Joseph’s Choice
Matthew 1: 18-20
December 17, 2000
One of the events I love to see around this time of the year is a Christmas Pageant. All the youngsters dressed up as shepherds, angels, sheep, and wise men. Usually, they practice for several weeks, and their parents and grandparents sit in the front row and applaud with great gusto. Several years ago, we tried an experiment. We invited everyone – adults and children – to come dressed for the pageant. We also built into the script opportunities for everyone to speak their roles. As I recall, I was a cow. All I could say was moo. But right next to me stood John Hooker, who was splendidly attired as a Wise Man, as only John could dress. When his time came to speak, he delivered his lines in a mixture of German and French. He kept insisting that it was Farsi, or Aramaic, depending upon who asked. Whatever it was, it brought the house down. Maybe this custom will be revived in the years to come.
Enough of reminiscing and back to Christmas Pageants. One of the characters in most Christmas Pageants is Joseph, Mary’s husband. What bothers me is that it usually is a walk-on, non-speaking part. In many pageants that I’ve observed, the role is given to the largest youngster in the church school, someone who is too big to be a shepherd and not quite up to a speaking part. Usually, all that Joseph does is knock on the door of the inn and shrug his shoulders. The fellow who plays Joseph rarely gets top billing, nor does he get much of a costume.
Mary, the Innkeeper, the Shepherds – all have been carefully scripted, but poor Joseph is left out. At best, he is seen as a necessary but useless extra in the Christmas tableau.
The other night, I began to ponder why this was universally the case. Was it because the director is usually a woman? Was it just a long-standing tradition? I really began to dig into the subject. Finally, I came upon an answer by re-reading the Christmas Story in some children’s books. Much to my surprise, I found that they all used Luke’s version of the birth event.
Luke’s Gospel story is beautiful, but it is told strictly from Mary’s point of view, whereas Matthew tells it from Joseph’s vantage point. Luke’s version has a full cast of characters: the emperor, the innkeeper, the shepherds, and the heavenly hosts. Matthew’s (or Joseph’s) version has just the bare facts, and even these facts are not entirely consistent with Luke’s. I don’t want to push this contrast too far, lest you accuse me of a sexist bias. But for this morning, let’s concentrate on Matthew’s or Joseph’s story. In the next few weeks, you will hear plenty of Luke’s version.
Matthew begins his story with these words, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way: When his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit, and her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.”
The custom in those days was to enter into a legal agreement before marriage. The engagement of a couple was a legally binding contract. If the contract were to be broken, even before a wedding ceremony, divorce was the only way out. Matthew makes it very clear that the couple had not had sexual relations, but Mary was pregnant. Her story about the angel and the Holy Spirit was about as believable then as it would be today.
Joseph had a problem. Legally, he could have had Mary stoned to death. That was the punishment for an engaged woman who became pregnant ahead of time. His other option was to divorce her privately. This could be done by sending her back to her family and allowing her to live out her days in obscurity with her child. Of course, the child would have no father’s name.
To do what was legal, or to do what was fair, that was the question. And isn’t that what we often face? Legal or fair, the two choices in life.
If you’ve been watching the drama over the election, and who is swinging back and forth. All through the week before Tuesday, they kept insisting the election should be decided on what’s legal, or on what’s fair. The problem was that no one could decide on either the legality or the fairness issue. Even the Supreme Court had a problem. And therein was our national dilemma. That we solved partially on Tuesday.
And so it goes with our personal choices. We like to think we make choices on what’s right and what’s wrong. But who sets the standards for what’s good and what’s bad? if it’s legal, it’s right. If it’s illegal, it’s bad? Well, maybe. Or do we say we’ll appeal to the rule of fairness? Fairness means being considerate of all sides, taking all people into consideration, and making sure that everyone feels good.
Legal or fair, right or wrong, good or bad, we only seem to have two choices.
But is that so? Recently, I read about the teachings of the Rabbis. In this book, it said, “For a Jew, there are always three choices. The legal way, according to the Jewish law: and therefore one seeks to do justice. The fair way, a concern for one’s neighbors: and therefore one seeks to do no harm. And a third way, which is the best way: and therefore one seeks to follow God’s path.”
Joseph, in Matthew’s Gospel, is faced with a dilemma. He must make a choice. To do that which is legal, or to do that which is fair. But remember, there is a third choice – the choice beyond legal and beyond fair. There is a choice called the “best.”
Matthew continues his story with these words, “But as he considered this, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”’ Based on a dream or a vision, something beyond the rational, Joseph finds the third path. I believe that Matthew is trying to show us that God often communicates through a non-rational, third way. The third choice is usually beyond the evident, practical and so-called reasonable choices.
The Christmas story hangs on a thread. There will be no Christmas if Mary is executed. There probably will be no Christianity if Jesus grows up illegitimate in a family-oriented society, God comes among us on the thin thread of Joseph’s choice – his willingness to, and a third way – the way that is best. Joseph, the secondary person, we learn, opens himself to God’s nudge. He acts not simply on the facts, but on something else, which for lack of putting a name to it we call it dreams or intuition.
Joseph is still a minor character in a great drama. He may not have many lines to speak, and may not be the best dressed among the actors at a Christmas pageant, but always remember if it were not for this choice, God would not have come to us at Christmas. And remember, whenever we choose the best way, whenever we go beyond the legal or fair way, we are walking in the paths of the Lord.
Amen