a sermon to the people of Holy Cross Lutheran Church
in Lake Stevens, WA
December 22, 2013
Pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
Stepparents get a bad rap. Cinderella’s stepmother is malicious; Hansel
and Gretel’s stepmother is selfish; Snow White’s stepmother is murderously
vain; Hamlet’s stepfather was an adulterous, homicidal usurper. Over and over again in movies and books and
culture, stepparents are portrayed as heartless, as weary and overwhelmed, and as
angry at bearing the burden of raising someone else’s “problem”. They put up with “his” children or “her”
children until they can devise a way to get rid of the little buggers…maybe permanently.
I’m sure this sort of terrible,
terribly selfish, and negligent or abusive-to-the-point-of-death stepparent
must exist somewhere, or it wouldn’t be such a popular theme in literature and
in Hollywood. But honestly, most stepparents
willingly accept one of the hardest
jobs life has to offer. Stepparents work
to raise, provide for, and love a child who is neither biologically theirs nor
planned. No one grows up thinking, “I’ll have 3 kids when I grow up: a boy,
a girl, and a stepson from my husband’s previous marriage.” Stepparents accept these extra kids as a
package deal along with their new spouse, and call them family for better or
for worse. As my former neighbor said to
me, “this is my bonus child…I wasn’t expecting him, but I’m so glad he’s mine.”
In today’s Gospel lesson,
Matthew matter-of-factly tells the story of another stepparent. “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 from the Holy Spirit.” I imagine
Joseph wasn’t so matter-of-fact about that!
Jewish custom in that time would have called the relationship between
Mary and Joseph a betrothal…a sort of third step between engagement and
marriage. A betrothal was binding and
could only be broken with an act of divorce.
If a betrothed woman became pregnant (regardless of paternity!), she was
considered an adulteress. The penalty
for adultery for women was death.
You can imagine the
heartache and anger and sorrow Joseph must have felt when he discovered his betrothed
was pregnant…with someone else’s child.
By law, he had every right to publically expose her as an adulteress and
request her stoning. But Joseph, who was
a decent guy, decided to “dismiss her quietly”…or to divorce her quietly and
send her out of town so as not to further disgrace either of them.
And then, Joseph had a
dream…a sort of communing with the divine…and God said through a messenger,
“Hey, stay with Mary, she’s a good girl.
Don’t be scared. Raise my boy and
name him so that all might know that I am with you.” And Joseph, who was an exceptional man,
obeyed.
Exceptional or not, we tend to ignore
Joseph. He’s a prop in the Christmas
pageant, someone to guide the donkey, the guy who got duped into marrying a
pregnant chick. Quiet. Passive. Maybe not very smart. More likely a sucker. And if we buy into cultural ideas of
stepparenting, then we think, he was at best, disinterested in this kid who was
not his.
But wait…we know that Joseph
obeyed God. Each time in the Gospel of Matthew that God
asks something of Joseph, Joseph does it. God asked Joseph to raise Emmanuel --Jesus-- as
his own. And as best we can tell, he did
a beautiful job with this difficult task.
As a devout Jew, he raised his son according to Jewish law. As a carpenter, he taught Jesus the family
trade…how to handle a hammer and saw. As
a virtuous man, he modeled an obedient life.
Not because he had to, but
because he chose to.
Joseph was an exceedingly
faithful man and a wonderful stepfather…
Which is all the more amazing because step-parenting is often a
thankless task. I know I drove my
stepmother crazy from time to time…especially as a teenager. I made her worry about my safety and my sanity
and my loyalty to our family. It wasn’t
until I was much older that I ever thought to thank her for working so
incredibly hard and sacrificing so terribly much to make my life comfortable
and safe. And heck, I don’t even thank
her enough now that I’m old enough to know better! Still, she loves me as her own, and my kids
are her grandkids, and the word “step” isn’t even in our familial
vocabulary.
And she did and does all of
that because she chooses to.
Families come in all sorts
of shapes and sizes. Single parent, mom
and dad, mom and mom, blended, adoptive, step, half, foster, or a “house of
wayward children” such as the family my in-laws kept when James was growing up,
where everyone was welcome and cared for and loved. What a family looks like in a genealogy
doesn’t matter very much. What matters
is the willingness to show one another through our words and our actions and our
love for one another what the name of Jesus-Emmanuel means. “God is
with us.”
What does your family look
like? Who loves you? Who claims you and allows you to be as a
child, as a treasured one, with them?
Sometimes, you get lucky,
and your family is in fact the group of people who raised you or grew up with
you and who share your DNA. But often
family isn’t defined by blood, doesn’t look like “normal”. But the word “family” is a way to talk about
all of those people who love us unconditionally. Who feeds you when you are ill? Who holds your hand when you are worried or
afraid? Who doesn’t pass judgment when
you share your deepest shame or worry or fear?
Who laughs with you and not at you?
Who cries with you? Who lets you
know when you are behaving badly but also lets you know your misbehavior
doesn’t alter their acceptance of you?
Who would willingly accept your pain and suffering so that you don’t
have to do it? THAT person, THOSE
people: that is your family. Those people who wander into your path and
your life and your messy reality…those are the ones who are showing you
Emmanuel. “God is with us.”
God loves you and redeems
you and sustains you. God sacrificed
himself for you. And you are blessed with people who mirror
that for you. Who are those people? Who are the people who wade into your mess
because they choose to do it…not
because they have to do it?
Maggie shows me the beauty
of God with music. Bill shows me
kindness by offering a cup of coffee to me every Sunday without fail. Lisa accepts and understands my youngest son
in ways many people just can’t. Pastor
Susan has heard my heartache and frustration and stupidity and still brings
soup to me when I’m sick. Grandma Gerry
and Deborah love my daughter in ways that allow her eyes to sparkle. The Millers have given up an entire Saturday
that I might have some sanity. What a
gift you all are to me. What a gift you
are to one another. What an amazing
family. What a mirroring, a showing of Emmanuel: God is with us.
GOD is with us. God IS with us. God is WITH us.
Amen.
