Matthew 1:18-25 - the lectionary text for next Sunday...
Whatever you think about the circumstance around the birth of Jesus, I believe that the message of God identifying with the lowly by incarnation is a powerful one. To go a little further is the scandal in which this took place.
Joseph's desire to dismiss her has a nice spin on it in Matthew, that it was for HER sake, though I would note that Matthew refers to him as "husband" already in the text. The Angel told him not to "be afraid" to take her as his wife. It was the better Angel of God's nature that convinced Joseph to stick with this vulnerable young woman, who would not have only been vulnerable, but more scandalized and stigmatized by his dismissing her. Joseph did the right thing. Ignoring patriarchal pride, he even humbled himself to do the right thing.
I think that it is significant, especially for the writer of Matthew, in that time and place, to then relegate Joseph to relative obscurity and NOT make him the hero of the story. This writer, and even more so in Luke's Gospel, kept Mary as the blessed and highly favored one of God - a poor, insignificant woman. That went against every social norm until the writing of the Synoptic Gospels.
God lifts up the lowly, even or especially vulnerable women.
When I look at the model God has for us in this, I see a God coming to us in humility, being born in scandal and in abject poverty, being announced to the lowest, night shift shepherds and being swaddled in a barn, laid in a feeding trough. I see a family who had to flee their own land because of political oppression, and for their own survival crossed the border into another land as refugees. I see a father who raises this child of God in relative obscurity while the child's mother is lifted up and adored. I can identify with this God. God has identified with me, with you and with the most lowly among us.
Should we not be humbled by God's wonderful, loving, even scandalous intervention in our lives?
Should we not treat the most vulnerable among us with the same honor, dignity and favor?
I believe that the example of God is lost on us if we do not.
I believe that we cannot follow Jesus if we do not.
I believe that we fail to live the Agape Love Jesus commanded us to live if we do not.
Is it just a nice, quaint, wholesome story to you, a historic event to remembered, or do you see the real world, the real message and the real call and mission in it?
Pastor Jamie
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