[Propertalk] Reflection for 29 December 2019 - Christmas 1A

[Allison Dean]

A reflection for tomorrow with a slightly different take on difficult
readings inspired by a thought by Irish- Canadian theologian, The Rev.
Canon Herbert O'Driscoll, about Joseph.  Your thoughts for improvement
would be appreciated as this is for a congregation where I have been asked
to be guest preacher by the priest who performed our wedding 15 years ago.
Just a little nerve-wracking.

Allison Cline-Dean,
Lead Chaplain
East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
Based at Colchester Hospital, Colchester, Essex, UK

The readings today are tough ones to read and to hear.  We have just
celebrated Christmas, with beautiful carols like “Silent Night” and “O
Little Town of Bethlehem” and listened to St. Luke’s story of the birth of
Christ including how shepherds were greeted by angels speaking of peace and
good-will to all.  It has been a time of celebration and then today the
readings give us a splash of very cold water in the face with the “Killing
of the Innocents” as it is known and the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.
It feels too soon to abandon Christmas – after all there are supposed to be
12 days of Christmas – yet these readings are thrown into the middle of the
12 days.  So it bears asking the question “Why?”

Possibly to remind us that Emmanuel – God With Us is not just with us in
the tender and joyful celebratory moments of life like Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day, but in the difficult, soul-searching moments as well, the
moments when we grieve, feel lost and scared, when we need courage.  I
think today’s gospel gives us a new role model for the Christmas season and
that person is Joseph.   We don’t hear much about Joseph yet he is such a
crucial figure in all that happens during Christmas and Epiphany.  He very
much exemplifies what each one of us on the road of life with its ups and
downs and that is faith and courage.

We first meet Joseph when Mary tells him that she is pregnant.  This would
have been heart-breaking for Joseph.  Pastor Judi  Boli provides us with
some background around what being betrothed would have meant in those days:

When Joseph and Mary were both young children, they were chosen as
potential marriage partners by their parents. . . . This was the first step
in the process that would end in a wedding.  . . .  when Mary was anywhere
from twelve to fifteen years old, they were ready to take the next step
toward their intended marriage - betrothal.  This was the time when the
young couple made it publicly known that they agreed with their parents’
choice for a marriage partner.  This was an extremely serious step.  While
they waited, families got to know each other better, temple records were
checked to be sure no one was about to marry a close relative, and the
dowry was negotiated.  Once the betrothal was announced, even though a
sexual relationship between them was still not allowed, only a divorce
could separate the couple.  The final step was coming up - it would be the
wedding itself, when Joseph paraded his beloved Mary through the town from
her father’s house to his house for the ceremony and the consummation of
the marriage.  So here was Joseph looking forward to a wonderful life with
Mary when the center was blown out of his world.  His own, his intended
wife, his dearly betrothed Mary came and told him she was pregnant, and by
the Holy Spirit yet, as if he was supposed to believe that.

Joseph, not being the father of the unborn baby, would have done much
soul-searching about next steps so as not to publicly disgrace Mary.  We
are told he decided to divorce her quietly in the presence of two witnesses
who were his friends.  In the end he did not even do that because of an
angel’s visitation who told him not to be afraid – the same words that were
used with Mary in her encounter with the Angel Gabriel.   The angel said
“Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her
is from the Holy Spirit. She shall bear a son.” And that the child was to
be named “Jesus”.   Joseph had two choices at this point:  he could either
go ahead with his original plan to divorce Mary or be courageous, take a
step in faith, and raise this child as his own, and provide a model to  Jesus
 of a good, wise, and courageous loving father.  During that time he also
taught Jesus the skills of becoming a carpenter so that Jesus could look
after Mary and the rest of the family should something happen to Joseph in
an age when the average life expectancy would have be 45 years of age.  Joseph
would become the Guardian of Jesus.

We are told by religious scholars that at the time of betrothal,  Joseph
would have been about 30 years of age while Mary would have been around 13
or 14 years of age.  It is Joseph who takes Mary to Bethlehem as part of
the census, trying to find someplace safe and private in order for her to
give birth.  And then to experience the awe and wonder of the shepherds on
that night and hearing how they have been told of the birth of this very
special baby by a choir of the heavenly host.  While Mary would have
pondered all these things in her heart, I’m pretty sure Joseph was doing
his own wondering and thinking.  Then when things should have been going
back to normal and this new family should have been travelling back to
their home, Joseph has another dream where he is told to take his family
and escape from Herod who wishes to kill Jesus and so he takes them to
Egypt.  In effect this little family have become refugees, something that
so many in our world can identify with. In later life, Jesus refers to
being a refugee when he states that “foxes have holes, birds of the air
have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

The flight to Egypt would have been one full of fear and terror, possibly
done by night to avoid being caught by soldiers during the day – not easy
to do with a two year old toddler.  It would have taken much courage on
Joseph’s part to leave behind a home and business he had built up in the
two years since Jesus’ birth (it would have taken the magi two years it is
thought to arrive on the scene as Jesus is not described any longer as a
baby but a child in the Greek) and to start all over again in a strange
country with different customs and language.  Jan Richardson writes

The angel comes bearing the gift of courage to Joseph.  Courage to say *yes
*to a life he had not envisioned. Courage to keep saying *yes *to this
woman, this child, this path that will take him far be­yond anything he has
ever imagined for himself. Courage that will keep coming as grace, as
dream, as blessing for his way.

The family would have had to travel light so I imagine that Joseph would
have taken just the basic tools he would have needed to earn a living. Yet
Joseph put his trust in God again and went to Egypt, a place that had given
safe haven to an earlier Joseph in the Old Testament.  A courageous
decision for Joseph to have to make but he knew that there was a large
Jewish community in Alexandria where he could build a new business and
provide a safe haven for Mary and Jesus.

After a few years in Egypt, Joseph receives the “all clear” from God to
return to Israel as Herod had died so the security and refuge of Egypt was
not required.  However, Joseph was anxious about moving to Judea due to the
new ruler’s reputation and a dream seems to confirm Joseph’s anxieties so
he moves his family to Nazareth.  It took courage and faith for Joseph to
use rely on a dream and his own wisdom to ensure Jesus’ and Mary’s
continued safety.

I said earlier that Joseph could be a good role model for us.  There were
times when Joseph would have been fearful, had his doubts, felt
overwhelmed, all that each of us have experienced.  Joseph experienced
exile, of trying to protect his family, of up-rooting them when necessary
to keep them safe.  We know that Joseph was a man of courage and faith for
he trusts God to guide him appropriately after the first angelic encounter.


And so Joseph shows us how Emmanuel – God with us– is with us and for us
not just in the times of celebration but in the darkest and most difficult
moments, in times when we need to have the courage to say “Yes).  The Rev.
Jan Richardson writes:

This *yes *is not something we can always summon on our own. It is not a
response we can manu­facture by the strength of our will. This *yes *depends
on a constellation of graces. Some of those graces are ones we need to
learn to ask for. Some of those graces will find us without our even
knowing we needed them.

And when we say *yes w*e emerge scarred, a different person from where we
began, just like Joseph.  We emerge in one piece because God has been with
us, walked with us, accompanied us, loved us, and embraced us, just as God
did with Joseph, with Mary, with Jesus, with the disciples.  Why?  In the
words of The Rev. David Lose, “. . . that we might know the fullness of joy
that is life in Christ.”

So I leave you with a few questions to ponder as we move towards Epiphany
and a star which guides us as it did the magi into unknown territory and
worlds:  “*How are you being invited to say yes to a life you did not
choose? Is there a fear you need to let go of in or­der to offer this yes?
What “no” might you need to say in order to make way for what God is
inviting? How would it be to ask for the courage you need, and to open
yourself to how this courage wants to meet you in your waking, your
dreaming? (Rev Jan Richardson, Women’s Retreat 2018).*

As you contemplate these questions, I leave you with a blessing written by
the Rev. Jan Richardson that I hope will bring each of you courage, hope,
inspiration, and peace as we move into a new year.  It is entitled
“Blessing of Courage”:

Blessing of Courage

I cannot say

where it lives,

only that it comes

to the heart

that is open,

to the heart

that asks,

to the heart

that does not turn away.

It can take practice,

days of tugging at

what keeps us bound,

seasons of pushing against

what keeps our dreaming

small.



When it arrives,

it might surprise you

by how quiet it is,

how it moves

with such grace

for possessing

such power.



But you will know it

by the strength

that rises from within you

to meet it,

by the release

of the knot

in the center of

your chest

that suddenly lets go.



You will recognize it

by how still

your fear becomes

as it loosens its grip,

perhaps never quite

leaving you,

but calmly turning

into joy

as you enter the life

that is finally
your own.
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