The Co-Opted Father A Reader s Theater Conversation between Joseph and the Angel Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25 Angel: Joseph. JOSEPH! WAKE UP! Joseph (sleepy and grouchy): Go away. Don t bother me. I don t want to wake up. Angel: Don t you brush me off, Joseph son of David. I m talking to you. I ve been sent to you from God. Joseph (coming awake): What? Who are you? Look, I don t appreciate getting wakened up. I don t get much sleep these days. Angel: Yeah, I know. I ve watched. Joseph: You have watched? Who did you say you are? Angel: I m an angel. I have a message for you from God. Joseph: Well, if you ve got a message from God, I hope it has some answers, because I ve got a mess on my hands. Angel: Yeah, I know. You ve got a big problem with Mary. Joseph: How do you know about that? Angel: I told you: I m an angel. We make it our business to know stuff. Joseph: Okay, so what am I supposed to do? I fall in love with this girl. But do I shack up with her, like other guys would? No. I offer to marry her. I even ask her parents. We get engaged. We set the date. But do I touch her? No. We agree not to have sex until after we are married. And then this! She gets pregnant from someone else. Is that how God rewards someone who is trying to do the right thing? Angel: In your case, yes. Joseph: What? Angel: A guy like you who wants to do the right thing is just the kind of guy God needs for this situation. Joseph: Great. So what does God want me to do? Angel: What does the Bible tell you to do? 1
Joseph: The Bible is clear. I looked it up: Deuteronomy chapter 22. It says, If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death. Is that what I am supposed to do? Turn Mary in so that she and her lover can be executed? Angel: Is that what you think God wants you to do? Joseph: I don t know. I have always tried to obey God s law. But this? I can t do this. I love Mary. I know we can t be together, not after this, but I could never hurt her. Angel: Yeah, I know. That s why we picked you. Joseph: Picked me? What are you talking about? Angel: That s what I am trying to tell you. You have been chosen by God for a mission. Joseph: What mission? Angel: A mission to care for Mary and her child. Joseph: But it is not my child! Wouldn t it be better if I quietly broke our engagement and let her marry this other guy? Maybe if they did it right away, no one would know. Angel: Do you know who the other guy is? Joseph: No. Angel: Are you sure there is another guy? Joseph: How else did she get pregnant? Angel: Joseph, Mary has not been shacking up with another guy. The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Joseph: Mary s been having sex with the Holy Spirit? Angel: Oh for heaven s sake. Are you crazy? You don t have sex with the Holy Spirit. That s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Joseph: So how did she get pregnant? Angel: Don t you ever read the Bible? Who was there when God created the world? What hovered over the water when God said, Let there be light? Joseph: The wind. The Bible says that the ruach of God hovered over the waters at creation. Ruach means wind or. Spirit. 2
Angel: Ah, very good. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, was God s agent at the creation of the world. Now the Holy Spirit is God s agent at the beginning of a new creation. Don t you get it? Mary s child is not your child or someone else s child. He is God s child. He is a work of the Holy Spirit in Mary s womb. He is the beginning of a new creation, a new work of God to save a world that has been damaged by sin. Joseph: Well, if he s God s child, why do you need me? Angel: Because you are a descendant of David and before that a descendant of Abraham. God promised to bring blessing to the world through Abraham s descendants. And God promised to produce a king from the descendants of David who would bring God s righteousness and peace to the earth. We call that promised king the Messiah. You, Joseph, are a descendant of Abraham and David. Your son will be the one to fulfill those promises. Joseph: But he s not my son! How can he be my descendant if I am not his father? Angel: Because you are going to claim him when you take Mary to be your wife. When you take Mary into your home, the child born of her will become your legal heir. Through you he will become the inheritor of God s promises to Abraham and David. Joseph: So I am supposed to become the custodial parent for a child I did not father, so that God can use this child to fulfill the promises made to Abraham and David? Angel: You got it. By the way, you shall name him Jesus. Joseph: Jesus? You mean I don t even get to pick his name? Angel: No. This is God s child, remember. And his name is important. It means the Lord saves. He is the fulfillment of a promise given long ago to the prophet Isaiah: Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us. Joseph: I thought you said his name was Jesus. Angel: Oh for heaven s sake. Don t you understand anything? The name Emmanuel is symbolic. It means that God will be present with us in this child. I already told you this is God s child. You will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Joseph: Save us from our sins? I thought the Messiah was going to save us from our enemies. Angel: First, you need someone to save you from yourself. You may think you are a righteous man, Joseph, but you suffer from the same pride, the same self-centeredness, the same alienation from God as everyone else. This child comes for you as much as for anybody. Joseph: So why don t you choose someone else? There are plenty of descendants of Abraham and David. Why pick me? 3
Angel: Actually, that is a good question. For most of our history the descendants of Abraham and David have been a big disappointment. First there was Abraham s grandson Jacob. He tricked his own blind father to steal the inheritance from his older brother. And he is the one for whom the people of Israel are named! Then we come to King David. David had an affair with the wife of one of his soldiers and got her pregnant. Then to cover it up he arranged to have the soldier killed in battle so he could marry her. And he was one of the better kings! Most of his descendants were hopelessly corrupt. They cared about nothing except holding on to power. There is no biological descendant of Abraham or David who could possibly be the Savior of the world. Joseph: So the true Messiah has to be a descendant without really being a descendant? Angel: You are catching on. The Savior of the world cannot be just another descendant of David, like all the other descendants of David. None of them came even close to establishing God s kingdom in this world. The true Messiah must be a new work of God a new creation someone born of the Holy Spirit. Joseph: And yet, in order to fulfill God s promises to Abraham and David, he must somehow be their descendant. Angel: And that s where you come in. You represent Jesus continuity with the Old Testament. In you Jesus is connected to the story of Israel the people through whom God intended all along to bring blessing to the world. But the people of Israel never succeeded at that mission. So God needed a new approach. God needed a new creation of the Holy Spirit. That is what Mary s child represents. Joseph: So I couldn t be the child s father, because I am just as messed up as everyone else? Angel: As a matter of fact, yes. But there is hope. If the Holy Spirit can work a miracle in Mary, the Holy Spirit can also work a miracle in you. The birth of Jesus proves that God has not given up on the world or on the descendants of Abraham. Jesus is coming into your life, Joseph, because he can change it. And through you he can change other people. Joseph: Yeah, well that raises another question. What if Mary doesn t want to marry me? I mean, if she s got a thing going with the Holy Spirit, what will she see in me? Angel: The same thing she has always seen in you: faithfulness and compassion. Mary is as confused as you are, Joseph. But she still wants to marry you. But you must not touch her until after Jesus is born. There must be no doubt in your minds to whom this child belongs. This child belongs to God. Joseph: So I am supposed to be Mary s husband, but I am never allowed to have intimacy with her? 4
Angel: I didn t say that. I said not until after Jesus is born. Jesus does not belong to you. But when it comes to Mary, you belong to each other. And to raise this child you will need each other more than you realize. Narrator: When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife, but he had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. - Ken Onstot December 19, 2010 5