The Case of the Missing Joseph

The gospel lesson for the fourth Sunday of Advent (Matthew 1:18-25) tells us of Joseph's implication in the birth of Jesus. Matthew's gospel shows an appreciation for the role of the male in that culture, who normally would not get intangled in birth matters.

The text says, "he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus." I think that didn't just mean sexual relations. In that culture, with extended families involved and the strong distinctions between male and female roles, Joseph perhaps had little contact with Mary until after the birth.

I know this idea runs contra to the idyllic picture of Joseph by Mary's side as she gives birth in the manger. But that image is mainly our projection back on to the first century culture. A Jewish male would have nothing to do with birthing. For them, not only would it violate the codes of gender roles, it was unclean, literally and ceremonially.

The beautifully done movie, The Nativity, has it wrong. It shows Joseph assisting (receiving the baby as it emerges). This is after Joseph can find no one to help. For other reasons, which I won't go into here, I don't think that's what Luke intends at all when he tells us there was no room for them in the inn.

If the little town was full of people for the census, there would have been women to come to the aid of Mary. And they would have done so, honoring the bond of women and the codes of Mideastern hospitality. Once the child had been born, a messenger would have been sent to find the father and announce the news of the birth.

I enjoy reading the work of John Pilch, who has devoted his life to the study of social behaviors and cultural norms of the Bible. So I'm sure he gets credit for many of my thoughts on this, but I'm not exactly sure what is his (and where I read it) and what I've added with my own study. But this much I do remember reading from Pilch: if baby born was a male, the messenger would joyfully announce the "good news" to the father. (If it was a girl, the messenger would try to soften the bad news with a remark like, "Perhaps the father will receive a handsome dowry for his new child.")

The messenger bearing good news plays prominently in Luke's account. Luke takes this common behavior and changes it for a very Lukan emphasis, that Jesus is the redeemer of the whole world. Instead of recording the messenger going to tell Joseph of the birth, an angelic messenger goes to the shepherds to announce "I bring you good news of great joy to all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."

But back to Matthew, who tells us Joseph "is a righteous man," one who honors not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well. This Joseph "took her as his wife," staking his honor and his future on the promise of God. Who takes the greater risk? God, trusting Joseph will believe, or Joseph, trusting God will fulfill?

Grace Just Happens

It was my turn to have the children's message Sunday and so I talked about the beautiful poinsettias that had been placed in the sanctuary for the rest of Advent and Christmas. I pulled the Legend of the Poinsettia off the internet and used it to talk about giving our all to God.

Right before my prayer with the children I realized Jill, age 6 (name and age are changed) sitting right beside me. I knew Jill was to have a second round of some corrective surgery on Tuesday morning. I looked at the other kids and said, "Jill here has to have some surgery on Tuesday. I want you to join me in praying for her today."

I then offered a prayer that the doctors and nurses would take good care of her, that she would soon be over the surgery and be well, and that Jesus would help her when she got afraid. After the prayer Jill came over to where I sat and gave me a hug. Then she and the rest of the kids returned to their seats.


After the service I went up to Jill's mom and apologized for bringing up Jill's surgery without checked it out with her first. It was a spontaneous prayer and I didn't think until it was over whether it was OK with her parents to mention it.


Her mom brushed aside my comments and said, "I am so glad you did that. Jill has been insisting she was not going to have the surgery. She's been saying that she would not go to the hospital Tuesday. But she came back from the Children's Message and sat down and said, 'It's OK now, I'll go have the surgery.'"

Two things: 1) May God restore to us such childlike trust, the confidence that once you put a matter in God's hands, you don't need to worry about it. and,

2) Don't underestimate the importance of worship and public prayers for children. They know it's always more than just going through the motions

Thanks be to God for using a serendipitous moment to let grace happen once again.

Virtual Wake

I'm sure it's happened many times before, I just wasn't where I could take note of it. But this time I noticed it when reading my brother's post that honors a friend he'd never met. With internet relationships, we have entered the age of virtual grief.

Through a common interest in photography, Tom, my brother, had a friendship with Dave Anderson, who recently died. The friendship was tied to their Flickr accounts, where they made comments on one another's photography. In his posting, Remembering SisuDave, Tom mentions other tributes posted to Dave. What better expression of loss would there be than for virtual friends to leave virtual condolences?

I've always kinda rolled my eyes when I read in obituaries where the funeral home says condolences can be sent to the family through their web site. I figured it was a way for the funeral home to generate more web traffic and have more advertisement exposure. And I thought to myself, if I couldn't make the visitation for a family I cared about, I think the proper thing to do would be to write a personal letter, not send an email through the funeral home. But those thoughts have concerned people known in real life.

Now through social networks on the web, people have relationships with internet friends and virtual communities. What is the proper way to express and deal with the loss when they no longer exist? And I suppose these tributes are not really for the family at all, as in a "real" visitation/wake. They are for the virtual community to process their loss, and to somehow acknowledge the human emotions behind the user names.

Is the day coming when we have online funerals? Don't laugh. There are already virtual churches. And there are many people fully intwined in social networks on the web. When a social group experiences a death, will the members all log in at a certain site to to say their goodbys? And will the online service attempt to reflect the faith of the person loss, or strive to be faith neutral? And who will fill the priestly roll of gathering the people into one, and voicing their loss, and grief, and hopes, and faith before God (or in a faith neutral attempt, the unknown)? Could get interesting....

Left Behind Ministry Concerns

If you read this blog you've noticed I've give attention to the issue of church growth and the emphasis on revitalization. Lately I especially have focused on small churches being compared to large ones. And you may wonder why - since I serve what many might consider to be a large church. I don't think of it with that adjective, but I have attended the Gen. Bd. of Discipleship's Large Church Initiative events, so I guess it applies.

One of the inside facts about the United Methodist Church is that if you get put on a committee, you've probably also become a member of some other committee. That's a little surprise for laity when we ask them to do something like chair the Nurture Committee (and then they find out later they are members of the Church Council.) Well, if you are asked to serve on the Conference Board of Ministry, you find out you also serve on the District Committee on Ministry (dCOM). It's not so bad. The down side is the additional meetings. The good side is keeping up with, and helping people in the journey into ministry.

Each year the dCOM has to re-certify the Local Pastors for their ministry. We meet with them, review their mentor report and continuing education, and hear from them what's been happening in their lives and their churches. I enjoy hearing about the various ministries going on in these churches, most of them smaller membership churches on charges. What I've noticed however is that nearly every local pastor in some way apologizes that their church is small and doesn't, or can't "do that much." Or I hear them talking about trying to mimic ministries that really are designed for larger, program based churches.

The images of success, and pressures of numerical growth shape these pastors, and it seems the effect is to lower the church's and pastor's self-esteem. I want to find a way to move beyond that. I think we need to lift up more models and measures of ministry than the one denominational bean-counters exalt, the number of professions of faith in a year (or if you're Baptist, the number of baptisms - same difference I guess).

If we really believe that Christ is present whenever two or three meet in his name, and if we believe the presence of the risen Christ means life, then what are we saying when we send notice that two or three has to become twenty or thirty, and then two hundred to three hundred, etc. for the gathering to measure up and reveal a church with vitality?

Believe me, I know that churches can become both stagnant and wayward. I know that some behave like dysfunction families. And I know churches can become stuck in the past. And small membership churches especially can become defeatest in attitude. But why add to those challenges by forcing the smaller church through the large church mold?

I don't expect an easy answer or a simple alternative model for assessing the smaller membership church. I'd just like to keep the issue on the table and to suggest that maybe what we need are more questions.

How is the love of Christ experienced in the congregation?
How is the compassion of Christ expressed beyond the congregation?
How is the joy of Christ seen in the church?
How is the good news of Christ shared?
How is the church's record of paying its apportionments?

OK, that last one was tongue in cheek, but it wouldn't be that bad a question, since for Methodists our connectional ministry is expressed in the apportioned budget to fund those ministries. I'd be interested to know what other questions might get at the heart of what it means to be a vital church, and that's for churches of any and every size.

Other Than Posting to a Blog...

....what do Pastors do all week? That last part of the question is the title of a article by Becky McMillan.

One half of all pastors in the survey reported working between 35 and 60 hours per week. One quarter reported working more than 60 and one quarter reported working less than 35. The middle fifty percent of full-time (those working for the church 40 hours or more per week) Protestant pastors reported working between 42 and 63 hours per week. Table 1 shows the median hours per week pastors report working for their church and the median percentage of that time per week that pastors spend in the core tasks of ministry.

Percent of week preparing for preaching and worship 33
Percent of week providing pastoral care 19
Percent of week administering congregation's work 15
Percent of week teaching and training people for ministry 13
Percent of week involved in denom. and community affairs 6

The remainder of the work week not accounted for by these core tasks of ministry is taken up by other tasks specified by the pastors, such as: fund raising, writing articles, correspondence, volunteer chaplaincy, and helping to oversee other ministries as board members or advisors.

Pastors appear to spend about an hour a day in prayer and meditation and about 1/2 hour a day reading for purposes other than preparing their sermons. These hours were not counted as part of the "work week" for the pastor; though they contribute in vital ways to the health of the ministry of the congregation.

The full article is found at Pulpit and Pew (of Duke Univ.) with all types of breakdowns. I just can't believe it doesn't include the amount of time blogging! (Thanks to serious blogger Dale Tedder for the link.)

Forty Days

This is the view from atop Mt. Nebo, the traditional site where Moses looked across into the Promised Land. Will be there in 40 days! Forty days is a good Biblical number, like 40 years in the wilderness. Maybe I should do something to create something like a spiritual journey before arriving there. Nah, I've already got enough to do and being there will still bowl me over anyway.

Photo by Templar1307 via Sacred Destinations.

First Syngogue, Bethany

Biblical Bethany is just over the hill from the Temple Mount, on the other side of the Mount of Olives. What a place to serve. Great to be that close to the temple, but how can your synagogue deal with that? Design the greatest Passover observance you want, and everyone will still go to the Temple for the sacrifices. Forget synagogue growth. Who wants to connect with your little place when the best rabbinical scholars in the land are so easily accessible elsewhere?

If you can appreciate that situation, then you might be in a "Left-Behind Church." I picked up that term from a book by Ruth Tucker that I'm reading: "Left Behind in a Megachurch World." Tucker is a professor of missiology at Calvin Theological Seminary. In this book she does a pretty good critique of the "success" idolatry of our culture that has captured the church. And she reviews the malaise that sets into ordinary churches because of the comparison with the "got everything" churches. Just chew on these quotes:

If a church is not growing in numbers (according to the 'experts'), it must be revitalized...numerical growth is the goal, though it is often disguised in less stark terms such as church health, spiritual vitality, or dynamic ministry. In these (revitalization) books there is rarely any mention of the possibility of God working amid declining numbers.

Wal-Mart churches, like the stores, are not first and foremost concerned with people. They are concerned with numbers.

Ministers today face far greater expectations and pressures than did their counterparts in previous generations. Today ministers are compared to the superstars in their ranks.

The emphasis on church growth and success that pastors face in the ministry derives little authority from the Scriptures.

Well, I won't give you all of it, but I will say that she provides good background material to justify the statements I recorded above. But maybe those remarks will keep you thinking, do I evaluate my church by comparing it with other churches? Do I overlook God at work in "left-behind" places because I want to join the American dream of being in the success spotlight?

Do the turn-around programs and new church plants really help the Church discover/maintain a joyful passion for God, demonstrated in service to a hurting world? And if they don't, what will?

Walking Thoughts

We do not walk in our country, unless it is on a treadmill. Seriously, one of the readily noticeable differences when you travel abroad is that in other countries you see people out along the roads, walking. Here, people walking along a road signals that something is wrong. Either their car has broken down, or, (heaven forbid in a culture that worships the automobile) they don’t have access to a vehicle.

In recognition of this, we don’t waste money when constructing roads by creating paved shoulders or pedestrian lanes. OK, some of the newer roads have this, but in general you do take your life in your hands if you decide to walk along a road. I’ve tried it a few times, and the road shoulders hardly give you room to get out of the way of the speeding cars.

During the Living Christmas Story over this past weekend, we walked the street of Bethlehem, recreated in our church’s parking lot. One of the features that makes for a good LCS is when we have a lot of participants out in costume, walking up and down the street, talking and pretending to barter at the shops. The irony is that those who come to “see” Bethlehem and the manger ride through in their cars.

This year there was an exception. A large tour bus pulled up to the entrance. With the trees and turns in the route, the LCS isn’t designed to handle such a large bus. So forty people disembarked and walked through as a group. (One of my friends suggested we tell them they had to do the Monty Python thing and walk through keeping the same seating arrangement they had on the bus.) I wish I walked with them, just to see what I could pick up from their ambulatory experience of the event.

The experience of life changes dramatically when we walk instead of drive. I’m not just talking physically, though that is true too. Our bodies were designed to walk, with the large muscle groups in our legs. For those of you wanting to burn calories, it’s those leg muscles that do the job. That’s why cycling (or stair stepping) gets you in shape like nothing else. If you have a desk job, get up every hour and walk briskly for five minutes and just that reactivation of the leg muscles will keep the calorie furnace going. I don’t do it, but that’s what the research says.

When I walk through our neighborhood, the same streets I drive along regularly, I see a different world. The walking makes me aware of the changing texture of the pavement or the ground. I observe trees and animals and light patterns and all kind of stuff I never notice riding by. But besides being more observant, my mind settles into the rhythm of reflection.

Saint Jerome (340-420 CE), who after some years of contention near Rome moved to Bethlehem to finish his years in a monastery, gave much of his scholarly life to translating the Hebrew Bible into Latin. Jerome apparently often used the expression, “solvitur ambulando,” to solve a problem, walk around. Jerome dealt with a variety of textual and theological problems of his day, including the heresy of Pelagianism, and debates with Origenists. My issues don’t even make the cheap seats in his ballpark. Still, walking about works just as he advised. Walk, until your thoughts and prayers match the pace of your legs, until you actually see what makes up the blur of your life, until the wear on your shoes becomes a witness of waiting, anticipation and patience.

I wonder how church members would react if their pastor went on walks regularly? What if a couple of mornings a week we went walking instead of visiting, studying, attending meetings, or doing administrative stuff. Would they (and could we) appreciate the difference?

Rev. Maltbie Babcock used to take regular morning walks along Lake Ontario while serving as a pastor to a church in Lockport, New York. Bill Dagle, who writes HymnStories, says it was from those walks that Babcock wrote the beautiful hymn, “This is My Father’s World.” I think of the number of times his lyrics have spoken to me during worship. How many walks did Babcock take before those lyrics came clear to him? Was it good management of his time as a pastor?

In this busy season of Advent, with so much to “do,” I think I’ll take a walk.

Living Christmas Story

Trinity just had its weekend of presenting The Living Christmas Story and this was the best one I've participated in. The scenes of the Christmas story are set up, as well as a street of Bethlehem, and visitors drive through while listening to a CD we give them with the story told through scripture readings. The weather was wonderful (too warm for a lot of folks for December) which meant the small kids stayed out and filled the scenes. We had a lot of people participating and the line of cars was constant up until we shut it down Sunday night. For part of the time I was a greeter, taking the census and handing out the CD's. That was fun, talking with the people in the cars and seeing the anticipation on the faces of many of the children.

With our production of the Messiah, church services, and everything else, it was a very busy weekend, but a good one.

Lectionary Thoughts Matthew 3

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Matt 3:13

The gospel reading for the second Sunday of Advent concludes with this verse. It is part of John the Baptist’s prophecy about the one who would follow him, the Christ.

Many years ago on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic I watched a man separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I didn’t get a picture of it, but it’s an image that has stuck with me.

At the edge of the small village of Canoa, DR, I noticed a large pile of some kind of small, light brown bean piled on the dirt, covered with a green tarp. The pile was just outside a two-room, mud-brick home, not far from where we were laying blocks to build a church.

One windy morning a man approached the pile with a home-made tool that looked like a hybrid between a shovel and a rake. He would toss shovelfuls of the beans in the air, letting the wind blow away the chaff.

Such a sight was probably common in Jesus’ day, though rare for us. The man sifted the beans all morning. Then he began scooping them with his hands into a gunny sack. I remember thinking about the words, “separating the wheat from the chaff,” as I watched him.

The text makes it pretty clear that John the Baptist knew he was not the winnower, the sifter. His words are strong and direct as he admonishes different groups to get their act right. “You brood of snakes,” he calls the religious leaders. “Who warned you to flee the wrath to come. Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

John the Baptist calls people to repentance since the kingdom of God is coming near, but his role is not to separate. As he names the truth of others, there is indeed a judgment, but it is not the judgment that writes them off or casts them aside.

In practice, that’s not an easy distinction to make, and the church hasn’t always done a good job with that either. We’re often guilty of labeling, condemning, and casting into unquenchable fire, so to speak, those who don’t measure up. How much harder it is to speak the truth in love, but to leave the winnowing to God.

And if we were appropriately busy with bearing the fruits of repentance - demonstrating justice, mercy and love in our actions – we would have less time or concern for the separating. The beans I saw sifted had substance, had weight, and fell back to the earth to be gathered in. We, however, have the ability to choose, whether our lives are lived with substance, or whether the wind will carry us away.