The Annunciation to Joseph

'Her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man and being unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.'

We are in the year when we concentrate on St Matthew's Gospel for our gospel readings and we hear in this morning's gospel a very different voice in the account of the Annunciation. We are so used to the account of the Annunciation in St Luke, where Mary plays centre stage and there is her obedience and her humility and the words of the Magnificat. It is so different in St Matthew. Mary's pregnancy is Joseph's problem, not Mary's, and though Joseph does not say anything, he generally plays a much more important role than Mary in Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus. It is his genealogy that is used. Despite him not being Jesus' biological father, the long list of names gives us his ancestry not Mary's. Joseph will be mentioned by name seven times, Mary only four times. Joseph will receive four messages in dreams from an angel. The fate of Mary and her child is in his hands and will depend on his obedience not hers. Heaven speaks to Joseph, not to Mary. This is a man's world. His righteousness is tested. What Mary thinks, what Mary believes is not relevant. Mary is not in a position to decide or take any decisions. She is reliant totally on her man, on Joseph.

This is the picture that Matthew gives us. We may not like it. We may even find it shocking. We do not have to agree with it, but we must realise that Matthew is very much reflecting the attitudes and the assumptions of his day.

Mary was probably very young when she was betrothed to Joseph, maybe as young as 14. It was usually an arrangement between the fathers of the families concerned, and these arrangements assumed that the husband had authority over his wife and were designed to establish and maintain his power.

It is 35 years since Angela and I were married and I can clearly remember the priest preparing us for our marriage, saying to Angela about the vows, "Of course you'll say Obey. Somebody in a marriage has got to make the decisions and it should be the man." Perhaps some of you would still agree with that priest. I think Angela and I would argue far more vociferously for a different view of marriage where husband and wife are equal partners with equal responsibility. But the truth is even in modern western society the equality and dignity of women is still not fully respected, and it is far worse in other parts of our world, where perhaps culturally it has changed little since the birth of Jesus.

I heard a story recently about two sisters from Iraq who were kidnapped and sold into prostitution in Yemen. One was already married. Eventually after a long, complex and harrowing time they managed to return to their home country. But only the un-married sister returned home. The husband of the other sister was demanding a divorce and when she refused, her own brother threatened to kill her because she had brought such disgrace on his family, Can you imagine it? She had brought disgrace. She and her sister had been through hell and yet her husband saw her as soiled and damaged goods and that was that, while her brother was so sure of her husband's authority and the need to defend what he considered to be the family's honour that he had completely lost sight of her humanity. And this is our 21st century world.

It is not far from the culture that Matthew understood and wrote about. Thank God Joseph was not like that woman's brother. But make no doubt about it in Matthew's account Mary stays in the background, she is very vulnerable and she is completely powerless. Joseph is a good man, a kind man, but he is a man of his culture. He knows Mary's child is not his, he is deeply hurt. He does not want to make a public display and trial of Mary. He will dismiss her quietly; he will not make a fuss. But the bump in Mary's belly will not go away. It will only get bigger; it will become obvious that she is pregnant. Public disgrace is only delayed by a few months. Public disgrace for Mary and for her whole family can not be avoided. Thank God for Joseph's dreams. Thank God for the message of the angel in that dream.

God shows Joseph another way, a better way, a more loving way. He can take Mary as his wife. He can care for her, he can love her. He can become the parent of her child. He does not need to be afraid of public humiliation. He can rescue Mary from her predicament. He can serve God's purposes.

Disgrace can, by grace, be transformed into grace. But that is a story for another day as we await the grace of God in the birth of Jesus Christ.

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