Fourth Sunday in Advent

Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

There’s one more outcast in Jesus’ genealogy according to Matthew: his mother.  Matthew doesn’t call her an outcast, but she clearly was about to become one.  She was “found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.”  Well, probably if everyone thought it was the Holy Spirit there would not be disgrace.  Matthew wants his readers to understand that it was the Holy Spirit, but to the neighbors it looked like - something not so holy.  Something disgraceful.  And Mary looked like someone you did not want to associate with, someone you did not invite into your family.  And Joseph agrees with that assessment.  He may be kind about it, he may plan to “dismiss her quietly,” but he is not going to believe any nonsense about a Holy Spirit.

And then he has this dream.  In the modern West we consider dreams interesting manifestations of our unconscious.  Some of us take them seriously as guides.  But few of us would go where Joseph goes.  In his dream he gets that it really was the Holy Spirit, and that he should brave the scorn of the neighbors and claim Mary and her son as his own.  And he does.  Simple.

Where’s his discernment committee?  Where’s the review board?  Where, for that matter, is his therapist?  Who does he think he is, welcoming this outcast on the basis of a dream?

I know that Jesus got a lot of his openness to God from Mary, but Joseph is no slouch either.  Joseph knows when he hears God, and he hears God saying “Do not be afraid.”  Do not be afraid of what the neighbors think.  Do not be afraid of the purists or the pundits or the people whose compassion ends at their nose.  Yes, welcoming this woman and her son will bring trouble into your life; but that trouble is nothing compared to the saving grace that will come through them.  Do not be afraid to welcome this outcast.

So often it’s the scariest, hardest situations that bring the blessing and the awareness of God.  

May you be blessed and challenged by dreams bigger than you can imagine, and may you have the grace to follow where they lead.