Supporting Actor

Supporting Actor

Text:  Matthew 1:18-25

            Have you ever heard anyone express the disappointment, “I was never chosen to be Joseph!”?  Girls queue up to play Mary.  Those not chosen feel disappointment and are envious of the one who gets the part.  Joseph is in the drama but stands in the shadows.  Joseph throws himself into his role but Mary gets all the plaudits.  Yet without Joseph the show could not go on.  So, without any further ado please give a warm welcome as I introduce to you Joseph.

            I move to the side and re-enter as Joseph and speak in his voice...

            The family business had been around for years.  Our name King’s Carpentry Ltd. played on our royal roots going right back to King David. 

            Mind you, a close look at the family tree revealed a few skeletons in the cupboard.  They were women.  Usually women didn’t get a mention in genealogies.  Their names:  Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bethsheba.  Three of them were definitely foreigners and Tamar was quite probably too.  They all had dubious sexual encounters:  Tamar posed as a prostitute to her father-in-law in order to get a son for her dead husband; Rahab was a prostitute; Ruth went to the threshing floor and uncovering Boaz’s feet and stayed the night; and Bethsheba commits adultery with King David.  All these were women at the mercy of men just trying to survive.

             It didn’t occur to me then.  But the more I think about it the more I realise that God doesn’t play by the book – or at least that’s the way it appears.  He blows expectations.  My people had such a keen sense of being the chosen people that we hadn’t quite appreciated that God had chosen us as a way of gathering all the peoples of the earth to himself.  The presence of foreign women with shady sexual liaisons giving birth to God’s salvation was perfectly outrageous.

            Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheeba weren’t the last scandals in the family tree either.  This is where I come in.  The trouble is that I hadn’t appreciated the shocking ways of God.  Somehow I thought that these women in my ancestry were aberrations.  I didn’t realise that God saves people from sin by coming to us in ways that are shameful.

            Anyway, I’m getting ahead myself.  I need to go back to the beginning – to the way things were before my life changed forever.  I’d taken over King’s Carpentry Ltd. after serving my apprenticeship under my dad, Jacob.  Business was booming.  We constructed a range of products for the home:  beds, benches, boxes, and yes, even coffins.  We built houses and did extensions.  We served the farming community building yokes, threshing sledges, and ploughs.  Because we were some distance from water we didn’t get into the building of boats for the fishing industry.  Over recent years the business had developed as we had been successful in winning a contract with King Herod to build the temple.[1]  This was a major project and it was not only profitable but also a privilege to be part of this magnificent edifice to the Lord.

            Now that I was running the business and had built my own house, I was ready to get married.  I’d set myself up so that I could make an attractive offer of marriage.            My parents approached Mary’s family.  I had known this girl all my life.  We were next door neighbours.  We’d played together.  I was quite happy at the choice my dad and mum had made for me.  I felt sure that we could be happy and that she would give me lots of children.

            We were engaged to be married.  Now I have to tell you that getting engaged in 1^st century Palestine was a far cry from what being engaged means in your culture.  Engagement was a legal agreement not only between two families.  It was a binding contract.  There were only two ways to break off an engagement:  if your partner died or through divorce proceedings.[2]  I didn’t expect either of these things to happen.  Not to me anyway. 

            So...we were engaged.  We were as good as married.  The only thing was that Mary would stay with her family for a year and we wouldn’t have a sexual relationship until she came to live with me.[3]  This was a time for us to get to know each other...to get ready to make our life together.

            It was a bombshell blowing everything apart.  I can still feel my heart racing and the blood rushing to my face.  The words rang in my ears, “I’m pregnant.”  Pregnant?  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  How could she betray me like this?  I was furious.  I was broken hearted.  There was no way I could marry her now. 

            I know cheating is an accepted reality for a lot of people these days.  But in my world a woman is property.  The children born to her belong to the man.  A child is the pension plan for old age and the oldest son inherits twice as much as all the others because he has the responsibility to carry on his dad’s name. 

            Mary was spoilt goods.  It’s not my baby she carries inside of her.  Moses’ law is clear.  She’s not been faithful.  I am justified in walking away from her.  How can I possibly take on a woman who has been with another man?  How could I trust she wouldn’t be unfaithful again?  How could I take on another man’s baby and make it my own. 

            Even though I felt angry I still cared about Mary.  I didn’t want a messy divorce.  I would have been fully within my rights to have public divorce proceedings.  I could have saved face and humiliated her and her family.  But this didn’t seem right to me.  There was another option.  I could get two witnesses to attest the divorce.  I suppose in today’s terms you might call this holding court behind closed doors.  This would save Mary the shame – or at least part of the shame.  Yes, that’s what I would do.  I’d set my mind to it.

            I thought I would sleep better now that I’d made my decision.  But I have to say I tossed and turned.  It was one of those nights filled with dreams...some verging on nightmares. 

            Then the most amazing thing happened.  Now, you know how hard it is to explain dreams.  Putting them into words can make something that made so much sense in the night seem like sheer nonsense.  What I saw I can only describe as what I imagine an angel must look like. 

            At first I felt frightened.  But as the angel spoke his message from the Lord, I felt a calm coming over me.  I think it was the fact he called me by name.  “Joseph, son of David...”  That’s what he said.  There was no mistaking it.  This was a message for me.  He told me not to be afraid to take Mary to be my wife.  He explained that the baby she was carrying was not by another man.  This baby had come into being through the Holy Spirit. 

            With hindsight, I realised that this wasn’t the first time that God had caused impossible births to happen.  Isaac, Jacob and Samuel had been born to women who thought they could never have a baby (Gen. 18:9-15; 25:19-26; 1 Sam. 1).[4]

            This baby that Mary was carrying was brought into being by God for a special purpose.  The angel told me to name the baby ‘Jesus’.  By going ahead with the marriage and naming the boy, I was saying that this was my baby.  Though I wasn’t his biological dad I was making him part of a bloodline tracing back to King David. 

            I have to say I was a little disappointed by the name.  Boys with the name ‘Jesus’ were a dime a dozen.  Jesus had come from the Hebrew name Joshua which means “Yahweh will save”.  The angel told me that this boy was to be called Jesus because his special purpose was to ‘save his people from their sins’.

            The angel told me that this baby will give fullest meaning to the prophet Isaiah’s words to Ahaz about a virgin conceiving and giving birth to a son named Emmanuel.  This baby that was to be my boy was going to bring God’s presence to us.  This was mind boggling. 

            When I woke up I knew what I had to do and I did it.  I put aside the feelings of rage and disappointment knowing that whatever my marriage looked like to other people, it was a marriage made in heaven.  I took Mary into my home and we didn’t have sex until after Jesus was born.  There was no doubt that this baby came from God.  I named him Jesus.  His name was his mission.

            I can’t say it was easy to be the supporting act in this drama of God’s salvation.  I had to put aside my male ego to do what God called me to do.  I had to learn to be content to be a minor player in the story.  But I know this:  my ‘yes’ to God was as necessary as Mary’s ‘yes’. 

            Maybe you’re like me and you’ve not been called to have the starring role.  Are you willing to play whatever part he asks even if it’s not centre stage?  Will you pray for the grace and humility and throw yourself whole heartedly into being the best supporting actor you can be?