The Rev. Austin K. Rios
18 December 2022: The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Perhaps it is because I was born on his saint day, or maybe it’s just because we know so little else about him, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Joseph.
In just a week’s time, we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus, and we’ll give thanks for his arrival as both the son of Mary and son of God.
It would have been understandable for Joseph to be absent from the nativity scenes that mark this season of the year.
Who among us would have accepted Mary’s story about this miraculous pregnancy?
The scripture says that Joseph was prepared to dismiss her quietly, which was already a show of great mercy according to the common practice of his day.
He could have brought her to trial and seen her stoned for infidelity—a cruel twist considering it was faith that put her in this position in the first place.
But Joseph who, I can only imagine, loved Mary so deeply instead decided to just move on with his life.
Then came the dream.
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.”
The scriptural resonances of this moment in the Gospel of Matthew are intentional.
We are meant to remember Jacob’s dream of the ladder connecting heaven and earth, Jacob’s son Joseph’s dreams that foretold feast and famine and made him a fixture of Pharoah’s court, and all the other angelic appearances throughout the story of salvation.
As a son of David, Joseph would have been aware of the prophet Isaiah’s words spoken unto his ancestor Ahaz, and the way in which the Davidic line was put in jeopardy by Ahaz’s fearful instead of faithful actions.
The promise of Emmanuel, God with us, stirred in Joseph’s heart and soul, and as a humble representative of the house of David, he chose to respond in faith instead of fear.
The significance of his choice cannot be understated.
If he had left Mary alone to fend for herself, there is a good chance the strain would have imperiled the pregnancy.
And even if the child had been born—how would mother and child survive without the ability to work and provide for basic needs?
What Joseph chose to do in those moments following his dream was to claim this child of the promise as his own.
No matter who the biological father was, no matter what friends and relatives and the crowds might say about him and Mary if they knew the truth.
Joseph adopted Jesus as his own and the whole world changed as a result of his faithful choice.
Now all the presepi and Christmas cards have a Joseph in them, and most importantly, the son of God born to Mary would also be known as a son of David.
Adoption is a powerful metaphor for us Christians.
We are a people who can look back to the way God has ALWAYS been choosing to be in relation with humanity throughout the up-and-down, hot-and cold history of Israel.
We are a people who know ourselves to be grafted into the Body of Christ through grace, not through the worthiness of human heritage and bloodlines.
St. Paul, our patron saint and the author of the groundbreaking letter to the Romans, was one of the earliest proponents of adopting Gentiles as fellow children of the promise—just as he himself, as a zealous and faithful Jew, had been adopted as a child of God through Christ.
Paul claims later in the letter to the Romans,
“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him[1].”
Joseph did not fall back into fear—justifiable fears according to the prevailing worldly wisdom—but rather accepted any suffering that might come as a result of his choice to adopt Jesus as his own.
And there was no shortage of suffering.
King Herod would try to kill his adopted son and Joseph and Mary had to become refugees to preserve his life.
Not to mention the cross and its bitter agony.
But the life that arose from his faithful choice—that life has no end.
It stretches from the hazy recesses of that dream, through 2000 years of salvation history, and intersects with our own lives today.
Every day we are confronted with the same dilemma that faced Joseph—fall back into fears or make a faithful choice to adopt the holy path of adoption.
To see the world through a lens of threats and punishments, or to imagine and act as if we are all children of God regardless of our roots, worthy of care and consideration.
All of you who have made giving estimates for the year ahead and have participated in this Live & Give campaign made a faithful choice to trust that God’s provision is enough…a choice to trust that God’s word is sufficient…and a choice to trust that adopting this part of the family of God here at St. Paul’s and the JNRC will allow Christ’s influence and reign to expand.
As we bless these intentions and continue to live together as the community of faith made possible in Christ, and as we draw nearer to the celebration of his birth, I encourage you to keep looking for ways to make faithful instead of fearful choices.
To adopt the gospel and its way of being as your own, and to allow its life to shape you in ways you may not be able to imagine.
To extend the borders of your chosen family like Joseph did to include the vulnerable, the strange, and the unexpected.
To make room in your soul for the Christ who adopts us all to grow and be born once more.