If we were appointed a taskforce to write a holy book- I doubt we would write anything like the Bible. I imagine we might begin with a glossary defining terms like Adoration, Belief, Creator and Christ. We might list helpful practices, add some rules or commandments. Instead of creeds and rules, the Bible is full of people’s stories: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Anna, Simeon, Matthew. The Word of God comes to us through human experiences, often more like a parable than a commandment. John’s Gospel begins, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. 

Matthew ’s gospel begins with a list of people people: “an account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham”  Slid into the list of 37 patriarchs are 5 matriarchs: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, and Mary.  Jesus’ five female ancestors have stories beyond being a parent. Tamar fights for  her own agency. The Canaanite Rahab hides Hebrew spies. The story of King David and Bathsheba, and Uriah remind us how completely power can corrupt.  Ruth, a Moabite widowed, provides for her Hebrew mother in law. We quote Ruth at weddings “Do not press me to leave you, or ask me to turn back from you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God.”  Amy Jill Levine notes that the five female ancestors of Jesus are best “interpreted as examples of a higher righteousness… Individuals who acted in a manner not expected by the social mores of their times in order to further a divine purpose.”  (Women’s Bible Commentary  Carol Newsom & Sharon Ringe) The Word of God appears among us in new and unexpected ways. 

Do you think Joseph had a plan laid out for life with Mary?  As a carpenter Joseph had a great job given the infrastructure Rome was investing in Israel. Joseph had saved and signed a contract, paid the bride price to Mary’s father, and was engaged. I hope Joseph’s soul recoiled at the idea of a “bride price”.   I wonder if Joseph imagined leaving little Nazareth for a better life in Jerusalem or Caesarea along the Mediterranean coast?  On their highly scripted and always chaperoned dates do you think Mary’s smile made Joseph laugh, did he skip home with excitement for their future together?  

The Word of God appears in our human experiences, in our moments of great joy and times of deep disappointment.  Matthew brings news “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit”.   We, knowing how the story ends, are already rooting for Mary, for Jesus, for the Holy Family.  We leap to Christmas Eve and easily overlook Joseph, who gets no lines in our Christmas pageant. Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, and Anna all get lines, the Bible never quotes Joseph. 

Imagine yourself as Joseph, hearing the news that Mary is pregnant and knowing you are not the father.  What about all your plans, what about your dreams, what should you do?  Bruce Springsteen sings about a young man’s interpreted dreams “No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle, No flowers, no wedding dress… Now those memories come back to haunt me,  They haunt me like a curse,  Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true,  Or is it something worse”. ( The River) Or is it sometimes something better?   We can get so locked into our plans, so in love with some ideal that changes feel like curses, but somehow Joseph finds blessings, renewal, recreation, reconciliation, faith, hope, love. 

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit”,  How would you feel? Whom might you blame? What would you do?  Perhaps Faith is not a fixed set of beliefs, but maybe a way of life that is always asking: “In this moment, how can I love my neighbor as I love myself”?  What might forgiveness, reconciliation, peace or justice do right now?  Maybe faith is an openness to the reality that  God can make all things new?  

Do you think Joseph talked to his rabbi?  Did they pray together about letting go of revenge? Did they talk about releasing Joseph’s feelings of being mistreated?  Did his rabbi invite Joseph to think beyond his own disappointment and to consider Mary’s dilemma?  Did they read together Lamentations 3 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  Did they pray “Lord, guide me along the paths of peace and ethics”? We can get so focussed on our aggrievement and mistreatment that we fail to see others are suffering in ways we may not even imagine. We can fall into deeply divided camps blaming the other side, who may be suffering as we are or perhaps even more.     

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit”,  as surprising as the news surely felt to Joseph, there is good news there as well, a golden thread of hope if we look for it.  We moderns may read,”pregnant from the Holy Spirit”  like a DNA test, but  the Jewish culture understood that every child is a child of God.  In the Garden of Eden story, God fashioned us out of the clay, and then blew God’s very breath into the clay giving us life. Every child is a child of God, a child of the holy spirit, every child holds God’s potential, presence and promise. 

Amy Jill Levine stirs the pot a little bit, a good preacher or prophet always does,  suggesting that the miraculous Virgin Birth actually shakes us the patriarchy, because no man is involved in Jesus’ conception and birth. I doubt Mary and Joseph were thinking about the implications for gender in 2025 as the incarnation unfolded around them, but “The word of God is living and active”!(Hebrews 4)  The Spirit is still speaking, revealing new things to us from these ancient stories.  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning.”

Matthew tells us Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly.  Being a righteous person, Joseph has no interest in vengeful misogynistic purity laws that scholars tell us the Jewish people simply ignored for a thousand years in righteous disobedience

What if Joseph had stuck with his second plan and quietly divorced Mary? What if after thinking about Mary, the child, and their life in a small gossipy town, Joseph had said no, that is too much, we can’t fix this, I’m moving to Cario?  What would Joseph have missed? 

Joseph would’ve missed the prayers, prophecies and blessing of Anna and Simeon in the Temple at Jesus’ naming.  Joseph would have missed Jesus bar mitzva in the Temple at age 12, when not just their local rabbi, but the nation’s leading scribes, rabbis and scholars said “You’ve got a remarkable young man here Joseph, You and Mary must be so proud.?”  Joseph would have missed teaching Jesus to read and apprenticing Jesus as a carpenter. As Joseph’s apprentice Jesus surely was a creative, quick learner, and so pleasant to work with.  

Joseph made a second plan to move on from Mary, but sometimes a dilemma wakes us up at midnight.  “When Joseph had resolved to divorce Mary quietly, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus,  and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”  When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him”. 

Have you ever woken up from a mess and seen the light of a clear blue morning? Joseph wakes up with a clear understanding that he needs to forget his plan of a quiet divorce and instead marry Mary. “Do not be afraid,…the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit”. Maybe Joseph did not hear the angel’s promise as some grand miracle of divine conception. Maybe Joseph heard the news as a simple truth that “every child is a child of God”.  Maybe Joseph woke up to see that Mary’s child could use a second parent and Mary could use a partner. Maybe Joseph thought I can do this because “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercy’s never come to an end! They are new every morning.”  Maybe Joseph woke up singing,  “I can see the light of a clear blue morning,  Oh, and everything’s gonna be all right. It’s gonna be okay”  (Dolly Parton: Clear Blue Morning) 

A dream of an angel might not feel as convening as Mary’s encounter with Gabriel or Moses’ getting the commandments on the Mountain, but the Bible treats them all as a word from God. Not every holy moment needs the seas to part or the angels to sing. Sometimes God may speak from a country song or a dream.  Sometimes we can wake up and hear the word of God and see the world in new eyes, we see a rough place and say “I can smooth that over, I can restore that, I can help them, I can believe the good news.”  

Maybe that is what faith is like, we believe God can do something new in, through, and around us.  We may never see an angel, move a mountain, or walk on water, but perhaps when we begin dreaming about what love might do through us, God shows up, and we get the chance, like Joseph, to help bring Jesus into the world. Amen.