Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.

Sermon Text

 Long ago, in the legends of Ancient Greece, there emerged the story of Prometheus. Prometheus was a titan, one of the first divine beings (so the Greeks said.) He loved humanity and strove to make sure they had an advantage over the immense power of the Olympian Gods. First, he tricked the Gods into taking the worse deal in animal sacrifices. Two bags were prepared, one with choice meat placed on top of a pile of bones, skin, and fat, another with a worse cuts placed over the majority of the animal. The Gods chose the better cuts and bones, not knowing they had been tricked.

Later, Prometheus orchestrated his most famous exploit. He stole fire from Heaven and brought it down to earth. This allowed for humans to develop society, to forge metal and cook food. Now, through his work, humanity would grow and thrive upon the face of the earth. For stealing this divine secret, however, he was punished to be tied to a rock and tortured for the rest of eternity. A vicious punishment, but still a better outcome than his brother.

Prometheus had a brother you see, and his name was Epimetheus. He was not as clever as his brother, in fact their names meant “Forethought,” and “Afterthought,” you can guess which he was. The Gods, upset that fire had been stolen from them, devised a way to get back at humanity. They gave Epimetheus a beautiful wife named “Pandora,” and entrusted her to him. He loved her deeply and so when the Gods offered him a box, with the stipulation it must never be opened, he of course entrusted it to her. Pandora, the witless pawn in this adventure, opened the box and from it sprang every evil in the world. Last to exit was the greatest evil of them all, and yet also the one thing that might sustain human life… Hope.

So, why do I begin our meditation on this, the final Sunday of Advent, with a pagan myth about the origin of evil in the world? Well, I am not exactly sure myself. As I was working on planning this season, the story of Joseph learning of Mary’s pregnancy mingled in my head with this old myth, and I think its because I see in Joseph a bit of Epimetheus’s charm. Jospeh was a good man, who loved his wife-to-be, but did not think through his actions very far.

You see, Joseph learned that his fiancé Mary was pregnant, and so he decided he should break off the marriage. If it was his kid, or if he thought it could be, they would just move up the date of the marriage. Even in Judea, babies were born a few months shy of nine months after the wedding fairly often. We know that the baby could not be Joseph’s, because he hears of the pregnancy and immediately knows he is not the father. So, to avoid shaming her, he decides to break off the marriage privately, so no one need know why he did it.

There is, of course, a problem. Joseph and Mary are living in a village. If there are five hundred people living there than it would be a surprise. Among five hundred people, everyone knows everyone else’s business pretty quickly. Joseph, if he followed through with his plan, would save Mary none of the difficulty of her pregnancy. He would, however, avoid having to deal with the fallout himself. I do not think this is selfishness, but lack of planning that leads him to this idea. Joseph, for love of his fiancé, believes breaking off the marriage will fix her problems. He is wrong.

An unmarried woman faces enough trouble today, imagine in a world where she could be stoned to death for adultery. For the rest of her life Mary would be treated as a pariah, her child as worse than that. Mary had no place in this world, not if Joseph followed through with his plan. She and her child would be abandoned… God knows what that would have done if it had been allowed to continue. Thankfully, God had other plans.

An angel visited Joseph in his dreams and explained the situation. Joseph accepted this divine message and married his fiancé. Mary had her child, the child who was not Joseph’s, and yet the child became his own child, through his willingness to abandon his own bad idea. Now Joseph is acknowledged for his incredible love and commitment to a child he could have easily thrown aside. Joseph was willing to turn away from what he thought he knew about life, about the world, and in the process bring life into it, not just through a literal birth, but through supporting our savior as he grew into the ministry he had ahead of him.

What I hope we can take from Joseph’s story, and his shortsighted, knee-jerk reaction to Mary’s pregnancy, is the realization that a bad idea is not the end of our story. When we come into a situation we are not prepared for, we may have all kinds of ideas for how to deal with them. A calm mind will let us see that many of those reactions are not good, and if we take time to think through their repercussions we might be pleasantly surprised with what God can do with a person who thinks ahead. Joseph needed divine intervention to change his mind, and honestly I think we often need that exact same spark to change our ways.

Our faith is built off of Christ’s work within it. When we meet Christ, we should constantly be reorienting ourselves to be more like him. That reorientation requires us to abandon some of the ideas we have about ourselves, about the world, about our conduct. In my own life, I have seldom regretted a decision I made thoughtfully, but have regretted plenty that I made impulsively. When we take the time to think of how our actions impact others, when we are willing to accept a different perspective, when we are open to what God is doing… Then the hope of Christ’s reign is made plain to us. Go forward then, willing to change your mind in the face of God’s work in your life. Think before you act, not just living reactively. Then you will see God’s salvation, and truly know what it means to welcome Christ into your life. – Amen.