Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev. Matthew Wright
St Joseph - Friday, March 19, 2021
“I chose the glorious Saint Joseph as my master and advocate and commended myself earnestly to him… When Christ walked this earth, Joseph was his guardian; as a boy, Jesus called him ‘father’ and obeyed his commands. It seems to me that Christ wants us to know that in heaven he still does everything Joseph asks…
“I wish I could persuade everyone to be devoted to this glorious saint, for I have great experience of the blessings that come through him from God. I have never known anyone to be truly devoted to him and render him particular services who did not notably advance in virtue, for he gives very real help to souls who commend themselves to him. For some years now, I think, I have made some request of him every year on his festival and I have always had it granted. If my petition is in any way ill-directed, he directs it aright for my greater good…
“I only beg, for the love of God, that anyone who does not believe me will put what I say to the test, and they will see by experience what great advantages come from commending themselves to this glorious patriarch and having devotion to him. Those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always… If anyone cannot find a master to teach them how to pray, let them take this glorious saint as their master and they will not go astray.”
Saint Teresa of Avila, writing in her autobiography. “Those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always…”
St. Joseph has been present in a particular way in my own life of prayer for the past eight years or so, after he showed up one day while I was in the “ethnic aisle” at the grocery store. Somewhere near the Goya products, there were all of those tall votive candles, dedicated to different saints. And typically my eye would have gone to Our Lady of Guadalupe or some other image of Mary. But this day it didn't. Instead, it went straight to Joseph—to this lone, yellow candle bearing his image—San José. I didn't think much of it at first, but I kept being drawn back inexplicably to that candle and before I could get out of the aisle it had placed itself in my shopping cart.
It didn't take long to realize what was going on, because this was not long after my dad died. I began to realize that I felt him—my dad—in whatever aura it is that surrounds St. Joseph. I imagine the two of them were a lot alike—good-hearted, simple, quiet men who worked hard and had calloused hands. And I realized that I needed Joseph, and my dad, with me in my prayer. I needed their warm-heartedness and tender, quiet support. I bought the candle, and lit it every day beside a picture of my dad when I prayed, and I still have the empty votive glass sitting in my office.
So, with my love of Joseph, I was a little annoyed when I first looked at the Eucharistic readings appointed for Joseph today. We’re given a Gospel text in which he is not even named. We’re simply told that “his [Jesus’] parents,” following the Passover Festival, discovered after a day’s journey on the road, that “the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem…” And when they finally find him at the Temple, it’s Mary, not Joseph, who speaks: “his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this?’” And he submits to his parents, and we’re told that “he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
Hold on! What is going on here?! This text is all about Mary and Jesus. Joseph is quietly, actually silently, in the background. And then it hit me—Oh, this is the perfect text. This is what Joseph would want, this is who Joseph is. It’s not about him, and he knows it, and that’s exactly where his saintliness lies.
Joseph never once speaks in the Gospels. In Matthew’s account of the annunciation, which focuses on Joseph, an angel tells him in a dream to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife, and the text says, “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel commanded him.” With not a word in response; he just quietly, humbly surrenders to God’s will for his life.
In the parallel texts in Luke, in which Mary discovers her role in the unfolding drama, she engages the angel. She questions before consenting (“How can this be?”). She sings the Magnificat with Elizabeth. She is active and vocal and center stage. But not Joseph. He recognizes that it’s not about him. This story is going to be about Mary and Jesus, and his job is to make possible their work, their role, in the story of salvation.
Sometimes in our journeys we’re asked to be Mary—we’re called to question and to sing, to stand out in front. But sometimes, probably more often, our work is to be like Joseph’s—to quietly nod, to accept the role being asked of us, and step into the background; to be that unassuming tent pole that holds open the space in which the drama unfolds, without taking any credit. Everyone of us has been supported in this way, at some point, by a Joseph, who may have been so unassuming that to this day we don’t know the quiet prayer and support they gave us behind the scenes.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph is called “a righteous man.” “Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man…” Matthew says. The Hebrew word here, behind our Greek text, is tzadik, a just or righteous one, and this is not a word used lightly in Scripture. It doesn’t mean he was a “good guy.” It means he stood in an altogether staggering order of holiness, as in “Noah was a righteous man [a tzadik], blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.”
An understanding of the tzadikim, the righteous ones, develops in the Jewish mystical tradition that says that at any given time, there are always 36 righteous ones in the world, for whom God holds the world into existence. It’s their hidden prayer and humility that keeps the world turning. They’re often called the lamed vavniks, the 36, and it’s said that they are so humble that they have no idea they’re one of the 36, and they would never believe it if you told them. So they remain essentially hidden saints.
Tzvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov, a famous Hasidic rabbi from Poland, wrote that “in every generation, there are great righteous people who could perform wondrous acts, but the generation is not deserving of that, so the stature of the righteous people is hidden and they are not known to the public; sometimes they are woodchoppers or water-drawers.” Or, perhaps, carpenters from Nazareth.
Of this hidden vocation, carried by St. Joseph, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet writes, “Among the different vocations, I notice two in the Scriptures which seem directly opposed to each other: the first is that of the apostles, the second that of St. Joseph. Jesus was revealed to the apostles that they might announce Him throughout the world; He was revealed to St. Joseph who was to remain silent and keep Him hidden. The apostles are lights to make the world see Jesus. Joseph is a veil to cover Him… [The God] Who makes the apostles glorious with the glory of preaching, glorifies Joseph by the humility of silence.”
This is why St. Teresa of Avila so rightly connects Joseph with the life of prayer, with our hidden, inner life: “Those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always… If anyone cannot find a master to teach them how to pray, let them take this glorious saint as their master and they will not go astray.”
Joseph’s quiet, humble, and absolute surrender to the Divine Will, his perfect living of the hidden life, I believe invites another reading of Matthew’s account of the angel’s message to Joseph that differs from the one most of us are accustomed to. We’re told that “before [Mary and Joseph] lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”
And “Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man [a tzadik] and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” So we usually make an assumption here that Joseph plans to dissolve their betrothal because he assumes the child is “illegitimate.” But there is another reading of these verses that I think is more in keeping with the spirit of Joseph the tzadik.
So again, the text says that Mary “was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Now Matthew’s account is told from Joseph’s perspective. So who found Mary to be with child from the Holy Spirit? Joseph. Not, “he found her to be with child, and had no idea where the child came from.” He found her to be with child from the Holy Spirit. He believes her story from the beginning—that she, his betrothed, has become the tabernacle, the dwelling-place of God, the new Ark of the Covenant.
And in his humility, he accepts that God has other plans for her, far beyond a life in the home of a carpenter from Nazareth. Who is he to have the Ark of the Covenant reside in his humble dwelling? And so he’s willing to quietly step out of the story; God has bigger plans for Mary. “But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘…do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife”—and this is usually translated with a period or a comma at this point—followed by “for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” The meaning being something like “Don’t be afraid to take her as your wife, because the child isn’t illegitimate after all”—and so this would then be information Joseph’s getting for the first time. But we’ve already been told that he discovered she was with child from the Holy Spirit. And there is no period or comma in this text the Greek, which just as accurately reads, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because, or on account of the fact, that the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
The implication being that Joseph isn’t afraid to take the child into his home because he thinks it’s someone else’s, but because he knows it is conceived of the Holy Spirit, and who is he to take such holiness into his home? His fear is “the fear of God”—his awe in the face of this tremendous mystery—and the angel says “Do not be afraid”—you in your humility and hiddenness are in fact the very one to carry this task.
I don’t know if this is an accurate reading of the text, but I love the Joseph who emerges in this reading—his humility and surrender becomes even more consistent throughout, and I also love the assurance, that yes, God does want to dwell in a humble carpenter’s home in Nazareth—that the story isn’t moving off to bigger and better things.
How is this assurance for each of us this morning? That whether seen or unseen, we are all given a vital role in the drama of God’s story. And how might we learn from Joseph, the tzadik, the hidden, humble one, in his school of prayer? Because “those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always…” How might we cultivate our own inner Joseph? Our hidden life with God?
May we each feel Joseph’s presence, today and always, his prayer and intercession never ceasing, may we be grateful for the Josephs who have quietly supported each of us along the way—you might call one of them today, if you know who they are!—and may we not fear being unseen ourselves or fear bringing the Divine into our own humble dwellings, knowing that we, with St. Joseph, are hidden with Christ in God.
Amen.
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