Tag Archives: Joseph

The Kingdom of God Comes Without Observation

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 NOTE:  I found that I had neglected to click the Publish button. So it is late, but it is now here.  JWS

The Eve of the Feast of the Incarnation 

The Kingdom of God comes, as our Lord put it, “without observation.”

Even so, it was a particularly inauspicious beginning. Gabriel had come to a young woman in Nazareth named Mary. He told her that God had chosen her to be the mother of God’s only son and that the Holy Spirit would accomplish it. She agreed, and it was so.

The Anxiety of Saint Joseph - Tissot

The Anxiety of Saint Joseph – Tissot

Joseph, Mary’s fiance, at first thought to divorce Mary quietly. But then Gabriel let him in on the plan and so he took Mary for his wife. I’m sure there was unpleasant gossip about the pregnant bride and her husband who some in town thought a fool for marrying her at all.

It was not an auspicious beginning.

In response to the census decreed by the Emperor Augustus, Joseph traveled to the hometown of his ancestor David. Apparently Joseph didn’t want to leave Mary alone so late in her pregnancy she rode a donkey 75+ miles to Bethlehem. There was no room in the inn so they wound up in a stable. Tradition says it was a cave.

It was not an auspicious place for a birth.

Seeking Shelter - Tissot

Seeking Shelter – Tissot

And there her first born son was born – laid in a manger – with the animals all around.

It was not an auspicious nursery.

An Angel appeared to shepherds who had the night shift watching the sheep. The angel said, “To you this day in the city of David is born one Christ the Lord.” Then suddenly more angels appeared. Was it 2, 20 or 200 angels? It’s hard to know when you have so little practice seeing angels. “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth.”

It was not an auspicious audience.

The shepherds went into Bethlehem and indeed it was so: Emmanuel – God with us.

The Angels & the Shepherds – James Tissot

It was not auspicious in any way we would usually recognize! But the truly important things in our own lives have always come without auspicious beginnings. We never saw their importance at the time. It is only in getting still and looking at our life that we see the outline of meaning. Oh, we say, that’s what that meant.

  • How amazed would Augustus be to know that more people know him from the opening line of the Christmas Gospel than from any inscription on a building in the forum in Rome?
  • Quirinus is the only Roman Governor of Syria now remembered and that for an event which he never knew of.
  • Those taking the census, those who could afford rooms in the inn that night never knew that an event born out poverty would be the very event by which we divide history before and after.

“Here in time we have a holiday because the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature, The birth is always happening. But if it happen not in me what does it profit me? What matters is that it (the birth) shall happen in me.” Meister Eckhart

The inauspicious surroundings of our lives are the very occasion new birth in us!

It is the dark recesses of the stables of our souls that new birth begins.

It comes quietly hardly noticed by the turning of new leaves and amid the litter of good intentions. It is when we are powerless and come to know it that the birth pain begins. We give up and know that we cannot make it on our own – there is a sudden irresistible movement of grace and there it is – new life – laid in the manager in amongst the ruin of our well laid plans.

Adoration of the Shepherds - Tissot

Adoration of the Shepherds – Tissot

This is not what we expect. This is not what we desire. We want drama. We want the earth to tilt further on its axis in order that we will know that we are alive and that all is well. But that is not how it happens.

Meister Eckhart: “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.”

Tonight heaven and earth meet in that inauspicious event born of poverty. Earth is drawn up into heaven. In the great silence — without observation – He is come!

CS Lewis once said, “What a sorry place the world would be if it were always winter and never Christmas.”  Well, it is finally winter even in Tennessee. And it is Christmas — let us be still and silent before him that he may be reborn in us.

THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE

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Presentation of Christ in the Temple - Rembrandt

Presentation of Christ in the Temple – Rembrandt

The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple is not one we know well.  So, let’s talk Theology:  The Presentation marked on February 2nd is the other half of the Annunciation marked on March 25th  (9 months from Christmas

Gabriel – Annunciation of great joy – He is Messiah   & Virgin born
[Contradiction]
Anna & Simeon – Presentation of great suffering – He will redeem his people at great cost.
Equals Paradox

The reading from Hebrew Scripture is from Malachi, the last of the prophets.  He writes,  “. . . and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight  — indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”

The prophet tells the House of Israel and us two things:  1. The Lord is coming   and   2. He is coming to the temple.

In the 1st Century the longing for Messiah was keenly felt in the era of Roman occupation. The temple of that period, the third temple was built by King Herod, the Roman puppet king. In 19 BC he began work on a new temple at Jerusalem.  He did this to win favour with his subjects and to impress the Roman world with his splendid building.  The main building was finished in ten years but work continued for the next fifty.

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The temple itself was covered with so much gold that it was a blinding sight in the bright sun.  The temple platform was extended beyond the hill to enclose an area of 35 acres. I have read that 24 or so football fields would fit on that vast platform.  It could be seen from outer space.   At its southern end, it stood 100-150 feet above ground level.  A covered cloister ran right around the outer courtyards.

 The Temple was laid out in concentric courtyards.

  • The main entrance was from the south, and led to the Court of the Gentiles.  Anyone could enter this part of the temple.  [Notices in Greek and Latin forbade non-Jews to enter the inner court of the temple.]
  • The next court was the Court of the Women.  This was as far women were allowed to go into the temple itself.   It was here where Mary and Joseph stopped.
  • Men could go further, into the court of Israel.
  • The inner court was limited to priests only.
  • In the center of the complex was the Holy of Holies where only the High priest went once a year on the Day of Atonement.

The point I want to make here about Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple, is that it is nothing like anything we have ever seen.  You may think this is sort of like a baptism since we tend to view the Scriptural setting as identical to our own.

Not so, put that right out of your head.

Going to the Temple was less like going to Church than going to the Fair!

model_36

Model of Temple

The centerpiece of temple worship was the ritual slaughter of animals: sheep, goats, bulls, and if you couldn’t afford four-legged animals a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. By this time the Jews were no longer a nomadic people, each family with their own flocks.  But you still needed animals for sacrifice. A thriving business grew up supplying animals for sacrifice. [You recall that Jesus did something about that but that is 33 years in the future.]  So:

  1. You bought your animal, got in line and when your time came you presented your beast to the priests.
  2. They killed the animal and it’s blood poured down a special drainage system designed to drain away the vast amounts of blood spilled every day.
  3. The outdoors altar was a slaughter assembly line  with the Sun shining and the animals bellowing.
  4. Some of the meat went to the priests;
  5. Some of it was used for your family ritual meal, while the remaining parts were burned.
  6. It was a bloody, smoky, smelly place.
  7. At the same time worshipers were praying out loud,
  8. Choirs were singing psalms
  9. Religious scholars were holding forth to their students in the porches around the courtyards.

Going to the temple and going to church have little in common unless we open a stock yard at the Cathedral and hold graduate classes in theology and choir rehearsal at a continuous Pentecostal revival and barbecue!

 “ . . . And the Lord you seek will suddenly come to His temple!”  Certainly Simeon knew the words of the Malachi.  And then it happened one day, not perhaps the way he had imagined but nevertheless it happened.  A couple came into the temple to make sacrifice, as required by the law, for their first-born son.  Most families sacrificed a sheep or a calf.  The law made provision for people of less means.  They could get by with a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.

4.The_17

The irony is that all the crowds that thronged the temple that day did not discern the presence of Messiah, the very one that they desired. They were so busy doing what was required that they missed the great day, when the Son of God had his coming out, presented to all the world and only two eccentrics whose eyes were fixed, looking for God, saw him.

Presentation_of_the_LordThe Spirit gave Simeon the gift of recognition.  So Simeon spied them and his heart, long trained to look for Messiah, discerned in the face of the little one, the face he had longed to see: the face of the holy one.  Taking the babe in his arms, he blessed God in the words we sing at evening prayer or often at the burial of a Christian, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.”

Anna, eighty-four years old, who lived in the temple and worshiping there fasting and praying day and night came in. She too recognized the child as the promised one, and began to tell the news to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel.

This Day is also called Pro Orantibus [For those who pray]   These two old people, Simeon who prayed and dreamed, Anna who prayed and fasted  may have been half blind with age but the eyes of their imagination were clearly and sharply focused.

Mark Twain once said, “

“You cannot trust your eyes, if your IMAGINATION is out of focus.”

If Renewal Works has taught us anything it is that while everyone owes God One soul, the care and feeding of your soul cannot be delegated, hired out or left to force feeding by the clergy.  It can however be neglected, starved and abused.

RenewalWorks is a process we are using to get our imaginations in focus! How?

  1. We are reading some scripture from day to day or at least regularly; not enough we believe but more scripture than we have in the past. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly! It doesn’t take much Bible to affect us!  Embedding our lives in Scripture focuses our imagination!
  2. In the breaking of bread: To discern the presence of our Lord in the bread and wine.    We believe that in this place we encounter the risen Jesus in bread and wine just as he promised.  If this is true do you see it is the most important thing we do all week!
  3. In our own inner life I believe that God is speaking to us constantly in our prayers, dreams, visions, and hunches.  But we are to busy doing our daily sacrifices of time, talent and ambition to even notice.  It is only when we are willing to slow down and focus our imaginations that we can trust our eyes.
  4. In each other:  God often seems to speak to me through the people in my life. Parker Palmer once wrote that, “Community is that place where the person you cannot stand always live.” It takes a work of imagination to see that we are all gifts of God to each other, especially those who irritate and scare us the most.
  5. In the faces of the poor and stranger: The Blessed Teresa of Calcutta spoke of Jesus in his disturbing disguises.  She said that when she encountered him in the breaking of bread that she could encounter him in his most distressing disguises.  Eyes with focused imagination see him and hear him, “If you have done to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters you have done it unto me.”
Icon of the Presentation

Icon of the Presentation

I ask you to take better care of your souls.  Please call on us. The clergy are not paid to be Christians for you.  The clergy are here as player-coaches.  We are in ministry of equipped and coaches ministers.  Please, Please, by the mercies of God come and join in this movement.

In our baptism we are given the gift of the Spirit, who penetrates history and existence in order to focus our imaginations will come into focus. With clear eyes it is easy to discern the Holy One in us, between us and to holy hands for the care those in need.

I see you.  I see him in you. Look around you will see him too. To him be glory now and forever.  Amen

A Strong Silent Dreamer

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Joseph - Toulouse Lautrec

Joseph – Toulouse Lautrec

Joseph is the silent partner of the Holy Family. No word he spoke is recorded in scripture. He was a man, however, who paid attention to his dreams.  It is for his dreams that we remember him.  Men and Women are different in many ways and there also seem to be some differences between the dreams of fathers and the dreams of mothers: Mothers tell us who we are and Fathers tell us who we are to become.   Mothers are about origins/birthing, the nesting frenzy of booties, cribs, gowns etc.  There is only one beautiful child in the world and every mother has it! On the other hand, Fathers tend to look to the future and show up at the hospital with baseball mitts, footballs and open college accounts on the day their child is born.

We see some of the same issues in the story of the nativity. Mary gets most of the attention and nearly all of the credit.  Joseph gets little attention and no credit at all. Yet Joseph is the ordinary-extraordinary man that God chose to be the earthly father to his only son, the Christ.  The thing that strikes me about Joseph is that he is a man who pays attention to his inner life.

Flight into Egypt - Henry Ossawa Turner

Flight into Egypt – Henry Ossawa Turner

I.       JOSEPH’S DREAMS

Scripture records four of Joseph’s dreams.

  1.  Mary is pregnant.  The child is not Joseph’s child.  As he was pondering what to do he fell asleep and dreamed.  A messenger (angel) of the Lord appeared to him in his dream and said, “The child is the product of the Holy Spirit so do not fear to marry Mary. ”So Joseph took Mary and went to Bethlehem and the baby was born in a stable in a crowded city.  And the angels came to the shepherds and the shepherds found the stable.  Time passed. It appears that the baby family settled in Bethlehem, as that is where the Magi found the family, tradition says two to three years later. Here Herod enters the story.  He is the stereotype of the “wicked king”.  He learned from the mysterious eastern visitors that a “new” king had been born and decides to kill him before he can become a problem. Recently I learned that Herod had one of his 11 palaces in sight of Bethlehem, a fortress-palace called the Herodion.  In my mind I see the King standing on the single high tower of  the place watching the torches move from house to house while his henchmen did the terrible injustice to the innocent.

    James Tissot

    James Tissot

  2. After the Magi have departed by another way, true to form, Joseph had a dream.  An angel told him that Herod would kill the child and that the holy family should flee to Egypt. Joseph arose right then and by night took Mary and the child and traveled to Egypt.
  3. After Herod had died, in a dream, an angel instructed Joseph to, “Go home.” Back they go from Egypt to Judea.  Back in Judea Joseph is uneasy about the new ruler, Archaleus, Herod’s bouncing baby son.
  4. In yet another dream an angel gives further instructions, “Do not stay in Bethlehem.  Archaleus is as evil as his father.”  So they settled in Nazareth and Jesus was known as a Nazarene.
Christ in the Carpenters Shop - John Everett Millais

Christ in the Carpenters Shop – John Everett Millais

II.      JOSEPH: A  MODEL  OF  A  FAITHFUL   LIFE

Where would we be today if Joseph had not paid attention to his dreams? Joseph was sensitive to the realities of the spiritual world. He becomes for us a model of faith. Had Joseph not been in relationship with God he could have attributed the dreams to indigestion caused by the pizza he ate last night. Or maybe because of the stress he had been living with. This radical openness to God, this willingness to be led by the Spirit is a critical component of what it means to be used effectively by God.  A Hasidic tale speaks of the “faith treasure” that lies within each of us, if only we will pay attention to the guidance given us.

Isaac, a poor Jew, lived in an old hovel many miles from a large city.  One night he dreamed that if he would make the long journey to the far-off city, he would find a bag of gold hidden under the bridge leading to the city’s main gate.  The man was so poor he had nothing to lose, so he ventured forth on what seemed like a foolhardy trip. Isaac, slowly and arduously, made his way to the city.  After many days of walking, he finally arrived.  But to his dismay, Isaac saw that the main bridge leading to the gate of the city was heavily guarded.  Upset and lost, the poor man stood there under the bridge, hoping for an opportunity to make a search for the treasure.  His disquieted presence soon caught the attention of the captain of the guard, who looked down on the poor figure and shouted, “What are you doing here, old man?”

Isaac, in the simplicity of his poverty, told his dream to the captain.  Hardly able to contain his laughter, the captain replied, “Why you old fool, where would we be if we took notice of our dreams?  Why, only last night, I dreamed that if I were to journey to a small village, miles from here, I would find some treasure hidden behind the fireplace in the miserable hovel of an old Jew named Isaac.  Be off with you, old man.  Take your foolishness elsewhere!” And, of course, Isaac went home as fast as he could and found treasure behind his own hearth.

The question is how do we become like St. Joseph?

III.     HOW TO BE LIKE JOSEPH

Morton Kelsey, in his book, Encounter With God, gives us some hints.  He says:

Act as if the spiritual realm exists.  Churches are full of people who live as if the physical word – the world of the five senses – is all there is.  What if we began to act as it the world of scripture, which assumes there a supernatural, were true.  How would that change how we live our life?  Would we be different at our jobs?  Begin by saying, “There is a realm of realty that is beyond the purely physical world. I want to know more about that realm.” Pray and ask God to reveal this spiritual to you.

Begin one’s pilgrimage with serious purpose.   What would happen if we engaged our spiritual life with the same energy that we do our jobs?  What would happen? Be as honest with oneself as possible.  We must be honest before we are able to face and grow through many things.  Denial is the mark of human nature since the Garden of Eden.  We hope that if we don’t admit that there is an elephant in the living room no one else will notice either.

Begin spiritual disciplines:

  • Keep a journal.
  • Keep records of dreams.  God still speaks to us from our unconscious.
  • Read and study the spiritual life.
  • Pray, experiment with prayer.
  • Give of time, talent and money to this parish and beyond.
  • Practice the faith – we don’t have to get it right every time – faith is a laboratory.

 Seek God.  It is important to become as open to God as we know how and then expect him to meet us. As Scripture states if we draw near to God, God will draw near to us!”  God speaks to us in many ways.  On many occasions, I have heard the word of the lord coming from the lips of someone who never knew that what they said had some power for my life.

 IV.     WE ARE CALLED TO BE A COMMUNITY OF JOSEPHS

 Many of us are walking around, hunting and hoping for what might have been or what might be but that is where it ends.  The Good News today is that God is at work in the world.  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. And they are us!  I invite you and me to be open in this New Year to the possibilities that God has for us.

 Folks in Alcoholic Anonymous speak of the “consequences” of alcoholism.  I have a dream that Saint John’s will be a place where people encounter God with all the extraordinary “consequences” such encounters entail.  What consequences await us this year?  We have new dreams and we have the old dreams that have yet to come to pass.   Dreaming dreams is part of my job, but the dreaming of this community is everyone’s responsibility.  What is your dream?  What is your dream for you, your family, and this faith community?

Dreams require sacrifice. As Robert Johnson puts it,

“Sacrifice really involves the art of drawing energy from one level and reinvesting it at another level to produce a higher form of consciousness.”  In 2014  what are we willing to sacrifice that we may become whole in body, mind and spirit?

 Here also Joseph is a sign and a model to us.  Tradition says that Joseph was much older than Mary. Here his whole life has been uprooted by this mysterious pregnancy and birth attended by angels, shepherd, and wise men.  He is faithful to the call of the angels in his dreams.  He pulls up stakes time after time, moving to new towns and a new country.  He goes back to Bethlehem with Mary and the boy and sets up his carpenter business all over again.  Luke tells us that Joseph was alive when Jesus was twelve and in the temple.  After that he disappears from the scriptures without a trace.

 V.      CONCLUSION

 Joseph, the patron saint of workers, is also the patron of people who keep on keeping on. Those who put one foot in front of the other, day after day, week after week, many coming like Joseph to the end of their life or rope without seeing the thing they have hoped for and had been promised.  Apparently Joseph died before Jesus began to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Joseph was more faithful than successful.  He is the patron of the doggedly faithful. What a moment it must have been when Jesus went to the place of the dead proclaiming the resurrection?  I’ll bet that right behind Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Elijah was the man who first taught Jesus what it meant to call somebody Abba/daddy. Pray that we, like St. Joseph, will be open to God’s working in our lives.  Pray that we will hear God’s call in our dreams and then with patience and courage follow where God leads in 2014 and in the age to come.

Amen.

Flight into Egypt - Edwin Long

Flight into Egypt – Edwin Long