Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Matthew 5:21-37

The old commercial used to say, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” Today I say, “Sometimes you have to take the Bible literally, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have to take the Bible metaphorically, sometimes you don’t. And sometimes, you have to take the Bible metaphorically and literally at the same time. Welcome to the Sermon on the Mount.”


For the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about this new community that Jesus is creating and forming. It is a new world vision that includes all of God’s people. So once again, let’s review the people who are gathered on the mountainside. They are the people who have come from all of Syria, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, and the land beyond the Jordan. These people are the diseased and infirm, those who have mental illness, the epileptics, and the paralytics. These people have come with their care takers and followed Jesus up the mountain.


Here, on this mount, as we witness a new community being formed, we are reminded of Moses in the wilderness—how Moses went up the mountain and came back down with the Ten Commandments. When the people, like Moses, come down from this mountain, they too, will have a new understanding of what it means to be God’s people in the world and to be a follower of Jesus. These words will give identity to the people and shape the attitudes and conversations engaging the world. These words will also shape the mission and ministry of the nascent church while developing an ethic and vocabulary for considering our place in the world.


Jesus is speaking to the people gathered before him on the mountain, and, at the same time, he is speaking to us in his distant future. He is using extreme language, setting the bar low enough so that we will attempt to live by them, but high enough so we know that it is only by God’s grace that we will be able to claim these words as our own.


Sue got her degree in economics, and though the subject of economics continues to confuse me in all kinds of ways, she helped me understand at least part of the economic conversation by telling me that there are two major conversations of economics that are always going on; sometimes they even talk with one another. There is the conversation of macroeconomics which is about the financial concerns of the nation and the world economy and there is microeconomics which deals with household spending.


I use this image of macro and micro as a way of suggesting how Jesus is speaking to us, giving these commands as both a macro- and as a micro- ethic. It is not just for the people who are there, but for those that we will come to know as the followers of Jesus. We will call them Christians. Just as Moses gave the Ten Commandments as guides and mandates for the greater community of faith, not for individual piety and self-righteousness, but for the entire nation of Israel, we will claim these words of Jesus as guiding words for ourselves today.


The Ten Commandments were given as an identifying signature symbol to the world stating why these particular Hebrew people were different. They were for all of God’s people who had come out of Egypt and also for the generations of people who would follow them. These commandments were given to help the people live together in peace with a common set of rules among the families and tribes, and guidelines for being in relationship with the nations/peoples around them. These commandments were at the same time, macro- and micro-.


In this sermon, Jesus does not mention all of the commandments, nor does he address the commandments in the order that we received them from Moses. Jesus also references some of the great number of the laws given in Torah as he talks about these new ways of understanding them.


Jesus begins “Don’t murder.” On a micro-, personal level, this commandment seems pretty straight forward. On a macro-, national level, this command becomes much more difficult. Yet Jesus does not stop with that complication, he makes it even more difficult. If you are going to be my follower, if you are going to be the people who will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, then I say, “More than do not murder, don’t be angry with one another. Don’t get trapped in the pettiness of insulting one another. Don’t declare that others are fools.”


I need just a moment to talk about why, when Jesus says, “but I say,” it was so controversial for the people hearing this in Jesus’ time. A rabbi didn’t speak by his own authority but by the authority of other rabbis, past and present, who had influenced his thought, and with the authority of Torah itself. Many of the sayings and thoughts cited were from Moses. A rabbi borrowed the authority of Moses by reiterating Moses’ words, saying, “With Moses, I say …” or, “I will teach you as it is written in Torah (the first five books of the First Testament, sometimes referred to as the law)”. The rabbi also included the opinions of other rabbis who were in agreement with the history of the faith and in agreement with him. Thus, rabbis spoke with the authority of those who had gone before them.


A rabbi traveled around the country seeking out the brightest and the best of the young boys who might be worthy of becoming his disciple. While rabbis were teaching their own students, they offered up their own ideas derived from the arguments and teaching of others. When their students brought those teachings forward, they did so with the authority of their teacher. These students then taught saying, “As Rabbi so-and-so used to say, ‘this is what we should be thinking and doing.’” A rabbi, unlike Jesus’ statements, never really spoke with his own authority, but with that of a consortium of others.


It was understood that the only one who could speak with his own authority and without the voices of other people was Godself. Therefore, now understanding a bit about rabbinical authority, we can understand what authority Jesus claimed when he said, “You have heard it said in ancient times, don’t murder, but I say to you….”. Jesus’ words are so powerful because he is claiming the authority only allowed to the Son of God.


The people, both then and now, having heard these words, must determine whether Jesus was some sort of flim-flammer con artist, or whether he has the authority of God, indeed is God. If Jesus was a flim-flammer, then they, and we, don’t have to pay any attention to him. Today, we could just go home, go eat breakfast or brunch, prepare to take a nap. We could do any number of things that might fill our time in oh so many ways. We might even go to the mall to pick up a few things that we think we can’t live without.


But, today we are gathered proclaiming that the one speaking, one Jesus of Nazareth, is the Son of God, the Word of God incarnate. We are now accountable to living our lives differently: when issues arise that might divide us, we will try to remain friends instead of becoming adversaries. We will seek ways to be reconciled to one another, that is, we will make concessions for the sake of the other.


Just in case you think that this process of being reconciled to your neighbor is only for personal relationships, the micro-ethic, Jesus intends this is how national and local communities should interact with neighbors as well, the macro-ethic. In all relationships, Jesus urges do not be angry or vengeful, do not insult a neighbor, not even pointing out foolish behavior. Rather, Jesus demands reconciliation so that the value of the neighbor is not diminished, weakening the whole body of Christ.


This reconciliation is not “You need to change”. It is “We are willing to change in order for you to be part of us” reconciliation. This language suggests that “being reconciled to” means that we will make accommodations for the needs of our neighbors in order to walk together in Christ.


We know the early Christian worshipping community was divided over different ways of becoming Christian. In First Corinthians, we hear that some claim Apollos, others claim Paul. We know that some thought that it was necessary for a person to convert to Judaism first, and then, after they had become Jewish, they could begin Catechism to become Christian. We also know that the Gospel of Matthew was probably written in Antioch, Syria, and that the Christian community had gathered there to escape the Roman army in Jerusalem. So, as Matthew is recounting Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he is reporting it to a highly polarized, divided faith community. They are people who want to distance themselves from one another in self-righteous fervor trying to say that one faction is better than the other. They are more concerned about their faith positions than they are about what Christ has done for all of them. So, Matthew includes this divided community with all the other outcasts of the world when he speaks about Jesus’ concerns about divorce and adultery.


When Jesus talks about divorce, his words seem to be talking about the breakdown of a personal relationship (like with the person we are married to), but adultery and divorce, in the scriptures we call the Old Testament, have more to do with our communal relationship with God than they do with marital conditions. They are more macro= than micro-. In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God says that, although we have not been faithful to God, God will not divorce us. We may divorce ourselves from God, but God will not divorce us. Instead, God will write God’s laws on our hearts, and God will remember our sins no more. So, when Jesus speaks about adultery and divorce, Jesus cautions us against turning away from God and chasing after other gods for false gratification and salvation and moving outside that relationship that God desires to have with us.


These words are for Christ’s body, that is, the people gathered in worship, and address the divisions that come within that community of faith, with the many gifts of Christ’s body, his hands and his feet, his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, who are gathered together for the sake of the world, seeking wholeness. So, Matthew reports that Jesus has said that when the eye or the right hand has caused the body to sin, remove it. This is not for the personal body, although there are times when surgery demonstrates the value of removing diseased appendixes, cancerous or severely infected organs like gall bladders and more, these words are written for the good order and the overall health of the body of Christ and caution us concerning outside philosophies and faiths.


It is better amid irreconcilable differences that one part of the faithful separate from the other until future discernment can find wholeness again. In this light, the Reformation, started by Luther’s actions 500 years ago, was a better way to go than to continue to fight within the Roman Catholic Church. Although we have not found wholeness together yet, we are now able to understand each other better than we have for many years.


So, at Jesus’ feet on the side of the mountain, seated with the first people gathered there, and with the divided community of Antioch, and within the midst of our own polarized and divided world, let us hear these words again that encourage us to be the new community of faith with new understandings of who this Jesus is. This understanding affects the way we live individually, but, more than that, it calls us as one of many communities of faith to honor those around us in ways that we have not in the past.


This is not a time for warfare and separation. It is not a time of hurling insults at the people who disagree with our communal beliefs. It is certainly not a time to call those who differ from us fools thereby increasing the chasm of distrust that separates us. It is not a time of chasing after easy solutions that dishonor the value of our neighbors. These words of Jesus pledge us to the commitment of seriously engaging the problems of the community we live in, embracing those problems in a way that says, “These are the concessions that we are willing and able to make to accommodate the needs of our neighbors. These are our theological non-negotiables concerning who Jesus is and whose we are, and, if we can’t agree on these things, it might be better for us to go our separate ways for the sake of the health and welfare of the body of Christ.”


Continuing in this community God has given us, as we sit and hear these words with those who heard it first, let us come down from the mountain, to live in the ways Jesus has proposed, not only with the words of “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not swear falsely using God’s name wrongly,” but with those added admonitions that help us live in healthy ways and loving relationships with one another.


In the relationships of faith which we have with one another, let us not swear in ways that dishonor God and God’s children: not by heaven, for that is God’s; not by the earth, for that is God’s; not by the city of Jerusalem, for that belongs to the government; not even by your head because you did not create it. Instead, when we engage with one another in honest debate concerning honest differences, let us openly say, “Yes, we can do this,” or, “No, we can’t.” In this way, we will be able to walk together in new ways. We will walk together in the way of forgiveness that is needed for our own spiritual health and ability to embrace life, not to change the behavior of the other person or group. We will walk together in the new way of making concessions to accommodate our neighbor, not because it will make our neighbor more acceptable to us, but because it will strengthen our community of faith and the body of Christ. We will walk together in these new ways, being honest in our relationship with God and one another, celebrating the gifts we have been given; not divorcing ourselves from God or one another; and not chasing after the new latest thing or idea that draws us away from those relationships.


In a divided world, in this time when the world continues to want to swear by flags and constitutions, by guns and walls that will only divide us, and by the wealth and lifestyle we have, let us remember and recognize God’s authority to create and forgive, and let us remember our calling to be the new welcoming community of God’s people and our willingness to serve in Christ, simply saying yes and no in faith.

You Are the Salt of the Earth, Matthew 5:13-20

“You are the salt of the earth!”

“You are the light of the world.”

“Your righteousness will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.”

As we begin, let us remember who the gathered people are in today’s Gospel reading. These are the people who have come from all of Syria, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, and the land beyond the Jordan. They are the diseased, the infirm, the mentally ill, the epileptics, and the paralyzed with their care takers. They are the outcasts, the forgotten, the trampled on, the hidden, the invisible ones of society; and they have followed Jesus up the side of the mountain. These are the first people Jesus tells, “You are the salt of the earth!”

A few years ago, I read a book called Salt: A World History. It begins with some interesting points. One is that, if we don’t eat enough salt, in a year, we die. We have no way of making salt in our systems so we must find it elsewhere in the world. Indeed, much of human history is consumed with knowing where salt can be found. It is so fundamental to our world that one of the things we still depend on, our salary, comes from the word for salt. Roman soldiers were partially paid in salt, hence, they received their salary.

Another point is it is thought that we became such good hunters because we first tracked other animals who could smell salt and were seeking salt themselves, and then we killed and ate them when they had found the salt to preserve it for ourselves. One of the reasons that the Hebrew people settled near the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth, is because they could mine the salt cliffs and evaporate salt from the sea. It had great value, almost as much value as water.

As time went by, we found that salt was a great preservative. One way to keep salt in our diets, therefore, was to carry salt in our meats, vegetables, and these amazing dairy products called butter and cheese. Salt was important because it meant that we had to worry less about food poisoning, but, mostly, the preserved foods became convenient ways to make sure that we had that most basic dietary need covered. WE had salt. And today we hear that this tattered crowd, the spoils of society, gathered on a hillside, are the salt of the earth. They are a basic need of our society.

Then Jesus tells this group, many of whom had leprosy and other crippling diseases, “You are the light of the world,” light—another thing we need to survive and prosper. Natural light provides vitamin D which gives us strong bones and healthy upright postures. It prevents rickets and helps produce healthy skin tissue.

And artificial light is very dear at the time. It is expensive and not always available. At the time Jesus declares these people are valuable, the cost of fifteen minutes of artificial lamp oil cost about a day’s salary. (Just think about how high our light bill would be these days if that were still true.) But this light that Jesus is speaking of is not artificial light. It is the true light from heaven that shines through us, and yet, it is not our light, it is shared light. This light that is being named comes from Christ’s self and is about to change the world. 

These words are particularly good news to the crowd because these people are ones who have been trampled on most of their lives. They have been covered up and ignored. They have been pushed aside and hidden away in segregated parts of their world, and now they are being told that they are the essential ingredients for life itself. No longer are they to be tasteless, trampled people. No longer are they to skulk around in the dark corners. Jesus tells them to stand up and be counted, not hidden under a bushel basket. They are to be part of the fulfillment of God’s great creation. They are to be valued as God’s people gathered for the sake of the world.

These people who have been blessed, who have known God’s presence in their lives, are now being told what it means to be identified as a disciple. Again, it means that they need to stand up and be counted; they should not allow themselves to be covered up, hid from the world; but they are to find their place on the lamp stand, the cross arms of the empty resurrection cross. These, indeed, are the words of revolution.

This revolution will take place in a way that says that the law cannot be thrown down, that one cannot freely go out rampantly disregarding the value of others, but that the law might be fulfilled. Jesus says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to overwhelm it. The word in Greek is πληρόω (pleróō).  It means to be filled up to overflowing, like a woman’s womb when she is pregnant. Think about it, this fulfillment of the law is not only going to fill the space, but it is going to grow until it is so big that it has to come out into the world we live in. It is going to overwhelm the world. It is going to overflow into our world like Amos’ mighty streams of justice from the living waters of the baptismal font into the places where we work and live. Jesus says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, to make it pregnant, to make it flow over all of God’s people as the waters of the sea cover the ocean.

In this light, if you will excuse the pun, the fulfillment of the law is the demand that all of God’s children be able to participate in the kingdom of heaven, and that, yes, if we work to be inclusive of all of God’s children, then we will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees who spent a great deal of time trying to discern who was in and who was out. This righteousness that we participate in is the righteousness of Christ himself, and this righteousness breaks the rules of the scribes and the Pharisees to fulfill the law so that all might be part of the kingdom of heaven. This is not a there-and-then kingdom of heaven, but a here-and-now kingdom of heaven that begins in the waters of Baptism and flows out through our lives. It is that divine place where we stand up and are counted as the children of God living for the sake of the world.

Let us continue to hold in our minds who is being spoken to. These are the ones who have been trampled underfoot. They are the ones who have lost their taste. They have all but lost their hope. The only hope they have is in the one who is seated on the hillside speaking to them and teaching them. So, it is not their saltiness that they are able to depend on, it is Christ’s saltiness.

They have been hidden away from the world, ignored, and shunned. They know it is not their light that is going to shine, but Christ’s light that will shine through them. They know their own righteousness has not gotten them anything, so it will be Christ’s righteousness that will prevail—the one who will die on the cross for their sins justifying them, making them right with Godself, the one who is raised up from the place of death into the world of everlasting, ever-living life in the kingdom of heaven that begins right now with the promise of the fullness, a πληρόω (pleróō) pregnant time of hope to come. It is not their righteousness. It is Christ’s righteousness that shows them the way to go. So, in all that they will do, it will be Christ that will do it, and through him, God’s kingdom, this kingdom of heaven will overflow into all that they and we do.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “This is wonderful for the people that heard Jesus speak and teach that day, but what about us today?” Some of you may identify with that broken group of people gathered on the hillside, but, if you can’t, I offer you a song I learned in Sunday School many years ago.

God sees the little sparrow fall,

It meets his tender view;

If God so loves the little birds,

I know God loves me too.

God loves me too, God loves me too,

I know God loves me too.

Because God loves the little birds, I know God loves me too.

God paints the lilies in the field,

And shapes each little bell;

If God so loves the little flowers,

I know we’re loved as well.

God loves us too, God loves us too,

I know God loves us too;

Because God loves the little glowers,

I know God loves us too.

God loves the lame, the deaf, the blind,

And offers life anew;

If God can love these hidden ones,

I know God loves us too.

God loves us too, God loves us too,

I know God loves us too;

Because God loves the hidden ones,

I know God loves us too.

God made the little birds and flowers,

And all things great and small;

God won’t forget his little ones,

I know God loves us all.

God loves us all. God loves us all.

I know God loves us all;

Because God loves the little ones,

I know God loves us all.

Show-and-Tell, Matthew 3:13-17

Today is the first Sunday in Epiphany. The word “Epiphany” comes from two Greek words, epi, which means “on,” or “to,” and phainein, “to show.” The Day of Epiphany was Friday, and the reading for the day is always the story of the wise men honoring Jesus as the king of our lives and giving him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This is the season of God-made-known, expressed in unexpected ways and places that bring hope and new life in defiance of death.

It is what I like to call the ultimate show-and-tell time, well maybe the penultimate or second best show-and-tell next to Easter. It is bigger than Christmas Eve, in a sense, because the shepherds are, after all, just shepherds, and while they tell the Jewish people of all that they had seen and heard, the wise men represent the gentile world coming to honor or worship Jesus as king, or Lord of all.

 In this show-and-tell season, we will also see Jesus being baptized. We will hear him preach to the people on the mountain, and from a mountain we will witness Jesus talking with Elijah and Moses. But before we enter too far into this joyous season, let us take some time to review what has been happening in Matthew’s Gospel. We have read some of the things in worship since Advent began, some things are generally known to us, and maybe some things are not often thought about.

Thus far, in the book of Matthew, we have been presented with the great genealogy of God’s chosen people that begins with Abraham and ends with Joseph. We have heard how Joseph, guided by dreams, chooses to take Mary for his wife because of God’s work through the Holy Spirit. We know the story of the wise men who saw a star appear in the heavens at the time of Jesus’ birth; and after traveling for some time (as much as two years), they ask King Herod about the newborn king (supposing they will find a king among kings). We know also that the wise men, finding Jesus at home in Bethlehem, recognize him as king and give him royal gifts. We know that the wise men, directed by an angel, journeyed home by a different route to avoid King Herod’s wrath. We know of King Herod’s rage and his slaughter of all the children in Bethlehem two years old and under.

In the midst of the comings and goings of these different groups of people, in the midst of political intrigue, in the midst of joys and sorrow, Joseph, led by dreams, moves his family, first to Egypt and then to Nazareth, in Galilee, where Jesus grows up. At the same time, another person is living among God’s people who discerns God’s activity in the currents of time and history. His name is John, and he is actively working to prepare God’s people for receiving and recognizing God’s presence through repentance and cleansing in baptism.

That brings us to today’s gospel. John is proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has drawn near and that God’s people need to rethink their relationship with God. He is baptizing (cleansing, or anointing with water) those who are able to embrace this new way of thinking, those who are committed to changing the way they live in relationship with God, when the cause for that change, Jesus, appears before him. What a show-and-tell moment!

We are not surprised to see a subject of the king submit to the authority of the king. Therefore, we are not surprised that John might think that he should be baptized by Jesus. And, knowing Jesus to be sinless himself, we are puzzled by Jesus presenting himself to be baptized. Why should Jesus need this baptism of repentance? Confused, with John, we wonder in greater scope, not just whether John should be baptized by Jesus but whether the whole world shouldn’t be crowding in to be baptized by Jesus.

Then, with the first words Jesus speaks in this Gospel, Jesus tells John and us something that will direct much of the conversation that we will be having throughout the rest of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ teaching, trial, death, and resurrection life. Jesus’ first words in this gospel are: “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

This statement seems so mundane. In fact, for all my life I have generally passed over these words thinking that they were divine theo-speak or God-talk for “I know, I know, but this is what is expected of me, so let’s get it over with.”

Indeed, until this year, I have always jumped past them to the big words and drama—the heavens opening, the dove descending, those stentorian words, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It seems so natural to go to God’s great endorsement of Jesus. “This is my son.” After that, it’s like “Well, there you have it. God said it; I believe it. What more is there to say? Go home knowing that God has spoken. Thanks be to God.”

But God’s words are only the final stamp of approval. They follow at the end of a long series of revelations. That is why there is a genealogy, Joseph’s acceptance of the angel’s words, the new star that shines in the heavens, the witness of the Wise Men, even the rage of Herod, and the exodus of the Holy Family to Egypt and back again. All of this speaks to Jesus being the one who saves, our Emmanuel, God revealed to us as human among humans.

Although this dramatic event is recalled in all the Gospels, Jesus’ words, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness”, are recorded only in Matthew, and somehow, they get passed over, even ignored. Matthew must think that they are important because it would be so easy to leave them out.

So what does “all righteousness” mean. Back in Advent, we talked about righteousness because Joseph was a righteous man. We talked about righteousness as being living by the law and doing God’s justice. Today we discover that there might even be more. What might it mean to fulfill all righteousness? Elizabeth Achtemeier writes, “’Righteousness,’ throughout the Bible, is the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship.” So, fulfilling all righteousness has something to do with living into the demands and expectations required of the relationship we have with God.

If it is expected that all people should be baptized, then Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us as being, truly human, must also be baptized. But is it necessary? Douglas John Hall, in his book, God and Human Suffering writes, “Though sinless himself, Christ suffers the consequences of sin, i.e., he suffers temptation, alienation, anxiety, and limitation.” As such, Jesus’ baptism models a new relationship for dealing with both the dying to the causes of sin and a sustaining relationship transcending the consequences of sin. This new relationship includes forgiveness, grace, mercy, presence, peace and wholeness, and eternal life.

At Bible camp one year, I was the counselor for a group of boys who ranged from eight to thirteen years old. Many of them were openly challenging the rules of safety established by the camp. I had determined that violators of the law would suffer the punishment of having to clean the bathroom beyond their usual daily cleaning responsibilities. As an incentive, I told them that if they were good, I would clean the bathroom.

Each day, one group or another of my boys managed to get in trouble. By the end of the week all of the boys had had an opportunity to learn the skills of cleaning the bathroom except two eight-year-old boys who were particularly compliant in all things.

The night before we were to go home, these two boys came to me. They looked embarrassed. They had difficulty looking at me. They were shuffling their feet and mumbling a lot. Finally, I asked them if there was a problem? One boy finally looked at me and asked, “How bad do we have to be in order to clean the bathroom tomorrow?” I told them that questioning my judgment about punishments was enough.

The next day, these two boys started cleaning the bathroom. The others came and asked what those two had done to deserve it? When the two boys refused to answer, the older boys began to think that those two had really done something wrong. And then, one by one, the older boys said something like, “Let me help you with that.” Before I knew it, all fourteen boys were in there cleaning, scrubbing and sweeping the bathroom. My two eight-year-olds were grinning from ear-to-ear. Somehow, the demands of the relationship of belonging included cleaning the bathroom, and they had made the grade. That time, fulfilling all righteousness included cleaning the bathroom.

I was proud of my boys that week at camp. They had found a way to value each other without exception. Jesus’ statement claims that fulfilling all righteousness includes baptism and models a new way of living together in relationship with one another. I can’t help but think that God’s endorsement of Jesus’ work at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is no less proud.

In the coming weeks, we will witness Jesus fully entering into our world where he will suffer all of the consequences of sin, but he will also show-and-tell new ways of being in relationship with one another. He will preach new ways of thinking about the law. He will teach new ways of thinking about giving value to all of God’s creation and the people in it. He will model new healing ways of wholeness that will challenge the way we live. In all of this, Jesus will challenge the way we think about death and our eternal relationship with God.

So, let us begin our time of learning the new demand of this new relationship we have with God and one another. Let us stand before the world in this show-and-tell time of Epiphany to claim God’s word revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. “Let us do so now, for it is proper, in this way, to fulfill all righteousness.” And fulfilling all righteousness, let the mercy, redemption, and liberation of God’s rule cover the world as Christ’s baptismal waters have covered us.

Time for Loving Matthew 1:18-25

Okay, I have to admit that I have always thought of this passage as being lame. It’s sort of like spending a lot of time on the genealogy that precedes this text. Yes, there are some interesting names and situations that arise from the genealogy, but really not that much. Or is there?

We really don’t give Joseph much time. He is the almost contender. He is the guy that God beat out. He is the guy that I never wanted to be or hoped to be. Maybe that is why Joseph doesn’t get much time. It just may be that Joseph makes us nervous. As a matter of fact, aside from this story in Matthew and the second chapter story of Joseph taking Mary and Jesus to Egypt and then returning after Herod has died, nothing else is said about Joseph in Matthew at all.

Yet the imprint of Joseph continues to influence the story of our faith in interesting ways. Tradition says that Joseph is a carpenter and that he passes the trade of carpentry down to Jesus. In some of the non-biblical stories of Jesus we hear that Joseph and Jesus build a cabinet together, and, when they get it finished, it is too big to go through the door. Jesus shrinks the cabinet enough for it to go through, and then he expands it to its original size so that they can deliver it as ordered. Another time Jesus cuts a board, and it is too short so he lays his hands on it and stretches it to the right length. (There have been a few times in the shop when I’ve wished that I could do that.) No, we don’t get this information from the Gospels, but there is a long tradition that says that Joseph is indeed a carpenter, and, because of that, Jesus is a carpenter too.

So, who is Joseph? From the genealogy given in Matthew we learn that Joseph is the son of Jacob. Really? Wasn’t there another Joseph who was the son of Jacob? Wasn’t Jacob the father of twelve sons who became the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel? Wasn’t Jacob’s son Joseph the one who was sold into slavery? Wasn’t Joseph the interpreter of dreams? Wasn’t Joseph the one that the Pharaoh went to with the dream of the fat bullocks and the skinny bullocks? Wasn’t Joseph the one who saved his family in the time of famine and gave them a place to live in Egypt? And wasn’t that first Joseph the ancestor of Moses who led God’s people out of slavery into the wilderness and then to the Promised Land?

We may not know much about this Joseph, but there is a great deal that we know about the first Joseph who was the son of Jacob, and Matthew wants us to remember these things when we begin to think about who this Joseph, the father of Jesus, is. Therefore, we are not surprised when the angel comes to him in a dream and tells him he needs to take the mother and the child to Egypt. We are not surprised when they return from Egypt because of a dream. This is the pattern of freedom and learning to walk in faith with God. The difference this time is that we learn what it means to have God walk with us having faith for us.

So today the outcome of so much depends on Joseph’s decision and actions concerning his betrothal to Mary. We are introduced to him with these words: Joseph is “a righteous man”. For many of us, we might easily translate righteous into good and therefore think, “Joseph is a good man.” And, because he is a good man, we might think he will naturally do good things. Joseph is righteous because he follows the law, not just the 10 commandments, but all of the laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy including Deuteronomy 22 which prescribes the consequences of being pregnant  while engaged. By law, both the woman who got pregnant by someone other than her betrothed and the other man were to be stoned. If the woman was taken (raped) in the fields, the man was to be stoned, but the woman was to be unpunished. Still that engagement was ended, and the woman was shamed. This is what the righteous man should do. He should end the engagement and walk away. Although he could be generous by doing this quietly, people would probably still talk.

When the angel comes to tell Joseph that the baby is from the Holy Spirit, Joseph is caught in a dilemma. If he walks away from Mary, he will dishonor God, but, if he honors God, staying engaged to Mary, then he states to the community that he is the father of the child, taking the shame of Mary’s pregnancy upon himself. Joseph is confronted with the other side of righteousness. The first definition of righteousness is to follow the law, but the other is to do justice. What is a guy to do?

Joseph’s decision pushes us in a new direction. His decision marks the beginning for those who will follow this child, this Jesus, our Emmanuel. For from this moment on, when law and justice do not walk hand-in-hand, justice will be the part of righteousness that will win out. This decision of Joseph’s marks the beginning of Christian thought that says to act with concern for the other is sometimes more important than personal appearances.

And so, Joseph makes the decision to choose unrighteousness in order to become righteous for the sake of the world. Doing this, he claims Jesus as his son with all of the responsibilities that go along with that decision. As a righteous man, he teaches his son his trade. He passes on his love of his work. In the process of living, he passes on his understanding of the law and the need for justice that goes beyond personal honor, a justice that lifts up the dishonored and the shamed as having value. He passes on his love of God’s people in a way that claims the need of God’s people to live in relationship together is more important than living by the letter of the law. From this decision, learned and appreciated by his son, we will hear, “You have heard it said,…but I say,….”

In the deserted wilderness place, Joseph’s son will feed thousands. In the midst of the world’s suffering, the outcasts (the blind, the lame, the unclean, the deaf and the poor) will be lifted up into new ways of living. From this righteous man, Jesus will learn to care for the needs of those around him even to the extent that he will suffer death, even death on a cross, taking the sins and the shame of the world upon himself, for the justification and justice of the world.

No, we do not know much about Joseph, but, through his ability to interpret dreams, he discerns the way to go. He claims and protects the one who will free us from our slavery to sin, who will lead us through the wilderness of our lives into the relationship of God’s grace and mercy that lifts up all of creation into God’s own kingdom of justice. With his decision, Joseph claims a time for loving judgment rather than punitive vengeance. By his decision, Joseph initiates a time and a season for loving that will only grow through the life, death and resurrection of his adopted son.

Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way, learning of God’s love and sharing it in our time and Advent season of loving.