Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 1: 18-25

 

We have arrived here on Advent 4 and the story is high drama. Mary is engaged to Joseph and they have been working on wedding details for quite a while. There are tense moments over which niece is going to be the flower girl, who officially gets to make toasts, the color of Mary’s mom’s dress. But mostly, plans are humming right along. But, I’m guessing you are familiar with the story. Mary is (oops) pregnant and Joseph is not the dad.

Typically, this is where Netflix steps in with a documentary offer. Or Penguin Random House with a tell all memoir offer. 

But whatever the equivalent would be 2000 year ago for Joseph and Mary, they do not take the bait. In fact, rather than publicly shame Mary, which would have been common and within his rights, Joseph intends to quietly divorce her. This Gospel goes out of the way to make this clear. He sees no need to be punitive, even though he had to have felt betrayed and hurt. I might be reading into things but it seems like Joseph’s life was going steadily in one direction and then definitively not going in that direction.

I bet those were fraught and exhausting days for him. He is acting with the information he had available. In a quick turn, he knows the wedding is off and he’ll be back on the dating apps soon enough. Break ups are rough.

But then. While he is sleeping, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream. This story of the Holy Family is foundational to our lives as Christians. We tell it every year. We set up nativity scenes (50 of them from around the world in this building this year!) We sing all the songs that also tell the story. It’s central and it’s our tradition and maybe so familiar to us that we forget that God depends upon an angel to move the needle, to move the story along. And when the angel comes, it’s when Joseph is not just asleep but dreaming. Maybe it’s Gabriel, Michael, Raphael or another one of their colleagues. This angel goes unnamed. But they are certainly affective because Joseph wakes up and the says the wedding is back on! Twist

 

Joseph doesn’t argue, doesn’t take 5-7 business days to think it over. He doesn’t ask for a follow up coffee with the angel to ask clarifying questions. He does what has been asked of him. Joseph moves with obedience, faithfulness and trust. In a few weeks, we will hand out Star Words and one of you will likely get one that says “Obedience.” You won’t want it. Who would? But in that moment, remember Joseph. Remember how Joseph risks becoming disobedient in the eyes of the world. Remember how he moves toward his plans with Mary even though she’s pregnant with God’s baby and the neighbors are for sure talking. Remember how he risks becoming an outcast and looking like a fool to his family and the whole community for the sake of being obedient to God’s call. Joseph looks disobedient. Maybe you, too, will look disobedient in the eyes of the world as you move with the same trust in God as you show love to our neighbors. 

 

We pray, Stir up your power and come. This stirring up might lead us into something we might never have dreamed up, never have imagined for our lives.

 

Also, we need to spend a minute on dreamers. Dreamers typically get such a bad rap. We say things like oh that boy is such a dreamer. Or sorry, I was day dreaming again. As if these things are negative. This Christmas story is filled with dreams and dreamers. It’s bananas to say but the whole thing hinges on dreamers. Later in the church calendar year, we will celebrate the birth of the church on the Day of Pentecost. And we will read from the 2nd chapter of Acts where God says, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young people will see visions and your elders will dream dreams.” 

 

This story of the Holy Family, of God inviting Joseph and Mary into a much larger story of God’s plan of salvation for the world is beyond what we could envision. This is beyond human possibility, Jesus is born from the power of God’s promise.

Jesus is born because God promised he would be. Which means, God is God and we are not. What a relief. God is holding the bigger story for us. Even now, in 2025, even this very day when so many things are off the rails, God is holding the big picture for you, for us, for this whole church. 

 

God invites us into it.

 

In three days, hundreds of us will gather here. People will begin arriving into these chairs at 2PM and the river of strangers and cousins and you all will continue to flow in and out of this space until well after 11PM. We will hold lighted candles and sing silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. 

 

And even the most cynical among us, even the most frozen parts of us , even those who want no part of church but they are here because they love grandma, will likely be moved. It will be holy, calm, bright.

Eventually, other realities will seep in and we will remember unrest in Tanzania and the horrors in Ukraine and Gaza and Bondi Beach and the flooding in Washington State and the ICE raids here in the Twin Cities and and and every other thing weighing on our spirits.

Maybe when that moment comes, you can remember that God does not wait. At the beginning of Advent, I sat in on the Monday morning bible study that meets here and someone asked if there was every a point in history when the world was at peace? The whole world. I’m no historian, but I do have a pretty good grasp on humans and I’m going to say, no. 

 

God slipped into the world and the human condition in the form of a tiny baby. God arrived into the mess, which is where most of us live. 2000 years ago, God turned up in Bethlehem and at that time, most people lived hand to mouth and the government did not have the people’s best interests in mind and the threat of violence was around every bend. God entered into all the suffering and all the unrest and all the glorious beauty. 

Jesus doesn’t wait. As long as I am one of your Advent preachers, I will say some version of this every single year. Jesus doesn’t wait. Jesus doesn’t wait for the world to be at peace. Or for you to have your life together or your house ready for Christmas. Jesus doesn’t wait for you to get your affairs in order, to receive a clear doctor’s report, to have your room clean. Jesus doesn’t wait for you to work hard enough at social justice that all is in fact calm, or for you to vote the right people not office or heal from your childhood trauma or for you to grow those bangs out past the awkward stage.

Christ comes. Into all of it. Christ comes and just keeps coming, which means love is arriving and that love is for you. 

 

In the Gospel of Matthew, God worked through a young adult couple who were making decisions of whether to go on ahead with a wedding and life together or to break up, while rumors of infidelity swirled around. It’s a pretty common situation. And a reminder that every single day, God chooses ordinary life circumstances in which to enter the world. 

 

Ordinary people.
Ordinary wine.
Ordinary bread.
Ordinary water.
Extraordinary love.