Joseph was a Good Man Advent 4 Yr A

+Mary, Joseph and Jesus may, quite possibly, be the first example of what we now call “A Blended Family.” You’ll notice that in the Prayers of the People for December we refer to “The Blessed Virgin Mary and Blessed Joseph, parents of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Some of you may have wondered----doesn’t our priest know that Jesus’ Father is God? That Mary conceived through an act of the Holy Spirit, not the normal birds and the bees way?

Of course, I do, but I also resist referring to Joseph as Jesus’ Step Dad. As a matter of fact, I resist referring to any person who has assumed the responsibility of raising a child as a step-Dad or Step-Mom. These men and women have, through their love for their spouse, also assumed a love and commitment to children; children they may not have biologically created, but parent nonetheless. If there’s one thing our modern world has taught us, it’s that parenting has a whole lot more to do with what happens after conception than conception itself. For God to come among us, to experience the human existence as fully as possible, in the person of Jesus, God needed to use two humans as instruments, vessels for this task.

Enter Mary. Enter Joseph.

Mary is famous. She’s known the world over. Worshipped as a prophet and saint by Christians and Muslims (she’s one of four women prophets in the Quran, the holy book of Islam).

Mary is known, adored and worshiped. While Joseph may be as famous, I don’t think he gets his due—his adoration and worship--- as thoroughly as Mary.

There are a number of reasons for this, most notably the fact that the most familiar Christmas story---there are two nativity accounts in the Gospels---is from Luke, where Joseph has, at best, a “bit part.” [We’ll hear the Luke accounts of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and we do every year.] The lesser-known birth account comes from Matthew’s Gospel, which we heard this morning, and will pick up again later in the Christmas season.

But today we hear Matthew’s account of Joseph’s annunciation—how he was told that what Mary, his betrothed, had told him was true---she was having a child via the Holy Spirit and he should follow through on plans to marry her…even though he would be subject to ridicule, ostracizing and shame.

In spite of all he would face, and in spite of the fact that no one would believe that he and Mary were telling the truth and in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t live to see it all come to fruition, Joseph said yes. He said yes.

It’s easy for us to say God gave Joseph an incredible gift—to raise a child of God, to be one of two human beings in all of creation God chose to raise Jesus. But think about what it meant for Joseph’s daily life.

Remember he was older--- significantly older than the teenaged Mary-- a man who should, by all accounts, have been slowing down and starting to reflect on his life, became, instead, saddled with what looked like a fiancé who had cheated on him, who then gave birth to a head-strong impetuous boy---remember when the 12 yr old Jesus gets left behind at the temple and ridicules his parents for being worried---yet with dignity and respect, this man says, “OK God, not my will, but yours.”

Joseph was quite a guy.

He doesn’t get as much press because he disappears from view fairly quickly, after the 12 yr old Jesus is left in the temple, we don’t hear from Joseph again. He may have died a natural death or he may have been killed in one of the Jewish uprisings against the stranglehold of the terrifying Roman occupiers, but he didn’t live to see Jesus begin his active ministry. It’s as if his job was to get Jesus to young adulthood—to teach this boy how to be a man---he helped Jesus develop a skill set---he taught him a trade—carpentry---but more importantly he taught him how to be a man. A dignified, respectful—especially of all the down trodden and outcast, man. A man who was able to carry the mantle of messiah not just in his divine self, but in his human self as well. Joseph helped Jesus become the man we lovingly call Emmanuel, Lord, Savior, Prince of Peace. Joseph, a regular guy from Bethlehem, an honorable man who was given a challenging task and without knowing how or why, with knowing only that an angel of the Lord assured him it was ok, said yes to being a father. A father to the Savior of the World. David taught the Son of Humanity to also be the Son of Joseph.

Joseph was a good man.

Several commentators suggest that Mary, who would be by Jesus’ side until his death and resurrection, guided the Divine part of him, encouraging him to use his divine gifts when needed as opposed when he wanted to---think the Wedding at Cana---but Joseph, Joseph was responsible for guiding the human part of him.

Like so many fathers and father figures in the world, Joseph took responsibility for the raising of a child…. regardless of the child’s biological heritage, Joseph and so many who have come since then said YES when asked to take a child and teach the child how to become a responsible honorable and dignified man or woman, to become an adult who through the values learned at the knee of a loving and responsible elder, strive to make this world---the world created by God and entrusted to our care ----a place where the Peace and Love of God can grow, flourish and rule in the hearts of all.

So, for Joseph the Carpenter and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and for all the men and women of the world who say yes when entrusted with the raising of children, our most precious commodity, I say Thank You. And Amen. +

Advent 3 Yr A

John the Baptist was antsy. Sitting in prison and waiting, waiting for the messiah whose coming he had prophesied, waiting for his cousin Jesus to get on with the fire and brimstone of judgment, to get on with separating the chaff and the wheat, waiting for Jesus to clear the threshing room floor, waiting, no doubt, for Jesus to get him out of jail!! John asks, if you’re the one, then where’s the action? Where’s the wrath?

In response, Jesus lists his acts of love—no recompense here, just healing.

Jesus wasn’t the messiah a first century Jew expected. From John the Baptist of Jesus’ early ministry, to the apostles of his life and the early Christians of Paul and James, Jesus’ followers assumed that the second coming was going to happen soon--so they waited, getting everyone riled up to “be ready.”

Of course we’re still waiting…but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get ready.

But, just what constitutes “getting ready?” Repenting of our sins, turning our lives around? Absolutely, these are important steps, but they’re reactive—reactions to choices we now regret. Besides being reactive, we must also be pro-active. We have a part in this second coming, but we need to pay attention, because God? God tends to show up where we least expect it…in the downtrodden, the lost and the unnoticed.

If the first Advent was ushered in via a scared young woman and her poor yet faithful fiancé, why should we expect the Second Advent to be some type of surround sound High definition blockbuster event?

My guess is that God will come in the most astonishing and unimaginable way possible, simply and quietly, because that’s what God does….God hides in plain sight.

No one expected anything good to come out of Nazareth and certainly no one gave that poor couple searching for lodging in Bethlehem a second thought. Just like so many in our world don’t give a second thought to the homeless, the hungry, the captive or the destitute among us. But we must because that’s how God comes to us. In the unnoticed, unrecognized “other.”

When God came the first time, in the person of Jesus, the Romans weren’t toppled, the Pharisees weren’t thrown out of the temple. The lame walked, the blind saw and the deaf heard.

The Kingdom of Heaven on earth isn’t going to be an event, God’s reign on earth is a process. A process which began to unfold through the First Advent, and which will culminate in the Second Advent. The first Advent and the second are all God’s doing, but the in between time? That’s ours. The in between time is the time for us to bring the love of God into action.

Jesus’ first coming did cast the mighty from their thrones—but not because of military action or legislation, but because he put compassion into action and that is what will bring Christ again. Compassion in action—the Second Advent will begin when we ----God’s beloved-----put the compassion of Christ into action.

And we can do it---we can bring compassionate justice into our world because we have God on our side [it’s right there in this morning’s collect]. God’s bountiful grace and mercy helps and delivers us--- from hardness of heart and wanderings of mind, from looking out for ourselves on the backs of our neighbors, from walking past the homeless and the outcast, the downtrodden and the lost. God’s bountiful grace and mercy is given to us as fuel…fuel to do all the work we’ve been given to do, work in redeeming this world from the power of selfishness and hatred, from war and violence, from cheating and deceit.

The second coming, the Second Advent, the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is guaranteed—it’s guaranteed because God is patient---God will wait until we get it right, God will wait until we realize that our part in the second Advent is neither passive nor impossible.

Our part in the Second Advent is active and possible, it is energetic and do-able, and it is necessary and needed. And it is up to you and to me.

John the Baptist wanted to know if Jesus was the one because Jesus wasn’t acting like he expected the Messiah to act. Today, the leaders of faith who get the most attention beg a similar question---they don’t act like people of faith—they seem to ignore the teachings of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, begging the question, “where is the loving God of faith? Where is the tolerance of the Almighty, of Yahweh, of Allah? Where is the peace of Abraham, of Isaac of Ishmael, of Jesus? How can you, [how can we], preach a message of redemption, of repentance, of renewal when what comes out of your mouths is hate and intolerance?”

The questions of John the Baptist, “are you the one?” came because the peace of a humble carpenter’s kid from the backwater area of Nazareth was not how he envisioned God in the Flesh. The questions were legitimate and Jesus answered them---not by proclamation, but by action.

The public view of religion today has been usurped by fanatics who have high-jacked the message of God, as expressed in the three great Abrahamic faiths, to suit their own needs of power and elitism. No wonder people today ask us, how can your faith be the answer…look at what’s being done in the name of God!

John the Baptist was antsy, antsy for some action from the Messiah. And now the Messiah is antsy, anxious for some action from us.

Our Advent task, our Christmas task, our Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost task is to reclaim the message of the incarnation—the message of peace on earth—and make sure that in all our doings we live into the message of hope which is Christ, that the lame and the blind and the deaf of our lives—those people who are deaf to the pleas of the homeless, the people who are lame to the plight of the destitute, the people who are blind to the needs of the outcast—are healed.

Advent 2 YrA

John the Baptist: wild haired, camel skin wearing, locust eating mad-man standing in the middle of the murky Jordan River, preaching a message of repentance---accusing the world of sin and challenging everyone, especially the Jewish elite of his day---to make their way straight and get ready. For the Kingdom of Heaven was coming and there was no time for arrogant self-serving piety.

No doubt the Pharisees and Sadducees wished he would just go away. Or at least be quiet.

But it was too late. Word had gotten out about this prophet—was it Elijah?—who was baptizing people with those muddy waters, promising them a new kind of baptism—with fire and the Holy Spirit no less---to be rendered by a messiah—the messiah. His shtick, if he was to be believed, was just the opening act, the main event was about to burst on the scene. And John, John was trying very hard to get everyone ready.

Of course getting ready is what Advent is all about and it’s why the Baptist takes up two of our four Advent Sunday Gospels---because we are to be aware, to get ready and to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is about to arrive. God is coming to be with us, we best be ready. We best repent.

Repentance. To turn from sin and dedicate oneself to amendment of life.

To turn from sin. Sin is such a tough word for our 21 st century ears---well at least for my 21 st century ears—its been tossed around by so many tele-evangelists, folks who profess to be holier than thou but who, in the stark light of day, turn out to be a lot more human than holy.

We sin when our actions take us away from God. The German Jesuit Theologian Karl Rahner puts it best when he says that all human behavior moves along a continuum—a continuum that is either moving toward God or moving away from God. Are our actions moving us closer to God or farther away from God? If we’re moving farther away from God we’re sinning. All sins are not the mortal sins we here our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers talk about. To sin is to miss the mark. To sin is to do something, which furthers our own self-interest instead of moving along with the divine plan. You know the divine plan I’m talking about—loving our neighbor as yourself, loving God with all our heart and soul and mind. Sinning isn’t always headline news. Sin, more often is simply missing the mark. Sinning moves us away from God.

The goal of our life, according to Rahner, should be to move toward God—because God is always—always—reaching out to us.

Of course, during Advent this is particularly poignant for us because in the Christmas event—in the birth of Jesus, God not only reaches for us, God becomes us.

With God coming to dwell among us, the time seems ripe for us —to repent, amend our lives and head toward the outstretch arms of our loving God.

So we visit the stories of John the Baptist, this wild man on the banks of the river, screaming at us to straighten up and fly right.

He saves his most venomous wrath for the religious elite of his day—the Pharisees and Sadducees—they figure by virtue of their heritage—being children of Abraham---they’re set. They assume the Baptist has come on the scene to help the gentiles, the pagans, the fallen away Jews---but not them.

The arrogance of piety—the thought that his message of repentance was for other people---people who don’t follow the law, people who don’t tithe, people who don’t offer the appropriate sacrifices at the temple—it was this arrogance which fueled John’s You Brood of Vipers rage.

Because John knew that such arrogance was just one of the many things which draw us away from God…and that all of us==Pharisees and Sadducees, Gentiles and Pagans, you and me…that we all need to day in and day out turn around---repent----change direction and start heading toward God.

Changing direction. That’s what repentance is. It ‘s a turning around. And that, according to Episcopal priest Sam Portaro, is exactly what John the Baptist is asking us to do. It’s what he was telling those who trudged to the banks of the Jordan to do, and its what we are to do. How can we increase our holiness, our piety, our faithfulness? How can we be better Christians? How can we best prepare ourselves for the coming events of incarnation, how can we ready ourselves to receive God among us? Pray more? Tithe more? Go to church more? Now all these are good things and many of us find them very helpful but they’re instruments of our faith---they are not our faith. Faith isn’t lived out in these pews. Faith is lived out in the world…in the offices, the homes, the grocery stores, the banks, the regularness of our lives. Faith---true faith---life changing faith, faith that will bring the reign of God fully into this world---is exercised out in the world.

So as we settle into our second week of anticipation, our second week of preparing for God among us, we are to go out into the world, loving and serving one another as Christ loves and serves us. We are to walk the streets of our lives with the truth of our faith---that God so loved us God came to be among us ----straightening our paths and turning us around, because when we do that—when we live our lives as Christ directs us, we will be a beacon—attracting others to us bringing people toward the light of Christ, a light which, when we live toward God instead of away from God---shines on the darkness of this world, a world which desperately longs to be wrapped in the loving embrace of God.