I am working on my sermon. The reading for this Sunday is from Matthew. It is the beginning of the story of Jesus birth as Matthew tells it. He is concerned for Joseph. Dear Joseph who really seems to be one of the minor characters in the drama. He is often in the shadows, looking as if he is not exactly sure what his role is. We aren’t so sure ourselves. He is a husband and a father, but his fatherhood is suspect! But what I love most about Joseph is that he shows us what it is to be a person caught in a terrible situation and still do the right thing.
The story we will hear on Sunday tells of Joseph trying to decide what to do about the fact that his girlfriend is pregnant and she has told him he is not the father. He decides to sleep on it and he has a restless night because he can’t stop dreaming vivid dreams. Dreams where an angel tells him to stick with Mary, to see it through, to raise the child ( “By the way” says the angel, “it will be a boy.”) And while it might seem that as the story unfolds Joseph moves from centre-stage and Mary gets all the glory in fact we must remember that it was Joseph who got Mary to the stable and found at least a manger for the baby. It was Joseph who took his family to safety in Egypt (again, because an angel told him in a dream to hightail it out of the country.) It was Joseph who got his little family back to Nazareth where he no doubt held the baby as he cut his first tooth and steadied him as he took his first step. It was Joseph who taught him how to smooth a rough piece of wood in the carpenter’s shop and how to drive a nail.
Strong, steady, stalwart Joseph. Never centre-stage but the kind of guy you know you can depend on to be there when you need him. Joseph, he is my kind of guy.
