ISAIAH 7:10-17

PSALM 24:1-7

ROMANS 1:1-7

MATTHEW 1:18-25

Sermon – 12/23/01

Joseph and Mary

In the last three months we have learned a lot about the Taliban, the late and generally unlamented former rulers of Afghanistan, and their brutality towards essentially their entire population except for themselves. Particularly startling in their behavior was the Taliban’s policy towards women. As the December 3rd Time magazine put it, “From the moment in 1996 that the Taliban took power, it sought to make women not just obedient but nonexistent. Not just submissive but invisible. For five years, it almost succeeded.”

Activities for women which were officially banned by the Taliban included: “speaking or laughing loudly, riding bicycles or motorcycles, showing their ankles, wearing makeup, wearing shoes that click, leaving home unaccompanied by a close male relative, attending school, speaking to men who are not close relatives, working (except for a few doctors and nurses).”

The last five years for the women of Afghanistan has been a sentence in purgatory. Yet even now, while there are radical improvements in women’s status unevenly underway, let’s not think that the new Prime Minister of Afghanistan is Gloria Steinem. The Taliban represented a radical perversion of Islam, it is true, but in the rest of the Islamic world, while there is not the reign of terror the Taliban represented, there is a spectrum ranging from spectacularly oppressive (Saudi Arabia) to almost as liberal as America in, say, 1955.

And yet, we can also read that Muhammad dramatically raised the status of women in Arabia from what it was before his leadership began, in the 7^th Century A.D. That’s a fact, a rather sobering one. Imagine the status of women before his time.

Which leads us to wonder, what was the status of women in Palestine in the 1^st Century A.D. – and what impact did and should the birth of Jesus have?

The second class status of women, taken for granted even by moderate Muslims in predominantly Muslim countries, is echoed in the Old Testament and the customs which prevailed when Joseph became engaged to Mary.

A daughter was considered less desirable than a son (Leviticus 12:1-5), she could be sold by her father as a slave to pay his debts (Exodus 21:7) and, unlike a male slave, she was then not automatically set free after six years service as a slave (Exodus 21:2). Daughters did not automatically inherit from their fathers, according to The Interpreter’s Directory of the Bible, and the First Century Jewish historian Josephus recorded that “neither women nor slaves were qualified to testify as witnesses.” Also if a woman took an oath, either her husband or her father could cancel it.

The double standard of society was most evident in marriage law and custom. Marriages were generally arranged, between the groom and the bride’s father. The groom paid the bride’s father a “bride price”. The bride’s father “gave her away” to the groom, a ceremony which represented the transfer of legal authority over her from her father to her husband.

Virginity on the part of the bride at the time of marriage was highly esteemed and, indeed, almost considered essential. The question of male virginity at the time of marriage is never even mentioned in the Old Testament.

Divorce could be initiated by the husband in a very simple process, on grounds described as follows in Deuteronomy 24:1: he can divorce “If then she [his wife] finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her...” In the First Century there were two schools of rabbinic interpretation of this clause: one which emphasized the word “indecency” and said that meant divorce was only permissible in the case of adultery, and one school of thought which emphasized the word “some” and declared that a man could divorce his wife unilaterally even if she merely burned dinner.

Women, on the other hand, had absolutely no right to initiate divorce.

Adultery on the part of a wife was punishable by death. The man could be executed. Adultery on the part of a husband, on the other hand, was punishable only if he could be held to have violated some other man’s “property”.

Men also could have second wives, and in Old Testament times even concubines as well. Men also had access to prostitutes in those times. The Double Standard was spectacular. Of course, Judaism has changed since then – but we’re looking today at the ancient rules.

Now this next specific law – Deuteronomy 22:23 – is very pertinent. Being engaged to be married was treated extremely seriously in those times. In fact, if an engaged woman had sex with a man other than her fiancé, it was considered to be adultery. If the adulterous act occurred in the countryside (where she might have cried for help without being heard), it was considered rape, and the man (if found) was executed, while the woman went free. If a virgin engaged to another man had sex with someone else in town, the law assumed that it was voluntary, on the theory that someone would have heard her if she screamed. Therefore, it was considered adultery, and both the man and the woman were sentenced to death.

Bethlehem was a town.

Do you see the unexploded bomb which is sitting right in the middle of the very first chapter of the very first book of the New Testament? “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child...”

Had Joseph invoked Deuteronomy 22:23, the story of Jesus would have ended right there. Mary would have been taken out to the edge of town and everyone would have thrown stones at her until she died. If they felt merciful, the people would have aimed at her head first, so that she would lose consciousness; if they weren’t feeling merciful, they would have broken all her other bones while she was still conscious.

No one, it’s fair to say, would have believed her story that God created her pregnancy. That would have gotten her more stones for blasphemy.

“Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace planned to dismiss her quietly.” The word translated “dismiss” is also translated “divorce”.

He was a righteous man. Marrying someone who obviously had conceived a child without his help was not something the right sort of people did. On the other hand, Joseph knew full well what the village’s “male chauvinist pigs” would do to Mary if they got wind of the story, so a quick and quiet divorce, followed by a long trip out of town by Mary, was – in the context of the times – an act of extraordinary mercy and kindness by Joseph. In the extremely chauvinistic culture he lived in – coupled with the gossipy nature of a small town – Joseph’s humiliation would have been extreme, but he was willing to experience it to keep Mary safe – and that child, whose ever it was.

“But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’... When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.”

This is a triple earthquake in Joseph’s life. After resolving on a quiet divorce to save Mary’s life, now he receives an angelic vision commanding him to marry her, and that this extraordinary tale of hers is true. Second, he realized that God has done something revolutionary not only in sending a Savior, but also in telling the mother first.

Now, this may seem silly to us – generally mothers know they’re going to be mothers before fathers know they’re going to be fathers – but in the most famous previous miraculous conception in the Bible it was not so. When Abraham and his post-menopausal wife, Sarah, were about to conceive a child, the angels came and told Abraham. Sarah eavesdropped (and burst out laughing at the

thought - hence the name Isaac, which means laughter, for their son).

Now, in the still patriarchal, chauvinistic culture of first Century Palestine, God had obviously told Mary first, and brought Joseph in the loop only as an afterthought.

Men, especially Middle Eastern men, don’t much like being afterthoughts.

But the third earthquake in Joseph’s life completed the revolution in the head of the carpenter from Bethlehem: not only was the marriage on, not only had Mary been told first about this radical new thing God was doing, but God wanted him, Joseph, even though God didn’t “need” him.

Joseph, direct descendent of King David, was not needed by God biologically, in order for the true heir of King David to be born.

But God wanted Joseph to be involved, because this Jesus would need a DAD.

And so Joseph became the greatest adoptive father in history, without even taking public credit for it. In his patriarchal world, where being the biological father of a son was everything to a man’s status (“Henry VIII complexes” were considered normal then), he would accept the status of an adoptive father so the Savior of the World could grow up with a human Dad.

In his patriarchal world, where the man’s word was law and a woman’s word was nothing, Joseph would accept that God had spoken to his fiancée first and had chosen her for an awesome and unique mission. And God had not asked his permission, or Mary’s father’s permission, for her to have this mission. Get used to it guys: Joseph did. Starting with Mary it became clear that women could have a direct line from God, a direct relationship with God, a direct commission from God to do ministry, even a revolutionary ministry like that of Mary’s. (See the “Magnificat”, The Song of Mary, to see how revolutionary her vision was.) Mary had said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord”, and her husband did not even try to overrule her oath. That’s revolutionary, too.

In the prophecies from Isaiah we’ve heard during Advent, we’ve heard how the Messiah will bring peace – even between species – will bring hope, will bring healing and liberation from captivity and disability.

The Messiah, the Savior, began to liberate people from the very moment of his conception. A woman, a small town Jewish woman of no illustrious parentage or lineage, would be the bearer of the Savior, would be the one God spoke to first, and would experience a radical realignment of power within her marriage. She does not get chosen by God because of her father or her fiancé but because of herself: and her husband-to-be accepts her for who she is even though that is radically different from anything he has ever even imagined before.

Genesis says that “In the beginning”, men and women were both made in the image of God and were each other’s companions, and only after their rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden did a relationship of dominance and submission develop.

With Joseph and Mary we can see the beginning of the end of that oppressive structure. Even from the moment of his conception, Jesus began to liberate people. During his ministry, the honor and authority he accorded to women – because of who they were, not because of any men they might be connected with was profoundly radical, and liberating for both women and men.

It is truly tragic it has taken many Christians so long to notice this. We today, too, are affected by the tidal pull of traditional culture’s double standard, and the church for 2,000 years has been heavily affected by it.

But the men who wrote the Gospels down, First Century Mediterranean people though they were, were profoundly affected by the breathtaking message they bore to the world: Jesus treats all people as potential first class citizens of the Kingdom of God.

Unwrap the story of Christmas, and we find that Jesus is as far away from the Taliban as it’s possible to be. Liberation. Dignity. Respect. Limitless potential. Mercy. Hope. Empowerment as servants of God for everyone.

Unwrap the story of Christmas and give it to someone who really needs to hear this Good News, that she or he, too, may come to experience freedom in Christ.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church