside themselves. How could their son marry this girl who got pregnant before she married their son? She brings shame upon their house. Social convention dictates that Joseph should call off the engagement. But he is listening to a higher power. He does not care what the social convention is. He is listening to God (ibid).

Have you ever been in a position to go against society and listen to God so you could change the world? I think about all those people who marched during the Civil Rights movement and sat down at lunch counters and the sanitation workers who went on strike. I think about all those people in Montgomery who boycotted the buses. I think about the people who went to register southern black people to vote. They put their lives in danger. Some of them gave their lives for the cause. They were going against the laws of the land, but God told them they were working for justice. They were called to disobey human law in order to obey God’s call upon their lives.

What about you? Have you ever listened to God, and been in a position to go against society and change the world? We do so at this church every Sunday. We welcome persons who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and straight and say that we are all equal in the eyes of God. We support marriage equality for all. We support the ordination of all, even though one of our denominations, The United Methodist Church, does not, YET. By our very presence in the United Methodist Church we are making waves. We are responding to God’s call to stand up for justice. We are being Joseph to one another.

You see, Joseph was the one. He was the one who said “yes” to God’s call. He could have said no. He could have run away. He could have sent Mary away. But he listened to the angel, and he trusted the angel. He put his trust in God. He said, “I will be the adopted father of the Son of God.”

Think about what might have happened if he had said “no.” Mary would have been sent away to some secluded place to have the baby alone. Her life would have been over, and what would that mean for the Saviour of the world? But Mary and Joseph said “yes.” Two imperfect people said “yes.” They were nothing special. But God chose them for the most amazing calling in all the world: to be the parents of Immanuel, God with us.

Joseph’s compassion and grace was ready to stand up to the judgement of the world.  He was ready, with Mary, to bring the source of compassion and grace into the world in order to change the world forever.

We are forever indebted to the courage of Joseph. He was in imperfect man who said “yes” to God and because of him we are forever changed.

What is God calling you to say “Yes” to today? We are imperfect like Joseph. We could easily stray from God’s path for us. We could fall into the world’s desire for us. We don’t hear about many angel visitations these days. God’s messages to us are more subtle. But God does speak to us. God nudges us to do the right thing, even when culture pushes us to do something else. God calls us to take a stand.

You are not being called to be the adopted father of the Saviour of the world. You are probably not being called to marry your pregnant fiancé. But what bold statement is God calling you to make? Is God calling you to speak up on behalf of refugees? Jesus and his family become refugees, you know, when they flee to Egypt. Perhaps God is calling you to become more politically active on behalf of justice for LGBT persons. We still do not have protections against discrimination in the workplace and in housing. Perhaps God is calling you to be a peacemaker between people you know who are feuding. God does not want us to draw boundaries. God wants us to get along. Maybe God wants you to learn more about our Muslim brothers and sisters so you can build a bridge and work against the discrimination they are suffering under in our country right now.  The possibilities are endless.

The truth is, being a follower of Jesus puts us at odds with culture. We stand with the one who loves the outcast and who brings down the powerful. So whatever your place in this world, follow Jesus. Be like Joseph. Don’t succumb to the social convention. Be a part of the Jesus movement and make a difference in this world. Amen.