The Gospel of Matthew tells a story about Joseph, husband of Mary the mother of Jesus. Joseph and Mary are engaged, meaning they are actually legally married and bound to one another by a marriage contract (the “kettubah”) signed by Joseph and Mary’s father. Joseph is slowly paying off a dowry to Mary’s father, and when the dowry is fully paid and Mary is finally of age, Joseph and Mary will finally consummate their relationship, the families will publicly celebrate the occasion, and the happy couple will begin to live together ever after. But as often happens in life, things fall apart, and Joseph faces a big decision.
(Warning: if you read the previous entry, "Towards Sunday, Dec 18" you may notice that this sermon is not the one that I planned to follow that entry. That sermon was actually written ... but then this one got written when I woke up Sunday morning.)
There
is a difference between the ideal and the holy, and even sometimes between
what’s good and what’s of God.
Have
you ever heard yourself saying things like
·
“in
an ideal world, such and such would not be …” or
·
“in
a perfect world, such and such would happen…”
What
we mean, of course, that what is, what we have to deal with, what others are,
what we are, what the world is, is not really what we’d like, not what we think
should be, just a compromise, and something we put up with and settle for with
some unhappiness.
And
life and reality being what they are, that unhappiness becomes a habit, a
practice, a way of life that gets expressed in phrases and judgements like
·
“if
only he or she were … different in some way (you fill in the blank)”
·
“if
only the world weren’t so … (what do you usually end that sentence stem with?)”
·
“if
only I weren’t so …(what?)” or
·
“I’m
just too … something, to be good or good enough or worthwhile (and I’m sure we
all have many ways of filling that one in)”
These
judgements form a deep sadness or unhappiness within us – a criticalness about
ourselves and others and a lack of love for what is, that settles like a shadow
on our heart and around our view of life, that keeps us from really embracing,
accepting and loving what is.
Because
we think that a fundamental difference and distance we have to deal with in
life is between the ideal and the real, between what should be and what
actually is.
But
we’re wrong – like Joseph was wrong before he learned and was made to see that
the real difference in life is between the ideal and the holy, between what we
think should be and what is really of God.
Joseph
was a good man. That much is made clear
in the story. In a way he represents
all that was good about his people, and
all that was worthy of admiration and respect in his tradition.
The
story says Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph, but they were not yet
living together. This means they were,
in one very big and real sense, already married and already legally bound to
one another for the rest of their lives.
They were in the first of three stages – the c0ntract stage, of full
and legal marriage.
There
was this thing called a kettubah. It was
a marriage contract. It was negotiated
between, and signed by Mary’s father and Joseph. It set out the terms of the marriage – things
like the kind and amount of dowry Joseph would pay to Mary’s father before he
could take her from his house and have her live in his, like the list of what
Mary would bring with her from her father’s house to add to Joseph’s household
and estate, and like what penalty either party would pay the other if they
broke the contract.
And
the contract was registered with the elders of the town. It was legal and binding. It was the first stage of the covenant of
marriage.
The
second stage, still to come, would be the consummation – the actual beginning
of sexual marital relations. This would
come in due course. There are records of
it being as long as seven years from contract to consummation, because
consummation was not allowed until the groom had finished paying the bride’s
father the whole of the agreed-upon dowry – and this could take some time
depending on the groom’s situation in life.
And consummation was also not allowed until the bride was of age, and
the lengthy of time this was depended of course on her age at the time the
contract was signed; it could be a while, too.
But
when the time came for the consummation – what Joseph and Mary were still
waiting for, the groom with his family and friends would come in procession to
the bride’s father’s house. They would
be happily received. The bride and groom
would retire to a bridal chamber to consummate their relationship, while
everyone waited happily outside. Then
after the deed, the bed sheets would be examined, the blood would be reported
as proof of the bride’s virginity (one of the terms of the contract).
And
then would come the third stage – the journey of everyone to the groom’s house,
for a wild and public celebration of the marriage, and the
beginning of life together ever after for the happy bride and groom.
So,
when Joseph finds out Mary is pregnant before they have got to stage two, while
they are still in the contract stage, waiting and paying and living towards
consummation and celebration, this is suddenly less than ideal. It is not as it should be. It as – as far as Joseph can see, an unholy
mess – a shadowed and imperfect situation, a problem in need of a solution –
just like so much else in life that we have to put up with, that’s messy and
imperfect, not as good as we would like, not ideal.
Joseph,
to his credit, tries to do the right thing – a good thing, the best thing he
can imagine. He knows that if he and
Mary’s father and Mary go ahead in the marriage, and live out the contract to
its end, when he and Mary come together and consummate their relationship in
the bridal bed and the bed-sheet is then examined for the proof of blood, there
may not be the sign that people would be expecting to see. For Mary, it seems to him, is no longer a
virgin, but is pregnant.
And
she will be disgraced. She may be run
out of town. She might even be stoned.
So to
make the best of a bad situation, because he’s a good man, Joseph decides to be
the one to break the contract, to walk out, to divorce Mary quietly, and stop
the relationship and the marriage where it is.
He
won’t get his dowry back; that’s gone.
He’ll forfeit whatever Mary was going to bring into his household and
his estate with her. He’ll also have
everyone in town thinking he was the unfaithful one, the unreliable and
irresponsible one.
And
he’s willing to do this because he is good and kind, and because he thinks that
the basic difference we have to deal with in life is between what’s ideal and
what’s good, between what we think should be and what we have to put up with.
But
then the dream comes. The angel speaks
to him. And his mind and heart and whole
life are opened to a different way of seeing things, of being with things, of
loving and embracing what is. Because
the message from heaven to earth is what is, is of God; that which seems to you
messy and imperfect, is exactly what God wants to be and is working with; and
that which seems less than ideal, less than what you think it should be, is
what God is using, and causing to be, and happy to be filling with good
purpose, and delighted with.
Because
through it – through that very thing, which is a common thing of earth, through
what is less than ideal, God is bringing to be what most needs to be, what is
and what will be good, holy, and truly life-giving, even life-saving in ways we
cannot begin to imagine.
And
the question is: is this still true?
This
is the message and point of the story – that what’s real is holy, that the way
the world is is where God’s kingdom is and will always be unfolding, that the
way we and others are – as imperfect as that is, is exactly what God loves,
embraces, and is always in the process of turning to some good and perfect end.
I
wonder … is that a dream you need to have in your life at least some time? Is that an angel’s good news you need to hear
at least some time?
I know
it’s one I need more often than I ever know.
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