Matthew 1.18b-19
When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived
together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband
Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace,
planned to dismiss her quietly.
Adam Hamilton is doing what everyone must do regarding the birth narrative of Jesus Christ – using his imagination and informed speculation to fill in the gaps. He is also doing something else that not everyone does – mixing the voices of Matthew and Luke. It’s not a bad practice, but I hope that you will go back and read each of the two gospel accounts (Matthew and Luke) separately and to the best of your ability, when reading one, not let the telling of the story in the other influence your experience and understanding of the first.
Adam makes two assumptions that I do not find helpful: 1) that Joseph is 15 or 16 years old; 2) that Joseph did not believe Mary’s story and that consequently Joseph thought she had been impregnated by “another man.” Just because he momentarily thought of divorce does not mean he did not believe her; he may have thought she was now married to God—who knows. According to Matthew’s narrative, an angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph and Mary (to Joseph in Matthew and to Mary in Luke), so they both knew what was about to take place, they were engaged, and they were to parent as their own the baby given to them by God. For these reasons, I don’t think the Deuteronomy passage really applies. Both Mary and Joseph obeyed the words of the angel of the Lord.
Adam’s message is a powerful one—merciful forgiveness; it’s
just not on point—feels forced. The message I get is this: When God speaks
directly to you or me and we clearly recognize it, we are wise to take heed and
then be obedient.
It is my hope that we, members of First United Methodist
Church who take the Scriptures very seriously, do not edit or massage the
respective writers’ message so that we can make a point we want to make.
My greater hope is that we do our best during the holiday
season and beyond to carefully listen in all our conversations to really hear
what people are saying and not translate their communications into something we
want to hear. If we do this and respond in loving manner,
we’ll be sharing a precious gift.
Rev. Jay Cole, Associate Minister, Minister of Crossroads Community Services
