Isaiah
7: 10 – 16 / Psalm 80: 1–7, 16–18 / Romans 1: 1–7 / Matthew 1: 18–25
This is the homily given
at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, December
22, 2019.
“RISK AND OFFERING”
(Homily
text: Matthew 1: 18-25)
Let’s talk about risk and offering
this morning.
Our appointed Gospel text lays before
us Matthew’s recounting of the process by which God unfolds His plan to enter
human history through the birth of Jesus, as that plan affected Mary and
Joseph. (At this point, it’d be worth noting that Matthew’s Gospel account
focuses in largely on Joseph’s, role, while Luke’s account focuses on Mary’s
role.)
God’s plan placed a significant amount
of risk before Joseph and Mary. Presumably, each one could have said “No” to
God’s plan, opting out of cooperating with God to bring about this miraculous
birth.
The risk involved for these two
servants of God had to do – in large measure – with the character of the
society in which they lived, a society that sociologists might call an “Honor
and Shame” society. The term denotes the idea that members of society bring
honor to themselves (and their families) by doing good things, and – conversely
– they bring shame upon themselves (and others) by doing bad things. (It’s
worth saying that our contemporary society has lost a good bit of its sense of
honor and shame.)
So it is that Mary is pregnant without
the benefit of marriage, a major transgression of the norms of the society in
which she lived. Matthew points this reality out by telling us that Joseph
pondered what to do about this development….he thought about divorcing Mary
quietly, since, at that time, an engaged couple was considered to be married
(but without the possibility of intimate relations), an interim step toward
full marriage. Betrothal or engagement could be ended only by divorce. Under
the provisions of the Law of Moses, the penalty for becoming pregnant without
the benefit of marriage was death by stoning. Joseph apparently seeks to find a
compassionate way out of the situation by divorcing Mary quietly. If he had
done that, it’s quite likely that Mary would have continued to live under a
permanent sort of house arrest.
No doubt Joseph and Mary continued to
live with the after effects of this situation once they had returned to live in
Nazareth. To the casual observations of their fellow residents in town, the
circumstances of Jesus’ birth amounted to a violation of the norms of society
and of the Law of Moses.
God’s call often involves risk of some
sort: Risk of change, risk of taking a new and different course in life.
Like Joseph (and Mary),
it’s possible for us to say “No” to God’s call. It’s possible to tell God that
we don’t want to take the risks involved in God’s plan.
But it’s also possible that we can
make our lives an offering to God, being willing to take whatever risks come
along with saying “Yes”, just as both Mary and Joseph did.
Perhaps the risk for us involves
little more than living by God’s standards, instead of living by the world’s
standards. Just doing that alone these days will involve risk. But maybe the
risk will be far greater than that: Maybe God will ask us to do something
completely new and different, something that means we will have to set aside
whatever plans we might have had for ourselves.
In a very real sense, God’s call to
us, made originally in baptism, is made again and again, day in and day out,
each and every day. Seen this way, God visits us daily (as our Collect for the
Fourth Sunday of Advent reminds us), asking us to offer ourselves to God’s will
and service, indicating our willingness to take whatever risks come along with
making that offering.
AMEN.
