Man in the Shadows

Matthew 13:53-58

December 3, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

First of all this morning, let me say how glad I am to be back in the pulpit today. It’s been a long road, and if you’ve read any of the blogs I wrote while I was recovering, you know that this time was so much different than the last time I had this heart surgery. It was not at all what I expected! I hope you also know how much I have appreciated the cards, notes, prayers and the food—oh my goodness, the food—that you have sent our way. It was certainly your love and prayers that sustained me in the hospital and in the days after, especially on those days when I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on. So “thank you” seems inadequate, but those are the only words I have to express how me and my family feels. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It’s entirely appropriate, though, that I am standing here this morning with a renewed heart, starting, in many ways, a new season in my life and in my ministry. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and for the church, this is New Year’s Day—a new beginning, the real beginning of the year. Now, you won’t find that information on your calendar app on your phone, and it’s not that we ignore the calendar that the rest of the world operates on. It’s just that, as followers of Jesus, we follow a different timeline, one that begins by focusing on the birth of Jesus. In the church, for at least sixteen centuries, we have called this season “Advent.” Now, maybe you are someone who has grown up in the church or maybe you’re someone for whom this church stuff is fairly new, and it’s just as likely both of you have little to no idea what Advent is all about. “Advent” is a word that means “coming” or “arrival,” and in the church, it’s the time we set aside to prepare for the arrival of the Jesus, the baby of Bethlehem. Four weeks before Christmas—the celebration of Jesus’ birth—we are invited to slow down, to restart the story, and to prepare our hearts for his arrival. “Advent” also invites us to prepare our hearts for Jesus’ next appearance on earth, his return, his second coming. At this time of a “new Christian year,” we’re thankful for all the ways Jesus arrives, all the ways he comes into our hearts and our lives. We set aside this time so that we can make room for him when he shows up (cf. Walt, Reset, pgs. ix-x).

This year, for Advent, we’re going to do something a little different, at least something different than I have ever done. I have preached endless sermons on Mary, on the shepherds and wise men, even on the angels, but I have never dedicated a whole series of sermons to looking at the gentle step-father of Jesus, a carpenter from Bethlehem named Joseph. This year, we want to walk slowly through the usual Christmas story but from Joseph’s point of view, because I believe he has much to teach us about being faithful and about making room in our hearts and lives for the Christ child. What happened to Joseph was anything but what he expected and much, much more than he dreamed could ever be possible.

So, let’s begin this morning by asking the question: who was Joseph? What do we know about this man who says very little in the Biblical accounts? Honestly, there are very few details about Joseph in either Matthew or Luke, and Mark and John do not mention him at all. In the Biblical accounts, there are no words directly spoken by Joseph; the shepherds with no names actually say more than he does! So some of what we learn about Joseph we have to pick up from church tradition, from history, and sometimes from things implied in the Biblical text. One of the questions that’s often asked is how old Joseph was when he became Jesus’ step-father, and there are many varying opinions on this. We know, from the words used to describe her in the Bible, that Mary was very young, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, when she became the mother of the Messiah, and Matthew tells us that she and Joseph didn’t consummate their marriage until after Jesus was born (cf. Matthew 1:25). In the history of the church, to sort of protect Mary’s image, there arose this idea called the “perpetual virginity of Mary.” This is the idea that Mary and Joseph did not have a normal married life and, furthermore, Mary did not have any more children other than Jesus. It was a widely accepted belief by the fourth century and continued on through the Protestant Reformation; even John Wesley (the founder of Methodism) seems to have held this view (https://johnwesley.wordpress.com/john-wesleys-letter-to-a-roman-catholic/). The problem is that, even in today’s text, there are other children mentioned. Four brothers are named: James, Joseph, Simon and Judas, and sisters, while not named, are also mentioned (13:55-56). By most counts, there are at least six children besides Jesus that Mary and Joseph raise (cf. Augsburger, Communicator’s Commentary: Matthew, pg. 182). So the question arose: if Mary and Joseph didn’t have any other children, where did these siblings come from? It was suggested, and for a while generally accepted, that Joseph was an older widower, and that these so-called siblings were actually children from his earlier marriage. Some apocryphal Gospels, those that aren’t recognized as Scripture by the church, suggested this as well. And there’s nothing necessarily in the New Testament to exclude such a view, but there’s also nothing in the New Testament to affirm it. Most Protestants today, however, generally believe Joseph and Mary had a normal married life after the birth of Jesus, and that Joseph was probably between thirteen and eighteen when Jesus was born (cf. Hamilton, Faithful, pg. 19). He was most likely a young man, just starting out in life.

Now, the Gospel passage we read this morning obviously takes place a bit later in Jesus’ life; we’ll get back to the Christmas story next week. This story in Matthew 13 takes place after Jesus has been out doing ministry for a while, and he has returned home to Nazareth for a visit. He should have known better. I’ve only done it a couple of times, but it’s hard to go back home to preach. They know you too well! They knew you “when”—when you were the snot-nosed kid running through the church basement, when you sat in the front row and timed the pastor’s prayers with your super-cool new digital watch. (Not that I ever did that, of course, but I’ve heard about kids who do.) It’s always difficult to go home again because they know you—and that’s just what Jesus discovers. After all, he had left Nazareth and moved to Capernaum so that he wouldn’t have to explain himself, and yet here he is, teaching in the synagogue, probably preaching things similar to what he’s been preaching all over Galilee. And yet here, in his hometown, what kind of reaction does he get? “Who do you think you are, boy? We know your family—your mama and all your siblings are right here with us, still living here. We know who you are: the carpenter’s son!” (13:55-56). Jesus is described as the son of a tekton, and elsewhere he is called a tekton himself. That word is usually translated as “carpenter,” and when we think of a “carpenter,” we usually think of someone who works with wood. They build things mostly with wood; that image is carried over in the video that began this sermon. But those who were with me in Israel this summer will tell you that in that land, there are very few trees and very little useable wood. There certainly aren’t the kinds of trees we have around here, towering, majestic trees. In Israel, things simply aren’t built with wood; they use what they have in abundance, and that is stone. So the word tekton actually means something closer to “artisan” or even “stonemason.” A tekton in that day and place would be someone who worked with stone or metal, and maybe wood on occasion. So Joseph was a builder who probably did most of his work with stone.

Even though he was from Bethlehem, many scholars today believe Joseph settled in Nazareth not just because it was Mary’s hometown, but also because there was ample work in the area. Just three and a half miles across the valley from Nazareth was the growing city of Sepphoris. Sepphoris had been destroyed by the Romans when it rebelled against the Empire, but about the time Jesus was born, King Herod Antipas has begun to rebuild it. In Jesus’ time, Nazareth was a small village of about twelve to fifteen extended families, maybe containing 150-200 people, but Sepphoris was becoming the largest city in Galilee—a bustling, wealthy, cosmopolitan Roman-style city with a 4,000-seat amphitheater, a synagogue and large homes with beautiful mosaics on the floors. They also had an intricate system of getting water into this hilltop city (Luker, An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land, pgs. 31-32; Cultural Background Study Bible, note on Mark 6; Evans & Porter, Dictionary of New Testament Background, pg. 396). Nazareth was not large enough to sustain consistent work for a tekton, but Sepphoris was always building something. It’s entirely possible Joseph helped build much of this city during Jesus’ growing-up years, and it’s very possible that Jesus might have worked here too, alongside his earthly father, before he left Nazareth to begin to preach. As custom dictated, Joseph would have taught Jesus his trade, which is why Jesus is known as a tekton just as Joseph was. So you can almost hear the contempt in people’s voices now, in the synagogue at Nazareth, can’t you? “He’s just a tekton. He’s just a day laborer. What does he know? Like father, like son.”

And yet, in their attempt to downplay what Jesus is teaching and preaching, in their attempt to disregard him, the people of Nazareth have actually spoken a very deep truth about Jesus and about all of us. Undoubtedly, Joseph had a profound and strong influence on Jesus. Dads, step-dads and father figures influence us and impact us in significant ways. While I was working on this message, I asked some you to respond on our church Facebook page about how your father or father-figure influenced you or what lessons they taught you, and there were a lot of interesting responses. You can go to our page and read them all for yourself if you’d like, but here are a few of the things you said:

• “You can keep your mouth shut and let everyone think you’re an idiot…or you can open it and remove all doubt.”
• My father taught me what a Godly man looks like and lives like every single day.
• There is always enough time and money to help someone in need.
• Be you, don't try to be like anyone else. And, along those same lines, another person said their father often said, “Remember who you are!”
• Never, ever, ever give up
• My father taught me sacrificial love.

Those (and all the others given in response to my question) are all good, life-changing lessons. It got me to thinking about all the things my Dad taught me—things like how to plant and tend a garden, how to take care of my car, and how duck tape will fix anything. But one of the strongest images I have from my childhood is of my dad, after supper every night, sitting down in his chair and picking up his Bible. That’s when he would read and pray, and there were many nights he would fall asleep with the Bible still in his lap. I learned from him there is no place better or more secure to fall asleep that in the arms of Jesus. My dad taught me what a man of faith looks like in the real world. Does your dad or father-figure know the ways you’ve been influenced, touched or changed by his example? This might be a good week to let them know in some way, or if they’re no longer with us, to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for that influence.

There was one other lesson shared on our Facebook page that really struck me as I thought about Joseph. One person said they learned that “a man can choose to be a father.” Joseph, as we will look at in the weeks to come, had to make that decision. To use John’s language from his Gospel, Jesus did not come into this world because of a human decision or a husband’s will (cf. John 1:13). Jesus’ birth was a miraculous one in which Joseph played no part—except to make the choice to be the foster-father of the Son of God. Now, people argue over when they think Jesus was fully aware of his identity, and we’re not going to settle that issue today. But here’s what I know: Jesus grew into manhood, as Luke says, “filled with wisdom.” He had a wonderfully simple and strong vision of what the word “father” meant, and that had to be, at least in part, because of Joseph’s influence in his life. Don’t you think, that as Jesus taught about the love of a father, or about how his father was working hard (cf. John 5:17), he had in his mind’s eye a memory of working alongside Joseph? “And before Jesus shrieked “Abba” with a man’s tormented voice in the Garden of Gethsemane, he must have tenderly called that same name to…Joseph” (Card, “Christmas in Belfast” video). Michael Card puts it this way: “The full impact Joseph had on the life of Jesus would be difficult to underestimate. His common sense, his earthy wisdom, perhaps even his ability to tell a good story might have been passed on to his bright and loving stepson” (The Promise, pg. 21).

Our fathers, step-fathers and father-figures have a powerful influence on us, whether we realize it or not. Dr. David Popenoe, Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University writes this: “Fathers are far more than just ‘second adults’ in the home…They provide protection and economic support and male role models. They have a parenting style that is significantly different from that of a mother and that difference is important in healthy child development.” Dads love their children, as one author put it, “more dangerously.” They play “rougher” and are more likely to encourage risk-taking. They provide kids with a broader diversity of social experiences. They introduce children to a wider variety of ways of dealing with life. Fathers tend to stress rules, justice, fairness, and duty in discipline, and by doing so, they teach children the objectivity and consequences of right and wrong (cf. https://goo.gl/T8zhih). This is who Joseph would have been for Jesus in his early years.

Now, I’m aware that some of us might think all of these things describe a “perfect world” that no longer exists. We live in a world where fathers are sometimes absent, or gone altogether, or even if they are still in the family, they’re working too much. When fathers are absent, it’s important to have father-figures who can be present. Sometimes Grandfathers can do that, and other times father-figures come in the form of coaches, mentors or neighbors. Even when fathers are present, those folks are still important, vitally important. After all, Joseph was a step-father or a foster father, and he modeled so many things for Jesus. Among those things was his desire to obey God. As we will look at next week, when he receives the word that Mary is pregnant, the one, overarching desire of his heart is to do what God, his heavenly father, wants him to do. There’s no doubt in my mind that same attitude, that same desire, carried over into his parenting of Jesus. He modeled what Jesus came to teach.

But let me also say a word to those who struggle because your father was absent, or uninvolved, or even abusive. I have no doubt there are some of you who struggle with Biblical language referring to God as “father” because your earthly father was not who he should have been. First of all, let me say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the hurt, the wounds (both emotional and physical), the loss you feel. For some, it’s helpful to turn to other images of God to find healing, and while there are a lot of different images in Scriptures you can turn to, I want to urge you not to entirely abandon God as your father. You see, we earthly fathers are supposed to be judged or measured against the standard of God as father, not the other way around. God is the perfect father, the one who is always there, who is our refuge and strength, who will defend us from every enemy. Whether your earthly father was there or not, God wants to be your eternal father, the one who mends your brokenness and heals your wounds, if you will let him. Joseph was a model of what that looks like for his step-son Jesus.

I very clearly remember when I became a father for the first time. Christopher had been born two days before, and it was late when we got home that first night. We took him to his crib and laid him in his bed for the first time, and I remember wondering what in the world I had gotten into. This was not a kid we were babysitting who would go home at the end of the night; this was our child. He would be staying around for the next eighteen years or so. There was no turning back now, and there was no manual that came with this child, no instructions for how to be a father. Oh, sure, there are lots of books that have a lot of ideas, but every child is different, and regardless of how many books you read, there’s still that feeling, that overwhelming feeling, that now you have to do what you read about. Now you have to be a father. And so as we begin to look at Joseph’s story, I go in my heart and mind to Bethlehem, to that night when Mary’s baby was born, and to the moments when Joseph, the man in the shadows of the Christmas story, begins to wonder what he has gotten into. How can he possibly be a foster-father to the Son of God?

SONG: Joseph’s Song (How Can It Be?)

Joseph’s step-child grew is wisdom and strength with the grace of God on him (Luke 2:40). He taught and healed and loved and then gave his life for the sake of all, to bring us back to God. Like Joseph, Jesus was faithful to his mission, to what God the father called him to do. And so we remember this morning, as we come to the table, not only the one whose body and blood are represented by the bread and cup, but the one who initially showed Jesus what love looked like. Let’s come to the table this morning with gratitude for Joseph and with the hope found in Jesus. Will you join me in prayer as we prepare our hearts for holy communion?