Introduction
Do you ever wonder about what it must have been like to be Joseph. He appears only briefly in the stories about Jesus - really just in the birth stories. We hear about him when Jesus goes for his Bar Mitzvah, but he is very much written out of the story. The assumption is that he is dead by the time Jesus becomes an adult. Yet Joseph's attitude in the whole Christmas story is vital - what would have happened if he had not taken Mary to be his wife? What would have happened if he had not been good at listening to angels in dreams - maybe they would have been killed by Herod. We know very little about Joseph - yet his role in the upbringing of Jesus would have been central.
A Man God did not Need
In Jewish custom a man and a woman would become betrothed - we would say "engaged" and they were seen as being promised to each other. They would not yet be allowed to have sex but they were committed to each other. It was during this time of betrothal that Mary was found to be pregnant. Tongues must have started to wag - maybe the couple had not been very good at obeying the laws. But then Joseph denies he has known Mary; the child is not his. The fact that Mary was betrothed meant that her pregnancy would have been seen as proof of adultery. But Joseph was a good man. He did not want to publicly shame Mary, and he certainly didn't want to have her stoned to death - the normal punishment for women caught out in this way. Instead he decides to quietly break off the engagement.
But then the angel appears to him in a dream and somehow makes it all right. Joseph rises above the gossip and taunts of his friends and still marries Mary.
I wonder how it would have felt for a Jewish man, who would derive meaning from begetting children knowing they would recite his name in their own genealogies - just as he would have recited the names of his ancestors - to know that this child wasn't his.
I wonder how it would have felt to know that God didn't need his body but did need Mary's. I wonder how it felt to be left out by God.
So What Did Joseph Do?
Yet Joseph was needed by God. Not to give birth to a line of children, but to care for the one special child. Joseph was needed to love and nurture Jesus, to teach him his faith, maybe to teach him to read. To love him, to look after him, to teach him a craft, to protect him. If Joseph hadn't been spiritually aware he would have ignored the second angelic dream when he was warned of Herod's plan to kill them and they would not have escaped. Above all God needed Joseph's humility
Joseph was humble enough to accept another's child.
Joseph was humble enough to accept his displacement in the genealogy.
Joseph was humble enough to have a limited, but vital part in the story.
Hail Joseph!
Christians from some traditions know very well the prayer "Hail Mary" taken from the angel's greeting to Mary. Today I want us to say in our hearts "Hail Joseph" and to give thanks to God for the life of Joseph. More importantly I want us to reflect on his humility and service so that we too become humble and willing to hear God at work in our lives - not knowing what may result.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.