Sermon for Advent IV Year A 2016 Choosing to Hope Perhaps it is this morning s gospel about Joseph, Jesus earthly father that had me thinking a lot about my Dad this past week after all my Dad s middle name was Joseph. (Oh, and my mother s middle name was Mary!) My Dad was not a perfect man but he was easy to love. He was named Arthur Joseph Nelson, Jr. but most of his life he was called Sunny by most of his family. No, not Sonny as in S O N N Y, but Sunny as in S U N N Y. That was a nickname his mother gave him as a little boy--- She used to say he was just born good. Which really meant that he was among the most easygoing of gentle souls you can imagine. Even when he got angry, and that was so rare that it was particularly remarkable and really got my brothers and my attention when it happened, he never behaved or spoke in a way that entirely obliterated his nickname. Growing up in my house, if you wanted a yes answer to a request, you always went to Dad his grandchildren quickly discovered that too just as my daughter, Katie. But my Dad was not an entire marshmallow or push-over Many of you already know he was a professor of physical therapy who had an international reputation as a researcher in kinesiology (the science of movement). As a therapist he could be quite tough he knew that part of healing and rehabilitation required him to coax, encourage and accompany his patients through painful movements and exercise. No pain, no gain you know this if you have ever had rehabilitation following some kind of injury or surgery. I have many fond memories of my Dad, but my most cherished memory happened when I was five years old. 1
We had just moved into our new home the home I grew up in on College Avenue on Staten Island and as I was playing outside on the brick steps, my foot got caught in the railing and I fell. I split my lip and knocked out one of my front teeth. My Mom rushed me to the emergency room where my Dad met us because he was the head therapist in the PT department at the hospital. Despite my crying and carrying on, it was the most comforting thing to have my Dad as one of the three people who had to hold me down while I was being stitched up. I can still remember looking at him through my tears and hearing him assure me that I would be okay. But this isn t the part of this story that is my most cherished part. Much later that evening, my Dad arrived home with a gift for me. He knew I had been wanting a very particular doll it was September and I had already begun asking for this doll for Christmas. The doll appropriately enough was a Tiny Tears Doll. I was so amazed that my Dad remembered how much I wanted this doll and that he bought it for me (after all Moms were the ones who always bought the presents even us kids knew that!). I remember sitting holding that doll and looking out the living room window until it was quite late. Very quietly, my Dad came up beside me and said, It s getting really late. I think its time you got to sleep. He scooped me up in his arms and carried me off doll and all I was tucked in and prayers were said. And the tears and trauma of the day were put behind me. The doll was great, but his gentle understanding of how frightened I was is the reason this is my most cherished memory of my Dad. This is what good Dad s do. But my Dad took his fatherly understanding into his classroom 2
and I heard time and time again about the many ways he encouraged his students, always seeking ways for them to succeed. In one instance, he even bent the rules for a student with learning disabilities, allowing him an extra hour so he could complete the entire written exam knowing how difficult it was for this student who was very bright but needed extra time to read. I think this is what good Dad s do, too. We have a story from Matthew before us this morning about what good dads do. Only in Joseph s case, it really is quite extraordinary. In Joseph s case, rather, it was a matter of life and death. In the matter before him now, though he could not have fully known it then, the future of the world hung on the decision it was his to make. Don t you wonder why God didn t take an easier way to come to us, for surely this path was just about as risky as it could be. For not only does God risk the danger of childbirth where anything could go wrong, but God entrusts this child to a very young woman and her fiancée, expecting that they would believe that the conception of this child was of God. God took the risk that very human Joseph would be able to get past the stone of betrayal that settled in his stomach when he first heard the news of Mary s pregnancy and came to the reasonable conclusion that she must have been unfaithful to him. God had to trust that Joseph could set aside his own pride and step into a role, into a life, which would begin in a way he had not yet dreamed. Oh, one would have expected that dream included children, but it certainly did not include a child in this way. 3
It seems to me that God risked a lot, trusting that Joseph would be open to the urging of a night-time messenger, this angel who told him not to be afraid. Who assured him that he and Mary were to be part of something much, much larger than even the very good life they must have dreamed together. Who urged him to name the child, sealing his adoption as his own son. You would think God would have taken an easier way. But God did not. And somehow that deepens our understanding of how very much God will risk for all of us. As Joseph risked then, too. Because as we hear in Matthew, Joseph did precisely what the angel told him to do. We don t know what doubts and misgivings he later entertained along his way, for we don t hear all that much from him after this, but we do know that Joseph did what he was called to do then. He did not leave. He did not cast Mary aside. Rather, he stood with Mary. He claimed that baby boy as his own and gave him a name. That name of Jesus which means God saves. And we know that he must have been an awfully good dad to this boy, that he just did what a dad does for this one who was destined to be the source of our hope and salvation. Indeed, it seems to me we know this through the stories Jesus later told. For where do you think, except from Joseph, 4
that Jesus got the idea that a father always gives good gifts to his children? Where, do you imagine, did he get the image of the father running to welcome home his prodigal son? Where do you think the tenderness in his voice came from when he said we were to address God as abba or daddy if not from his own experience of an earthly dad? I believe that Jesus drew from his own experience growing up with Joseph as his father here. Joseph who abandoned his own pride, his own long-learned sense of right and wrong. Who set aside his fear and worked through the stone in the pit of his stomach. Who stretched his own sense of what and who he was responsible for, to just be a dad to Jesus. To give earthly legitimacy to this child of Mary s from the Holy Spirit and to help shape Jesus life and his vision in such a way that some of his best teaching was informed by his own experience of an earthly, loving dad. It was the decision of a lifetime for Joseph. It was one he could never have expected to make and yet, it is also a dilemma which will parallel one we will probably all face at one time or another as we are called to sort out how we are called to do the right thing in a situation that at first seems all wrong. And when you do that. When you step up and do what is right and good 5
in the face of earthly wisdom or advice which would urge you otherwise. When you act with forgiveness and hope and trust, well then, the world changes. It surely did with Joseph and Mary and Jesus. And it does every other time, too. For I ve seen it happen. So have you. This story of Joseph gets lived out again and again and again. So often we have the opportunity to do the right thing when everything else seems all wrong. Such as this will come to us, too. It may not be that big and difficult, although chances are it will be. And it may well be that the real challenge will lie then in the long term simply getting up every day and just doing what good dads do. And we know this for sure. It may not seem like it at the time, but it is often on those seemingly small things that the future hangs. So this is what we have today. The gift of one dad and one child who lived in one particular place in one specific time. Just like all of us in so many ways. It makes me step back and wonder. What might God just be doing here and now with all of us? Where might you and I see God at work in something that seems all wrong where we still try to do what s right? And what might that mean for tomorrow? 6
Just as the new hymn by Marty Haugen that we will be singing in just a few moments you and I can choose to hope. We can choose (like Joseph, a good father and a man of faith) to hope in God s promise, to awaken to God s will for us, and then even when everything seems all wrong, we can do what is good and right in God s sight. 7