Wednesday, December 5

Sorry to have to cancel this week's gathering due to strep throat. Here is this week's message. We'll pick back up with Mary next week!

Matthew 1:18-25

This is the year that Joseph gets his due. We know all about Mary, but Joseph seems to fade into the background of Advent. Which is kind of odd, since his story is actually more intriguing. I mean, I think we all know what we’d do if a pregnant teenager came to us for help. There would be hugs and prayers and compassion and help offered. But what if a male friend came to you and told you that the woman he was engaged to was pregnant and the child wasn’t his, but he was going to marry her and raise the child anyway. Anybody got a good response to this one?

Why do I feel as if this story were coming to pass in this day and age, it would be turned into a reality television show?

I can just hear the promo now. “We’ve assembled 10 eligible bachelors and told them that each are going to get to marry a beautiful younger woman. What they don’t know is that the woman is 8-and-a-half months pregnant and the baby belongs to someone else. They’ll be asked to marry her anyway, trek 80 miles through the desert and then deliver the baby with no mid-wife, physician or epidural drip in a livestock barn. The man who is able to secure a donkey for the trip, deliver the baby without passing out or calling for backup, and commit to raising the child as his own will win a two-year trip to Egypt and a life of uncertainty.”

And if this actually did make it into production, would anyone who was watching it place their bets on a poor peasant teenager and a carpenter from a little town no one had every even heard of? They don’t exactly sound like a powerhouse of a couple.

They certainly don’t fit what we typically think of as power couples. Bill and Hillary, Arnold and Maria, Brad and Angelina. They weren’t educated. They weren’t rich. They weren’t prominent. But in reality, Mary and Joseph are the ultimate power couple—and not just because they brought Jesus into the world. I think there are three marks of this couple that make them powerful—not in the way we often think of power.

First of all, they were open to hearing God. Angels appeared to both Mary and to Joseph to announce what was about to come to pass. I don’t think that angels appear to folks who aren’t interested in listening to them. Perhaps Mary and Joseph were chosen because of their openness to the possibility.

I once had a conversation with a woman who shared with me a recent experience that couldn’t be properly explained but yielded delightful results. This person asked me if I believed the Holy Spirit could have been involved. I said I absolutely did. The member said, “Well, I hesitate to share this with anyone but you, because a lot of folks don’t really believe in that.” I said that I believed the Holy Spirit moves in all of our lives. Some of us are just more aware of its movement.

I believe both Mary and Joseph were open to the possibility of God in our midst and that their ears were open and ready to hear.

Mark One of a powerful person.

Secondly, there were willing to believe what they heard. In other words, they trusted God. Even though it didn’t make sense. Even though believing meant their lives would change forever.

Mark two of a powerful person.

Third, they were willing to do something. They were willing to cooperate with God’s action in human history—also known as obedience. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is when Mary says yes. There is something incredibly powerful about this young girl agreeing to carry the child of God despite the consequences that might befall her. But I realized this week that Joseph’s obedience God was equally important. His cooperation went against everything he knew. Jewish law said he should return Mary to her father where that same law said she could be stoned for shaming her husband and family. But Joseph, not having all of the evidence and knowledge of the future, not having all the detail spelled out, decided to do more than law and custom required. He elected to do more than was expected of him. He let justice and compassion guide his decision about his pregnant betrothed. He was pulled, not by the strength of custom, but by the
law of love and his obedience to God.

He continued to follow God and not custom even when the baby was born. He gave the baby, not a family name, as was and still is the custom in Jewish families. He named the baby Jesus. Acknowledging that the baby belonged to God and at the same time committing the raising the child as his own.

Mary and Joseph were willing to cooperate with God’s actions in human history.

Mark three of a powerful person.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to feel powerful right about now. There are so many times that I feel powerless. I feel powerless in the face of war in Iraq and mounting tensions in Iran, Pakistan and the Sudan. I feel powerless to even begin to meet the needs of so many people that I know of who are lonely and forgotten. I feel powerless to defend those who are being abused in their own homes. I even feel powerless to quell the unexpected melt-downs of my six-year-old!

But when I think about Mary and Joseph, I begin to believe that perhaps I am not so powerless after all. Perhaps we can all learn from them something about what it means to be powerful

Let us be open to hearing what God has to say. Open to the power of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst.

Let us believe not only in God but in what God is saying to us. Let us trust that God is leading us down the right path—even when the path looks bumpy and twisty and uncertain.

Let us cooperate with God’s actions in human history. Let us not only hear and believe, but take action. Even when it costs us. Even when it goes against custom. Even when it may sound ridiculous to those who do not hear and to those who do not believe.

The ability to hear God, the faith to believe God and the courage to cooperate with God.
Two thousand years ago, two poor, uneducated and seemingly insignifant people changed the course—some might even argue the fate—of the world.

I’m not really all that interested in the habits of highly effective people. Perhaps that’s because I’m rarely that effective. I’m a lot more intrigued by the habits of the ultimate power couple. Hear, believe and act. If we all had the courage and the faith and the power of Joseph and Mary, then the wars would cease, the hungry would be fed, homes would not be a place of fear.

We worship a powerful God and we all have the potential to be powerful people. Let us hear, believe and act. 2000 years ago, such actions brought a much-needed savior into this world. What might they accomplish today?