“A Father’s Story”

(based on Matthew 2:18-25)

When the time was accomplished that my wife should be delivered of our first-born child, we made our way to the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. It was one o’clock in the morning, and there was little traffic on the streets. When we entered the doors of the Emergency Department, there was no delay. One look and the nurse commandeered a wheelchair and speeded us on our way to the elevator that would take us to the labor and delivery room. We had pre-registered and in no time we were at the swinging doors of the Delivery room. “Give your husband your wedding ring and kiss him goodbye” were the instructions given to her. I think it was the first time either of us had considered what it was going to feel like having to say this abrupt “goodbye” and face this moment alone.

I thought of that moment as I reread this passage in Matthew. Though procedures have changed a great deal since that moment in Houston in 1965, and fathers can take a much more active role in the birthing event than we were allowed in those days, yet there’s still a poignant element to this scene where Joseph must stand by, empty handed and subject to fears named and unnamed. It’s all very well to honor Joseph for his role in the Christmas story, but the truth remains that his position in that stable is clearly a supporting role.
He had a right to fear and wonder. Though marriage customs were different in his day, and pregnant brides probably no more uncommon then than they are now, yet he had a right to know this pregnancy was different. He certainly knew he was not the father, and if he was not, then who was? And if word should ever get out about this, Mosaic law was clear on the matter. An adulterous woman was to be shunned, if not stoned outright. Of course he was afraid. No one would blame him for putting her away, perhaps in the care of some distant relation in a village far away.

Then comes the dream.

I suppose we might consider him remarkable for giving credence to it. Could it not have been wishful thinking? No doubt we all would like to have an angel give us advice, especially in a difficult and embarrassing situation like his. But on a deeper level, heart-wrenching circumstances cry out for divine guidance. How comforting and reassuring to have a dream give us the answer we can’t find on our own.

In Joseph’s case, I rather doubt he’d understand our talk of dream analysis, or how wishful thinking and rationalizations can produce vivid and convincing images. In his day dreams were respected, trusted. They were to be divine communications that not only were significant for the dreamer, they could have significance for the whole community. Pharaoh’s dreams, in the time of Joseph, is a case in point. His dreams about seven fat calves and seven lean ones bore a message that the whole country of Egypt needed to hear.

So we would expect Joseph to take his dream seriously. But he also had to deal with a message that would mean shame and hardship and grief before it was over. He must take on responsibility for a child, not his own, that was to be a threat to Herod and who could say what beyond that? My fears about becoming a father in Houston in 1965 pale by comparison.

The lesson I learn from this moment is how Joseph dared to trust the dream, dared to believe that God was an active God, alive and well and initiating something new that would make a permanent difference to the world. That is a remarkable faith.

There are many sadnesses in our world, many tragedies that overwhelm us. But one sadness I think we don’t notice, and should, is the numb inertia of human hearts that have stopped looking for wonders, that no longer dream dreams or expect visions. We are so completely submerged in our man-made miracles of technology we are immune to wonder. If God were to initiate a miracle in our midst, chances are likely we’d never notice it, or dismiss it as some new kind of marvel created by science.

We need the simplicity of Joseph who still believes in the miraculous, but not the kind of miracles we can analyze and dissect and turn to some profit of our own. His miracle was the kind that unsettled, displaced, drove him to the edge of all he’d ever believed and known and forced him to continue on into the unknown.

In my life, the real living has begun when I was in foreign lands where I seldom could speak the language or find my bearings. My real growth began with the admission “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” My advance occurred when I dared go to Egypt - dared? Was forced more likely. That’s why I sometimes chuckle when I hear someone say, “I’m not comfortable with this” or “I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that.” Good words, and appropriate words, but sometimes I think those are the very moments we should be uncomfortable. Birth isn’t comfortable. For the mother or the child. We are foolish to think we could ever grow without it.

Joseph took his family to Egypt on the instruction of a vision. We probably will not have any such vision, but we will take risks. How silly of me to think, at my wedding, that merely saying “I do” with this person whom I thought I knew and loved so well, was just a formality. It meant a whole new world, one I still explore, even all these years after she’s gone. And who could have predicted the life that was about to open to me when I first made the discovery of the magic of alcohol? That first drink would mean a journey that wold take me virtually around the world. And how could I ever have imagined that an innocent remark from my pastor when I was still a teenager, suggesting I might have a calling for the Ministry, would find me here in Delta long after I had retired still trying to make sense out of that call?

Joseph trusted the angel and the dream. He faced his fear and took action. He dared to be open to a God who asked so much and to act upon that trust. Amazing. We thought the miracle of God happened in Bethlehem centuries ago - who could ever have believed that stable was right here, in our hearts, today? Amen.