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Joseph
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 15th January 2006
Revd. Matthew Vernon
Matt 2.13-15, 19-23
What happened to Joseph?
Joseph who, according to Matthew's Gospel, as we've just heard,
• led Mary and Jesus to safety in Egypt –
• not an easy journey,
• even with a donkey,
• but far from Herod who wanted to destroy Jesus.
What happened to Joseph?
We don't know.
The Gospels don't tell us much,
• especially after Jesus is born.
But presumably Joseph had a strong influence on Jesus,
• like any father on their child.
Traditional has it that Jesus worked in his father's carpentry workshop.
(We presume Joseph was a carpenter because of a reference later in Matthew's Gospel "Is no this the carpenter's son?" Matt 13.55" but then Joseph is not mentioned by name.)
Jesus taught people to call God "Father";
• that God is our loving Father.
That name for God doesn't suit everyone.
Especially people who've had difficult relationships with their father.
Presumably Jesus had a close and intimate relationship with Joseph if he made that fatherly connection with God.
So Joseph played a crucial role in Jesus' life.
A role that isn't celebrated directly in the Gospels.
Like Jesus' life before he started preaching, Joseph is hidden.
But then God often prefers to work in secret.
I'll come back to that later.
First a few minutes on Joseph in the Gospels.
After playing an important part in the birth of Jesus, Joseph drops out of the Gospel accounts.
Luke's Gospel tells the story of Jesus going to Jerusalem with his parents when he was 12 years old.
• The time when he stayed behind in the temple and his parents couldn't find him.
But in Luke's account neither Mary nor Joseph are mentioned by name.
In fact in Luke's Gospel, Joseph is hardly mentioned at all.
Luke focuses much more on Mary.
In contrast, Matthew's Gospel gives Joseph the central role.
When Mary is "found to be with child", an angel appears to Joseph and tells him to marry Mary and call the baby Jesus.
It's Joseph who names him Jesus.
Then Joseph takes the family to Egypt after another angelic dream
And Joseph who brings the family back to Nazareth, after two more dreamy messages.
(Matthew doesn't mention what Joseph smoked!)
Both Matthew and Luke emphasise that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived.
Matthew says Joseph "had no marital relations with [Mary] until she had borne a son."
This is interesting because Matthew starts his Gospel by carefully setting out the genealogy of Jesus.
Describing him as "the son of David, the son of Abraham".
Matthew sets out a line of descent that ends with
• "Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born".
According to Matthew, Jesus' relationship to Abraham and David comes through Joseph, even though Joseph isn't actually Jesus' father.
Nowadays we now about X and Y chromosomes.
Back then they knew much less about the science of reproduction,
• of female eggs and male sperm.
They probably presumed that a woman was simply a receptacle for the male seed.
Today we wonder where Jesus' Y chromosome came from –
• presumably he had one!
But if you believe in the virgin birth it doesn't make much difference whether it's a Y chromosome or the male seed that God somehow deposits in Mary's womb.
The flight to Egypt is also interesting.
Luke doesn't mention it at all.
In fact Luke has the family going straight back to Nazareth.
But Matthew is particularly concerned to show that Jesus' fulfils various prophecies,
• including "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
The significance of Egypt is clear,
• especially to any Jew;
• and its thought that Matthew was writing for Jewish Christians
• (Luke probably for Gentile Christians).
The Exodus out of Egypt is one of the defining events in Jewish history.
Matthew is keen to link Jesus to that.
Some people wonder whether Joseph, Mary and Jesus actually went to Egypt,
• or whether Matthew's account is artistic license.
You won't find many of those people in Egypt though!
In Egypt there are many churches dedicated to the Holy Family's visit.
In Cairo there's a Christian quarter - Old Cairo.
You can visit many wonderful ancient churches.
One is built on the place where it's thought the family stopped for water.
Most Christians in Egypt are Copts.
There are wonderful Coptic icons of the Holy Family passing by the pyramids.
The pyramids where there at the time of Jesus,
• but Matthew doesn't tell us the details of the trip.
Let's think more about Joseph.
Since the Gospels tell us so little about Joseph, there's plenty of room for filling in the gaps.
And that is what Christians have done down the ages.
One of the earliest examples is a non-biblical book from the 2nd century called the Protevangelium of James.
Its one of many early Christian texts which weren't included in the Bible.
Others are the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter.
The story of Joseph in the Protevangelium of James is elaborate.
Mary grows up in the Temple in Jerusalem.
As she approaches puberty and menstruation, she can't live there any longer.
So the High Priest searches for a chaste caretaker.
Under divine guidance, he searches among the widowers of Jerusalem.
He collects their staffs and prays over them.
A dove appears from the staff of Joseph and flies onto his head.
Joseph protests. "I am old. But she is a girl. I'll be a laughing stock."
But eventually he relents.
Its entertaining stuff.
In the Middles Ages, however, Joseph becomes a very different character.
The idea of the Holy Family developed.
Joseph became a young man
• strong enough to make the journey to Egypt
• and an adoring father.
In our own time, Pope Pius XII emphasised Joseph's role as a working man.
Pope Pius established a second feast day for Joseph on 1st May,
• to compete with communist May Day galas.
Or you may have seen a new book, "Christ the Lord" by Anne Rice.
It tells the story of the Holy Family returning from Egypt to Nazareth.
The Holy Land is rocked with violence following Herod's death.
And Joseph leads the family, by now a sizeable clan.
He is also reluctant to tell Jesus too much about his identity until he is more mature.
I'll finish by going back to the point that Joseph's life is hidden;
• that God often prefers to work in secret.
How ever we imagine Joseph,
• which ever of the wonderful, elaborate portrayals we prefer,
• we don't know for sure much about him.
Yet he is a crucial figure in the Christian story.
In that way he is like many people of faith who we don't know much about,
• even if we know their names at all.
The celebrities of our faith, including Mary, are the exception.
Joseph is hidden because most of Jesus' life is hidden –
• the years between his birth and his public ministry.
Even Jesus' public years were invisible as far as most people where concerned.
That tells us something about God that is easy to miss.
Our world insists on publicity, celebrity, popularity and maximum exposure.
We are surrounded by advertising and award ceremonies:
• the best this, the biggest that;
• the richest man, the most stylish woman.
God prefers to work in secret.
God is often anonymous.
In God's sight, the things that really matter seldom take place in public.
While we focus on VIPs and their movements,
• on peace conferences and demonstrations,
• God is aware of the totally unknown people,
• praying and working in silence.
Perhaps it is them that make God save us yet again from destroying our world and ourselves.
Now Christianity is a world religion;
• millions of people utter Jesus name every day.
Yet it all started with God becoming lowly and hidden,
• almost invisible in the baby of Bethlehem.
• God revealing intimacy and vulnerability.
Intimacy and vulnerability that are so important to being human,
• but that are so quickly destroyed by publicity and the media.
Joseph, the hidden VIP of Jesus' life, reminds us of these things.
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