Joseph & how to read the Bible

This is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent and as we near Bethlehem, all we have to do is wait, which is the hardest part.

It’s hard to wait. No one waits very well. So, I suggest this morning, in order to occupy ourselves until the birth, that we do what Matthew did. Matthew went outside and took a stroll through Jesus’s family graveyard. He starts his gospel with a genealogy. Some people say, “What a horrible way to start a book. It’s just a list of names you can’t pronounce.”

Dwight Eisenhower said that in his family, they had to read the bible through completely every so often but that he was given permission to skip the genealogies. Well, we’re not going to skip the genealogy; we’re going to join Matthew for a walk, through Jesus’s family graveyard.

Some people think going to a cemetery is morbid, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. One summer not long ago, our family visited Arlington National Cemetery. Far from being morbid, it was inspiring to be there. Once when I was in New Haven, Connecticut, and my host was showing me around town, we toured the town’s historic cemetery, and suddenly I found myself standing in front of the grave of Nathan Hale, the man who said, “I regret that I have only one life to give for my country.” It was an awesome moment, an inspiring moment. Some of you have been to such places. You just cannot believe the feelings that churn.

Sometimes, though, it can be embarrassing to visit a cemetery, because you come across graves of folks you wish you weren’t kin to. I remember that my sister was once in pursuit of information about an ancestor named Ruby Craddock. The other Craddocks had come to this country from Wales, but not Ruby, so my sister who was heavily into genealogies was pursuing Ruby.

Eventually she reported, “I found Ruby.” “Good,” I said, “What did you find out about Ruby?”

She said, “You don’t want to know.” It seems that Ruby, instead of coming to America with the rest of the Craddocks, went to London instead and opened a brothel. I assured my sister that this was another branch of the family and not to worry about it.

Going to cemeteries can be a strange, mysterious thing. Last week, Fred Dickey wanted to take me up to Hogback Mountain to see the Dickey family graveyard. The Dickey’s have become particularly famous through one of their members; James Dickey, who wrote “Deliverance.” Mrs. Dickey was a member of President Zachary Taylor’s family. So, I told Fred that I’d like to see that graveyard.

We went early on a Saturday morning and found the cemetery. It was about 40 feet square with a concrete wall, now broken in places. At the end of the cemetery stood two stones marked “George Dickey” and “Hanna Dickey.” Twenty-seven other markers were there but with no names on them; just field stones stuck in the ground. The 27 were for the slaves. The slave owners buried with their slaves. The slave-owners names were preserved for eternity but not the names of the slaves. Cemeteries can be strange places. 

So, off we go with Matthew to the cemetery that holds the remains of the family of Jesus, and there at the entrance is the patriarch of them all, Abraham. A simple marker stands for Abraham for he was a simple man. He was a man of faith and on his tombstone it said in small print, “He was a pilgrim on the earth, seeking a city with foundations whose builder is God.” There he is buried with his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob.

There is no marker for Sarah, his wife; no marker for Rebekah nor for Rachel. I regret that very much but you know how they felt about women back in those days. You know what the Bible says about the crowd Jesus fed, that there were 5000 men present “not counting the women and children.”

But there are women in this cemetery of Jesus’s family. There is Tamar. She wasn’t really a savory character, but she was clever. Then there is Rahab. Having Rahab in Jesus’s family is like me having Ruby in mine. Also, there’s Ruth, the Moabite woman known for how much she loved her mother-in-law. And there is Bathsheba. She is not named but simply called “Uriah’s wife.”

I am surprised there are women’s names in Jesus’s family cemetery. Maybe including women is prophetic; promising that someday, under the good gracious eye of Jesus Christ, those distinctions will not be made-certainly not in churches. Maybe someday.

What strikes me about those women is that none of them were Jews. Did you think about that? Tamar was an Arab. Bathsheba a Palestinian, Ruth? Well, today we’d say she was a Jordanian. None were Jews. Maybe this is prophetic as well, announcing that the one who comes at the end of the genealogy will bring it to pass that the blessings of God will be showered on all people, making no distinction.

Maybe the markers out there in that cemetery are actually important. Over there is Judah, a very important man who gave his name to the Judeans, or the Jews. He gave his name to the land-Judah and his name to a religion-Judaism.

And over there, of course, is David. The central marker in that graveyard-the tallest of all…is David’s. The first part of Matthew’s genealogy leads up to David, the rest flows away from David. David is the centerpiece of the graveyard-a shepherd, a musician, a poet, a soldier, a king…a man of remarkable ambivalence, a man of powerful contradictions. He had an immense capacity to weep over his own sin. “Oh Lord, my sin is always before me…create in me a clean heart.” But then David could be hard and cold.

“Who are you woman?” David asks Bathsheba. “I’m the wife of Uriah, he is out fighting with your army.” So, David had Uriah killed and took his poor widow to be his wife. He could be as cold as the edge of steel.

And yet, every night as David sat down for supper, there was a crippled, sickly, club-footed young man named Mephibosheth, who David now lovingly provided for. He’s the grandson of Saul, the man David helped destroy.

Following David comes a line of Kings. Uzziah became king at age 16 and died a leper. Manasseh ruled longer than any of the others though he was no good and stayed in power by compromise and total lack of conviction. He had no spine, this Manasseh. And there was Josiah, who should have been a preacher not a king. He was so in love with scripture. He wanted to make the scripture the center of the life of the people.

The last name in the graveyard is Joseph. Was Joseph the father of Jesus? Well, no…yes…no. It’s complicated. This is the way it worked. Joseph was engaged to a woman named Mary. Back then engagement was a big thing. You did not simply get engaged at the drive-in some Friday night. It was a big deal that could be broken only by a court. In effect, it was the same as marriage.

Joseph is engaged to Mary when Mary discovers she is pregnant. Now, what is he going to do? Joseph is a good man who wants to do what is right. What is the right thing to do? Here is a carpenter in the community engaged to a woman and it is evident to all that she is pregnant.

There are two options available to Joseph. He could ask the opinion of the people in town. Somerset Maughman said one time that the most fundamental disposition of the human spirit is to get the approval of those around you. Go to the coffee shop and ask, “What do you think I ought to do?” Get on the phone, attend the sewing circles, talk about it everywhere. “Did you hear about Mary? What do you think I should do?”

But Joseph will not go that way. He will not expose Mary to disgrace. He has some friends, fresh from the synagogue who say, “Just do what the bible says. You can’t go wrong if you do what the bible says.” What about that for an answer? I’ve heard that all my life. “Just do what the bible says.” Well, I’ll tell you what the bible says. From Deuteronomy 22, “She is to be taken out and stoned to death in front of the people. That is what the bible says.

I get sick and tired of people always thumping the bible as though you can just open it up and turn to a passage that clears everything up. You can quote the bible before killing a person and justify the killing. I get so tired of people who carry around a 43-pound bible and say, “Just do what the Good Book says.”

Joseph is a good man and he rises to a point that was absolutely remarkable for a person of his times. He loves his bible but he reads it through a certain lens, the lens of a God who is loving and kind. Therefore, he says, “I will not harm her, shame her, ridicule her or demean her value, dignity or worth. I will protect her.”

I am absolutely amazed that Joseph is the first person in the New Testament who learned how to read the bible. Like Joseph, we are to read it through the spectacles of grace and the goodness of God. If in the bible you find justification for abusing, humiliating, disgracing, harming or hurting, you are absolutely wrong.

As my friend on the other side of the mountain in Tennessee used to say, “Well Craddock, I know one thing. God is just as good a Christian as you and me.”

You know, I’m feeling good about Christmas. The baby is not born yet. Mary hasn’t even gone into labor. But, it is Christmas because of Joseph. Christmas, for me, started because I know that when Jesus is born, the man who will teach him, raise him, care for him, and show him how to be a carpenter, take him to the synagogue, teach him his Bible…that man is a good man.

When you have somebody like that, it is already Christmas and Christmas will last as long as God can find one person who says, “I will do what is right.”

I don’t know about you but I’m glad we took that stroll through Jesus’s family’s graveyard. AMEN