Joseph’s Story

We hear a lot about Mary and the Baby Jesus at Christmas. And the angels. And the shepherds. And the Three Kings. And even the donkey. But what about poor Joseph ? He has almost no lines to say:  “Is there any room in the inn ?” is not a show-stealer. I should know – I played Joseph in our primary school nativity play and apart from getting to cuddle a rather nice Mary, most of my part was just standing around looking protective.

And soon enough Joseph will disappear from the story of Jesus’ life altogether. The last time he is mentioned is when Jesus, aged 12, stays on in the Temple when Mary and Joseph return home. He is not present in Jesus’ public ministry and certainly not at Jesus’ death – when by Jewish custom he would have taken responsibility for Jesus’ body.

Joseph is dead by then we assume. The Early Church believed he was already an old man when he married, having previously been married and widowed. As to whether he really was an older man marrying for a second time, I have no idea. That may just be the Early Church wanting to preserve the uniqueness of Jesus’ birth and Mary’s status. Interestingly the Gospels tell us that Jesus had brothers and sisters and one of them was called Joseph, which would fit.

So what do we really know about Joseph ?

Joseph is a worker. He has his own business: he is a teckton, a carpenter, an artisan who works with wood, perhaps even a house builder according to some translations. So he is a skilled worker, probably semi-independent.

Joseph is also from the right family. He is a man with a genealogy, though the genealogies in Matthew and Luke are not exactly the same... He is a distant member of the royal family - well very distant. But he is in the family line from King David.

Joseph is also a northerner…or a southerner. Nazareth is in the north of modern Israel and Bethlehem is close to Jerusalem in the south.  It seems that Joseph had family roots in Bethlehem but ended up living in Nazareth. It was safer there, away from the violent politics of Jerusalem. Truth to tell Nazareth was a bit of a one horse town in 1AD but not far away was a new town,  Sepphoris, which the Romans were re-building having destroyed it in earlier fighting. Plenty of work for a skilled chippie.

And now Joseph has found the right girl. Bit younger than him perhaps but before they get it together – if you know what I mean – she tells him she is pregnant and that God is the Father…

If this is beginning to sound a little tongue in cheek, that’s because, in the medieval nativity plays, Joseph was often played for laughs. He became a standard comic figure – the deceived older wealthy husband. We know the story: some dodgy builder having made his pile settles down and marries a nice pretty young trophy wife, and then…

Having said all of that, there is clearly a hard kernel of truth in the stories of Jesus’ family life. In Mark  Jesus is called ‘Mary’ Son’ – Ben Miriam. In first century Judaism, that was an insult. It meant Jesus did not have his father’s name, that he was illegitimate. St Paul never mentions a father for Jesus, only a mother. And yet it also appears that Jesus was mocked for being only the “carpenter’s son”.

The Christians could have edited these stories out of their traditions. It wasn’t respectable to have God making babies with human beings, certainly not in Jewish culture.  And it did draw down sharp mockery on the early Christians. But the Church didn’t back away from this. In the end it became an important part of what Christians believe – that Jesus is Son of God and Son of Mary.

But Son of Joseph ?
What are we to make of all this ?

Joseph is traditionally portrayed as an example of quiet faithfulness. As I discovered in the nativity play, his job is to be the supporter, the protector, the provider, the one in the background. But I want to stay for a minute with the sense of shame that the Gospels portray.

Matthew portrays Joseph as an essentially decent man. Betrothal was very close to marriage in Jewish culture. And we are meant to assume that Joseph thinks that Mary has, in effect, committed adultery. We know from modern patriarchal cultures, that women who are caught in adultery are punished severely. The first readers of Matthew’s Gospel would have thought Joseph was quite within his rights to dump Mary, publicly. But we have this lovely little character sketch, that Joseph – who is described as a just and righteous man – had already decided not to humiliate Mary publicly, though he could no longer bear to marry her. So he was going to put her away quietly.

And then God intervenes and commands Joseph to keep her as his wife. And Joseph does so. But are we meant to feel this is as a difficult thing that Joseph is asked to do ? I think we are.

The Gospels don’t go in for the sort of psychological story-telling which we so love. They are not that sort of writing. But I want us to hold on to this sense of shame and vulnerability which surrounds the story of Jesus’ birth, and how that helps us to learn from Joseph.

There are many stories  in very different cultures about the difficulties of fathers and step-children; because this is often a very difficult part of family life. And whilst in our culture it is a common problem because of marriage breakdown, in ancient cultures it was common because of death. And again, in these ancient cultures, the authority of the man was such that the place of a step-child might be very marginal and a man was deeply shamed if his wife was proven to be unfaithful.

This is the situation into which we are to imagine Jesus being born. Real life. Mess.

And that leaves me with a reflection about Joseph and us and a reflection about God and us.

Part of the point of the Joseph story is to show us a man being humble enough to live with shame so as to do God’s will. We often imagine doing God’s will is about honour – hard work yes, but honour always.  Here is someone who has hard work to do but with little honour. Many of us do work for God but it is revealing how strong is the temptation to want to do work for God which gives us some reward, or some public honour. It is a constant temptation, especially to those of us who get to stand at the front of church. But Joseph stands as an example of someone doing tough stuff for God with little public honour.

And the reflection about God is that God is clearly not frightened of mess. Christians believe that when God came into the world, he didn’t come into our world neat and tidy. Protected. In a palace. Above it all. God came into our mixed-up world in a messy relationship, in a very violent part of the world, in a smelly stable.
We sometimes think that God doesn’t do mess. That God is above mess. That God doesn’t like our messes and is angry with us when we make a mess. The Christmas story tells us the opposite. God is in the mess with us, to help us to make it better. I think that is very good news. That is Christmas joy. That is the truth to hold on to this week when, if your family is like mine, there will be lots of messes.

Amen.

Rev'd Dr. Alan Bartlett