{"id":3091,"date":"2013-12-14T20:50:32","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T01:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?p=3091"},"modified":"2013-12-14T20:50:32","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T01:50:32","slug":"joseph-praise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/joseph-praise\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph, Praise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Advent<\/a>mind without soul may blast some universe<\/i><\/p>\n

to might have been,<\/p>\n

and stop ten thousand stars<\/p>\n

but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall<\/p>\n

even prevail a million questionings<\/p>\n

against the silence of his mother\u2019s smile<\/p>\n

-whose only secret all creation sings<\/i><\/p>\n

-by e e cummings, from spiralling ecstatically this<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Only Matthew speaks about Joseph, acknowledging his doubts about the marriage, about Mary\u2019s unexpected pregnancy, how he struggles in his mind and is disturbed in his sleep.\u00a0 An angel comes into his dreams, urging him not to be afraid of Mary.\u00a0 The name, Jesus, a name known in all the ears on earth, is his gift to the Child.\u00a0 Matthew says, the angel whispered it to him.<\/p>\n

It is easy to be smitten by the goodness in Joseph, this man who shoulders an enormous burden, questions in his heart and mind, yet scrambles along, terrified, deftly escaping to Egypt and two years of exile, keeping them all alive. \u00a0And his burden includes two thousand years of sniggering schoolboy jokes, all taken on by him because he wants her, and God knows she needs him.<\/p>\n

\"Nativity<\/a>What has passed by our notice for so, so long, is the way in which Matthew shows us Joseph reversing the roles of husband and wife, from the harrumphingly dominant pattern of the wife as a servant to her husband\u2019s needs, to this new arrangement, in which Joseph is the servant of his wife.\u00a0 Her needs and her child\u2019s needs will dictate their lives, their locations.\u00a0 Through thick and thin he manages.\u00a0 And like a traditional wife, he fades from view in the doing of what must be done.\u00a0 We have no knowledge of what became of him, only that he disappears before Jesus, grown, is baptized in the Jordan.<\/p>\n

Though Mary is silent in this gospel, Matthew is not silent about women, five of whom he includes, against all precedent, in the genealogy of Jesus.\u00a0 And each of the foremothers whose names he has written could set tongues wagging with their bold defiance of sexual norms.<\/p>\n

\"Advent<\/a>Rahab<\/strong>, known as the mother of Israel for saving Joshua in Canaan, ran a brothel there.\u00a0 Tamar<\/strong>, the daughter-in-law of the patriarch Judah, dressed herself as a prostitute and lured him into impregnating her so that she would be a childless widow no longer.\u00a0 Ruth<\/strong>, the daughter-in-law of Naomi, saved them both from starvation by seducing Boaz, Naomi\u2019s wealthy older cousin.\u00a0 And Bathsheba<\/strong>, whom King David had soldiers bring to him to satisfy his lust, though she was married to one of his generals at the time, became the mother of Solomon, the greatest king.<\/p>\n

Mary<\/strong>, then, according to Matthew, is in startling company.\u00a0 The company of strong survivors, of free women.\u00a0 Mary is never identified as Joseph\u2019s wife.\u00a0 In Christian culture, it is Joseph who is identified as Mary\u2019s husband. \u00a0And in Matthew\u2019s gospel, it is from Joseph that Jesus becomes part of the lineage of David.<\/p>\n

All this becomes prelude to Jesus\u2019 tender mercies toward women who are not husband-identified.\u00a0\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 ministry he reaches out to embrace a woman accused of adultery, various prostitutes including one who throws herself on his feet in the home of a rich man, a woman who has had five husbands, a woman possessed of demons (Magdalene), a bent-over woman, a woman who has been bleeding for years, and a woman who pours costly ointment on his feet and wipes them with her hair.\u00a0 \u00a0As if to underscore this point, there is an absence of association between Jesus and traditional families, in whose company he is never shown to us.\u00a0 Many who came to him may have had this life, but it is in the irregularities of their lives that he meets them.<\/p>\n

\"Birth<\/a>A Child is to be born, but the details of to whom the child is born are essential to the picture:\u00a0 to a woman who strikes fear into the hearts of the powerful by her independent spirit (she dares to answer all questions regarding paternity by saying the child within her is Holy);\u00a0 to a man who casts his lot with her, knowing this will be a very bumpy ride.\u00a0 And to the raggle-taggle folk of the world who have nothing to lose by stepping outside the conforming expectations of a world that has never been ready for the wildness of God.<\/p>\n

The family gathered at the manger are not each other\u2019s friends and neighbors, and there are no blood relations among them at all.\u00a0 Mary and Joseph, barely married;\u00a0 the shepherd cowboys, who\u2019ve never heard of these two before;\u00a0 three foreign dignitaries, not Jewish, not local, and not to be seen ever again; an assortment of patient beasts.\u00a0 Trust is not a given here, it is a choice.\u00a0 Heavenly peace belongs to the community of those who need it enough to seek it among strangers.\u00a0 And good men like Joseph are the strangers we long to find.<\/p>\n

Sin fractures the Vision, not the Fact; for<\/i><\/p>\n

The Exceptional is always usual<\/p>\n

And the usual Exceptional.<\/p>\n

To choose what is difficult all one\u2019s days<\/p>\n

As if it were easy, that is faith.\u00a0 Joseph, praise.<\/p>\n

\u2014 from W. H. Auden\u2019s For The Time Being:\u00a0 A Christmas Oratorio, <\/b><\/i>in the section:\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>The Temptation of St. Joseph<\/i><\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Illustrations<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

1. The Adoration of the Three Kings<\/strong>, a detail, Joseph at Rest,<\/strong> <\/i>by Gentile, da Fabriano, 1423, altarpiece in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence Italy, Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0The Nativity, by Giotto,<\/strong> detail, Joseph at Rest<\/strong>.<\/em> \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Tamar and Judah,<\/strong><\/em> by Vernet, Emile-Jean-Horace, Wallace Collection, London. \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0The Birth of Christ<\/strong><\/em>, by Conrad von Soest, detail<\/em>, Joseph Starts the Fire<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

mind without soul may blast some universe to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall even prevail a million questionings against the silence of his mother\u2019s smile -whose only secret all creation sings -by e e cummings, from spiralling ecstatically this Only Matthew speaks about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\nJoseph, Praise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"mind without soul may blast some universe to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall even prevail a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/joseph-praise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joseph, Praise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"mind without soul may blast some universe to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars but not one heartbeat of this child; 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