Advent 4A  |  Matthew 1:18-25

The gospel of Matthew has one of the most unintentionally funny moments in scripture. It’s right up there with Paul yelling at the people of Corinth “I’m glad I didn’t baptize any of you!” before proceeding to name all the people he actually did baptize there. We got the same thing here this morning. The evangelist tells us 

“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.”

And proceeds to tell us a story about an angel convincing Joseph not to dump Mary like a bag of rocks. Which, if you hadn’t quite noticed, is not so much a tale of Jesus’s birth as it is a conversation with an angel. 

It gets even better when we get to the birth itself, told in the past perfect simple tense of “she had borne a son”. Which still isn’t a story of Jesus being born. It is a story of Mary giving birth — she’s the agent in that clause, that tiny part of the story. 

So, to recap, the story of “the birth of Jesus the Messiah” is a story about Joseph. And Joseph’s relationship to his fiancée. And that his fiancée gave birth to her son that he is to name Jesus. That is funny. And isn’t that the perfect stepdad story? Yes, I am that important! I get to be the main character in your story! Actually, isn’t that just a Dad story? We are on a mission to be the main character forever.

Oh, and moms, don’t think we don’t see what you’re up to when we’re not in the room. We might not selectively hear what you’re whispering, but we know what you’re saying.

Joseph’s Challenge 

Parents of all kinds know that the story is never really about us. We have a story that involves life and relationship and the arrival of a child into that space. And because that child has their own life that is now tied into ours, we have a story about them, but it isn’t their story. Our story involves them, but it isn’t them. They get their own story. And we get to be a part of it. (Hopefully an important part!)

That impact, of becoming more with a child, is significant, isn’t it? It always is. Kids are like hurricanes. You thought you knew what you were going to do with the rest of your week, but not so fast. Now we’ve got to go to the store to get some supplies to weather this thing. Or go find the in-laws. Maybe they’re in Bethlehem. 

The impact on Joseph and Mary, though, is different. Today, younger Millennials and Gen Z buy a house and have a kid and maybe get married, if they have to. For Mary and Joseph, the impact ranges from between being cast out of their homes to public execution by stoning. Sticking by Mary is a life-threatening choice. It involves hiding what refuses to stay hidden.

For Joseph, this isn’t an easy decision. Nor is it logical, natural, or “what anyone would do.” He hasn’t grown up on movies, TV shows, books, and memes declaring “doing it all for love” as the highest of human virtues.

A Matter of Trust

For Joseph to trust the angel, he has to first trust God. That this thing that God is up to would be so strange, so irregular, that he would be visited by this angel. To recruit him to this ridiculous cause. And then, this angel would have him resist the law. God’s law. You see how weird this sounds. And honestly, it doesn’t get any less weird the more we dig because Joseph is trusting God would have him trust this angel with the work of trusting his fiancée. And that all of this trusting is for a greater good that he will never see.

That’s a lot of trust, isn’t it? A lot of trust for . . . what exactly? Not that people ought to do things transactionally, but trust does that, doesn’t it? It feels like buying something on credit, or more like, lending that credit, actually. When it’s a cup of sugar to a neighbor, we’re like, it’s just sugar and also maybe they’ll get us back sometime. But when we’re talking law and life and death, we probably need something more to go on is what I’m saying. And Joseph is going on word and faith and that is it.

Thank God he said yes.

Because here’s the thing. It isn’t like this system couldn’t get rebooted if it goes another way. If Joseph says no, God will move along and find another fiancé with fewer trust issues. But that isn’t how it played out. Joseph trusted God and the angel and Mary that this boy, Mary’s son:  he gets to name Jesus. Who gets to be his son. He gets to be in David’s line through Joseph. This isn’t step-dad territory to God. This is full-fledged Dad. Stay up and wait for him to come home, teach him how to drive, play catch and pick up when he falls down Dad stuff.

God trusts Joseph to be the real dad.

Real Dad Stuff

This is the incredible truth of the Messiah: that he comes, not in majestic power, but in vulnerability. He comes dependent, needing to trust. He needs to trust in Mary who trusts in Joseph who trusts an angel is telling him the truth because he trusts God. And the thing about being a baby is that you have no choice. You trust your mom because she smells right and you recognize your dad’s voice, his laugh, the songs he sings at night. Trust is easy when it is all you know.

Isn’t that a powerful truth? The kind of thing we should probably linger on when we’re used to moving forward. Trust is easy when our world just is. Babies trust their parents the more they are there. The less anxious their parents are, the more present they are, the more trusting they are. Trust brings more trust. And with it, love.

And because it isn’t Christmas yet, I hate to let the Christmas sermon out early, but the lectionary gives us a birth story that is really a Joseph story dressed up as a birth story, taking the birth for granted, I feel I have to name the power of the story is trust. That God trusts Joseph enough to be vulnerable to him. To put the whole project into his hands. To protect them. Love them. With all of his heart.

This is about God’s vulnerability reflected in Joseph. That this would be the home for the Christ, Messiah, the Son, the second persona of the trinity. A vulnerable home. Full of people who trust each other. Love each other. That is the magic of the moment.

We Are Joseph

As much as we gender the parent roles, it is clear that we are all Josephs in our common story. In the same way that we are all Marys and babies. We are dependents who trust from the moment of birth. Who are called to continue to trust in increasingly new and difficult ways throughout our lives. Trusting, not in everything, but in God and in one another. Trusting in our mission, Jesus’s Way of Love, in our neighbors, and in the hope of things to come. 

We are called to trust because the Kin-dom, the dream of God, is trust. It is the antidote to the frightened, angry, vengeful kingdoms of earth. Our love revolution, which upends all that we know as normal, draws from the pools of trust.

God optimized the faith for a posture of trust. So that we would understand that faith isn’t a solo pursuit. We can’t do this life thing alone. We have family and neighbors and friends and coworkers and all manner of cohabitants in this orb floating through space. And we survive by trust. That God is doing a thing and we are doing a thing and we can be responsible for each other’s safety and support. We can teach each other and share with each other and delight in each other’s company. 

Trust is the fuel that runs the love machine. And the gospel proves that it isn’t earned, it’s invited; shared. We offer it and ask for it. Because the point is that this is the central means of our survival. Our trust in each other.

So be generous with it. Offer it and invite it. Show your trust in your neighbor. Show that you can be trusted. Raise the value of trust in our community. And love, knowing that this is the Way of Love, the dream of God, risked in vulnerability, like a gift, into the arms of an adopted father, made real. Chosen and called. Trusting right back with all his heart. Fragile and mighty. The savior of the world.