The Good News!

Welcome! I am the Rev. Ken Saunders. I serve as the rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Greeneville, Tennessee (since May 2018). These sermons here were delivered in the context of worship at the various places I have served.

[NOTE: Sermons (or Homilies) are commentaries that follow the scripture lessons, and are specifically designed to be heard. They are "written for the ear" and may contain sentence fragments and be difficult to read. They are NOT intended to be academic papers.]

Sunday, December 19, 2010

RCL Year A (Advent 4) - December 19, 2010

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year A (Advent 4) - December 19, 2010

Isaiah 7:10-16
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

As we move further into our advent time of anticipation and preparation, we get more and more of the images that we would all expect to be building up to… The story of how ancient prophecy was fulfilled, and how God became a human being… became incarnate… became flesh and bones…

We are probably all familiar with the pageants that the children put on this time of year. Some of you probably were in one a while back… The pageants act out the story of God’s incarnation, when God became one of us… became human – and was born as a child in a stable in Bethlehem…

I can remember as a child, participating in these pageants either by wearing my bathrobe and one of my Mother’s dish-towels on my head, carrying a staff, being a shepherd, and leading around the other children that were dressed in fluffy white sheep suits.

My sister, whose name just happens to be Angel, was always dressed as an angel - with a white surplice and transparent wings and a coat-hanger with garland and tinsel hallow…

When I was older, I was allowed to play Joseph… which was an honored roll, but it was bit awkward because all I did was just stand there… Most of the time, these wonderful children’s reenactments follow the poetic story from the Gospel according to Luke… “And in came to pass, in those days, a decree went out...” Luke’s gospel we know very well, and it is very detailed… His description of the annunciation to Mary and the holy birth of Jesus is by far one of the most glorious stories of the Christian faith…

However, in Luke’s rendition of the story, Joseph doesn’t get much mention, doesn’t get a whole lot of attention and definitely no speaking parts in the pageant! Matthew’s verses that we hear this morning put the spotlight on Joseph and how that ancient prophecy was indeed fulfilled… The text that we just heard is somewhat brief… it is, however, deeply interlaced with a profound meaning.

Matthew’s readers were part of the early Jewish Christian community. They would understand exactly what he was talking about. This is what we called “high context” language. Meaning that, the intended hearers of the message would understand what Matthew was saying, simply because of their experience and knowledge.

We may have a hard time understanding its richness, because it is not our “normal” way of doing things. So, let me set up the gospel story for you a bit this morning…

At this point, Matthew tells us that Joseph’s family has made a marriage agreement with Mary’s family… They are betrothed, the contract has been signed and the dowry has probably already been paid… Joseph and Mary were not involved in a romantic courtship or engagement like our society would expect today - before the decision was made for them to marry. Unlike we would expect of couples today, they are betrothed and their marriage was one of community, honor, and position.

And though he was an artisan, a carpenter, Joseph was a considered to be a righteous respected member of the community, and Mary’s family saw him as a competent provider, a potential good father and a man of honor.

So, let us reflect again for a second on Joseph’s strange predicament…

This honorable man, this follower of the Torah, the Law of Moses… this good Jew has received some scary news. The young woman, that he has just made a betrothal commitment to, has become pregnant - and the child is not his, because they have never been together.

You can almost feel the gasps in the ancient audience as they heard the story for the first time… What a scandal!!! Pregnant? A young woman who is supposed to “pure” – pregnant???

Joseph was in a real bind… and he has a huge choice to make… the way I see it, he basically has three options. He can choose to follow the letter of the Law of Moses, which says that Mary and her whole family is to be dishonored – publically disgraced – which would ultimately cause Mary to be taken out and stoned to death.

He could dismiss her quietly, retain his honor, and have her face the consequences of being unwed and pregnant, which would also ultimately lead to her public disgrace and death.

Or he can make the choice to listen to the vision he has in a dream and have faith in what an angel of the Lord told him, that the child that she carries is “holy.” The angel even gives him instructions on what to name the child. He is to call him Yahshua (In Hebrew) (or as it was written in our Greek New Testament –Iesous). We best know the name by our Anglicized Greek – Jesus – which means “God saves.”

We all know what Joseph does, or we wouldn’t be here today.

Joseph is called a “righteous” man in the Gospel reading. However, he didn’t follow the letter of the law, and humiliate Mary. He chose to listen to what he understood was a messenger from God that spoke to him in the dream, and let the prophecy be fulfilled through him.

So Joseph took Mary to be his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she gave birth to the holy child – Yahshua… A child called “Immanuel” by the prophet Isaiah - “God with Us”

Joseph is the model for us this morning. He is a model of faith and commitment… of following and listening to God. Joseph stands, at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, as a model of what Matthew hopes for all Jesus disciples — For each reader of the Gospel – as we live in the tension between a prevailing understanding of God’s commandments and the new thing that God is doing in Jesus the Christ.

By Joseph’s decision to obey the shocking and unexpected command of God, he is already living the nature and heart of the law and not its literal meaning. He is already living out the new and higher righteousness of the kingdom of God, that Christ in his ministry calls us to.

In a difficult moral situation, Joseph attends to the voice of God, and he is willing to set aside his previous understanding of God’s will in favor of the word he understands to be from the living and saving God.

We are very much like Joseph, living in the tension of our life… We must make decisions on a daily basis, moral and otherwise, as we journey through this life. Our nature sometimes is to fly by the seat of our pants, trying to steer our way without God, because we think that we have it all under control.

To cope with his tension, Joseph chooses to follow God. Likewise, we should be trying to do the will of God through our hearts, our actions, and our decisions… Living this life, loving one another, breaking bread together, and responding to what we understand to be God’s call on our lives.

As Christmas – the celebration of the birth of Christ creeps around the corner, we should stop here a moment on the 4th Sunday of Advent and reflect… reflect on the presence of the living God in our life. Using Joseph’s response to the living God as our model, let us use what little is left of our Advent time of anticipation and preparation to stop and take a minute to be still amid the craziness… And realize that our God is indeed with us, redeeming us, loving us, and saving us…

Because we so desperately need a loving and living God to be present with us and help us direct ALL of our decisions… We say – Come, Lord Jesus!!... Come Lord Jesus and direct our decisions, and direct our lives…

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