Drugs, Mood And Stress
In early December Brant Hansen posted
a powerful, honest account of his struggle with depression and the challenge to
his faith that he takes a drug, which has altered his personality for the
better. How is Jesus ‘enough’, he asks, if he needs his medication?
There are spiritual-common-sense answers to his questions.
Firstly, Jesus is enough, but the way he supplies the ‘enough’ is through what
Calvin (yes, this Arminian is going to quote Calvin positively!) called ‘common
grace’. That is, God sends the sun on the righteous and the unrighteous. The
general blessings of his creation are available to all. Properly prescribed and
taken prescription drugs are surely part of this. Healing comes as much through
the medical profession as directly in answer to prayer, and is not inferior for
that.
Secondly, depression and other conditions such as anxiety
state are just as much medical conditions as a fractured leg, especially if
they are caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. It’s hard to induce that
by some kind of moral or spiritual negligence or wilfulness. Yet the stigma
remains for many.
Thirdly, and implied in this, we need to distinguish between
prescription drugs and recreational drugs. Being ‘on drugs’ is very different
if a doctor has said we need them for our healing.
So far, so uncontroversial, I expect, for most readers of
this blog. I don’t expect any of you would have given the hassle to Brant he
received when he talked about this on the radio: you know, the ‘not enough
faith’, ‘not living in victory’, ‘satanic attack’ clichés. Why write about it? I’ve never been diagnosed with depression, as
Brant has.
But it makes some
connections for me. My father was diagnosed with depression. He had to take
early retirement as a result. What I did have, in 1995, was six weeks signed
off ministry with stress. My first two years in the ministry were spent dealing
with an awful situation with unsuitable children’s workers, before all the
child protection laws and rules came into full force. I lived under threats of
violence. I was watched. There were anonymous phone calls at all times of day
and night. Much else, too. After putting that struggle to bed, there was a
nasty struggle in the church over worship styles. Then I had a broken
engagement. Finally, I cracked. After much resistance and receiving reassurance,
I ended up on beta-blockers. They gave my body space to recover.
Yet I still had big
questions about my experience and my faith. Surely if God didn’t allow us to
face more than we can cope with, given his presence in our lives, the fact that
I was issued with doctor’s certificates with the words ‘Anxiety state’ meant my
faith had failed?
There are other
connections, too. No, I don’t suffer from depression, but anyone who knows me well
sees the occasional periods when dark moods and an almost disabling lack of
confidence sweep over me for short periods. Some would say that isn’t much of a
testimony. When my head is together, I know I can point to heroes of the faith
who have been through the same: Jeremiah, Luther, William Cowper and others. I
tend to forget that when I’m down.
And Brant’s
experience came back to mind last Monday. A much lower scale than his, again,
though – I must emphasise that. Early this year, it was discovered I had
slightly raised blood pressure. The doctor told me to get more exercise. I’ve
failed to do so. I went to see the practice nurse about something else two
weeks ago, and she noticed I’d never been back about the BP. My readings are
now a bit higher than they were at the start of the year. Action needs to be
taken. We talked about the stress in 1995 and my tendency to panic first and
reach equilibrium later. We talked about family medical history. And guess
what? It’s beta-blocker time again. The hope is, they might give me a calmer
personality and lead to a lower BP.
During the
appointment, the questions came back – from the nurse. She asked very nicely,
why I as a person of faith had these difficulties. Surely, I shouldn’t be like
this when I had the comfort of expecting an afterlife. I replied that I had the
same questions, too. The best I could do off the top of my head was to say that
yes, some Christians do have a serene faith. Others of us are like some of the
psalmists who rant at God and then calm down. I was more like them. I don’t
know whether that is a valid answer, or just a bit of self-justification.
Perhaps I should have more faith (= trust).
After the
consultation, and waiting for my tablets at the pharmacy, I read a few pages of
Tim Keel’s wonderful
book Intuitive Leadership. It seems I had arrived at some pages that
made some unintentional connections with my experience. He talks about leaders
not only giving spoken words but also being living words (pp 232-4). ‘The
person of God hosts the word of God and there is a cost to be paid,’ he writes.
I connected this with a conversation at a recent ministers’ meeting. We got
onto the subject of pressure. I related my 1995 story of stress, and the
unanswered questions I had about it. One friend replied that he thought my
stress constituted the carrying of the cross for me. It was my suffering for
doing the right thing. That insight came as revelation and relief to me. Keel
seems to be saying something similar.
In the next
section, when talking about leaders transitioning from ‘preparation’ to ‘meditation’
on the Scriptures, Keel writes about Elijah. I think this is worth a fuller
quote:
Elijah, serving God
at a time of enormous confusion in the identity of Israel, opposes Ahab and
Jezebel and their altar to Baal. At first, it seems that his labours have paid
off: the offering of Yahweh is consumed by fire while Baal’s priests work
themselves into a frenzy that ultimately goes nowhere. But when his work does
not result in the end that he had anticipated and Jezebel issues an edict to
kill the prophet, he flees for his life. When he finally collapses, he finds
himself on a sheer cliff burrowed in a small mountain cave. All of his
preparation and work have amounted to very little, and in his despair, he hides
himself away. You know the story. You have probably lived it. It is in this
very hollow of desperation that the hallowed voice of God comes to Elijah. It
is in this place that Elijah learns he had not nearly comprehended the scope of
God’s power or intent. It is to a servant of Yahweh emptied of his own agenda
and strength that revelation comes. (pp 236-7)
God meets Elijah in
his time of extreme stress. He feeds him. He lets him sleep. He encourages him
quietly. He gives him someone to help him with the next stage of his witness.
Some of my most
dramatic experiences of the Holy Spirit were around my 1995 stress. Admittedly,
that was when the Toronto Blessing was big news, but as I look back, I don’t
think it was a coincidence that God most clearly made himself known to me at a
down time. Could it be that God is kinder to the stressed or depressed than we
are? None of that absolves me from the need to exercise as part of my cure, but
maybe – just maybe – God is gracious, and he doesn’t go in for the ‘Pull
yourself together nonsense’ that is still prevalent inside and outside the
church.
Technorati Tags: BrantHansen, stress, depression, Calvin, Luther, Jeremiah, WilliamCowper, TimKeel, Elijah, TorontoBlessing
links for 2007-12-23
-
Index to previous issues of the Grove Books’ ‘Biblical Studies Bulletin’ and ‘Comments On Commentaries’ publications.
Tomorrow’s Sermon: Joseph The Disciple
Introduction
Here is a series of telegrams between a young man and his mother:
Mum
Wedding off STOP Mary pregnant STOP Not mine STOP Why me STOP
Joseph
Joseph
Cannot believe it STOP Seemed such a nice girl STOP Will you be stoning her
STOP
Mum
Mum
Have decided to dump her quietly STOP Stoning a bit messy STOP Still love her
STOP
Joseph
Joseph
Plenty more fish in the sea STOP What about Deborah from baker’s shop STOP You’ll
never be short of bagels STOP
Mum
Mum
Change of plans STOP Wedding back on STOP Angel told me God is father STOP See
you at the synagogue STOP
Joseph[1]
Poor Joseph. And he’s a neglected character in the Nativity
Story. But this morning I want to remedy that, to a small extent. I believe
Joseph is a positive example of discipleship. He is a man of faith, who goes
beyond human conventions to radical trust in God. How so? Here are three ways
in which he is a model disciple.
1. Joseph Goes Beyond Righteousness
Your fiancée is pregnant, and you’re not the father. What would you do? There are
plenty of answers that our culture might give, but in Joseph’s Jewish culture,
there is one answer: stone her. That is the righteous thing to do. It fulfils
the requirements of the Torah, the Jewish Law. Joseph, you have a reputation
for doing the right thing: organise the mob and the stones.
But Joseph, righteous as he is, does not want to expose Mary
to public disgrace (verse 19), let alone a stoning. He is more than righteous. He
has a strong streak of compassion in him. He decides to have the betrothal
dissolved. He doesn’t just follow the letter of the law; he is considerate. Surely,
we would respect a decent man like that today.
However, the story doesn’t stop there. In a dream, an angel
tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because the Holy Spirit
has caused her to conceive (verse 20). Now that is one big step further. If being
considerate has moved him beyond cold righteousness, he is now being asked to
take a giant leap.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ says the angel. That’s the issue for
Joseph, isn’t it? Fear. He is afraid to take Mary as his wife. A quiet,
considerate dissolution of their relationship will at least preserve his
reputation. But to marry one who is already pregnant in a society that believes
sex is only for marriage – well! To marry Mary is for Joseph to share in her
shame. It is to stand with her in her social rejection.
Standing with the rejected – whether they deserve it or not –
is something Joseph’s legal son Jesus would do. Taking their shame upon
himself, although he was innocent would be central to Jesus’ life. He would be
baptised for repentance with sinners, even though he was guilty of nothing. He would
be executed on a cross, despite being innocent of the trumped-up charges. Jesus
would identify with the shamed and the sinners.
I am not saying that Mary had done wrong. She had not. For the
record, I believe in the Virgin Birth. But if you stand alongside the rejected,
you do so whether they are in the right or the wrong. So we care for an AIDS
patient, whether they were infected through a parent or spouse, or through
their own foolishness or sin. It’s called grace. We show love, forgiveness and
mercy to people. It’s not about whether they deserve it, because none of us deserves
it – especially ourselves.
And as we stand alongside the suffering, both the victims
and the culpable, our grace is what will speak most truly of God, rather than
our judgmentalism. I am not asking that we change our beliefs on the rights and
wrongs of certain ethical issues. I am saying, though, that a compassionate
solidarity with the hurting will speak faithfully about the purposes of God,
just as Joseph standing with Mary did.
2. Joseph Goes Beyond Tradition
When my sister and brother-in-law thought I would never marry, they gave their
second boy the middle name ‘David’ in my honour. When our daughter Rebekah was
born, we gave her the middle name ‘Anita’, after Debbie’s late mother. And when
Mark came along, we chose the middle name ‘Alan’, which is my father’s name.
Names are so important in the Bible, and perhaps nowhere
more than in the Nativity stories. Zechariah is to call his son ‘John’, and
here, the angel tells Joseph to name Mary’s child Jesus, ‘for he will save his
people from their sins’ (verse 21). The naming of Jesus to show his purpose and
destiny outranks any of the usual traditions. Remember that first century Jews
also had a tradition about using family names when a baby was born. We see it
in the surprise when Zechariah confirms his boy will be named ‘John’.
So Joseph’s obedience to God’s will as revealed by the angel
means that he will go beyond the normal human traditions. Traditions and
conventions have their place. They can describe tried and trusted ways of doing
things. They can be the means of handing down important truths. But when
tradition stops being a means to an end, we hit problems. When tradition
becomes an end in itself, we’re up the chute. When tradition has to be defended
or worshipped, we are in trouble.
The faithful disciple, then, will be keen to know when to
keep tradition and when to go beyond it. What is a tradition trying to
preserve? To take one issue here, does keeping wooden pews enhance worship? Do
the pews make us more like the community of Jesus or not? What exactly is the
church at gathered worship? We would need to pose questions like that if our
occasional discussions ever became a substantial debate.
We can be glad, though, that Joseph showed the obedience of the
disciple by dispensing with typical family tradition to name the baby ‘Jesus’. Giving
a child a name according to their divine purpose was the classic time when the
Jewish people over-ruled the tradition of family names. What matters most are
God’s purposes.
Therefore, that becomes the issue for us. What are God’s
purposes for us? His purposes for Jesus were those of salvation. He has
purposes for us in Hatfield Peverel and beyond. We have to ask whether our
traditions serve those purposes or get in the way.
One thing is for sure: Joseph becomes so committed to the
purposes of God that he is prepared to dispense with tradition if it gets in
the way. He is prepared to stick out as different from convention. Perhaps he
will be teased or mocked. If so, he takes the risk and the flak. It is worth
it, if going beyond tradition is what God requires in order for him to be
faithful.
And as with the first point, Joseph here gives a foretaste
of what Jesus will do. Jesus will participate in many Jewish traditions. But if
the traditions of the elders get in the way of grace and mercy, you can be sure
that Jesus will oppose them and thrown them out.
As for our situation, I’m not going to give any answers about
the pews or anything else. It’s something we have to grapple with together. Suffice
it to say, however, that like fire, tradition is a good servant but a bad
master. Is tradition our servant or our master? Joseph treats it as a servant,
and so does Jesus. Do we?
3. Joseph Goes Beyond His Rights
You will have heard preachers at Advent tell you before that a Jewish betrothal
is more than an engagement. The couple were called husband and wife (Joseph is
called ‘husband’ here in verse 19), and dissolving a betrothal required a
divorce. However, they only live together and sleep together once they are
married.
Against this background, let us assume that Joseph is a
typical red-blooded male. I think that’s reasonable. To read, then, at the end
of the story that not only did he obey by taking Mary as his wife, he also had
no marital relations with her until Jesus was born (verse 25), is quite a story
of self-denial! He does so to protect the integrity of the miracle. And it’s
because of Joseph’s self-denial here that we popularly speak of the Virgin
Birth rather than the Virginal Conception. Yes, Joseph is guarding the
integrity of God’s strange work by denying himself what every bridegroom would
have wanted on his wedding night and in the months to come.
It isn’t about the early Church having a downer on sex. That
wouldn’t be true of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells his
readers there is only one reason why a married couple should deny each other,
and that is for a short season of prayer. No, as I said, Joseph abstains as an
act of self-denial to witness to the miraculous work of God in his wife’s body.
Suppose it became widely known that Joseph had done this. He
has probably already been despised for standing with the rejected Mary. He has
broken social convention. Now, surely, he will be mocked for this. What a fool
he will appear to be. His manhood will be in question.[2]
Were it to have happened today and in our culture, Joseph
would have been ridiculed even more. Not merely because ours is a sex-saturated
society, but because that is one symptom of a society addicted to pleasure. Self-denial
is not a prime virtue; self-fulfilment is. Do what you want, so long as you don’t
hurt anybody. You deserve it. Er,
why?
The lifestyle of the Christian disciple is not to satiate
every desire. Christ does allow us to enjoy following him. But it is the way of
love. And love gives up things for the beloved. Love sacrifices. It risks. It gives
up.
Our culture does know that in certain ways. We expect it of
parents with regard to children. We admire it when we see it in a Mother Teresa.
But we don’t make it the norm. We build
our economy around desire, lust and consumption.
Yet again, though, Joseph is only doing what his legal son
Jesus would do and teach. Jesus would grow up to teach that the lifestyle of
God’s kingdom was one of denying ourselves for the sake of the Gospel. And as
we approach the annual orgy of buying and selling, giving and receiving, we do
well to ponder the example of Joseph and consider where we would deny ourselves
our ‘rights’ so that the purposes of God’s merciful kingdom might be more truly
fulfilled.
Conclusion
You may know the story of how somebody once asked a famous orchestral conductor
what the hardest instrument to play in the orchestra was. The reply came back: ‘Second
fiddle.’ People want to play first fiddle, but who wants to play second? It
takes not only technique: it requires a humble attitude.
Joseph is a ‘second fiddle’ player in the nativity stories:
second fiddle to Mary, and ultimately second fiddle to Jesus. But what a second
fiddle! He gives us a taste of the melody Jesus will play. Joseph foreshadows
Jesus’ identification with the despised. Jesus’ overturning of tradition when
it gets in the way of God’s kingdom – Joseph previews that, too. And Joseph
models Jesus’ call to self-denial.
Joseph may be a bit-part player in the Nativity, but he
deserves to be known as more than the legal father of Jesus. He is more than
that. He is a model disciple of Jesus. May we follow in his ways this
Christmas.
[1] Paul
Symonds, A
Clean Camel Is A Happy Camel, no pagination.
[2] I
am grateful to Ruth
Haley Barton’s article Joseph And The
Walk Of Faith for some of these perspectives.
Technorati Tags: PaulSymonds, RuthHaleyBarton, Joseph, Nativity, Jesus, Mary, VirginBirth, grace, tradition, self-denial
Tomorrow’s Sermon: Joseph The Disciple
Introduction
Here is a series of telegrams between a young man and his mother:
Mum
Wedding off STOP Mary pregnant STOP Not mine STOP Why me STOP
Joseph
Joseph
Cannot believe it STOP Seemed such a nice girl STOP Will you be stoning her
STOP
Mum
Mum
Have decided to dump her quietly STOP Stoning a bit messy STOP Still love her
STOP
Joseph
Joseph
Plenty more fish in the sea STOP What about Deborah from baker’s shop STOP You’ll
never be short of bagels STOP
Mum
Mum
Change of plans STOP Wedding back on STOP Angel told me God is father STOP See
you at the synagogue STOP
Joseph[1]
Poor Joseph. And he’s a neglected character in the Nativity
Story. But this morning I want to remedy that, to a small extent. I believe
Joseph is a positive example of discipleship. He is a man of faith, who goes
beyond human conventions to radical trust in God. How so? Here are three ways
in which he is a model disciple.
1. Joseph Goes Beyond Righteousness
Your fiancée is pregnant, and you’re not the father. What would you do? There are
plenty of answers that our culture might give, but in Joseph’s Jewish culture,
there is one answer: stone her. That is the righteous thing to do. It fulfils
the requirements of the Torah, the Jewish Law. Joseph, you have a reputation
for doing the right thing: organise the mob and the stones.
But Joseph, righteous as he is, does not want to expose Mary
to public disgrace (verse 19), let alone a stoning. He is more than righteous. He
has a strong streak of compassion in him. He decides to have the betrothal
dissolved. He doesn’t just follow the letter of the law; he is considerate. Surely,
we would respect a decent man like that today.
However, the story doesn’t stop there. In a dream, an angel
tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because the Holy Spirit
has caused her to conceive (verse 20). Now that is one big step further. If being
considerate has moved him beyond cold righteousness, he is now being asked to
take a giant leap.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ says the angel. That’s the issue for
Joseph, isn’t it? Fear. He is afraid to take Mary as his wife. A quiet,
considerate dissolution of their relationship will at least preserve his
reputation. But to marry one who is already pregnant in a society that believes
sex is only for marriage – well! To marry Mary is for Joseph to share in her
shame. It is to stand with her in her social rejection.
Standing with the rejected – whether they deserve it or not –
is something Joseph’s legal son Jesus would do. Taking their shame upon
himself, although he was innocent would be central to Jesus’ life. He would be
baptised for repentance with sinners, even though he was guilty of nothing. He would
be executed on a cross, despite being innocent of the trumped-up charges. Jesus
would identify with the shamed and the sinners.
I am not saying that Mary had done wrong. She had not. For the
record, I believe in the Virgin Birth. But if you stand alongside the rejected,
you do so whether they are in the right or the wrong. So we care for an AIDS
patient, whether they were infected through a parent or spouse, or through
their own foolishness or sin. It’s called grace. We show love, forgiveness and
mercy to people. It’s not about whether they deserve it, because none of us deserves
it – especially ourselves.
And as we stand alongside the suffering, both the victims
and the culpable, our grace is what will speak most truly of God, rather than
our judgmentalism. I am not asking that we change our beliefs on the rights and
wrongs of certain ethical issues. I am saying, though, that a compassionate
solidarity with the hurting will speak faithfully about the purposes of God,
just as Joseph standing with Mary did.
2. Joseph Goes Beyond Tradition
When my sister and brother-in-law thought I would never marry, they gave their
second boy the middle name ‘David’ in my honour. When our daughter Rebekah was
born, we gave her the middle name ‘Anita’, after Debbie’s late mother. And when
Mark came along, we chose the middle name ‘Alan’, which is my father’s name.
Names are so important in the Bible, and perhaps nowhere
more than in the Nativity stories. Zechariah is to call his son ‘John’, and
here, the angel tells Joseph to name Mary’s child Jesus, ‘for he will save his
people from their sins’ (verse 21). The naming of Jesus to show his purpose and
destiny outranks any of the usual traditions. Remember that first century Jews
also had a tradition about using family names when a baby was born. We see it
in the surprise when Zechariah confirms his boy will be named ‘John’.
So Joseph’s obedience to God’s will as revealed by the angel
means that he will go beyond the normal human traditions. Traditions and
conventions have their place. They can describe tried and trusted ways of doing
things. They can be the means of handing down important truths. But when
tradition stops being a means to an end, we hit problems. When tradition
becomes an end in itself, we’re up the chute. When tradition has to be defended
or worshipped, we are in trouble.
The faithful disciple, then, will be keen to know when to
keep tradition and when to go beyond it. What is a tradition trying to
preserve? To take one issue here, does keeping wooden pews enhance worship? Do
the pews make us more like the community of Jesus or not? What exactly is the
church at gathered worship? We would need to pose questions like that if our
occasional discussions ever became a substantial debate.
We can be glad, though, that Joseph showed the obedience of the
disciple by dispensing with typical family tradition to name the baby ‘Jesus’. Giving
a child a name according to their divine purpose was the classic time when the
Jewish people over-ruled the tradition of family names. What matters most are
God’s purposes.
Therefore, that becomes the issue for us. What are God’s
purposes for us? His purposes for Jesus were those of salvation. He has
purposes for us in Hatfield Peverel and beyond. We have to ask whether our
traditions serve those purposes or get in the way.
One thing is for sure: Joseph becomes so committed to the
purposes of God that he is prepared to dispense with tradition if it gets in
the way. He is prepared to stick out as different from convention. Perhaps he
will be teased or mocked. If so, he takes the risk and the flak. It is worth
it, if going beyond tradition is what God requires in order for him to be
faithful.
And as with the first point, Joseph here gives a foretaste
of what Jesus will do. Jesus will participate in many Jewish traditions. But if
the traditions of the elders get in the way of grace and mercy, you can be sure
that Jesus will oppose them and thrown them out.
As for our situation, I’m not going to give any answers about
the pews or anything else. It’s something we have to grapple with together. Suffice
it to say, however, that like fire, tradition is a good servant but a bad
master. Is tradition our servant or our master? Joseph treats it as a servant,
and so does Jesus. Do we?
3. Joseph Goes Beyond His Rights
You will have heard preachers at Advent tell you before that a Jewish betrothal
is more than an engagement. The couple were called husband and wife (Joseph is
called ‘husband’ here in verse 19), and dissolving a betrothal required a
divorce. However, they only live together and sleep together once they are
married.
Against this background, let us assume that Joseph is a
typical red-blooded male. I think that’s reasonable. To read, then, at the end
of the story that not only did he obey by taking Mary as his wife, he also had
no marital relations with her until Jesus was born (verse 25), is quite a story
of self-denial! He does so to protect the integrity of the miracle. And it’s
because of Joseph’s self-denial here that we popularly speak of the Virgin
Birth rather than the Virginal Conception. Yes, Joseph is guarding the
integrity of God’s strange work by denying himself what every bridegroom would
have wanted on his wedding night and in the months to come.
It isn’t about the early Church having a downer on sex. That
wouldn’t be true of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells his
readers there is only one reason why a married couple should deny each other,
and that is for a short season of prayer. No, as I said, Joseph abstains as an
act of self-denial to witness to the miraculous work of God in his wife’s body.
Suppose it became widely known that Joseph had done this. He
has probably already been despised for standing with the rejected Mary. He has
broken social convention. Now, surely, he will be mocked for this. What a fool
he will appear to be. His manhood will be in question.[2]
Were it to have happened today and in our culture, Joseph
would have been ridiculed even more. Not merely because ours is a sex-saturated
society, but because that is one symptom of a society addicted to pleasure. Self-denial
is not a prime virtue; self-fulfilment is. Do what you want, so long as you don’t
hurt anybody. You deserve it. Er,
why?
The lifestyle of the Christian disciple is not to satiate
every desire. Christ does allow us to enjoy following him. But it is the way of
love. And love gives up things for the beloved. Love sacrifices. It risks. It gives
up.
Our culture does know that in certain ways. We expect it of
parents with regard to children. We admire it when we see it in a Mother Teresa.
But we don’t make it the norm. We build
our economy around desire, lust and consumption.
Yet again, though, Joseph is only doing what his legal son
Jesus would do and teach. Jesus would grow up to teach that the lifestyle of
God’s kingdom was one of denying ourselves for the sake of the Gospel. And as
we approach the annual orgy of buying and selling, giving and receiving, we do
well to ponder the example of Joseph and consider where we would deny ourselves
our ‘rights’ so that the purposes of God’s merciful kingdom might be more truly
fulfilled.
Conclusion
You may know the story of how somebody once asked a famous orchestral conductor
what the hardest instrument to play in the orchestra was. The reply came back: ‘Second
fiddle.’ People want to play first fiddle, but who wants to play second? It
takes not only technique: it requires a humble attitude.
Joseph is a ‘second fiddle’ player in the nativity stories:
second fiddle to Mary, and ultimately second fiddle to Jesus. But what a second
fiddle! He gives us a taste of the melody Jesus will play. Joseph foreshadows
Jesus’ identification with the despised. Jesus’ overturning of tradition when
it gets in the way of God’s kingdom – Joseph previews that, too. And Joseph
models Jesus’ call to self-denial.
Joseph may be a bit-part player in the Nativity, but he
deserves to be known as more than the legal father of Jesus. He is more than
that. He is a model disciple of Jesus. May we follow in his ways this
Christmas.
[1] Paul
Symonds, A
Clean Camel Is A Happy Camel, no pagination.
[2] I
am grateful to Ruth
Haley Barton’s article Joseph And The
Walk Of Faith for some of these perspectives.
Technorati Tags: PaulSymonds, RuthHaleyBarton, Joseph, Nativity, Jesus, Mary, VirginBirth, grace, tradition, self-denial
Tomorrow’s Sermon: Joseph The Disciple
Introduction
Here is a series of telegrams between a young man and his mother:
Mum
Wedding off STOP Mary pregnant STOP Not mine STOP Why me STOP
Joseph
Joseph
Cannot believe it STOP Seemed such a nice girl STOP Will you be stoning her
STOP
Mum
Mum
Have decided to dump her quietly STOP Stoning a bit messy STOP Still love her
STOP
Joseph
Joseph
Plenty more fish in the sea STOP What about Deborah from baker’s shop STOP You’ll
never be short of bagels STOP
Mum
Mum
Change of plans STOP Wedding back on STOP Angel told me God is father STOP See
you at the synagogue STOP
Joseph[1]
Poor Joseph. And he’s a neglected character in the Nativity
Story. But this morning I want to remedy that, to a small extent. I believe
Joseph is a positive example of discipleship. He is a man of faith, who goes
beyond human conventions to radical trust in God. How so? Here are three ways
in which he is a model disciple.
1. Joseph Goes Beyond Righteousness
Your fiancée is pregnant, and you’re not the father. What would you do? There are
plenty of answers that our culture might give, but in Joseph’s Jewish culture,
there is one answer: stone her. That is the righteous thing to do. It fulfils
the requirements of the Torah, the Jewish Law. Joseph, you have a reputation
for doing the right thing: organise the mob and the stones.
But Joseph, righteous as he is, does not want to expose Mary
to public disgrace (verse 19), let alone a stoning. He is more than righteous. He
has a strong streak of compassion in him. He decides to have the betrothal
dissolved. He doesn’t just follow the letter of the law; he is considerate. Surely,
we would respect a decent man like that today.
However, the story doesn’t stop there. In a dream, an angel
tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because the Holy Spirit
has caused her to conceive (verse 20). Now that is one big step further. If being
considerate has moved him beyond cold righteousness, he is now being asked to
take a giant leap.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ says the angel. That’s the issue for
Joseph, isn’t it? Fear. He is afraid to take Mary as his wife. A quiet,
considerate dissolution of their relationship will at least preserve his
reputation. But to marry one who is already pregnant in a society that believes
sex is only for marriage – well! To marry Mary is for Joseph to share in her
shame. It is to stand with her in her social rejection.
Standing with the rejected – whether they deserve it or not –
is something Joseph’s legal son Jesus would do. Taking their shame upon
himself, although he was innocent would be central to Jesus’ life. He would be
baptised for repentance with sinners, even though he was guilty of nothing. He would
be executed on a cross, despite being innocent of the trumped-up charges. Jesus
would identify with the shamed and the sinners.
I am not saying that Mary had done wrong. She had not. For the
record, I believe in the Virgin Birth. But if you stand alongside the rejected,
you do so whether they are in the right or the wrong. So we care for an AIDS
patient, whether they were infected through a parent or spouse, or through
their own foolishness or sin. It’s called grace. We show love, forgiveness and
mercy to people. It’s not about whether they deserve it, because none of us deserves
it – especially ourselves.
And as we stand alongside the suffering, both the victims
and the culpable, our grace is what will speak most truly of God, rather than
our judgmentalism. I am not asking that we change our beliefs on the rights and
wrongs of certain ethical issues. I am saying, though, that a compassionate
solidarity with the hurting will speak faithfully about the purposes of God,
just as Joseph standing with Mary did.
2. Joseph Goes Beyond Tradition
When my sister and brother-in-law thought I would never marry, they gave their
second boy the middle name ‘David’ in my honour. When our daughter Rebekah was
born, we gave her the middle name ‘Anita’, after Debbie’s late mother. And when
Mark came along, we chose the middle name ‘Alan’, which is my father’s name.
Names are so important in the Bible, and perhaps nowhere
more than in the Nativity stories. Zechariah is to call his son ‘John’, and
here, the angel tells Joseph to name Mary’s child Jesus, ‘for he will save his
people from their sins’ (verse 21). The naming of Jesus to show his purpose and
destiny outranks any of the usual traditions. Remember that first century Jews
also had a tradition about using family names when a baby was born. We see it
in the surprise when Zechariah confirms his boy will be named ‘John’.
So Joseph’s obedience to God’s will as revealed by the angel
means that he will go beyond the normal human traditions. Traditions and
conventions have their place. They can describe tried and trusted ways of doing
things. They can be the means of handing down important truths. But when
tradition stops being a means to an end, we hit problems. When tradition
becomes an end in itself, we’re up the chute. When tradition has to be defended
or worshipped, we are in trouble.
The faithful disciple, then, will be keen to know when to
keep tradition and when to go beyond it. What is a tradition trying to
preserve? To take one issue here, does keeping wooden pews enhance worship? Do
the pews make us more like the community of Jesus or not? What exactly is the
church at gathered worship? We would need to pose questions like that if our
occasional discussions ever became a substantial debate.
We can be glad, though, that Joseph showed the obedience of the
disciple by dispensing with typical family tradition to name the baby ‘Jesus’. Giving
a child a name according to their divine purpose was the classic time when the
Jewish people over-ruled the tradition of family names. What matters most are
God’s purposes.
Therefore, that becomes the issue for us. What are God’s
purposes for us? His purposes for Jesus were those of salvation. He has
purposes for us in Hatfield Peverel and beyond. We have to ask whether our
traditions serve those purposes or get in the way.
One thing is for sure: Joseph becomes so committed to the
purposes of God that he is prepared to dispense with tradition if it gets in
the way. He is prepared to stick out as different from convention. Perhaps he
will be teased or mocked. If so, he takes the risk and the flak. It is worth
it, if going beyond tradition is what God requires in order for him to be
faithful.
And as with the first point, Joseph here gives a foretaste
of what Jesus will do. Jesus will participate in many Jewish traditions. But if
the traditions of the elders get in the way of grace and mercy, you can be sure
that Jesus will oppose them and thrown them out.
As for our situation, I’m not going to give any answers about
the pews or anything else. It’s something we have to grapple with together. Suffice
it to say, however, that like fire, tradition is a good servant but a bad
master. Is tradition our servant or our master? Joseph treats it as a servant,
and so does Jesus. Do we?
3. Joseph Goes Beyond His Rights
You will have heard preachers at Advent tell you before that a Jewish betrothal
is more than an engagement. The couple were called husband and wife (Joseph is
called ‘husband’ here in verse 19), and dissolving a betrothal required a
divorce. However, they only live together and sleep together once they are
married.
Against this background, let us assume that Joseph is a
typical red-blooded male. I think that’s reasonable. To read, then, at the end
of the story that not only did he obey by taking Mary as his wife, he also had
no marital relations with her until Jesus was born (verse 25), is quite a story
of self-denial! He does so to protect the integrity of the miracle. And it’s
because of Joseph’s self-denial here that we popularly speak of the Virgin
Birth rather than the Virginal Conception. Yes, Joseph is guarding the
integrity of God’s strange work by denying himself what every bridegroom would
have wanted on his wedding night and in the months to come.
It isn’t about the early Church having a downer on sex. That
wouldn’t be true of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells his
readers there is only one reason why a married couple should deny each other,
and that is for a short season of prayer. No, as I said, Joseph abstains as an
act of self-denial to witness to the miraculous work of God in his wife’s body.
Suppose it became widely known that Joseph had done this. He
has probably already been despised for standing with the rejected Mary. He has
broken social convention. Now, surely, he will be mocked for this. What a fool
he will appear to be. His manhood will be in question.[2]
Were it to have happened today and in our culture, Joseph
would have been ridiculed even more. Not merely because ours is a sex-saturated
society, but because that is one symptom of a society addicted to pleasure. Self-denial
is not a prime virtue; self-fulfilment is. Do what you want, so long as you don’t
hurt anybody. You deserve it. Er,
why?
The lifestyle of the Christian disciple is not to satiate
every desire. Christ does allow us to enjoy following him. But it is the way of
love. And love gives up things for the beloved. Love sacrifices. It risks. It gives
up.
Our culture does know that in certain ways. We expect it of
parents with regard to children. We admire it when we see it in a Mother Teresa.
But we don’t make it the norm. We build
our economy around desire, lust and consumption.
Yet again, though, Joseph is only doing what his legal son
Jesus would do and teach. Jesus would grow up to teach that the lifestyle of
God’s kingdom was one of denying ourselves for the sake of the Gospel. And as
we approach the annual orgy of buying and selling, giving and receiving, we do
well to ponder the example of Joseph and consider where we would deny ourselves
our ‘rights’ so that the purposes of God’s merciful kingdom might be more truly
fulfilled.
Conclusion
You may know the story of how somebody once asked a famous orchestral conductor
what the hardest instrument to play in the orchestra was. The reply came back: ‘Second
fiddle.’ People want to play first fiddle, but who wants to play second? It
takes not only technique: it requires a humble attitude.
Joseph is a ‘second fiddle’ player in the nativity stories:
second fiddle to Mary, and ultimately second fiddle to Jesus. But what a second
fiddle! He gives us a taste of the melody Jesus will play. Joseph foreshadows
Jesus’ identification with the despised. Jesus’ overturning of tradition when
it gets in the way of God’s kingdom – Joseph previews that, too. And Joseph
models Jesus’ call to self-denial.
Joseph may be a bit-part player in the Nativity, but he
deserves to be known as more than the legal father of Jesus. He is more than
that. He is a model disciple of Jesus. May we follow in his ways this
Christmas.
[1] Paul
Symonds, A
Clean Camel Is A Happy Camel, no pagination.
[2] I
am grateful to Ruth
Haley Barton’s article Joseph And The
Walk Of Faith for some of these perspectives.
Technorati Tags: PaulSymonds, RuthHaleyBarton, Joseph, Nativity, Jesus, Mary, VirginBirth, grace, tradition, self-denial
Loud Crying He Makes
Somebody else who thinks ‘Away In A Manger’ is heretical: Liverpool nativity. As the late Robert Webber used to say, the test of orthodoxy is the answer to the question, ‘Pinch Jesus and what does he say?’ The theologically correct answer is, ‘Ouch.’
Technorati Tags: Christmas, nativity, Liverpool, Awayinamanger
links for 2007-12-17
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Irish comedian Ed Byrne on how to have a greener Christmas.
links for 2007-12-15
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The site’s own description: ‘A lexicon of fringe English, focusing on slang, jargon, and new words.’
Family Service Talk: Christmas Giving
As well as the mini-sermon for Sunday night’s carol service that I posted earlier, here is a talk for an all-age service on Sunday morning. Some of this is meant to connect with the adults as well as the children. It’s not a straight ‘children’s talk’.
[NB: This talk takes as its inspiration Shane Claiborne’s recent article Creative Cures For The Common Christmas.]
A Question For The Congregation: You can see how we have decorated the church for Christmas. But how would you decorate it? [Take some answers.]
Another Question: How many presents do you expect to receive this year? [Again, take some answers.]
Now let me tell you the answers some Christians have given to these two questions.
One church got rid of the usual Christmas decorations one year. Instead, they scattered hay and manure under the pews. They also invited a donkey, who was kind enough to leave his own particular gift while present. The congregation went from awkward looks at each other to laughter as they realised the church leaders had tried to recreate the feel of a manger in the sanctuary.
Now the second question, about the number of presents. Children in one Sunday School said that Jesus only received three presents: gold, frankincense and myrrh. And they weren’t much use for a baby! The children agreed to keep three presents, and give the rest away.
There’s a third question, but I can’t ask you to answer this publicly. If you did, it would destroy some surprises on Christmas Day. Here is the question: what gift are you most looking forward to giving? Just think quietly for a moment about that. …
Now, here is how some Christians answered that question. They dressed up in fun costumes, and invaded a shopping centre on the busiest shopping day of the Christmas season. They gave out free hot chocolate and free coats to the needy. They carried slogans such as, ‘Buy less – love more’, ‘Celebrate love not money’, ‘Love doesn’t cost a thing’ and ‘Spend time not money.’
But that leads to a fourth and final question, not ‘What should I give others?’, but ‘What should I give God?’ Pause for a moment again, and think about that. …
The answer I’d offer to that question is a traditional one. We’re about to sing ‘In the bleak midwinter’ (all five verses here). You’ll recall that verse in it:
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
Yet what I have I give him, give my heart.
(Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1830-1894)
What does ‘give my heart’ mean? Some put it like this: if the Old Testament standard for giving was the tithe, ten per cent, the New Testament standard is everything, one hundred per cent. Everything we have is for Jesus. That is what ‘give my heart’ means.
So we’re going to sing the carol now. And I want to invite you to confirm that you have ‘given your heart’ to Jesus. We have a Christmas card for Jesus at the front here. It has the last line of the carol on it. I want to invite you to come to the front and sign your name on Broomfield’s card to Jesus. Let’s pledge that we have given our hearts, our lives to Jesus. That’s real Christian, Christmas giving.
Technorati Tags: ShaneClaiborne, Christmas, giving, ChristinaRossetti
Big Circumstance 