Moving Outside the Lines

Based on Matthew 1:18-25
Revision of a sermon first delivered Dec. 22, 2013
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr 

            What was Joseph to do? Here he is, a righteous Jew, believed by tradition to be an older man, perhaps a widow, who has agreed to take as his wife this young, orphaned girl, so that she will have someone to care for her. He is trying to be helpful. And what happens? Mary is pregnant and Joseph knows he is not the father. What is a righteous Jew to do?

            Now, if he keeps Mary as his wife, it will be a disgrace. He will have to lie and say that he impregnated Mary before they had wed, which would put him to shame. Or he could tell the truth and say that someone else impregnated her, which is adultery and puts her to shame. He is righteous so he would not lie, even if that would protect her honor in the eyes of the public. But his gentleness prevents him from putting Mary to public shame.

            Joseph has two ways to end their betrothal. One option is to go to the city gate and gather together a group of ten men to serve as a court and announce publicly what Mary has done, to get that public ruling so everyone knows what has happened. But there is another option that is much more discreet. All Joseph has to do is have written a note of dismissal, place it in Mary’s hand, and send her out of his house. He chooses to dismiss her quietly so that she does not have to endure public shame. Mary could then go in hiding. Or perhaps Elizabeth, her aunt, may take her in? They could figure something out. That way Mary and Joseph could move on with their lives. Sending Mary off with discretion seemed to Joseph as the most righteous and compassionate choice.

            But this is not what God had in mind. It was God’s intention that Jesus be in the ancestral line of David. For that to happen, Joseph, who is in that line, had to be the father, at least so that the case can arguably be made that this boy is of his line…even though he is the son of God. It’s a complicated situation. So, God intervenes. In a dream, an angel speaks to Joseph, saying to him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.” The angel goes on to assure Joseph that Mary was not impregnated by another man. This is a holy child, indeed, the very son of God. Mary has conceived by the Holy Spirit. Every conception is a miracle. A number of things can go wrong that prevents conception. But this conception is a miracle of miracles. God is the father. But this child needs an earthly father from the line of David to fulfill the prophecy of the messiah as one who is of the line of David. So, Joseph is told not to be afraid to marry Mary and to adopt the child as his own. God even gives Joseph the responsibility to name the child, to give the child legitimacy in the eyes of society, even though Joseph and Mary know the truth. How the conception happened is to be kept secret, at least for now. The time will come for this miraculous truth to be spoken. For now, God tells Joseph to set aside what the law required. In this unique case, what was required for righteousness was for Joseph to remain with Mary through her pregnancy, to name the child, and to claim him as his own, even though he and Mary knew the truth about who the father is…none other than God.

            Can we just acknowledge that this whole situation is messy? It really put Joseph and Mary in an awkward situation. The easiest and, frankly, the righteous decision was for Joseph to dismiss Mary, to wipe his hands of the whole affair. But this situation had complications. The father is God, but Joseph is needed so the child will have legitimacy. Joseph doing what the law required would have messed up the divine plan. What righteousness required in this case required moving outside of the law that God had established. What a dilemma.

            I wonder if sometimes the plan God has for us, the dilemmas we find ourselves in, require us to do things outside of the lines. I’m not saying that God ever calls us to do things that are immoral. What I am saying is that sometimes what is required of us pushes us outside the constraints of written regulations or what has traditionally been believed about what is right. For the situation that Mary and Joseph found themselves in, there were written regulations, established by God, that were to be followed. Except in this case God was asking them to act outside those regulations. God placed them in a moral dilemma. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was in on a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, reflected on how sometimes what God requires means using deception and taking a life. What righteousness requires isn’t always clear cut. It can be messy. For Joseph to make the right choice, rather than default to what the law demanded, God had to make an intervention, to speak to Joseph in a dream, asking him to do something that was morally complicated.

            After Joseph receives God’s message through the dream, Joseph changes his mind and consents to God’s will. This is a point not to be missed. Joseph, with good intentions, was going to go in a way that put a kink in God’s plans. God intervenes, to persuade Joseph to choose another way. He did not compel Joseph to change his mind. He gave Joseph the freedom to decide, to consent, to say yes to God’s will, even if that meant moving outside the lines. What great freedom and power we have, to reject or accept God’s will for us. We are never forced to do what God wants for us. We get to choose.

            Life is full of dilemmas. What is the right thing to do isn’t always clear in real life. Life gets messy. Rev. Frank Schaefer found himself in a dilemma. His son asked him to preside over his marriage to another man, a same-gendered marriage that our Book of Discipline forbids clergy to perform. Perhaps the easy way out, the most righteous, at least according to the tradition, would have been to handle this discreetly, to work out some creative way to honor his son’s request without actually performing the marriage. But how would that affect his relationship with his son and the rest of his family? What harm would be done? Rev. Schaffer presided over his son’s wedding, sacrificing his own ordination due to a process that held the line on the written laws but missed the discernment that Frank came to of what God called him to do.

            This dilemma of honoring the ordination of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender expression, and the celebration of same-gender weddings, is a dilemma that we have struggled with as a church for as long as the United Methodist Church has existed. The question that drives so much of our struggle is over what is the righteous thing to do. What is God’s intention? It appears increasingly likely that as we move to General Conference in only five months, our church will determine to dismiss each other. Will it be public and loud or will it be quiet and discreet? Who knows? But the division, which in many ways has already happened, will likely be finalized. It is a dilemma that is pushing our church apart. But is that God’s will for us? Or is God trying to persuade us that there is a way to remain together that requires moving outside the lines?

            Our nation is caught in a dilemma, with a president who generates such sharp reactions positive and negative and a party spirit between Democrats and Republicans that have become even more polarizing. It does seem at times that the political divisions in our nation are so great that in some ways we are experiencing a schism of some kind. Each side on the divide are convinced of their own righteousness. Are we meant to dismiss each other? Will the ties that bind our nation together hold? I wonder if the gulf that divides our nation requires finding a way to stay together that may require us to move outside the lines, to get out of our political camps and find some way to reason together without demonizing each other. I feel that is what God’s intentions are for us as a nation. But where is this happening? Do we have the courage to do this?

            What we do know is that God has a plan. God has intentions. God’s intentions are for salvation, for the mending of creation that is broken, fractured into a million pieces. God’s intentions are to make all things new, to restore, to reconcile, to establish order out of chaos, to establish righteousness, peace, harmony, and joy. God’s intention is to generate a community of all creation that sings God’s praises.

            In this world of brokenness, sin, confusion, God has intervened. The issues were different but the world was as broken and confused 2,000 years ago as it is now. But 2,000 years ago God became one of us, being born of Mary and adopted by Joseph as his own son. And now, 2,000 years later, the Church remains as a community through which God’s presence endures. God dwells in our midst. God is with us. God will never leave us, nor forsake us, in this broken, dilemma filled world in which we live.

            This is what we celebrate this time of year. In our time of dilemmas, in our time of uncertainty about which way is best, which way is righteous, we believe that God is with us all along the way. Today, let us pray for the church, for the United Methodist Church, and for our nation, where there is so much division and the open question if we are to dismiss each other. We need divine intervention. We need to hear a word from God to help us know how we are to find a way to stay together, even if that means moving outside the lines. Let us be open to God’s leading and consent to what we hear, no matter the cost, so that God’s will can be done, so that the brokenness of the world can be mended.