Joseph, the Father

This is Father’s Day! A wonderful Day of celebrating our fathers. We all have remembrances of our Dads - some good, some bad and that is also what we find in the Bible. There are not a lot of good father examples in our Bible stories - except of course God our Father. But these not so great fathers run the same gamut as the fathers in our own lives. Noah had a drinking problem and both Issac and Jacob favored one son over the others which caused lots of problems. David had several sons but because his life was the mess it was his sons had lots of problems growing up. We could go on with these negative examples of what fathers we find in the Bible and I guess there is value in learning about what not to do as a Father but there is an example of a great Father we find in the New Testament - and he was essentially a step-father.
We normally only hear about Joseph around Christmas. But when we look at the life of Joseph what we find is that Joseph is a wonderful example for us of what a truly self-less, supportive father can be. And it is interesting that such a good example of what a good father can be, has such a minor role in the Biblical account in the life of Jesus.
We start off the story of remembering Joseph is a carpenter. Carpenter’s didn’t make a lot of money - enough to support a family but not enough for many extras. He is betrothed to a young girl named Mary. Probably not his choice for a wife but that really didn’t matter in their culture. At this point in the betrothal process Joseph is busy getting a home ready for his new wife. We don’t know how, but somehow Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant. You have to think that his heart sank. He is not allowed to see or have any contact with Mary during this betrothal time so he knows that the baby is not his. So now all the work he has been doing to get the home ready was for nothing. He couldn’t marry her now. This nice life that he had planned was ruined. What was he going to do? He was going to have to find another wife and that could be a difficult process seeing as how all the young girls in his small town would have already been pledged to someone else. So now Joseph is laying in bed figuring his life has been ruined - what was he going to do now?
Laying there that night, he did decide that he wasn’t going to make a big deal of this. He could have demanded Mary be stoned - that was within his right. He could have demanded that Mary and her family leave town. That was within his right as well. But, being what the scripture calls a ‘good’ man, he decides that he is not going to create a scandal. He is just going to bow out gracefully and let Mary’s family deal with her. Joseph was not going to be the one to create a problem even though he is the one who has had the rug pulled out from under him; who is back at square one and now has to refigure his life.
But still, he is upset. Many of us can relate to Joseph. We’ve made plans; we think we have our life figured out; we think things are going the way we want them to go. And then something happens that completely changes everything. Something happens that stops us in our tracks; slams on the brakes and causes our life to go in a whole different direction. And then here we are, just like Joseph, laying awake at night, wondering what we are going to do now.
God decides to help Joseph out by sending him an angel. And I don’t think that this is really something that unusual. This is not something that can’t happen to us in our life now. But we have to remember that whenever God talks to us, it is always in the still small moments of our life. Whenever we see God talking to people in the bible, it is in still quiet moments. If we truly trust in God, if we really believe that God is real and active in our life all the time, and we pay attention, God will give us direction just like he did Joseph. But there are two very important words here - paying attention and trusting. Because just like Joseph, what God tells us is often things that don’t make any sense; things that go against how we think things ‘should be’, how we thing thinks ‘ought to be’; often things that are going to make our life more difficult. And this is certainly Joseph’s experience. But what a great quality for Joseph who is going to be the earthly father of God’s son. Here we see how Joseph can set an example for someone who wants to be a good father - someone who is able to stop and listen to the words of God for guidance and direction.
Here he is laying in bed, thinking about his turn of events in his life, when an angel visits him and tells him to go ahead and get married to Mary. The angel explains to Joseph that Mary hasn’t cheated on him, that Mary hasn’t been with another man. She is still a virgin - this baby is the child of God. Just like the angel told Mary, the angel tells Joseph that the baby is to be named Jesus - he will be the Messiah who will save the people from their sin. And the angel uses the words of Isaiah to remind Joseph of what the prophecies say. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and[ will call him Immanuel.
Now lets put ourselves in Joseph’s place. Joseph after all is just a normal guy. He is not ‘special’; he doesn’t have some magic pipeline to God, he is just a guy who is put in an extraordinary situation. He is no different than any one of us. That is a constant theme through these Bible stories - this is the point God wants us to hear. God uses normal, everyday, average people to do his work. He uses people, just people. Joseph could be any of us and he is hearing these crazy things. He is being told to go against the culture and do something that will raise every eyebrow in town. Nazareth is a really small town. You know small towns - everybody knows everybody’s business….. You do something outside of the norm and people are going to talk.
But the angel doesn’t stop with the weird information. Joseph is shaking his head because who could understand the concept that God was the father of this baby Mary is carrying? We don’t understand that now - so imagine what Joseph is thinking. What? Mary is pregnant but she’s a virgin and God is the father? And then, against culture again, if Joseph agreed to keep Mary as his wife and claim the son as his, he was going to go against culture again which dictated that the first born son be named after the father, and name the boy Jesus? One more head scratching, difficult decision……
The angel does try to help Joseph. “Remember the prophecy, Joseph.” the angel says. “The prophecy says that a Virgin is going to give birth to the Messiah. You know the words. And here it is, it is happening now and you are going to be part of it.” This brings us to an important point. God will never ask us to do anything against to what scripture teaches. Maybe against society, maybe against what we think, may against what we have been taught our whole lives, but never against what is found in the word of God. And this is another reminder of why it is so important for us to know what scripture says - because if we know the word of God then that will help us in our discerning process - will help us know if we are aligning ourselves with God’s plan. Joseph is. He knows the prophecies. He just never in a million years thought that he would be involved in God’s plan.
Joseph accepts the role as the father of God’s son. Just the thought of being responsible to provide for and raise God’s son is just incredible. Would we want to take on such an important job. Wouldn’t you really be worried all the time about making sure Jesus was OK?
Throughout the account of the rest of the life we know about Joseph, his main characteristic was his willingness to listen to God at every turn. Joseph leaves Nazareth with a very pregnant Mary and makes the arduous journey to Bethlehem. I journey none of us can really conceive. Maybe we can remember some difficult road trips with small children in your car who are forever saying “Are We There Yet” or “She’s touching me!” or “I have to go to the bathroom”. That can test a father’s patience!
Here Joseph is with Mary, traveling on a donkey over treacherous roads, reaching Bethlehem only to find out they don’t have anywhere to stay. Joseph has to help his very young wife deliver a baby in a stable of all places. Joseph has to figure out how to support his new family in a place neither one of them has lived before.
And Joseph didn’t hesitate to pack up his family and leave Bethlehem when God told him late at night to pack up and travel to a foreign country where he really didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the language and would still have to care for and support his family. And then, once again Joseph heard
the voice of God telling him to pack up again, leave Egypt and travel back to Nazareth where he would have to re-establish himself once again.
Once he has his family back safely in Nazareth, Joseph just drops out of the picture. We can only assume that he cared for his family as a carpenter, raised Jesus and his other children and lived a normal life.
Joseph is the wonderful father who God lifts up for us to see the secret of being a Godly father is simply the willingness to listen and obey the voice of God; to do what God asks to care for your family.
And here we learn that what is important is simply loving God and following God and everything else will fall into place.

Amen.

Who Am I?

We call ourselves ‘Christian;. Have you ever really stopped to contemplate what that word means? What does it mean when you call yourself ‘Christian’? The word Christian can be used in a variety of different ways…….. As a noun - I am a Christian; As an verb - That is very Christian of you; As an adjective - there is a Christian symbol; it is even a name - I have known several people named Christian. But we throw around words all the time without really thinking about what they mean - and when you call yourself a Christian, when we say this is a Christian church, what are we really saying? Or is it just a label we use because we have always used it and it just seems to fit? Does the fact you call yourself ‘Christian’ make a difference in your everyday life; in what you do; in how you do things; in the decisions you make? And that is what we are going to talk about today - how does this word ‘Christian’ apply to me and to this church?
When you look up ‘Christian’ in Websters - that may be dating me a little bit because I doubt not many people have a Webster’s dictionary laying around anymore - or should I say when you google the definition of ‘Christian’ what comes up is ‘pertaining to Christ’. That’s pretty much it. The word Christian is something that has to do with Christ - or the person of Jesus because we know Jesus Christ. I hate to admit this but I was way older than I should have been when i figured out that Christ wasn’t Jesus’ last name. Jesus Christ - makes sense as a name - I have 2 names, shouldn’t Jesus have 2 names? It was only when someone referred to Jesus as ‘the’ Christ - Jesus the Christ - that it dawned on me that Christ was not his name but who he was - Jesus was the Christ; the messiah; the savior. Jesus is the one who brought me salvation. And that is how we need to think of Jesus - Jesus is the one who restores my relationship with God; Jesus is my savior; Jesus is the one who fills me with his Spirit; Jesus is the one who advocates for me with God the Father; Jesus is my leader; Jesus is my friend.
So we know then that Jesus is the one who is the one tho walks with me and helps me get through the day and Jesus is also the one who challenges me to live a life different than the one I am inclined to live on my own. Jesus is our example - and as we look to Jesus we have these thoughts of ‘I can never live up to the expectations of Jesus’ and at the same time ‘I know when I fail Jesus forgives me’ so we walk this tightrope between the expectations of what Jesus wants us to be and do and the knowledge of what we really are. And so this life we call Christian is the tension of trying to understand all of this and to make following Jesus make sense.
The best place to go to grasp what this living like Jesus; of living into this label of Christian; is all about are the accounts of God’s people in the Old Testament and specifically the journey of the Hebrew people as they leave Egypt and travel through the wilderness. So today we are going to review that story and see how this account of God’s people can help us as we struggle with what our life is suppose to be all about.
So let’s review the story and we are going to all the way back to the man of Abraham. Abraham was called to be the ‘Father of the Nation’ of God’s people. And the only Abraham being the start of a great nation started off pretty slow. Abraham had one son Issac; Issac had two sons - Jacob and Esau and then Jacob got things going more quickly for Jacob had 12 sons. Jacob favored one of his sons which made the other brothers jealous and they ended up selling the favored one into slavery. This young boy, Joseph, by the grace and direction of God, ended up being 2nd in command of Egypt and through this position was able to provide food for his family in the midst of famine. Joseph gave his father and his 11 brothers the best land in all of Egypt - the land of Goshen and in this lush location Jacob’s family thrived and here they did grow into a large group of people. But a cushy easy life doesn’t last forever and the people eventually became slaves of the Egyptians. Their life was miserable and they cried out for help to God. God sends them Moses who saves them from slavery, brings them through the water of the Red Sea, and sends them off on a journey through the wilderness to the ‘land of milk and honey’.
I want you to think about the similarities to this beginning of a journey and that of Jesus. Remember Jesus grows up and at the right time goes to the waters of the Jordan river, and when he comes out of the water he goes immediately to the wilderness to begin his journey as the Messiah - the Christ. And then look at yourself - we go through the waters of baptism and immediately begin our journey to discover what it means to be part of the church; to begin our journey to call ourselves Christian.
This is the purpose of the journey of the Hebrew people after they leave Egypt, to figure out what it means to be the people of God; to understand what it means to belong to God; We belong to God and it is a difficult idea to really understand.



God rescues the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, takes them through the waters of the Red Sea and into the wilderness where they are promised they will end up in a land all their own - a land we know as the land of Israel. Now when you think about it, this journey should have taken them about a month. If they had just gone across the top of the Sinai peninsula it wasn’t that long of a trip between Egypt and the land we know as Israel. But instead of going that way, God sends them down the Sinai Peninsula and we know that it takes them 40 years. That is a significant time difference between a month and 40 years.
Why did God do that? Why have them travel that long and experience all the hardships and the problems and not just let them go straight to the land of milk and honey? Why doesn’t God just instill us with all the knowledge and undressing so we can act like the people of God?
The answer is pretty simple and not one we like - but we are slow learners. And as you well know when you are honest with yourself, if we are really going to learn something we have to learn it ourselves and we have to learn it the hard way. And thus the purpose of the journey of the Hebrews and the journey we are on to discover what being Christian means for our lives.
In the passage we read from Exodus this morning, God is telling Moses the purpose of the journey. These people need to learn who I am, God says, and they have to learn what that means in their lives. And when you read the stories of the Hebrews on this journey in the wilderness, it wasn’t easy for them and it often wasn’t pretty. But what does come through all of these stories is that God loves them, and that God is very patient. Admittedly there was one moment where God wanted to wipe them all out and start over but Moses quickly persuaded God this was not a good idea…..
What God idid was to guide them, give them food, water, shelter, clothing, protection. Everything they needed to get through each day. And God did this for the entire journey. And God did this solely to help them see they were taken care of and to prove to them they would always be provided for. God did this to help them begin to identify themselves as the people of God. Both objectives - the people realizing God provided for them and the ability to begin to see themselves as the people of God - took 40 years - and that is why they went the long way around to get to the promised land and didn’t take the direct route across the top.
We are on the same journey as the Hebrew people as they left Egypt. Jesus brings us salvation just as Moses saved the Hebrews from Egypt. Just as they went through the waters of the Red Sea we come through the waters of baptism and receive our identity as a child of God. And then we go off on a journey to let God help us figure out what that is all about. And just like the journey of the Hebrews who were called by God as a ‘stubborn’ people, we are a stubborn people. We don’t learn quickly because grasping our identity of God’s people is a tough one.
I always knew when I went for a job interview the inevitable question would come up - ‘tell me about yourself’. I never knew what to say. I was never sure what they wanted to hear. Did they want personal information or my work information or something else entirely. So right now I want to ask you, ‘tell me about yourself’. (pause)
What would you say if I just pointed to one of you and said ‘Tell me about yourself’. Many of us would say things like - “i’m a grandmother or a father or a brother or a son”. Some of may say “I’m a lawyer or a doctor or a plumber or a store clerk”. We may hear things like “I’m a golfer or a fisher person or a reader. We may say “I’m a Presbyterian or a former Lutheran or I’m a church newbie”. How many of us would lead with - “I’m a child of God”.
And now you see the purpose of the journey. We may see ourselves as an Aunt or a Mother or a friend - but that is not who we are that is a picture of our relationship with one another. We may say we are a piano player or a teacher or a manager - but that is not who we are that is what we do to support ourselves. We may say “I’m a gardener or I’m a stamp collector or I’m a TV watcher” but that is not who we are, that is simply how we entertain ourselves…..
Who we are is the people of God. Who you are as individuals are the children of God. That is who you are. You know those confusing times in your life - and it happens to us all at various ages - when we struggle with the question of identity….“Who Am I” we ask. Be assured you are not what you’re relationship is with others people; you are not what you do; you are not how you entertain yourself…… you are a child of God first and foremost. And when we can start identifying ourselves as belonging to God, we begin to view our lives in a whole new way; with a whole new perspective and with a whole new sense of purpose.
An identity that will never ever leave us; an identity that will never ever change. When our hobbies change or our professions change or our relationship changes, we don’t have to go through a crisis of “Who am i” now that I”m no longer an electrician or a wife or a daughter….. because we are a child of God and that will never change no matter what is going on around us in our lives.
And it is no different for us as a church; as a congregation. Just as individuals are on a journey, churches and congregations are on a journey as well. We need to get away from identifying ourselves as the church on the outskirts of town or the church that is 150 years old or the church that use to be 200 members or that church up there with the cemetery……. We as a church need to start seeing ourselves as the church of Jesus Christ who are on a journey to new places, with new opportunities, with God guiding us and directing us leading us to the place God knows……. not particularly our own understanding but trusting in God’s constant presence and provision.
When God’s people left Egypt, they had no idea where they were going. They had no idea what it would be like. What they did know what that the wilderness was a heck of a lot different than the lush grass of the land of Goshen.
And what we know as children of God we have no idea where we are going - as individuals or as a church. What we do know is that things sure look a lot different than they did. But what we also need to remember who we belong to - we are God’s. We are God’s and God will never leave us or forsake us.
Jeremiah reminds us For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
The next time someone asks you to tell them about yourself - will your response be “I’m a child of God” - even if you don’t say it out loud cause I admit it might be a bit awkward. For if you start thinking of yourselves that way, everything else will fall into place. You start accepting the provisions of God; you start accepting yourself as OK just as you are; you begin to see you do have value and a purpose.
The Hebrews journey took 40 years; ours takes a life time. Stick with it. God is there and God will guide you to where you need to be if you will just let go and trust.

Amen.