Mercy from a struggling carpenter
Daily Scripture
Matthew 1:18-19, Deuteronomy 22:20-24
Matthew 1
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph her husband was a righteous man. Because he didn’t want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement quietly.
Deuteronomy 22
20 However, if the claim is true and proof of the young woman’s virginity can’t be produced, 21 then the city’s elders will bring the young woman to the door of her father’s house. The citizens of that city must stone her until she dies because she acted so sinfully in Israel by having extramarital sex while still in her father’s house. Remove [or burn] such evil from your community!
22 If a man is found having sex with a woman who is married to someone else, both of them must die—the man who was having sex with the woman and the woman herself. Remove such evil from Israel!
23 If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged to one man and another man meets up with her in a town and has sex with her, 24 you must bring both of them to the city gates there and stone them until they die—the young woman because she didn’t call for help in the city, and the man because of the fact that he humiliated his neighbor’s wife. Remove such evil from your community!
Daily Reflection & Prayer
In Israelite culture, a betrothal was as binding as marriage. When Mary, betrothed to Joseph, became pregnant, Joseph at first drew the “obvious” conclusion that she had been intimate with some other man. Painful as that was, Joseph began to realize that the law in Deuteronomy might cost Mary’s life. If he denounced her publicly, she might be stoned to death (see John 8:3-5). He sought a different solution, even though it might let some people blame him for her pregnancy.
- Matthew, with just a few words, reported something important about Joseph. “Joseph her husband was a righteous man…. he didn’t want to humiliate her.” What do you learn about Joseph’s inner qualities from his measured response (“he decided to call off their engagement quietly”)? The book Safe People * listed Biblically based qualities of “safe people.” How safe for others are you? Like Joseph, do you choose not to humiliate others?
- Joseph was “a devout Jewish man willing to give up what was often perceived to be a Jewish father’s greatest privilege—siring his first-born son—in order to obey God’s will.” ** Have you had to give up some cherished dream to obey God, or might you have to? If so, how are you and God working to bend that loss to produce good results?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, your earthly father showed his righteous character, not in demanding that Mary follow the law to the letter, but in showing her mercy. Help my righteousness, too, to always lean in the direction of mercy. Amen.
GPS Insights
Amy Oden
Dr. Amy Oden is Professor of Early Church History and Spirituality, teaching at several seminaries. Teaching is her calling, and she looks forward to every day with students. Her latest book (Right Here, Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness, Abingdon Press, 2017) traces ancient mindfulness practice for Christians today.
Mary bravely steps forth to carry the God of the cosmos in her womb and birth the Holy into the world! Yet our human headline is: “woman pregnant out of wedlock.” This both saddens and angers me. A cosmic event has broken into the world and our human eyes can only focus on petty judgments. We just don’t get it!
I’m angry at the very real record of Christianity doing harm through judgments and stigma, even persecution, on sexual matters. Women have been especially harmed by these standards that try to control women’s bodies.
I’m sad that we humans are so eager to make judgments about others’ sexual behavior. Sad that Mary had to endure such judgments. Sad that Joseph was caught in them, too. Sad that people can be so sure of their own righteousness while completely wrong about the facts of the situation, me included. And I’m weary that this pernicious sin of shaming others still exists.
The good news of Matthew offers another way. The story of Jesus’ birth upends our righteous assumptions about sexual behavior, revealing that we don’t always know what we think we know. It takes a 2,000-year-old text to remind us of the folly of such judgments.
The holy is being birthed into the world every day, in ways spectacular and mundane. Yet we refuse to have “eyes to see” and instead choose to focus on making judgments about others. What if, instead of jumping to conclusions, we paused to wonder? To imagine that God might be up to something, seemingly impossible? What might our eyes become able to see?
Give me eyes to see You being birthed into the world even now.
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Cloud, Henry; Townsend, John, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t. Zondervan, 1995.
** Joel B. Green and Scot McKnight, The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992, p. 63.
