Grace and Peace to You!
As a Dad, I find myself expecting more and more of
my boys as they grow older and more capable. I expect them to be in their best
behavior when company is over, I expect them to always tell the truth, to clean
their room, and treat each other with respect.
I have high expectations of my children, they’re
Pastor’s Kids, after all. And I get from them my share of eye-rolls and
tantrums. My expectations sometimes go unmet.
And I’m often amazed when I pick my kids up from
school or a baby sitter when they tell me how well behaved my children were in
their care. My children? I ask.
When my expectations aren’t met, I don’t recoil or
recalculate. I don’t lower my bar. I sit them down and ask this question,
“What’s your plan?” How do you expect to get the results you want from the
behavior you are exhibiting?
I find something they want and I ask them to work
for it.
I know they have high expectations of me as your
father to not yell at traffic or football games. I am a pastor, after all.
Two weeks ago, while posing for our Christmas photo,
I was fussing at the boys to behave, focus, and look happy between clicks of
the camera.
My son said to me, though grinned teeth, “What’s your
plan, Dad?”
I laughed, shocked. And then I smiled and we got the
photo we wanted. I love that my kids push me to be a better father and human
being. I love that they don’t lower their bar for me either. They’re tough but
fair.
Matthew doesn’t paint a warm picture, but tells the
story of the baby by way of the man who raised him, Joseph. The gospel starts
with a lineage as long as a whole page with two columns. The names of famous
people are peppered in for flavor-
Kings and adulterers, women famous for a certain
reason, and their children. As a whole this litany of 28 generations looks
impressive and regal. But under the microscope we see a family full of
dysfunction. Joseph is declared the son of David. But David’s wife isn’t named
only as “the wife of Uriah” meaning that the family tree and it’s most famous
ancestor wasn’t without his skeletons.
Ultimately this is just another dysfunctional family
portrait. No amount of golden-flecked pages are going to hide that. And to make
matters worse, the centuries of royalty and nobility come to a screeching halt
because of the main character of Matthew’s first chapter: Joseph, son of Jacob,
descendant of David and Abraham.
See, Joseph isn’t exactly sure how his fiancée got
pregnant, but he knows for sure he didn’t do it. Standing on the shoulders of
his “righteous” ancestors, he has no choice but to save his name for another
who is more worthy. Mary was a poor girl anyway, he shouldn’t have to lower his
standards for her. He decides to take the high road, to dismiss her in secret
so that she will forgo trial and probable stoning. The Jewish courthouse should
have a sign that says, “Innocent until proven pregnant.” She’s definitely
pregnant. Joseph is embarrassed. The family has fallen on hard times. Given his
status, he should have his pick of eligible teenagers, but he is no noble, just
a carpenter. A handy man. A laborer.
Joseph has made up him mind, not like he had a
choice. If his grandparents only knew the shame he felt they’d rise from their
graves like Ezekiel prophesied. Them bones them bones them dry bones…
Isaiah had a prophesy too. A messiah would come.
From his lineage. Not from a peasant girl with a wandering eye.
Ancients didn’t know what we do about fertility.
They believed that father supplied all ingredients for a child and that women
merely carried it. This means the child wasn’t half Mary’s, it 100% belonged to
someone else.
Joseph made up his mind. He knew his plan. He’d cut
bait and try again with someone more deserving. Tough but fair.
Then an angel visited Joseph in a dream. He was,
after all, named after his great-great grand uncle Joseph the great dreamer.
But enough name-dropping. An angel came to visit him. Probably Gabriel given
his lineage. Only the best for the best.
The angel told Joseph that his fiancée was telling
the truth and that the baby was made by the holy spirit and was the messiah.
Joseph awoke, probably with a million questions-
like the ones we ask today. Wait, if he’s the messiah, then why did the prophet
say that it would come from my lineage, if I’m not the father. Don’t you know
that the books will tell my family history and leave the reader guessing why
after 4 times the perfect number 7 of generations the story ends with me only
to start seconds later without me? Joseph must feel like the extension cord
that comes up two inches short of the Christmas lights on my mailbox: He’s
going to have to find another power source.
Then he probably contemplated how-exactly God plans
to grow a child in a human womb that is not of a human father. Only once, the
first man was made by God without a mother. Is this supposed to be the New
Adam? Is the lineage supposed to end with me? Is this some sort of fresh start?
The angel told me to name his Jesus, well, in Hebrew
Yeshua, which means God saves.
Two problems here for Joseph- the prophesy said “you shall call him Emmanuel” but
the angel says, “they shall call him Emmanuel which means, ‘God with us’”
Joseph knows what the name means. He knows the
prophesy, so why name him something else?
The second problem Joseph would have is that the
name Yeshua is not in his family tree, it’s a common name, like John or Bob.
It’s a local’s name, a poor person of Nazareth. Why not David or Abraham or
Jacob? This naming of someone else’s child a name that belongs to lesser beings
is another slap in the face. Joseph must have fought the urge to run from this
tornado of disaster. But Gabriel is a family friend. The decision doesn’t add
up, but despite his better judgment Joseph follows the voices in his head, the
visions in his dream. He weds the woman and settles in for another 28
generations of regret and waiting.
The question that remains unanswered in my mind, is
what level of choice Joseph thought he had. Did he have any agency in this? Imagine,
just for a second, if Joseph followed the law and turned Mary in. The saint and
the Christ child would never have been, and all of Israel would have to have
waited who knows how many more generations before God would try again.
He almost said no. He almost turned down the savior
of the world in order to save his family’s good name. But I wonder if Matthew
didn’t post the lineage of screwballs and harlots on the first page of his
gospel to give Joseph some hope. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, The wife of Uriah, are all
wildcards. Each known for using what God gave them, all gentiles and not Jews,
all outspoken and kind of awesome. Matthew could have left them out, substituting
instead Rachel, Sarah, and Rebecca.
But this is a family of heroes not do-gooders, and
well behaved women rarely make history.
Matthew leads us to assume that Joseph decided to
father the child BECAUSE of his crazy family.
God works in mysterious ways.
Yes, Joseph had a choice. We know that because God
always gives us a choice. God is powerful and can be wrathful. God would have
good reason to wipe out humanity and start over for the 3rd time,
with no one left on earth to remember the promise of the rainbow to Noah.
But God doesn’t come to us this time in the name of
wrath, but in the name of love. The one that is to be called “God saves”
doesn’t arrive with a wand and a book on sorcery, but is born like a human
being is born- tiny and helpless. He comes to us as vulnerable as a newborn
baby so that we may learn to care and love God as He cares and loves us. If he
had come with a sword he would have been met with shields of hatred. But he
comes in the innocence of a helpless, lovable creature that makes grown men let
down their guards.
I imagine my boys saying, “God, what’s your plan?”
How do you expect to get the results you want from the behavior you are
exhibiting? God’s plan seems far-fetched and ill-fated.
But it works
on the hard-heartedness of Joseph. In times where paternity of a child is in
question, whoever names the child is legally the father. By naming the child,
Joseph acknowledges Jesus as his own.
And Joseph lives into God’s plan, not by naming his
son from the heroes of the past, but names him for the hero of the future.
“Jesus” which means “God saves.” And a nuclear family is joined together Mary,
Joseph, and the Savior of humanity. I imagine receiving their Christmas card in
my mailbox, they’re all smiles for the camera. Fortunately the smell of the
stable doesn’t translate to the photo. There is no question that the first
Christmas literally stunk. But we don’t usually focus on that.
I’m glad today that we have Matthew’s Gospel. It
isn’t the pretty version- no- we save Luke’s version for Christmas Eve. But
Matthew’s version wonderfully real. It’s not a posed portrait, it’s a snapshot
of real life.
Two years ago we posed for our Christmas Card photo
on the park that overlooks the golden gate bridge. It took too long to get the
kids ready, so by the time we got there the sun had moved to directly behind
us, making a shot of the bridge behind us impossible. So we turned around and
with the Berkeley hills behind us, we shot 200 or so images to find one that
was passible. We had to adjust because Jacob had a broken arm, so we put that
hand behind us. We couldn’t get Thomas to smile, he had a cold, and two days
later would be taken to the ER for an asthma attack on Ashley’s Birthday. And
he’d go back the night after that. 4 trips to the ER in 30 days. But darn it,
we were going to get our Christmas card.
We worked hard for that picture, the
stress of life hidden behind our eyes and lying though our exposed teeth. A
year ago we blew that picture up and placed it over our fireplace, to remind us
of the beauty of our family in good and bad times. People come over and they
comment on the beautiful picture, but I can’t look at it without seeing the
broken arm, the nights spent screaming in pain, the birthday Ashley spent in
the ER. It wasn’t until about a month ago that Ashley told me she spotted, in
the upper right hand corner of the picture the blue port-a-potty. We went for a
posed portrait and left with a snapshot of real life.
This Christmas, that photo hangs proudly above the
mantle that holds the manger scene and Christmas stockings, including the
stocking for our baby girl who knows nothing yet of this world.
The Church, along with her parents, will help her grow, asking her “What’s
your plan”, and holding her to high standards out of love. She, in turn, will
hold us to high standards, out of the same love. However you picture it, it
will be full of love.
Sometimes the truth even more beautiful than the
story.
Amen.
