Welcome to Green Reflections, the blog dedicated to reflections on the readings from the Roman Catholic Sunday Lectionary, with particular sensitivity to the needs of the earth. Use this blog to deepen your own awareness of our Creator's desires for the planet and ways that we can appreciate God's goals for the earth,giving it the loving care that it deserves.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

December 19, 2010 – 4th Sunday of Advent

Is 7: 10-14 Rom 1: 1-7 Mt 1: 18-24

Here we are just seven days before Christmas, while thoughts of shopping, decorating and parties to attend fill our days and nights. It can be hard to remain in Advent while the world around us is already celebrating Christmas and the air ways are filled with caroling. It is this final Sunday of Advent, however, when our liturgical focus shifts to St. Joseph, soon to be foster father of Jesus in the story of the Nativity.

Matthew’s gospel tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. The evangelist meant that Joseph was faithful to the covenant with God and obedient to God’s will expressed in all the commandments and statutes of the Law. Scripture rarely uses this description of the “righteous man” unless it is to single out a particularly virtuous person. For us in the twenty-first century, the description of a righteous man may seem archaic, having nothing to do with us. Indeed, society was strikingly different in first century Palestine from our own western culture.

We know the story. Joseph finds his betrothed wife to be pregnant even though they have had no relations. Beyond the shock of coming face to face with the news that Mary, heretofore considered to be innocent as new fallen snow, was pregnant, Joseph is faced with a conundrum. In his first century culture, a betrothal was s serious legal commitment to marry and the betrothed was already considered his “wife,” even though she still lived at home with her parents. Furthermore, the relationship between Joseph’s family and Mary’s became familial with all the obligations toward one another of family members came with their betrothal. Joseph could not simply “break the engagement.” He would have to divorce her in order to nullify the relationships that the betrothal had created. Furthermore, in this highly patriarchal society, Joseph could not simply take her baby as his own. The infant belonged to another man. In his righteousness, Joseph would have to divorce Mary so that the father of her child could wed her and claim his child. Matthew’s gospel tells us that Joseph was ready to go through with the divorce, honoring the rights of the child’s father, while at the same time divorcing quietly so that Mary’s reputation would not be irreparably harmed. It is not hard to imagine how heartbroken Joseph must have been while he followed the demands of his culture. Yet, he was ready to do the right thing.

Then a surprise element came into the story: an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream claiming that the child’s father was God and Joseph should wed Mary. The angel told Joseph to name the baby Jesus because He would save His people from sin. What a fantastic dream! I’d bet that all of us have had dreams that were fantastic, yet we did not act on them. After all, dreams are the stuff of fantasy, the mind working out life’s events. That was not the case for Joseph. He came from a culture that honored dreams as messages from God. He acted on the dream marrying Mary; and the rest is history.

What I find so striking about Joseph is his freedom to let go of a previously made decision and move in another direction. He was able to let go of religiously and culturally determined values, so that the surprising plan of God could be fulfilled. That was a really “big deal.” Many of us can get hung up on decisions that we’ve made, and refuse to consider alternatives once a decision has been made—even when new information comes to light that can significantly change our perceptions! When moving or changing careers, we tend to be very careful in making decisions. What would we do if the very definitions of right and wrong changed in the midst of our lives? What would we do if we learned that our carefully crafted images of God contradicted who God is? This is the monumental sort of shift that took place for Joseph. The so-called “obvious” sin of Mary was no sin at all! She had not betrayed him. No man had taken what rightfully belonged to Joseph. All of Joseph’s careful adherence to Judaic law was useless in this situation. He had to trust God and live by faith alone. I wonder how many of us could do that.

Today’s gospel passage challenges us to be prepared for God’s unexpected action in our lives. Jesus came as an infant in the most impossible way on the first Christmas, how might he surprise us now? How might God shock our sensibilities? We do not know, of course, but we can practice letting go of preconceived ideas. What if this week we were to surrender our privileged concept of being the zenith of life on our planet? What if we saw ourselves as one among many loved species? What if we surrendered our superior attitude and became servants of creation? Perhaps experiencing ourselves as servants and nobodies would assist us in finding what true greatness is. Maybe we might begin to understand why Jesus insisted that the greatest law of our lives is love. Before Christmas arrives, we can put into practice what Joseph learned: God is a god of surprises and we, puny human beings, will never figure out God or be able to hold in our tiny hands the infinite mind and heart of God. All you and I can do before seeing the Holy One face to face, is to practice love and extend our love to even the most minute creature in our lives.

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Bible, Scripture, Christian, environment, ecology, lectionary, reflection, homily, sermon, Catholic, green, environmentally friendly, sustainability, the common good, the commons

About Me

The Green Nun earned an MA in theology from the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley and is currently completing a Masters degree in Earth Literacy from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana. This blog spot is being done as an integration project for the MA.

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