Love Conquers All

The School motto at my high school was “Labor omnia vincit”; work conquers all.  The birth of Jesus shows that Love conquers all.

Matthew’s gospel starts with the genealogy, the long list of unusual sounding names, mainly men, but a few women are mentioned. The men are a mixed bag, the women are all ‘outsiders’ in some way. While the genealogy shows that Jesus, through Joseph, is a descendent of David; it also shows gentiles and sinners are part of the family history of Jesus.

Before we get too far I want to tell you a little about the marriage customs of the day. While many versions of the Bible have that Mary and Joseph were engaged, this was more serious than engagement is in our culture. Being ‘engaged’ was the legal or contractual part of the marriage process. Then there was a wedding which was celebrating and feasting when the bride and groom started living together. [i]

When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant, they were legally married, but not yet living together. I wonder how Joseph really felt. Matthew doesn’t give a lot away in this reading. The words of the Angel are the only ones recorded by Matthew.   You will remember from our Quiz [ii] earlier that the angel appearing to Mary, and the journey to Bethlehem are in Luke’s gospel, but not in Matthew’s gospel.

In Matthew, any words from Mary and Joseph are not recorded. My hunch is that Joseph would have been angry, upset, humiliated ….

What is a good man to do?

There were rules for situations like this.

“If a man is caught in town having sex with an engaged woman who isn’t screaming for help, they both must be put to death. The man is guilty of having sex with a married woman. And the woman is guilty because she didn’t call for help, …” Deuteronomy 22:23-24 CEV

Joseph decides not to make a fuss and ask for her stoning, he will call off the marriage quietly.  

And just like his Old Testament namesake, Joseph has a dream, a dream that changes history. A dream that showed a different way.

Joseph and the Angle skit [Candles and Conifers, pp 208-10]

Mary has the baby, Joseph accepts that Jesus will be raised as his son, and all ends happily ever after. Well not quite. But when Mary was in a very vulnerable situation; pregnant with a child who is not her husband’s, she could easily have been stoned, or isolated or abandoned.  Joseph responds to the angel’s message, and names the boy Jesus.

A few other comments about this passage:

The Gospel of Matthew begins and ends with Emmanuel, God is with us. We hear it in the story of the birth of Jesus, and then in the final verses of the gospel.   Matthew 28: 18-20 CEV

“Jesus came to them and said:

I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.”

I wonder how do you feel about God being with you always?
God isn’t always easy to be around.
Sometimes the words of God are not what we want to hear. Sometimes the words of God are challenging.
Sometimes the words of God are just plain hard.[iii]

“God with us” is God’s very own sermon. God tells the truth about God’s self -- I am here -- as an expression of love and relationship. How that truth gets heard might change depending on where we are, but its truth never changes because of who God is. ^[iv]

God tells the truth about God’s self -- I am here -- as an expression of love and relationship.

Here we are week four of Advent, the day we think about Love.

During Advent we look forward to the coming of Jesus, preparing to celebrate his birthday. But Advent is more than that, we also look to the time when the kingdom will come in completeness, and we think about how we can be part of that kingdom coming into being. Where can we work with God, where are we guided by the Holy Spirit to be active with God in bringing about a new kingdom. A kingdom based on hope, peace, joy and love.

Yet this Advent I am also aware of that these words seem empty to many. Sometimes life seem to go from bad to worse. Some people are grieving, some are ill and in pain, some are lonely. Looking at the world this week, there has been a lot of coverage of the war in Syria, and particularly the on-off ceasefire in Aleppo. How is God’s love and presence visible in a place like that?

There are many complex issues in our lives and the world. It can be easy to jump to simplistic answers, but the conflict in many parts of the world are more complicated than our simple answers.  

Are we willing to take a risk and follow the guidance of the Spirit, even when that is different to what we have always done?

Maybe, just like for Joseph, there is a solution we haven’t thought of.

“Joseph's faithful response to the angel seems like quite a leap-- instead of trusting the righteousness of faithful tradition as they knew it then, he trusts a brand new, out-of-the blue word from God.” [v]

Maybe Love will conquer all,
when we live as Advent people,
waiting and working with God for the coming kingdom,
where war, misery and hunger are a distant memory
and hope, peace, joy and love overflow.  

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[i] David Lose, Working Preacher December 17, 2013

[ii] Thoughtful Christian, Accounts of Jesus’ Birth

[iii] Karoline Lewis, Working Preacher Sunday, December 11, 2016

[iv] Karoline Lewis, Working Preacher Sunday, December 11, 2016

[v] Charlotte Wilson, RevGalBolgPals facebook

another way?

The gospel of Matthew begins with a long list of names. It may seem a strange way for Matthew to begin his story about the life and death of Jesus. For the people that Matthew was writing to, it would have been really important that Jesus was from the line of David.

Verse 16 says “and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.”

Matthew lists Joseph as being in the line of David, which seems strange to us when part of the story is explaining how Jesus was not Joseph's natural son. The people of Israel had been waiting for the Messiah, the one who would save them, for a long time. The gospel of Matthew often links events in the birth, the life, and the death of Jesus to events in the old testament. In the section of the gospel which was read today, there are some verses quoted from Isaiah. In chapter 2 of Matthew there are there are at least four times when Matthew quotes from one of the prophets. Matthew is writing for a community that is in the midst of tensions within the Jewish religion. Is Jesus really the one they were waiting for? It was important for the people Matthew was writing for that Jesus was linked to the Jewish faith, that he was the one who fulfilled the words of the prophets.

There are other links in this reading with the old testament Joseph has a dream in the old testament it is Joseph was the one who is able to read dreams of the pharaoh.

 

A little background on the rituals surrounding marriage at this time. Mary and Joseph's betrothal is much more of a contract and what we consider engagement to be, it was as if they were married just not yet living together. Marriage was a two-stage process, the first stage the promise and pledge, the second stage the celebration and moving in together. [i]

What is a righteous man to do? He finds his wife is pregnant with a child that he knows is not his. Joseph sees only two options, to dissolve the marriage quietly or to publicly accuse Mary. The second option, of publicly accusing her would lead to her death and Joseph would have a hand in the killing. To dissolve the marriage quietly means Joseph has not participated directly in her death, but it leaves her in a very vulnerable position.[ii]

Joseph hadn't considered the third possibility, it was such an absurd thought, that no righteous man would. Joseph didn't consider the possibility of protecting Mary, and her child, and raising the child as his own.

That is, until the dream, when an angel appeared to Joseph and explained to him that Mary was pregnant by the power of the holy spirit and this child would save people from their sins.

The passage we heard this morning is the entire birth narrative in the gospel of Matthew. No shepherds, no journey to Bethlehem, no stable and manger. Matthew does tell of the coming of the wise men, but this passage is all we hear about his birth.

When we read the biblical text is important to note who is the named, who speaks, and who acts in the scene.

Mary is barely mentioned, and the verbs are passive. It seems that the action is happening around her:

– Mary had been engaged to Joseph

– she was found to be with child

Joseph gets a little more airplay, but he doesn't speak.

The speaking is done by the Angel.

I wonder how Joseph felt. Matthew records what was going on in Joseph’s head, but what about his heart and his gut. I imagine a sense of betrayal, disbelief, anger. How could she do this to me? What about our future? But then,   for Joseph, there is still a future. He can either publicly or privately divorce Mary, but without Joseph she has no future.

Sometimes it really is important to sleep on a decision. To listen for a voice that is different to the expected one. To see a third way, a life giving way.

It seems that often in a culture issues are black and white, you are either for the war on drugs or for drugs; if you want refugees treated fairly when they arrive in Australia then you mustn't care about the possibility of death at sea; if you are in favour of abortion rights you don't value human life. Each of these issues and many more are treated as either/or situations.

But what if you are in favour of abortion rights because you value human life, and what you'd really like is appropriate support for all families. And what if you're horrified at the way refugees are treated once they are in Australia, not because they won some lottery of not drowning at sea, but because they are human. Of course it would be better if real alternatives existed. It would be better if people did not have to flee their homes because their lives are in danger. Sometimes we do what we can, rather than not doing anything because the best possible solution is out of our hands.

What might happen when we stop looking at either/or situations, and start seeing people. Real people like Mary.

Jesus was not the Messiah that people were expecting, he didn't overthrow the Roman government, but he did transform people's lives. Many of those people whose lives were transformed by Jesus were people on the margins of society.

In our world what voices do we hear?

What voices do we listen to ?

What would happen if we listen for God's voice, might we find a different way?

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[i] Arland J. Hultgren, Working Preacher

[ii] Richard Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Matthew