Matthew 1:18-24
Today we turn our attention to Saint
Joseph. We don't know a lot about him, and what little we know comes
mostly from the gospel of Matthew. The only way we know what Joseph
did for a living is because of a passing reference to Jesus as the
son of a carpenter. In the gospels we have no quotations from
Joseph; for that reason some refer to him as Joseph the silent. We
glean certain things about him because of what is not said; at the
Wedding feast of Cana it says the mother of Jesus was there; no
mention of the father. And at the foot of the cross, Jesus puts Mary
into the care of the apostle John; which wouldn't be necessary if
Joseph was still alive – or for that matter, if Jesus had
biological brothers and sisters.
But if you want to know more about
Joseph, perhaps the best place to look is to Jesus. While it's
certain that Mary had a lot to do with bringing up Jesus, the kind of
man he became was most likely due to the influence of Joseph. Jesus
may not have had a biological father, but he did have a male role
model, and most sons who have good relationships with their fathers
“take after” their fathers, as we say.
Joseph taught Jesus many things. I
think we can identify some of them.
In the gospel Joseph is introduced as
a righteous man. Some translations use the word “just”. But
Matthew is writing for Jews who have become Christians, and the word
he uses here means that Joseph was a very careful observer of the
Law. Now the book of Deuteronomy says that if an unmarried woman
becomes pregnant, she and the father (assuming the latter can be
found) are to be taken outside the city gates and stoned. I guess if
you couldn't find the father, you just stoned the woman. Deuteronomy
says why this should be: so that Israel would remain holy. The
interesting thing is that Joseph chooses to violate this law.
Instead, he plans to put Mary away quietly – a man could divorce
his wife for nearly any reason, including that she did not please
him; so Joseph was planning to do that. He was willing to take shame
upon himself. And of course, in doing so, he is again violating the
law.
Joseph, in other words, knew when
human beings were more important than legalism; and he knew how to
decide which laws were more important. And we see Jesus with that
attitude as well. He said, “the sabbath was made for man, not man
for the sabbath”. He pardoned the woman caught in adultery; he did
not accept the common idea that if a person was blind, it was due to
their own sin or the sin of the parents. And there are many other
examples of how Jesus imitated Joseph.
Another thing Joseph taught Jesus was
that the will of God came first. Four times Joseph receives a divine
message in a dream; you've just heard the first. Later, he will be
told to take his family to Egypt. After a period of time, another
dream will order him back. The last dream will direct him to settle
in Nazareth rather than somewhere in Judea, which was the original
destination. And when Joseph gets a message, he acts. There is no
questioning, no hesitation. And we hear about Jesus going to the
cross saying “not my will but thy will be done.” But perhaps
even more important, if Joseph was willing to shake up his whole life
because of some message that came to him while he was sleeping, he
must have been able to distinguish between a true message of God and
an ordinary dream. Jesus recognized that the messages he received in
the desert were not from God, but from Satan. And Jesus spent hours
in prayer listening to God speaking to him. That of course is how we
distinguish the voice of God from other voices; we are on intimate
terms with him; we pray. Would that we could learn from Joseph how
to enter into that silence where God's voice can be heard.
But perhaps the most important thing
Jesus learned from Joseph was something about how God works in the
world. Joseph agonizes over Mary's pregnancy by what he assumes is
another man; he trudged from his home to Bethlehem where he had to
spend a night in a stable, and probably had to deliver the baby. He
had to hike from his home to Egypt, worrying about bandits, making
sure Mary and Jesus got fed. In Egypt he had to find work, any work,
so that he could take care of them. And when he was finally told to
return, he was told to go and live in a different region than where
he had intended to go – to Nazareth where everyone would be a
stranger. Joseph worried as much as Mary did when they lost Jesus in
Jerusalem; and Joseph must have pondered the prophecies of Simeon in
his heart as well.
And don't you think that Joseph must
have asked himself every now and then, “why is doing your will so
hard? You are God; is there a reason Mary and I have to go to such
lengths to do your will? And you could have accomplished all these
things and we could have still had a comfortable, ordinary life.
Joseph might have said, with Saint Theresa of Avila, “If this is
how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them!”
Jesus learned that God whispers, he does not shout; God gives us
tasks to do, but then allows us to do them in our own way; God does
not spare us heartache and discomfort, but is with us when these
things come into our lives.
So Joseph teaches Jesus that there is
a heirarchy of laws; it is more important to love your neighbor as
yourself than it is to put her to death to keep Israel pure. It is
more important to protect the innocent than to worry about how doing
so might shame you. Joseph teaches Jesus that God's will comes
first, and that this implies that we need to know God's will for us.
And that can only come through developing a relationship with God –
through prayer and meditation and spiritual direction. And Joseph
teaches Jesus that God does not make life easier for us even when we
are doing his will, even when we have been put in charge of a great
mission; we human beings will always be subjected to material dangers
because we are material, and danger from other people because we are
all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve the first parents, the first
sinners.
And so, like Jesus, let us learn from
Joseph as well.
