David Orendorff, Matthew 1:18-25

For most of us, Joseph is a footnote to the story of Mary and Jesus. I want to look at that footnote. I believe that in Joseph we discover a radical witness of graciously given love and a way to the joy of Christmas.

Matthew ¹ tells us that the father of Jesus is a carpenter. This probably means Joseph is a laborer who makes things of wood and is of the peasant class in Palestinian society. He, or his family, have lost their land and now must make a living serving others. In short, Joseph is probably poor and though not a slave, he is nobody.

This nobody gets lucky and is betrothed to Mary. And because Joseph is nobody, it is probable that Mary is poor and nobody as well. Betrothal is a formal contract between a man and a woman’s family. When Mary is of age (probably 12 or so) Joseph will come and take her as his wife. Joseph is older than she, but how much older is uncertain.

Then Joseph gets unlucky. Mary is discovered to be pregnant and not by Joseph. Joseph now has a problem. He can choose to take Mary for a wife and raise her child as his own. In this choice he will, of course, be marked as a cuckold even before the wedding night. Or he can divorce Mary, for betrothal could only be broken by divorce.

At first he decides for divorce. Not a messy public thing, but a quiet thing because he doesn’t want to shame her. While he is sleeping on it, God weighs in by way of “an angel of the Lord.” In his dream Joseph is given as clear a command as a dream can give, “do not fear to take Mary as your wife” and some very vague information, “that which is conceived of her is of the Holy Spirit” - whatever that means.

Joseph now has an even tougher choice. He must choose whether or not to obey the God seen in a dream. To obey comes with public humiliation each time the baby Jesus is taken out of the house for it will always be told that Jesus is not the son of Joseph.

Joseph courageously chooses to wed Mary and to be father, in all that means, to Jesus. Without Joseph to house, feed, protect and teach the baby boy Jesus, there is no rest of the story. Joseph, this most unlikely peasant carpenter, makes a place for God in his home and in his heart.

True to his humble beginnings, almost no one notices or cares. The writers of the New Testament have mostly forgotten him. Mark’s gospel doesn’t mention him. None of the letter writers of the NT, including Paul, mention him. And in Matthew, Luke and John’s gospels he is forgotten almost as soon as he comes on the scene. This near total agreement on the insignificance of Joseph has led many a Bible historian to question whether there ever was a Joseph.

Mary, on the other hand, virtually from the beginning, is glorified and praised. People pray to her, “Holy Mary, mother of God” with passion and expectation. Almost no one prays to Joseph.

In Nazareth, Mary has two great churches. Vickie and I have stopped at both of them. At the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation we saw, as tradition has it, where Mary was told by Gabriel that she would have a child. It is a big, beautiful, ornate and rich place. And at the Greek Orthodox Church of Mary’s Well we saw, and tasted the spring from which Mary drew water for her family. It is an impressive church filled with reverent icons of Mary and her child.

Joseph also has a church in Nazareth. It is small and just one block from the Church of the Annunciation. We didn’t take time to go there, almost no one does. Our guide said there was nothing to see.

In the early church everyone got their own annual feast day. Mary has several days marking various events in her life. All the disciples get days. Even Matthias, the thirteenth disciple, the one who was elected to replace Judas, gets a day. Joseph didn’t get a day until 1620. To the history of Jesus, and to the people of Jesus, Joseph just doesn’t appear to matter all that much.

He remains, to this day, secondary and forgotten, only to be brought out with the Christmas Crèche. Then we all remember his failure as a husband to find lodging so that Mary is forced to have her baby in a stable with the animals and the filth.

Joseph is sort of like the nurse who was at your birth, but who has most likely been forgotten. She (it probably was a she) was there to help out. Her role was undoubtedly important to your life. But, she was not the mother who had grown this baby, and she was not the doctor who would deliver this baby, she was just a helper, a midwife, to the main event. Joseph is a midwife to the main event. And like most all midwives, he is soon forgotten.

But without Joseph, we would not be here. Mary, for her unwed pregnancy, could have probably been executed. Without the love of Joseph which was greater than a premature pregnancy; without Joseph’s difficult obedience to God’s will in a dream; Mary would have been without a home, without safety, without a warm place in a cold world, without a lover to comfort her in a cruel world.

Without the love of Joseph for the baby that was not his, Jesus would have been just another fatherless child. Most such babies were left outside to die, or were buried alive as a disgrace. It is the forgotten midwife Joseph that provides the cradle for the Christ. It is the forgotten hands and heart of Joseph that make a place for Jesus in the world. Joseph, without power or acknowledgement, simply does what must be done that God might be born and welcomed into the world.

I know a little how Joseph may have felt. I suppose every father does. When Vickie was great with Erika, I was often forgotten. I was invisible in the grocery store or at coffee time after worship. The high school girls of the youth group I led decided to give Vickie a baby shower. The boys begged to come. My presence was an afterthought since the shower was in our home. I cooked, washed, cleaned, and remodeled while Vickie slept the second trimester away. Again in Sunburst, when Vickie was pregnant with Johanna, the women of the church and community gave her a baby shower. I wasn’t invited. I stayed home and took care of Erika who was feverish and nauseous from cutting teeth. We sat in the bathtub while she threw up on me.

I trained as a La Maze coach. I remember the births of my children as if I was a midwife. I was in the delivery room and I like to think I was useful. But I also know that I was the least one there. As our children grew, I worked to provide food, shelter and money for us. My life became the slave of their needs. I would willingly do it again. Vickie isn’t interested.

Perhaps the most difficult part was that the affection I had grown to enjoy with Vickie was lost to our children. In a natural and important way, Vickie’s care became primarily focused on being the mother of Erika and Johanna. David was more often the provider and problem solver than the beloved. It was not an intentional slight. No one, least of all Vickie, meant to relegate me to the status of “he was also there.” It is simply the consequence of becoming a father. But though it was natural to being a father, it was difficult to be the forgotten midwife.

I have learned that the in my ministry I am primarily a midwife to the ministry of others. I received Bear Creek not as the child of my own creation, but as the child of others who have gone before me; as not my family, but a family of God. I am not the one who now makes you pregnant with love. I am the midwife of the Holy Spirit as it fills us with child for the sake of the world.

I am the one who laughs with you when you discover God, and holds you tight when faith seems not enough for the day. I am the one who reminds you of the promise of Christmas, Christ born in us for the world. I am a footnote to your journey with God in the world. I am Joseph, the forgotten midwife of Emmanuel, God with us.

I suspect that I am not that different from you. Most of us, most of the time, are more midwife than mother. We are not often pregnant with God, but find ourselves caring for another’s pregnancy, another’s birth, another’s child. We are the ones who laugh with the mother when she begins to swell with the promise of a new life. We are the ones holding the mother, great with child, and rocking her with our arms in the days of discomfort and discouragement.

We are the forgotten who serve in the nursery of faith. We are the silent who work hard so that we might offer our wealth to serve God’s love. We are the ones who without fanfare, or a memorial plaque, or even a footnote in the official records, show up to care for each other as the blessed children of God. When the bright light is shown and the TV crews come to visit, it is not our faces that fill the screen of the evening news, but it is we who have cared for mother and child so they shine. We are the crib, the evening meal, the hands that hold tenderly, and the hearts that love dearly.

Ours is a ministry of mostly anonymous service. Like Joseph, we are called to receive and care for Mary, pregnant by another. Like Joseph, we are called to raise Jesus as if he were our own child. It is a humble ministry, a selfless ministry, a ministry with thankless long hours done as a gift of love. But without the forgotten midwives, without us, there is no Emmanuel, no “God with us,” no Christmas.

And here is the mystery never to be explained. Contrary to the desire to be the star, life’s true and long lasting joy comes most often in being forgotten midwives. Joseph discovered God in this mother and her baby. He gave his living to their love. And in the giving he forgot himself and he was forgotten. But it didn’t matter, because he had become servant love. May we too become servant love.

Amen and Shalom

1. Matt. 13:55, see also. Mark 6:3 [↩]