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Article_Are we willing to allow to allow God to intrude into our nicely laid plans?

Homilies | Thursday, December 18, 2014

Are we willing to allow to allow God to intrude into our nicely laid plans?

Homily by Archbishop Wenski at Mass with Pastoral Center staff

Homily by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at Mass at St. Martha Church with Pastoral Center staff in anticipation of the birth of Our Lord. Dec. 18, 2014.  

When we hear the story of the Nativity of Jesus, Joseph is usually cast as a only supporting player. After all, as it quite clear in today’s gospel reading, Joseph had no role in Mary’s pregnancy. However, today’s gospel reading does put Joseph at center stage. 

Mary was not as it is sometimes erroneously put forth today an unwed mother. Unlike today, according Jewish customs the engagement or espousal of Mary to Joseph was a binding contract – otherwise Joseph’s thought to “divorce” Mary, albeit quietly, makes no sense. God did not need Joseph to make Jesus – he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.  But God did need Joseph to raise Jesus – and as well saw in yesterday’s reading that gave Jesus’ genealogy, Jesus is of the line of David, through Joseph who was legally Jesus’ father.

Joseph, we can gleam from the reading, was a man of strength and purpose. He was a just or righteous man. Qualities which God would seek out in the person he would entrust with the care of Mary and the child that would be born of her and become Joshua or Jesus, the Savior of the world.  Joseph is in fact the model of a faithful disciple.

As that faithful disciple, Joseph is an example of the power of God’s call to each of us to transform our decisions and our lives. When Joseph receives that call, he does not object, he does not question; rather he responses obediently and decisively doing exactly what the angel instructs him to do. This could not have been easy for Joseph – as it is not easy for us to respond to God’s directions. God through the voice of the angel tells him to act precisely opposite to what he saw and expected the law to demand.

Our own notions of righteousness and justice can sometimes come up against the ways of God’s creative mercy. The Scriptures continually remind us that God ways and not our ways.  Joseph does not insist that his way is the right way – but allows God to reveal to him His way.

Perhaps that is the lesson that Joseph offers us today: take direction from God. If we are to be faithful disciples like Joseph we have to be willing to allow God to change the course we have set for ourselves.

Certainly that will involve for us risks – as it did for Joseph to be sure.  His life would never be the same.  And neither are our lives the same when we assume the risks of discipleship. As we prepare for Christmas and to welcome into our lives Emmanuel, the God who is with us, are we willing to allow to allow God to intrude into our nicely laid plans and decisions? Do we see God’s intervention into our lives as good news, the good news of his coming to rescue us from our sins and from the certainties of our assumptions? Or do we see God as being more than a bit meddlesome? 

During Advent, we have been praying, “Stir up your power, Lord, and come”. Are we willing to risk that such a prayer might be answered? To be open to this story means to invite the possibility that obedient discipleship may also transform us and lead us in ways we have never imagined? The gospels present Jesus as the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. God’s promises frame this story just the same as they frame each day of our lives.

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