The Righteousness of Joseph (Matthew 5:17-20, 1:18-25)
The Righteousness of Joseph
December 15, 2024
Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 1:18-25
In Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story, the whole of Matthew chapter 1, we only get Joseph. We get Joseph’s family tree, Joseph’s dream, Joseph’s naming of his son. Matthew chapter two, we’ve jumped ahead a couple years to Herod’s murder plot and the story of the Magi. But for the birth of Jesus we just get chapter 1. And, as with all Gospel texts, we’re presented with the life of Jesus with a particular point of view: Matthew shows us what he wants to show us, we see what he wants us to see. And what he wants us to see, when it comes to the birth of Christ, is the way that Jesus fits into the tradition. His Christmas story is just 25 verses and 17 of those are this genealogy: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
“Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.”
And this isn’t just a genealogy, it’s a list of the heavy hitters. Boaz. Rahab. Ruth. Jesse. David. Solomon. All the way down the line to:
“Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
And Jacob the father of Joseph,
the husband of Mary, of whom
was born Jesus, who is called Christ.”
Okay, so technically this is the genealogy of Joseph. In the strictest sense of the word “genealogy.” It’s presented in this neat list: “the father of, the father of,” every once and a while shout out to mom, but the lineage is an unbroken chain of fathers and sons. “Fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.” Well. Sort of. “The father of, the father of, the husband of---Mary.” Mary, who is the one that shares a bloodline with Christ. For a culture singularly fixated on provable paternity, it almost feels like Matthew is winding us up for this little hiccup. The Messiah will come from the line of David. And he has. In a manner of speaking.
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place this way: Mary and Joseph were engaged to be married when Mary got pregnant. Joseph knew that they hadn’t had sex and, being a righteous man and unwilling to disgrace her in public, planned to quietly break off the engagement. Matthew tells us that Mary is “with child from the Holy Spirit,” but even the nicest, coolest guy in the whole world probably isn’t buying that. Culturally, Joseph would have had every right to publicly humiliate her, hurt her, kill her. Any of that would have been mostly in-bounds for his religion and his society; it would have been justifiable. Afterall, his fiancé is pregnant with someone else’s baby.
So, Joseph isn’t just righteous. He doesn’t just know his Torah and his Prophets, he isn’t just in good standing at the Temple. He puts his faith into practice with Mary. A pregnant girl in her teens who has, apparently, sinned and he’s going to do everything he can to protect her, while also distancing himself from a sinful woman. There isn’t an ancient Hebrew advice columnist who would have recommended more than that. Joseph, son of David, son of Abraham, is a credit to his faith and to his faith community.
But just when he had decided to do this; just when he laid himself down to sleep, resolved to wake up in the morning and go to Mary’s house to let her down easy, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Well, that’s a dirty trick. To play on sweet Joseph. Righteous Joseph. Joseph who really thought this through, made the godliest decision he could possibly discern. He had it right. And here’s an angel of the Lord, come to tell him he’s wrong. And, also, who said he was afraid? He’s not afraid; he’s not acting out of fear; he just doesn’t want his association with an unmarried pregnant woman to mar his reputation or decrease his standing in the community potentially leading to loss of wages, power, or privilege. He’s not afraid.
He’ll do it. He’ll marry her.
And I wonder how long it took him to wrap his head around this choice. He does what the angel says to do, but how long before his heart was in it? How long before his heart understood it? Joseph’s original answer was the correct answer. And he’s not just a legalistically correct student of the Torah, he’s spiritually alive. He’s not just following the letter of the law, he’s trying to love God by loving Mary. And his plan to dismiss her is the product of the resources of faith to which he has access: an ancient law, a living body of interpretation (the prophets), and the decisions being made for and about him by the religious and political powers of his day. This is what makes him righteous, in the world of the scriptures. He is doing the absolute, mathematical best he can with what he’s been given. Yet, the minute the body of Jesus comes on the scene, the scaffolding of his faith fails.
Matthew wants us to see the way that Jesus fits into the tradition. Not the idea of Jesus, not the flat words on the page, not the poetic images of the ancient prophets, the body of the actual Christ. The physical, blood and bone of Jesus before it’s even an independent body, the fetus Christ, still inseparable from the person of Mary, is breaking the conclusions reached by those faithfully carrying forward the religious tradition.
Jesus is being grafted into the line of David via adoption, he’s being born into a situation that sits outside Righteous Joseph’s understanding of his faith – it may be “to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” but this is a suspect fulfillment. If I know the law and the words of the prophets and the correct way to act within my faith community, I would probably reject your so-called fulfillment of prophecy. It doesn’t add up.
It turns out, of course, that this is what Jesus’s blood-and-bone body does to everyone, everywhere he goes, for the rest of his life. Here is the Messiah that has been foretold and the major complaint of the most righteous religious leaders of his time is that this cannot be the Messiah, he’s wrong for the part. From the moment of conception he doesn’t fit. Not even into the faith of his father.
This morning we heard the part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount where he addresses this problem head-on: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” I had some questions about those words. Not to abolish but to fulfill. Not exactly opposites, “abolish” and “fulfill.” The word used for “abolish” here is also the word used when talking about destruction of the temple, taking apart, tearing down. The word “fulfill” here is the same word quoted in Matthew 1:22, the same word that points us to fulfilling the words of the prophets. Fulfilling scripture. Animating the story that started way back at the beginning of the book. I didn’t come to tear apart your faith, I came to make it manifest.
Which is very confusing, but— It's the bread. Right?
Jesus is always talking, telling weird little stories, disgruntling his own followers, and no one ever has any idea what he’s talking about. So, finally, he grabs the bread. First, insisting on the mathematical impossibility of feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. Then, later, the scientific impossibility of feeding all believers for the rest of time with his own body. But there he goes, he starts breaking that bread up and it looks like your portion is getting smaller and smaller, you are going to get less and less as more people show up, and yet somehow there are just twelve, massive baskets of food leftover after everyone has eaten their fill. It’s the year two-thousand-and-twenty-four and that’s bread on that communion table. That’s not magic, that’s a promise fulfilled.
He says he didn’t come to negate even one letter of the law, he came to finally, fully embody godly interpretation of the law. The opposite of abolish, here, the opposite of “tear down” would be “to build up.” But that’s not what he says. He didn’t come to protect the law, fortify the law, he came to live rooted in the law and grow up and out to a fullness that no one could imagine. And his resurrection means that that surprising, surpassing fulfillment is what animates Christians still.
But it also challenges us, we who have found righteousness within the church. Who love the Bible. Who tie our faith to the practices and traditions of our faith community. Who want to see our beliefs valued at the highest levels of government. Who say God is alive, but resist the idea that the Spirit might be growing ever more robust interpretations of the law in the hearts of other Christians. When someone’s faith surprises us, we’re often quick to say: “You’ve come to destroy the church. You want to tear it down.”
It's the bread.
It’s going to look a whole lot like getting torn apart sometimes. It’s only a broken genealogy that puts Jesus in the line of David. Broken Jewish custom that sees Joseph and Mary taking a trip to Bethlehem as a couple. Broken taboos that allow Jesus to touch and cleanse a man with leprosy. Broken physics that let Jesus walk on water. Broken justice that frees Barabbas and crucifies Christ. And that big, thick curtain, protecting the inner sanctum of God’s dwelling place from the people of God, is torn right down the middle.
The presence of the body of Christ, even in the short months between conception and birth, is always characterized by the breaking of things to make people whole. What happens to Mary and her unborn child if Joseph isn’t willing to break with an old idea? When the religious culture, the religious institution is preventing people from being whole, Jesus is breaking the structure to reform it. And Matthew wants to make sure we know that he is doing it while walking perfectly and indisputably within the tradition.
Last Sunday, sitting over there on the side and appreciating the feel of the room in this horseshoe configuration I had a sort of -- I think we would call it a flight of fancy. That it’s almost like God reached two massive hands down and broke the room. And, that seemed to me, a hopeful thought. In an age where it can sometimes feel like Jesus has left the building, so to speak. That our laws, teachings, interpretations – but also – calendars, spaces, programs, and even pews remain good and fruitful material for the new work that God is doing in the world. And, if we can take the angel of the Lord seriously, and not be afraid, that the hand of God might also reach in and break open whatever has become static and rigid within me. No matter how righteous.
It is the third Sunday of Advent. Jesus isn’t even here yet. But the Body of Christ is drawing near. Close enough to throw even the righteous into Holy crisis. I want to be a person who’s willing to sacrifice what I think makes me good, in the eyes of other believers, for a chance to participate in the new work of the Spirit; the new ways Jesus wants to fulfill the law. And – I’m afraid. I should be afraid. Joseph ended up in Egypt in hiding while one of the most powerful rulers of the time hunted his family. It’s not a no-stakes proposal. But that’s the risk of getting close to the body of Christ. Just getting close to it. Whether that’s coming to the table or encountering him among the sick, the hungry, the refugees, the prisoners. Just brush up against him and your life might suddenly not be your own.
At least, that’s the hope.
May we be accepting of what will be broken and attentive to who will be made whole.
Amen.