matthew

Matthew 1:18-25

This Sunday we hear Matthew’s Christmas story. The trip to Bethlehem for the census, no room at the inn, the manger, the angels and shepherds – most of what we associate with Christmas pageants is found in Luke’s gospel, and Mary is definitely the star of that show. In Matthew’s gospel, however, the spotlight is on Joseph. It’s a more adult story, not easily translated into to a pageant script.

However, to get there, we need to get past a controversial doctrine that jumps out at us in verse 18. Some people struggle with the notion of a virgin birth; others struggle with the fact that there are Christians who don’t believe in it. I’ll say three things about the virgin birth: First, esteemed Biblical scholars and theologians disagree about it. They do agree it serves to tie Jesus’ birth to the Isaiah passage quoted in Matthew 1:23 (Isaiah 7:14), or at least to the Greek translation of that passage. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) translates the Hebrew word for “young woman” in Isaiah as “virgin.” Second, I agree with the angel in Luke’s Christmas story that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). And third, whether you believe the virgin birth is fact or myth isn’t nearly as important as understanding the point, which is that in Jesus, God was doing something completely new. Neither Mark nor John’s gospel nor the apostle Paul in all his letters thought it was important enough to mention the virgin birth, or any birth, for that matter, and this tells us that different communities of believers were able to preach and write about Jesus without making the virgin birth an article of faith about him.

So, with that messy question moved aside, let’s turn to Joseph and his mess. Elsewhere in Scripture, people refer to Jesus as Joseph’s son (John 6:42). This relationship is important to Matthew, who wrote his gospel primarily for Jewish Christians. It is through Joseph that Jesus is a descendent of King David. The way Matthew tells it, Joseph chooses to be Jesus’ father; that is the focus of his Christmas story.

Nazareth was a small town. Joseph probably noticed Mary among the marriageable girls and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. It’s likely that they all went to see a rabbi and made a contract. Mary and Joseph were betrothed, or engaged, or espoused, depending on your translation; they were legally married but hadn’t moved in together. They’d begin living together after the wedding, which would be a major event in the life of the community, a week-long party of eating, drinking, and dancing.

Then Mary turns up pregnant. A contract has been violated; a law has been broken. This was serious not only for Mary but for everyone around her. The first century Mediterranean world was an “honor-shame culture.” Honor had to do with your value in the society; it had nothing to do with wealth but rather with reputation, with your ability to do what you need to do to belong, to interact with others in a way that brings you and your group honor. Keeping your honor was like an ongoing contest. You could lose your honor in any social interaction. And to lose your honor was to be shamed.

If Joseph accepts Mary, that will cause him shame. If he pretends the child is his, that, too, is shameful because Mary is pregnant before the wedding. Mary’s news is a huge threat to Joseph’s honor. Matthew says Joseph is a righteous man, which means he is a man who follows Jewish law. Joseph decides to divorce Mary quietly rather than subject her to public humiliation. God’s whole daring plan is suddenly at risk. All pretty adult stuff, right? Marriage contracts, shame, what you can and can’t do before the wedding?

Then Joseph has a dream. “Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take Mary for your wife, for the child is from the Holy Spirit.” William Willimon quips that while there’s a lot art depicting the angel announcing to a serene Mary that she is with child, there is little art focused on Joseph’s dream: “Joseph bolting upright in bed, in a cold sweat after being told his fiancée is pregnant, and not by him, and he should marry her anyway.”

“Do not be afraid to take Mary for your wife,” said the angel. I don’t think it’s possible not to be afraid in a situation like this. I think we make too little of this story and don’t give Joseph enough credit if we simply hold him up as a model of what faithful obedience looks like, as though there’s a simple formula: God speaks; humans are supposed to respond in faith the way Joseph did; now everything is hunky dory. It just isn’t that simple. I don’t believe we’re supposed to think of Joseph and Mary as figures in a stained-glass window. The whole point of the Christmas story – that God is with us as one of us – is that God is with real people in their real, complicated, messy lives. I can’t hear this story without identifying with the sense of betrayal, the disappointment, the shame and a host of other emotions that Joseph must have experienced, and the fear and hurt that Mary would have felt as they sorted out their complex relationship.

One of the quiet miracles in the Christmas story is that on the basis of that dream, Joseph works through it all to make a decision. He lays aside his sense of right and wrong under the law and his offended pride, his shame, and chooses to marry his pregnant fiancée. Trust in God is not a given here, it is a choice. God’s plan is saved because Joseph chose to take a risk, to brave uncertainty.

Joseph, an ordinary man, worked through his cold sweat, took a risk, and Jesus grew up with Joseph as his dad. Where did Jesus come up with the idea that people are more important than the laws you’ve been taught your whole life? That our worth is measured by God’s extravagant loves for us, not by other people’s opinions? Who was his male role model for the vulnerability and courage we see again and again in Jesus’ ministry? Joseph couldn’t know that some of Jesus’ best teaching would be shaped by his own experience of an earthly, loving father. He didn’t have any idea that his son would tell his disciples to talk about God with the tender, personal address of “abba,” which is best translated as “daddy.”

Resources:
Herman C. Waetjen, New Proclamation, https://members.newproclamation.com/commentary.php?d8m=12&d8d=22&d8y=2013&event_id=4&cycle=A&atom_id=19018.
Mary Hinkle Shore, “Fourth Sunday of Advent,” in New Proclamation, Year A, 2007-2008 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007).
Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993).
Nancy Rockwell, December 14, 2013, http://biteintheapple.com/joseph-praise/.
Janet H. Hunt, “Just What a Dad Does…”, December 15, 2013, http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2013/12/just-what-dad-does.html

Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Our traditional notion of who belongs in the Christmas nativity scene comes from a blending of two different Christmas stories. In Luke’s Christmas story you’ll find Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, no room at the inn, the stable, the sky filled with angels, the amazed shepherds, but no kings. You have to go to Matthew’s gospel for the kings, except they aren’t kings, they’re Persian astrologers, “magi.” What’s more, it doesn’t tell us there are three of them, only that they brought three gifts. There could be 2 or 20, for all we know. And they don’t find Jesus in a stable; they find him in a house.

Part of Matthew’s inspiration for his Christmas story is Isaiah 60, a poem recited to Jews who had been in exile but returned to find the city of Jerusalem in ruins. Isaiah invites his discouraged community to look up, to hope, and to expect everything to change. Yes, he says, darkness will cover the earth. But there will be a shaft of light breaking through the gloom: “Rise, shine, for your light has come. … Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” That’s where we get the kings.

Matthew’s magi have seen a special star. They know about Isaiah 60, so they go to Jerusalem and take gold, frankincense, and myrrh, apparently appropriate gifts to give to a baby in those days, or at least, a baby king. But when the current king in Jerusalem hears about this, he’s not at all happy. Herod the Great, a vassal of Rome, built his kingdom on political tribute and bloodshed. A new king would mean a new political rival, and as with his other rivals, including his own family members, Herod makes plans to eliminate him.

Matthew’s Christmas story makes Luke’s overcrowded inn seem pretty tame. In his panic, Herod gathers the experts on the law and the prophets, and asks, “Just what does Isaiah 60 say? What’s all this business about camels and gold and frankincense and myrrh?” The scholars tell him: “You’re looking at the wrong story. And so are the magi who just scared the pants off you by telling you they’re looking for a new king.” “Okay, then,” asks Herod, “what’s the right story?” The scholars don’t want to be next on Herod’s hit list so they tell him the right story is Micah 5:2 with a little bit of Second Samuel thrown in for good measure: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” Not Jerusalem, but Bethlehem. Not Isaiah, but Micah.

Micah was a prophet who was not impressed with wealth and power. He’s the one who said, “God has told you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” Micah imagined a different future for the people; he imagined they’d be able to organize and resist rulers like Herod. Micah’s story is about the well-being of the people, not of the empire.

Herod tells the magi about Bethlehem because he wants them to do his reconnaissance for him. He tells them to find this newborn king, and then come back and give him the details so he, too, can go pay homage. We, the audience, are supposed to be imagining Herod twirling his mustache like Snidely Whiplash. What Herod plans, of course, is something more deadly than homage.

The magi travel the nine miles from Jerusalem and Herod, from what is corrupt and deadly, to Bethlehem, to what is humble, loving, and world-changing. Matthew’s Christmas story is the story of two different human communities: Jerusalem, the center of the elite, and Bethlehem, with its rural peasants. In 2025, you don’t have to be from the country to be marginalized, and you don’t have to be from a big city to be arrogant. For us, it’s not about urban verses rural; it’s more about world view. But it is still a choice between two stories. A choice between the story that leads to death and darkness, and a story that leads to light and life.

Resources:

Walter Brueggemann, “Off by Nine Miles,” in The Christian Century, December 19-26, 2001.

Jona Lendering, “King Herod the Great,” http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodians/herod_the_great02.html.

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