by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given December 10, 2006

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!

We come this day

To rest for a moment together—

In this community called church--

Acknowledging that we are greatly blessed,

And knowing that we are called to bless the world.

Come now, and let us worship together!

Each year we have a Christmas pageant—ever since 1924 we have had more or less the same cast of characters, and they will be here again, along with a few extra dogs and donkeys, this very evening.  This is a pageant that will be replayed countless times in churches around the country in the next couple of weeks. 

A few years back, in one of those churches, a worried mother phoned the church office on the afternoon before the Christmas pageant.  She was distraught, for her son, who was to play the role of Joseph, had come down with the flu and was confined to bed.  The director of the pageant replied, “Don’t worry.  It’s too late to find another Joseph—so we’ll just have to write him out of the script.”  And so they did.  And very few of those who saw the play that evening realized that someone in the cast was missing.  Joseph is the forgotten character in the Christmas drama.

Mary is certainly a central figure to the story, and she has continued to be revered as the Holy Virgin throughout Christian history.  The Madonna is found in every country, and her likeness turns up in every skin color.  Everyone knows about the three wise men—they’ll be featured tonight in our pageant, with their royal robes, their crowns, their regal posture and low bowing before the holy infant.  The humble shepherds have their part, for the angels appear to them, singing, “Alleluia!  Alleluia!”  The angels—we couldn’t do without their shining presence.  Everyone gets more attention in the story than does Joseph.  And so this morning I’d like to give him his due—to tell his story, in his own words.

                                                . . . . .

“I am Joseph, of Nazareth, a carpenter by trade, like my father before me.  I am a simple man—a journeyman working with stone and with wood.  Not an artist, by any means, just a carpenter.  I hew trees into boards or support beams, and I chip stone into large blocks for building.  I make yokes for oxen, or plows—and sometimes I help build wagons for farmers.  I have never thought of myself as special in any way. 

“You know, I wanted to do the usual things—to have a trade, to be useful, I suppose.  To get married and have a family.  What more could a man want in this world?  But it seems that my God had other plans for me.

“It all started when I saw Mary for the first time.  She was from our town, so I had seen her many times, but I had never really seen her, if you know what I mean.  It was a dry and dusty day—I had finished my work, and I was heading home, bone-tired.  Mary was by the village well, drawing water for her family, and as I passed she spoke to me, so softly, so gently, that I almost passed by without noticing.  Then I looked up, and I saw her smiling and holding out a cup of water to me.  ‘Won’t you have some water, Joseph?’ she said.  I saw that the girl I had known had become a woman, and a most comely one.  I took the water and I drank, and I swear it was the sweetest water that had ever passed my lips.  I asked for more, and she took the cup and dipped it full again and handed it in silence back to me, still with that smile that somehow said to me comfort and care.  I thanked her and turned and left, but her image stayed with me for days after, haunting me as no other ever had. 

“I knew where she lived, so I went to call on her, and with her father’s permission, we talked.  We talked of nothing special.  Of the song of the bird.  Of the smell of fresh bread baking.  There was a quality of cleanness and clarity about Mary that shone through every word, every gesture.  When I looked into her eyes, they held steady and were clear and pure and there was no deceit, no pretense anywhere in them.  

“Now I don’t know what love is, couldn’t tell you if you asked me, but I wanted to be near Mary all the time.  When we were apart, I felt somehow strangely . . . unfinished or partial, and when we were together, I felt my soul rest within me.  It’s not that my work was less hard or my hunger less fierce—no, but when I was with her, I somehow lost my fear.  I became a man with form and direction.

“Mary was shy—she was only 14 when I began to call on her, and her father spoke to my father and blessed the union long before Mary was ready to be betrothed.  I had to bide my time, I had to be careful, for I knew she could be frightened away in those early days.  She grew to trust me, though, as the weeks and months passed, and I never once betrayed that trust.  We were engaged already—our fathers had seen to that.  But then when the two of us agreed that we wanted to marry, we became betrothed.  As was the custom, each of us continued living at home with our parents, and we planned to marry in one year’s time.  But before we could be married, something happened that was . . . well, very difficult, and hard to explain. 

“I found out what had happened when I looked up from my work one day, to see Mary and her father standing there in the shop.  I could tell that something was very, very wrong.  Mary’s father said, ‘Joseph, I must tell you that dishonor has come to your house and to mine—Mary, your betrothed, is with child.’  I felt as though a heavy stone was crushing my chest, my knees grew weak.  I looked at Mary.  I asked her, ‘Mary, tell me this is not so!’

“‘It is so,’ she said, looking directly at me, her lips quivering, tears filling her eyes.  She reached out to me, to touch my hand, and I pushed it away and turned from her.  ‘Leave me, please, leave me alone,’ I said, and they left, in awkward silence.

“Unbelief turned to anger, and then anger turned to a deep sickness of soul.  I could not eat, I could not sleep.  After three days, as custom demanded, I arranged a meeting with Mary’s father.  He came to see me, ashamed and trembling with fear.  He knew the law: Mary should be put to death by stoning.  But in spite of my pain, I knew I still loved Mary and that I could never hurt her.  I told Mary’s father that I would quietly begin divorce proceedings—the divorce was required, you see, because a betrothal is a promise bound by law in our country.

“That night I wept as I have never wept before—I knew Mary was lost to me forever.  And I wondered how I could ever trust or love again, so deep was my pain.  I finally fell into a fitful sleep, and into my sleep came an angel, an angel so real I could have reached out and touched him.  He was surrounded with light, and his countenance was—it was as if all the love in the world had been distilled into this single shining figure.  In his presence, I felt held by love, somehow.  I was not afraid.  The angel addressed me.  He said, ‘Joseph, son of David—Joseph, fear not to take Mary as your wife.  The child in her womb is blessed of the Spirit and has come to this earth to tell all people of God’s love.  She will bring forth this child, and his name will be Jesus, Emmanuel, which being interpreted is “God with us.”  This child is of God and so cannot belong to just one man, one family.  Go now, and be a husband to his mother, and a father to the infant, but do not come unto Mary as a husband until after the birth of the baby.’

“I woke, suddenly.  I was confused.  Could this be true?  Could this baby be a prophet sent by God?  Then somehow a divine ‘yes’ entered my whole being.  Somehow I knew what I must do.  Mary and I would marry, and I would claim the child as my own.  Would there be ridicule from the village, because of the hastily arranged wedding?  Maybe so.  People would believe that I, Joseph, who had been so respectful of my Mary, had broken holy law.  But I would be silent in the face of their doubts and accusations.  I would stand by Mary.  I would rest in the love brought to me by the angel, and I would rest in Mary’s love, which my heart could never really doubt, through all of this trouble.

“I asked to meet with Mary’s father and Mary once again.  They came, on the appointed hour, expecting to hear the details of the divorce proceedings.  Mary could not look upon me.  Her tears silently fell from her eyes, she wept as though there were a river of sorrow inside.  I wasted no time in revealing my thoughts.  I said, ‘Mary, I love you still, as I have always loved you.’

“I suppose Mary was expecting me then to say something like, ‘But you have betrayed my trust . . . ,’ for she looked up at me imploringly and tried to speak, perhaps to explain.  But I stopped her with a single gesture, and I said, ‘Mary, it doesn’t matter.  I don’t care.  I don’t understand any of this, to tell you the truth, but I know one thing.  I love you, and I want to marry you, and I want to be a father to your baby.’  Her father was dumbfounded, speechless.  Mary said, ‘The angel . . . .’ 

“‘Yes,’ I said.  ‘The angel.  An angel came to me in the night.  This child that is to come, his name is to be Jesus, and he is to bring a message of love and peace to our troubled world.’

“Then Mary quietly repeated her story.  ‘When the angel first came to me,’ she said, ‘I did not believe.  I was mending a garment when it happened—a flash of light, and there he was, this glorious being at my window.  He said I had been chosen by God—that I, Mary, a peasant girl, had found favor with God, and that I would have a son, a holy child, and his name would be Jesus.  He would bring God’s love to this earth.  I was frightened and questioned the angel, saying, “How can this be, for I have not known a man?”  The angel said the baby would be from God, a gift to all people.  I was still afraid, and very doubtful.  But I felt the power of the Most High around me, and I said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, may it be according to your word.’”

“So that was how the marriage got started.  We have our infant son now, and yes, we named him Jesus.  We’re just back from Bethlehem, where he was born.  That’s a whole other story!  Hard to believe.  You see, Caesar Augustus sent out this decree that everybody had to go to their hometown, in order to get the tax rolls straight—the Romans want to be sure that we Jews pay our taxes, you know.  Mary was about to deliver at the time, but did that make a difference?—no, we had to go anyway.

“So I had to put my very pregnant wife on a donkey and travel the wintry road to Bethlehem.  We got into town late at night, and Mary was already having labor pains—I knew it would not be long before the baby would come.  I went to the inn—the only one in town—and I banged on the door, again and again.  The innkeeper came out finally, irritated at having been awakened—and I told him of our plight.  He said there was just no room, that everyone was here for the tax census, and all the rooms were filled.  I begged him, I said, ‘We must have shelter—please!’  And so he said, ‘You can go out to the barn—it’s clean, and the animals will help to keep you warm.’  And with that, he yawned and shut the door. 

“It was the best I could do for Mary and the child.  She never complained, not once, but her labor was getting harder, and she moaned and cried out from time to time.  She was trying to be brave, but here we were far from home, away from family, and she lay in pain on a pile of straw I gathered for her.  I was by her side, wanting to do something, and not knowing what to do.  I gave her water and stroked her forehead and told her that everything was going to be all right.  I was praying that it would be.

“And then at last the baby came!  If you’ve ever seen a baby being born, you know what a miracle that is—seeing this new little human being come into the world.  I was able to cut the cord and clean him up.  He was crying loudly, for a long time—I guess that’s just the right way for a prophet to come into the world.  I wrapped our Baby Jesus in a worn but clean piece of my own clothing and laid him in the manger, in a warm bed of straw.  I couldn’t stop looking at him.  I know every father feels this way, but this was about the most beautiful baby in the whole world.  And Mary was doing fine.  I was grateful for that. 

“Well, about that time, we heard a sound—singing, if you will.  I went to the stable door and looked up into the sky—I swear, this was not just my imagination—but there was a great light and in that light were dozens, no hundreds, of angels singing—they sang, ‘Glory to God in the Highest, Peace on Earth, Good will to all.’  And there was a star—the biggest, brightest one I have ever seen—hovering right over the stable!

“My mouth fell open as I listened to the singing—this music from another world.  I went back inside to tell Mary—there she was, with the baby—the cattle and the sheep were gathered round, as though they knew something extraordinary had happened. There was a kind of glow around our baby.  Maybe all new parents feel this way, I don’t know—but I thought to myself, this child is going to be someone quite special.

“Now that we’re safely back in Nazareth, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Daydreaming, you know.  In fact, the other carpenters have said to me more than once, when they’ve seen me staring into space, ‘Joseph, come on—there’s work to be done.’  Back to the everyday, the ordinary, sometimes I question—did I really see those angels on the night when Jesus was born?  Why would God choose me, a poor carpenter, to love Mary and to care for Jesus as my own?  Why not someone smarter or more capable?  Why not some wealthy man who could give Jesus everything that I cannot?   

“Well, who can know the mind of God.  I know that I want to do the right thing, and the right thing is loving Mary and raising Jesus.  Maybe he’ll want to be a carpenter, too.  Who knows?  I expect there’ll be more dreams and maybe more visitations, and the way will be made clear.  We’ll have to trust that it will.

“I keep thinking about what the angel said:  this child who is to come is from God, his name is interpreted, ‘God with us.’  He will grow to be a man who will teach us to love one another.  He will be called the Prince of Peace, the angel said, for he will teach us to live in peace.  Can you imagine that?  Perhaps there will be a time when there will be no more swords of oppression, when violence will not be the order of the day.  Perhaps there will be a time when peace and justice will reign over all the earth.  That is why, I think, this child has come.”   So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Loving Father God, let us give particular thanks this day for all those who care for children who are not their birth children—for stepfathers and stepmothers, for foster parents, for parents who have chosen children in adoption, for same-sex parents who may have two moms or two dads, for grandparents who take up parenting when their children cannot.  And let us give thanks this day for the life of each child who comes into this world, for each birth is holy.  We pray that each and every child will have food and clothing and parents who care, and that each one will have the opportunity to bless the world with their gifts.  Amen.

BENEDICTION

May you see in this Holy Season with the eyes of a child—may you see all the wonder and the magic that a child can see.  Go now in love, and pray always for peace.

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Copyright 2006, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.