And Joseph rose up

By Ken Russell in All Sorts

Is Joseph a role model for today's males?

Before we are quite finished with the year of Matthew, it occurs to me we may just as properly ask the same question of the Joseph of antiquity. Has he too been obscured by the overlay of "dogma, creed and magical thinking" making it equally difficult for us moderns to discern the real father of Jesus?
In giving a resounding "yes" to the question, it is not to suggest that the surviving image of Joseph has undergone an identical process to that of Mary. There's an important difference. If Mary was magnified out of all reality by the subsequent mythology of the Church, the evidence equally suggests that Joseph was just as seriously minimised. And it's in Matthew that much of that evidence for that is found.
One cannot read the birth narratives of Matthew without being aware of the writer's preoccupation with divine direction through dreams, and his obsession to prove the fore-ordination of all things in the birth of Jesus. A big share of that focus in the early part of the Jesus story falls on the character of Joseph, and while I'm not usually one for proof texts, just a few minutes in chaps 1 and 2 of the gospel demonstrates the pattern.
1: 18-25 Joseph is led in a dream not to "dismiss Mary quietly" for the disgrace of her unmarried pregnancy but to take her as his wife - while having no sex with her prior to the birth of their son. And this, to give effect to the prophecy of Isaiah that a virgin will conceive the promised child of God . . .
2: 13 - 15 King Herod's determination to kill the child identified by the wise men as king of the Jews. Joseph has another dream and is led to seek the safety of Egypt. But again, Matthew attaches an otherwise remote prophetic reference to God's son being called out of Egypt.
2: 19 - 23 Again Joseph dreams - twice - first that Herod is dead and it is safe to return to Israel, and again, that the region around Jerusalem, now ruled by Herod's successor, is just as likely to incur danger for the child. The dream suggests the wise decision is to head up into Galilee and make their home in Nazareth. True to form, Matthew has to find a prophetic justification and he does - another remote and unconnected reference that the messiah "will be called a Nazorean."
My memory of the place given to Joseph in all the Christmas pageants of my youth, and since, is of a dutiful, faithful brown-clad figure, standing well behind the more prominent, but invariably beautiful virginal Mary. He seldom had a word to say - and in terms of the action being portrayed, seemed incidental to the plot - overshadowed by marvelling shepherds and inscrutable magi. But it's an unfair perception. Three times Matthew says of him words to the effect" and Joseph rose up." This was a man with initiative. When required to act to save a bad situation he was decisive and resourceful. He defied moralistic convention to save the relationship with Mary and ensure a good marriage. He kept his pregnant wife safe through the harsh dictates of the census. He had the presence of mind to leave the country to escape Herod, and when the situation improved made wise
enough decisions that led in due course to the family's settlement and growth in Nazareth. And, not least in importance, he was there when it mattered in the development of the son whose life and teaching had so profound an impact on the world. From Joseph, Jesus had the benefit of a stable father-figure, a family life of inestimable value in his formative years, and from his earliest years learned the value of an honest day's work. Shadowy figure he may have been as the Jesus story developed, even given the distinct possibility he died relatively young, but the influence of Joseph on the Jesus of history should never be discounted.
As for the dreams, and Matthew's penchant for finding a text to support a divine conspiracy at every turn in the life of Jesus, today's reader can take it or leave it. I can leave it. Joseph is not the only man to act honourably and own to the fatherhood of an unborn child. Joseph may or may not have been a serial dreamer, but the decisions he made, often under pressure, were those of a clear-thinking adult person intimately bound by relationships with others dependant on him. Nor, I am certain, was the family of Joseph and Mary the only one forced to improvise in the face of Herod's terror campaign and join the small tide of refugees fleeing the carnage. The survival to adulthood in dangerous times of the one they called the 'man for others' was in no small measure the result of good and protective parenting within what may well have been a refugee community in Egypt, in which Joseph himself matured.
And thus to my conclusion, that despite Matthew's penchant to ascribe dreams and prophecies to account for almost everything Joseph did, we can use the same phrase of him that Trish so aptly used of Mary - he was no "push-over", no pawn in the hands of a divine conspiracy inexorably playing out a preordained plan for the salvation of the world. Indeed, in those early years so crucial for the survival of their little family, Joseph was, and remains, a role model for the male of the species in times when terror and violence are rampant. Joseph is replicated millions of times in today's torn and shattered communities. Good, dependable, caring men, seeking first and foremost the opportunity for their families to live in peace and enjoy prosperity. And willing to take any risk to achieve it.
And perhaps that is the witness of Joseph as again the Christian world struggles to reinterpret the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem of Judea.
The 21st century world suffers grievously at the hands of all-powerful males, ruthlessly deploying every device at their disposal to exploit women and children, the poor and the vulnerable. They have in their hands all the apparatus of power - enormous wealth, religious fundamentalism and the fear and blind obedience it generates. And not forgetting the military/armaments industry to do their bidding, and political totalitarianism to enforce their will. Add to that the sheer greed of those who conspire to prosper their own interests regardless of the untold misery of those who fall victim to their schemes. Taliban men not only enslave their women and girls, but think nothing of savagely killing the children of their Pakistani kinsfolk to make a political point. Such is their definition of a "mans' world," ideological, arbitrary, cold and barbarous. By this view the world is not a pretty place.
But Christmas was, and hopefully remains, a repository for other values, gentler powers. Herod did not have the last say. Neither did Caesar. Nor must such as ISIS, the barbarity of the torture culture, and the terror of drone warfare - all male scourges that disfigure the face of the human family.. Young Joseph, with the strong young woman who became his wife, defied them all to bring to maturity their first - born, a man of such peace, love and justice that every generation since has been tested and judged by his self-effacing example. Among the vast swathe of refugees and victims fleeing the power and terror of perverted testosterone thank God for other Josephs using wit and vision to save their children for their God-given maturity - let them be our agenda and our prayer this Christmas.
Ken Russell