When Joseph Awoke (a father at Christmas): some thoughts for the 4th Sunday of Advent

 

“When Joseph awoke, he did

as the angel commanded him.”

--Matthew 1:18-24

 

Who, over the age of 25, has not experienced that frightening moment when you wake up and suddenly realize: Oh my gosh! It’s almost Christmas! But, I’m not ready!  And suddenly--if you are like me—you rush out to the garage in search of lights you promised to hang a month ago, and the wreath that still needs to be put on the door. By golly, those Advent candles aren’t going to light themselves!... And has anyone seen the inflatable pug?

 It’s just not Christmas without the pug!

 In a desperate frenzy of activity, we set about doing everything the season commands. Wanting our house, our tree, our table to be just right!  Perfect, in fact. But there is always one more trip to HEB in search of gluten free ginger snaps for Aunt Lucy, or to Hallmark for a box of cards we still intend to write—Christmas is a season, you know; not just a single day!

 And the presents! Aargh. What size sweater does my sister wear? Would your bother like a new tie? With Snoopy on it? What about Aunt Hildy? Does she still smoke a pipe?  And I forgot to buy that tea your mother loves so much!

 

And just when it seems like it might come together, suddenly your niece announces she is vegan. Or someone else is added to the guest list and we need to borrow a card table from the neighbors, and get a few old folding chairs out of the garage… The chaos that comes with Christmas can be overwhelming. So much to do and if you put it all off long enough, so little time to do it.

 

Think about Joseph, he goes to bed one night certain of one thing: he is about to get divorced. But then an angel appears in his dream and everything changes.

 

Can’t you just see this humble old carpenter waking up and realizing he isn’t ready? Rushing about trying to make his house perfect for a new wife and this mysterious child of her’s—who just happens to be the savior of the world… When suddenly there is another messenger. Another command.  This time from Caesar; Everybody pack your bags and head home for a census! 

But I have plans for the holidays.

 

And again Joseph has to pivot, change plans, make new ones. A road trip. No problem.

 

But there isn’t any Trivago or AAA to help with reservations. But, surely God would provide a safe place for His son to be born, maybe even a room with a private bath and a view of the winter hillside.  I hear the night sky is full of stars and the gathered sheep look almost like drifts of snow this time of year.

 

And like most of us (especially fathers), Joseph had to learn that no matter how well you plan or hard you try, something (or someone) unexpected shows up and the best laid plans come crashing down like shards from a shattered ornament.  I am pretty sure if you asked him,  Joseph would tell you a stable full of animals and strangers was never part of his plan.  In fact, in his eyes, it probably seemed like a catastrophe, a sign somehow of his own failing as a husband and a step-father.  And yet, in the fullness of God’s plan, it was anything but; it was the fulfillment of His Word, of His love.

 

“Thus says the Lord:

Heaven is My footstool, and the earth My throne;

What kind of dwelling can you build for me?

What is to be my resting place?...

This is the one I approve: the lowly and the afflicted,

the one who trembles at My word.”  --Isaiah 66:1-2

 

God chose to enter into the world as an infant, vulnerable to the dangers and afflictions of the flesh and this world. That is the dwelling God chose, the dwelling He prefers. And no matter how we try to clean it up, sanitize it for Christmas cards, or Hallmark movies, God will always find a way to break through our plans, our desperate attempts to create a perfect Christmas, a perfect family, a perfect life… and through the vulnerability and chaos of our discomfort and failure and dysfunction, He will reveal Himself: a helpless baby lying in a manger, hungering for His mother’s tender breast, the warmth of His father’s gentle touch, offering us the chance to give Him not a gift card or a carefully wrapped present, but ourselves, our hearts, our love. That’s all… 

 

And so here it is, Christmas is upon us, those final days before the celebration. We have just celebrated the 4^th Sunday of Advent. We are at the eve of Christmas eve and yes company is coming, relatives, friends (folks you don’t know), and yes there are still cards to write and presents to buy and wrapping to be done.  But, instead of entering into the frenzy of it all, slow down. Take a breath.  And remember this: This Christmas don’t let the colored lights, and the glitter of the wrapping paper, the tinsel and the bows (and all your plans and expectations) blind you to the unexpected grace found only in the actual gift waiting for you right probably right where you least expect it.

 

A reflection on intentions and babies for the 4th Sunday of Advent

“…such was his intention…”

--Matthew 1:18-24

 

We all have intentions, our hopes, our dreams, our plans for the day, for life—even for the holidays.  Maybe we intend to get up earlier, to start the day with a healthy breakfast, to eat more broccoli, to do core exercises every day before heading off to work…  When I was in 4^th grade a teacher asked me what I planned to do with my life.  I told her I wanted to be a singer!  My intention was to be another Donovan… or maybe another Davy Jones, even another John Sebastian.  Later in high school, hoping to impress a young lady, I tried singing for her.  She listened a moment, then asked (with some concern), “Does it hurt when you do that?”   My singing aspirations have been much more private ever since.

 

As the saying goes: If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Or sing to your girlfriend.

 

In the Gospel for the 4^th Sunday of Advent, we hear of Joseph and his plans, his intentions.  Oddly enough, this story begins with Joseph original plans crumbling to pieces.  He was planning to get married but, right in the first verse he discovers that his bride has become pregnant and the baby isn’t his.  One can imagine his shock and probable disappointment, however, instead of lashing out or seeking justice, he comes up with another plan. It would seem that he still has some feeling for Mary, and so he plans to spare her any public scene. He intends to divorce her quietly, and protect her from the shame and possible consequences of being accused of adultery, which (at that time) might have included being dragged to the city gates and stoned to death. 

 

Joseph’s intentions were honorable, they were good, they were even merciful, and yet they were not God’s plan, not God’s intention.  God’s intention was to put a baby in Joseph’s house.  Think about that.  And maybe ask yourself: In some way, isn’t that the real point of Christmas?  To let a baby into our house, into our heart, into our life…

 

Consider, what happens when a baby comes into the house?  Speaking from experience, everything changes.  Sleep schedules, diets, volume levels, washing schedules, and even personal hygiene.   The baby makes demands on our time, our energy, our attention, our budget, our love.  A baby demands that we change our expectations, our intentions, our life for it.  Even our TV schedule! I never would have imagined a life that included Barney the Dinosaur and Teletubbies. We have to humble ourselves and do things we never wanted to imagine ourselves doing; i.e. listening to Wee Sing cassettes in the car, or changing a diaper on a city bus, or cleaning up an unexpected mess, and trying to figure out which end it came out of!!

 

A baby demands that we put our own needs and desires aside, for its sake, for its care. That we lay down our life for the sake of another.  And strangely enough, it is the baby that teaches us that this isn’t a curse, this isn’t an agony we want to avoid.  What we learn by caring for a baby, is that the more we sacrifice for a child, the deeper we love it; the more we give ourselves away to their care and their needs, their smiles and their laughter, their peace and their delight, the more we are filled with such things ourselves.

 

Some of my most blessed memories are of waking at 3 in the morning to walk with one of my daughters.  I was exhausted. Often, I was confused. My intention had been to get at least a few hours of sleep, but instead I would hear the cry, or the call from down the hallway and I would climb out of bed—sometimes a little grouchy—but always (in the end) renewed by the chance to comfort their need; in fact, by the gift of their need.  And through that gift,  I was fulfilled. Because somewhere in all that middle of the night walking and swaying and carrying of a baby, I began again to sing.  I became—at least for a time—the singer I had always wanted to be. Walking the floor, or even the neighborhood streets, singing old Bob Dylan songs or folk songs, hobo songs, and especially, “Goodnight Irene.” In my three daughters I had a very appreciative, and a very captive, audience for about 8-9 years—about as long as the Beatles lasted.  I can still remember a time when one of them, by that point a toddler, said to her mother, “No.  Let Daddy sing.  I like it when Daddy sings…”

 

This Christmas, are you ready to let your life be upended? All your plans and intentions disrupted, maybe even utterly and completely changed?  This Christmas are you ready to let a baby into your house? Your heart?  Your life?  This Christmas, don’t just focus on the gift wrapping and the Christmas lights, the traditions and the trappings of the holiday.  This Christmas, take a little time to focus on the baby. Imagine it.  God took flesh and became not a king or a prince or a mighty hero, but a helpless baby, crying in a manger, a baby became completely and utterly dependent on the humans He had created.  Think about that as your Christmas gift… This baby needed feeding, cleaning, needed to be held and to be comforted.  And all He asked was that Mary and Joseph set aside their own plans, their own expectations and intentions and let themselves be changed, blessed and fulfilled beyond their imagining, by the love of a child.

 

This Christmas, let a baby come into your life. 

 

It will change everything.

Of altars and sacred stones and dispossession

“You must completely destroy all the places where
the nations you dispossess have served their gods…
you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred
stones…hack to bits the statues of their gods and
obliterate their names from that place.” –Deuteronomy 12:2-3

The Israelites were being sent by God to “dispossess” other nations of their lands and to dwell there.  But in this call, they were also being called to act as a kind of purifying agent.  They were called to go to this new land and tear down the altars, smash the sacred stones, hack to bits the statues and obliterate the names of these false gods from that place. To purify that place. 

            On a literal level this call horrifies our diversity sensitive ears. We shudder at the very idea of knocking down someone else’s gods.  Instead, in the name of sensitivity and diversity, we tend to look for ways to affirm and celebrate those beliefs and acknowledge their equality and validity. All in the name of avoiding conflict and promoting peaceful co-existence.  Anyway, who am I to knock over someone else’s idols and tear down their altars? What right do I have to tell someone else what to believe?

            And yes, there is some value in this attitude. Some value in acknowledging that we do not (personally or communally) possess a stranglehold on truth.  Plus, we can’t just walk into someone else’s home and start obliterating the names of their gods from the altars and stones and walls and poles of their home; not if we don’t want to start a war, at least.

            Clearly in the time of which Deuteronomy speaks that was literally a part of God’s plan. In this story, that was definitely included as part of the dispossessing and purifying plan God was laying before His people. 

            So, if we are not being called to actual war by this passage, what does it say to us today? What “land” are we called to dispossess? What altars and statues and sacred stones are we called to smash and what false gods are we called to obliterate?

            For me, the first thing to do with scripture is to accept that if it is the Word of God, then it truly does contain eternal truths.  And second, if God truly is love and truly loves each and every one of us, numbers even every hair on our heads, then I would tend accept that God is truly speaking to us through His word and He is truly speaking to each and every one of us.  And I would definitely take His words very personally.

            So, what do these words say to me –personally?  Well, I’ve been meditating on St. Joseph lately and so I return to that contemplation and see how these words help me understand Joseph or how Joseph’s example helps me understand better these words. 

            So, here goes: Joseph had a home, a career, a sense of place in his community, a reputation as an honorable and just man, and to that he had hopes for his new bride and coming life with Mary.  There was security and comfort and safety in this life, but God had something else in mind; a very different kind of life—the life of a refugee, of a step-father, of a cuckold even, --a life of complete self-surrrendering (it seems). Looking at it from my perspective, it looks like a life of letting go; letting go of personal dreams, letting go of career objectives and life goals. It looks like God is calling Joseph to dispossess himself of the lands of comfort and safety and independence and to obliterate any personal gods such as pleasure and security, and to put himself completely into God’s hands. Let go of those gods, smash them and hack them to bits and put your trust in Me.  I will bring you into a land of dependence, and vulnerability, a land that looks to the world like shame and foolishness, and you may not even live to see the fulfillment, to understand the reason (the point) for this life.  You will simply have to trust me… completely.  Will you let go of your gods, your altars, your sacred stones and come with me?

            So –where have I built altars to my personal gods of ego and pride and pleasure and safety and comfort? Where have I set up sacred stones to honor them?  What are the personal beliefs/desires/dreams that I hold sacred? Are there certain topics I simply won’t be challenged on? Politics? Money? Morality? Poetry? Art? Thin crust extra garlic pizza? Hmmm.

You see, for me, I don’t hear God talking about someone else and their false gods, their sacred stones… I hear Him talking to me.  About my gods...  I really do take His words very personally.