Third Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2022 – Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24

Yesterday, Turner Classic Movies was doing a Jesus marathon. First, they did King of Kings, with the beautiful blue-eyed Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. And then they did The Greatest Story Ever Told. The one they didn’t do was one of the best of all the biblical narratives of the life of Christ.  It’s called The Gospel According to St. Matthew. It was an Italian production, done in 1964 by Pier Pasolini. And he chose a non-actor to play Jesus. But the opening scene in that movie is an absolute masterpiece.

We are on the balcony of a little home where Mary and presumably, her mother, live. And we’re looking out toward the desert. And this little tiny figure keeps coming nearer and nearer to the camera. And it’s Joseph, coming to visit his espoused, because they’re not living together yet. Then the camera switches position so that we can see Mary and Elizabeth. And Mary is clearly pregnant, holding her belly, watching with joy as her intended husband is coming toward her. And Joseph takes one look, when he gets closer, and he turns around silently and walks the other way, and the camera watches as he walks back until he becomes just a little dot in the center of the screen. Not a word is spoken. Because the presumption is that Joseph was dismayed, ashamed, embarrassed and angry that Mary was pregnant, when he knew it was not his child.  That’s the presumption.

And so, when we hear this morning’s gospel, we might expect the angel to say, “Do not be embarrassed to take Mary as your wife,” or “Do not be ashamed,” or “Do not be reluctant.” But the angel says, “Do not be afraid.” What’s there to fear? We get the impression from the opening line, that Joseph’s righteousness was that, since he was intending to keep the Torah and all of its specifics, he was not going to marry a sullied woman. But, because he also didn’t want to expose her to the law, he decided to divorce her quietly. Whatever the man decided to do in a situation of unfaithful betrothed was what the law would expect and accept. But that’s not the situation at all. Joseph is afraid. And the angel says to him, “Do not be afraid.” What is Joseph afraid of? I mean, he’s holding all the cards here. What is he afraid of?

By the time this story begins, clearly Joseph would have known what Mary and her immediate family knew - that something strange was going on here. Remember that these people put all their faith in the power of God and believed with all their hearts that God frequently intervened in human history in mysterious ways. And so, all of them and Joseph are all satisfied that this is the act of God. And Joseph is afraid to take part in this great mystery that has God as its origin. Will he be equal to the task?  What is going on here?

And so, the angel has to buck up his courage. “Don’t be afraid. If God is in charge of this there is nothing to fear. Not only that, Joseph, but you have a specific job to do. You are to name him, that is to say, you are going to give Jesus his legal identity. When you claim him as son and name him, he will be truly your child and, therefore, legitimate in this society. That’s your job. To name him Jesus.”

That’s why we have the first reading that we have. Not only does it have the little bit about Emmanuel that’s repeated in the Gospel, it also has the same situation. Ahaz was the King of the Southern Kingdom, where Jerusalem was, and so, the more important of the two provinces of seventh century Judaism. But he had watched as his northern neighbor, his frenemy, had been destroyed by the forces of Assyria, and did not want the same thing to happen to the Southern Kingdom. And so faced with a challenge, he decides to do what they frequently do in the Middle East, make an enemy into a friend with a political alliance. And this is precisely what has Isaiah the prophet so angry. Because this is the fate constantly of the Israelite people.  They do not pay attention to the purity of the Torah, make alliances with the unclean, and bring Yahweh’s wrath on the people. And that’s why Ahaz seems to have the upper hand. “God forbid that I should ask God for anything. Oh, my goodness, how impious of me.” But it’s a front. Ahaz is afraid. He’s afraid.

And so, Isaiah says to him, you know, there’s a rumor going around the harem that one of the women is pregnant and they are expecting a male child this time, which means that your dynasty will continue beyond this crisis period in Israel’s life. You’re assured by this coming birth, that things will go on. Therefore, do not weary my God.

Now, when that scripture was written in Hebrew, they didn’t use the word virgin. They used the words an unmarried woman, so anyone in the court harem would do. But when it is translated into Greek, the Greeks chose to use the word virgin, which made this story a perfect image of what would happen with the birth of Jesus. So, the similarity between the two stories is fear to be involved with the mysterious things of God.

Back in the 1960’s when I entered the seminary, you started college in a day school. And, after two years of college, you went to the major seminary to finish college, where you were locked away for nine months of the year, except for summer vacation and Christmas and Easter break.  And you studied your college subjects for two more years. And, at the end of college, you didn’t get a degree; there was no commencement, nothing. But the faculty was deciding whether or not you could go on to the Theology School, which we now call graduate school, and study theology toward becoming a priest. They had to vote on you.

I was number one in my class, academically. Not only did they vote for my approval to move forward, they also wanted to send me to Rome to study. But I was afraid. I was afraid to leave my parents when I was still in the process of trying to decide whether or not I would become a priest. All that summer I fretted over it. When I came back in the fall, the first thing that happens at the beginning of Theology is that you get a haircut. It’s called tonsure. The bishop cuts one lock of your hair as a symbol that you are now a slave of the Church. You belong utterly and entirely to the Church. And, since I wasn’t really sure yet what I wanted to do, I refused tonsure. Which caused tremendous upset throughout the house because our rooms were assigned based on our standing in the class. If I didn’t take tonsure, I went from being number one in the class to being the very bottom of the class. Everybody, that first day of school, had to switch their rooms around, all sorts of luggage going all through the building, all because of what I did. 

And so, they sent me for counseling to an outside institution. A very nice man, but he hadn’t a clue about the kind fear I was experiencing, because people in counseling usually don’t deal with this kind of fear. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be a good priest. I was afraid of surrendering my entire life to the will of God. I was afraid of a whole bunch of things that you only can find in the pages of the catechism and no place else. At the end of the year, they called me in again and said, “The whole faculty wants to know. If we offer you tonsure again, will you take it this time?” And so, I took the next step in fear and trembling. That is the kind of fear that is being dealt with in today’s Gospel. Fear of being involved in the things of God.

Now, all of us have fears all the time. We’re afraid of this mysterious disease, COVID, that seems to be on the wane and then comes roaring back again. We’re afraid to sell our house and move someplace else. We’re afraid to retire. We’re afraid not to retire. We’re afraid of what the doctor has to say with the results of our latest tests and we’re also afraid not to go and find out. We’re afraid of all sorts of things.

And you say, “Well, they’re not like the things you just talked about in the scriptures.” Well, yes and no. Because of our baptism, there is a religious component to every single major decision that we have to make, and every single major situation we find ourselves in in life. So that the fears that we have are grounded partly in our secular life and partly in our life with God. When these things arise, we can easily forget that, from the moment of our baptism, God has promised to walk our journey with us. That He will not abandon us. He will be there when we call. And if we fall flat on our face, He will be there to help us get up off our face, get up off our knees, and move forward. He will continue to walk our broken journey with us. 

Do not be afraid, Joseph. Do not be afraid, any one of us.