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 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. 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 conceive and bear 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 borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
What do you want for Christmas? A question you’ve probably been asked more than once already this holiday season. And, just in case you don’t have a ready-made answer, retailers have plenty of ideas. Amazon and others have even taken the time to sort them out by “type,” ensuring that you can access the best gifts for everyone on your list from your mother to your coworker to that elusive teenage nephew. Ask a child this question and you’ll likely get a wide range of answers, which might include something called a Hatchimal, which are impossible to find, or other items that are equally confusing or challenging to acquire. I love the song that goes “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas!”(1) It seems the more we think about it, the bigger and longer our lists might get, and the more audacious they become. Rightly, so, you can imagine a parent or other gift giver seeing a request and responding “In your dreams!”
Wishes often lead to dreams and hopes, though, and our Christmas ones are no exceptions. This season offers us the opportunity to dream a little. But more than the “stuff” that makes up shopping lists, I think we are invited to consider what kind of lofty wish lists or dreams we might have for our world. This is what our liturgical season would have us do. Advent implores us, in fact, to consider those kind of hopes during this season of waiting, when we eagerly anticipate a world that will be changed. This week, we proclaim that Jesus is bringing peace to the world. Is this just some pie in the sky dream? Our songs resound with cries for peace on earth, but the world echoes back news of continued conflicts and struggles, like ongoing conflict in Aleppo from a civil war in Syria that is a humanitarian heartbreak. Christmas cards depict doves holding olive branches with Peace in beautiful script below them, yet we have family and friends who cannot bear to speak to each other, perhaps can’t even bear to mail a holiday card because of political and ideological divides that have led to broken relationships. But this week in Advent, we dare to dream that peace, in these and every circumstances, is a possibility.
Fortunately, we have a wonderful story in Matthew’s gospel that helps give us permission to dream such an audacious dream, because it recounts an even loftier and unlikely scenario that is about to unfold for a righteous man named Joseph. We don’t know a lot about him from the biblical text, although Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message gives a great description, calling him “chagrined but noble.” We piece together that he was a carpenter by trade, and was following the traditional pattern of Jewish culture, betrothed to Mary, likely from a pretty young age. All in all, we might imagine a man who was, well, ordinary. His life was “on track”; all of his ducks were in a row. His path was laid out clearly before him, and he was faithfully following it. And chances are, day by day, he pretty much knew what to expect. Until, of course, his fiancé Mary comes to him with news that she is pregnant, news he knows is not anything he brought about.
You can imagine him stammering, stuttering, holding back all sorts of emotions – anger, fear, sadness, frustration – trying to make sense of this news. And then, considering what to do next, the question arises of whether or not they are still engaged, and Joseph might have thought “in your dreams!” But he does act with compassion, perhaps swallowing those emotions that would lead him to be vengeful, or even simply follow the Levitical code for a woman who appears to have committed adultery. He decides to dismiss her quietly, in essence to get a divorce, probably to not have anything more to do with her, but to spare her from the public disgrace. His decision is truly an act of mercy. And we might look at this move as more of a faithful response to Mary than simply what the letter of the law demanded. His decision is counter-cultural, a sort of civil or social disobedience. And yet, Joseph did not violate convention to be a political rebel, to make some sort of statement about the laws, or even to demonstrate what a kind and merciful man he was. He planned to do this quietly, without show.
That could have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t.
If I could insert a line for Mary here, I would add “well, dear, why don’t you sleep on it?,” in anticipation of the story that follows.
Throughout the biblical narrative, God uses dreams to illumine and inspire our understanding of our lives and the world. It’s not an aspect of our faith that we highlight a tremendous amount, most likely because it delves into a realm of mystery that makes us uncomfortable or confused at best. But nevertheless, it is a part of how Scripture explains how God’s work. Walter Brueggemann writes:
The ancient world and the biblical tradition knew about dreams. The ancients understood that the unbidden communication in the night opens sleepers to a world different from the one they manage during the day. The ancients dared to imagine, moreover, that this unbidden communication is one venue in which the holy purposes of God, perplexing and unreasonable as they might be, come to us. They knew too that this communication is not obvious. It requires interpretation.(2)
Stories in the Hebrew Scriptures highlight the dreams and interpretations with characters like Daniel, Joseph, and Jacob. The visions and images God gives to prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah are further testimony to dreams being a vehicle God uses historically to communicate. So it would have not been that surprising to the early gospel audience that such news came via a dream. The news itself, however, would have been quite shocking. And, as any dream requires, it would have taken quite a bit to unpack and interpret the meaning of such a message.
An angel brings a message to Joseph of an even more radical alternative path to take; continue in relationship with Mary, taking her as his wife, baby on the way and all. The writer of Matthew breaks into this message with the reminder of that promise from Isaiah. Another name for this child, Emmanuel, “God with us.” It is clear that something incredible is on the horizon, not only for the faithful man called Joseph, but for all of God’s people. The tension in the story builds with the reminder of just how important this particular child is. Joseph’s dream puts everything into perspective – the perspective that this isn’t just some tabloid-cover scandal after all – it’s a story about the coming of the Savior.
For Joseph, this dream became a call and helped him understand his place in a much bigger story. His pattern of life as a righteous man was being taken to an entirely new level. To step into this role as the father of the one who has been sent to redeem the world, this child that he has not fathered and now does not even get to name. The angel’s message again turns the story upside-down, or maybe upside-down and sideways, and prompts Joseph to live into the unexpected. Our text today reminds us that often dreams change things and set us off in a new direction, one in which even the most absurd news can in fact become our reality.
Susan Andrews offers that:
Dreams are the way God frees us and rebirths us and pushes us into new life. So it is with Joseph, confused and scared and wanting to do what is right. So it is with us, wondering what God can possibly be up to. God turns us all into dreamers – we who know that the past it gone and that the new has come, but have no idea how to survive in our deserts of unfulfilled dreams. (3)
Joseph’s story gives us permission to explore our dreams, understood not just as those that come to us in our sleeping hours, but also those that come to us when we are pondering or thinking about life as it is compared to how we wish it would be.
Have you ever been like Joseph, “chagrined but noble?” There’s an exasperation and sigh that comes along with such a description, frustrated or distressed by a particular situation. It’s that moment when you inhale, regroup and say “ok, now what?” and then try to figure out how to set off in a new direction faithfully. In many ways, it’s our daily path as people of faith, but as this text illustrates, sometimes we are put at critical junctures in our lives and in the world where we are called to be a part of big changes and transformation. And in rushes the angel. “Don’t be afraid,” the angel tells us, God has big plans in the works, and you are to be a part of them. God is coming in person to help us figure it out; our Immanuel is right by our side.
What dreams are the Spirit stirring in you? In this season of Advent, we might consider if there might be something God is preparing to give life to in our lives, even if that comes in unexpected ways and sets us on a totally new path. Joseph’s dream reminds us that anything is possible. Susan Andrews continues, saying:
Joseph is our guide [to Advent]. He invites us to a seasonal slumber party – daring us to share our dreams about new life, our dreams about what we need, our dreams about everything we have been too afraid to dream about. He shows us how to welcome incarnation – the radical intrusion of a flesh-and-blood God into the dreariness of our human condition – the full embodiment of God’s dream of shalom and compassion and justice and grace and wholeness and abundance. He shows us how to name our dream – to name our dream “Jesus, God with us” – a dream even more vivid in the sunshine than it is in the dark. (4)
Use today’s Scripture as an excuse to take a Christmas nap. Or, better, take some time to truly rest and reflect on the hopes and dreams of this time of year. Bring yourself back to the heart of the Christmas message and what God’s surprising news might mean for your own life. A savior is coming! The world is changing! With God among us as Immanuel, what dreams might spring forth and become reality? What new life might you be a part of birthing this year? The time has almost come, and we can rest assured that God has a place for us within God’s story; sweet dreams, dear children of God.
~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
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(1) “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” written by John Rox, recorded by Gayla Peevey, Columbia Records, 1953.
(2) Walter Brueggemann, “The Power of Dreams in the Bible,” Originally published in The Christian Century, June 28, 2005, pp. 28-31. Accessed online at http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3218 on 12/5/2016.
(3) Susan R. Andrews, “Pastoral Perspective: Matthew 1:18-25,” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 1, Chapters 1-13, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).
(4) Ibid.
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