Unusual families

 ‘…remain there until I tell you....’ (Matt 2:13)

Matthew 2:13-23 (Year A: 1^st Sunday after Christmas Sunday 1^st January 2017)

The gospel of St Matthew opens up the New Testament.  Joseph, the spouse of Mary, is something of a dreamer.  He hears angelic messages in his dreams. More to the point, he acts on those divine inspirations and communications knowing in his heart that he must act decisively and urgently. Dreams are a key part of the story in this passage from Matthew because it is through this medium that God sometimes speaks to the key actors in the story.  Hanging around was not an option for Joseph or Mary.

• That Joseph received messages in dreams indicates that he listened to his heart and pondered his situation.
• That Joseph took the appropriate action based on sound judgment and analysis of the situation he and Mary found themselves in indicates that he sought, only, what was best for his family to which divine providence had led him.
• That Joseph waited and stayed the course in that place where he arrived until further clear indications were forthcoming indicates that he did not presume to know when or how the future would turn out. Rather, he stayed the course in patience and in waiting.

Joseph a man of honour

In this passage Joseph, the ‘man of honour’, does the honourable thing; he defends those in his care and avoids what is evil by removing them from immediate danger.  A romanticised and nostalgic picture of the Christmas crib gives way very quickly to a picture of violence and the threat of violence and the human response to this.  According to this Gospel story the first Christmas did not leave a trail of peace in ‘Bethlehem and its vicinity’ especially if you were a family with an infant boy under the age of 2. The consequences are harrowing and deeply troubling (Matthew 2:18) and echo through the ages to the present day:

‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

In a world of violence, power struggles and hatred, families and small communities on the margins of society continue to survive. For some it means fleeing and ‘staying the course’ wherever they find themselves after fleeing. There are no other options or choices when it comes to survival in the face of death.

And this is the daily lot of 100,000s of refugees right now, this Christmas, in the Middle East – in ‘Bethlehem and its vicinity’. There are lots of Mary’s Joseph’s out there still ….and some of them might be nearer than we think.

How did the flight into Egypt impact on Joseph, Mary and Jesus?  We do not know how long they stayed in Egypt (see postscript note 1). Is it possible that Jesus was old enough to learn something of the local language? Did he play with other African children?  How did Joseph and Mary make a living? Were they accompanied by other family members? And, did they integrate into a Jewish community settled in Egypt?  My guess is that they were a pretty normal and typical refugee family for the times they lived in. Many people were crossing to and from on the highways of what we call, nowadays, the middle east.

The return to Palestine

Joseph returned with Mary and Jesus to the region we know as Palestine today but did not settled in Judea where, presumably, his extended family and closer friends resided. Instead, for fear of Herod’s son who had now taken over from Herod as ruler of Judea, Joseph settled his family in the relatively obscure region of Galilee in an even more obscure town called Nazareth out of which many thought no good could possibly come (John 1:46).

In summary we have:

• A pregnant unmarried woman in the first place.
• An apparent father as far as society and immediate family were concerned.
• A birth in outcast settings to a homeless and poor family.
• A major rumpus and massacre of young children in and around Bethlehem.
• A flight of a refugee family into Egypt where they were foreigners for some time.
• A return by the same family from Egypt but, still, as refugees from their normal and original place of abode (which remains unclear in the synoptic gospels).
• A life of hidden obscurity for approximately 30 years following which an extraordinary preacher, healer and disrupter appears in Galilee and finds his way to Jerusalem where he was put to death for his outspoken words and scandalously irreligious acts.

Now who said that God does not work in very strange ways and using very strange locations and circumstances to achieve his purposes? (see note 2, below).

Modern day ironies

Is it not just a little ironic that this story of a family fleeing danger and facing untold hardships through the desert to a foreign land has echoes of journeys undertaken over land and by sea by tens and by hundreds of thousands of women, children and men fleeing the same diabolical forces that elevate power and control above human dignity? Is it not ironic that Joseph takes Jesus and Mary to a country called Egypt where, today, a large minority of that population is persecuted and attacked because they bear the name of the saviour who was taken there for refuge? Is it not ironic that the focal point of this feast of Christmas is the scene of a crib housing a homeless family when thousands of families are accommodated in ‘emergency’ accommodation across the capital city of Ireland? And, then, there is the historical legacy of Palestine and Israel as two competing narratives of victimhood and human rights (though different from but not that different to the historical legacies of Ireland).

The causes of homelessness, migration and persecution are not unrelated. At some point someone, somewhere decides and acts on the principle that some goal of power or wealth or pride comes before the most basic human rights to life, shelter and sustenance.  It seems that rich societies (at least those with high levels of GDP per capita adjusted for tax distortion) are particularly prone to social breakdown and extremes of homelessness and poverty. Opulence and pressure of affluence coupled with a shortage of accommodation is driving the cost of renting as well as purchasing living space to levels well beyond the capacity of the poorest. The problem is exacerbated and augmented by problems of addiction and ill-health of mind and body to a point where people end up sheltering in cardboard and blankets in doorways of well known public buildings and shops on some of main thoroughfares of our cities.

Food and shelter is provided by a combination of state and voluntary effort. But, we must understand better the causes of homelessness, poverty, addiction as well as the power of unregulated markets to wreck havoc on people’s lives. The Christmas story is not, for us, just a comfortable and comforting nice story. It is a call to action for justice in a world pulled apart by war, terror, poverty and homelessness. The feast of Christmas Day is followed – immediately – by the feast of St Stephen ‘the first Christian martyr’ (26^th December) and the slaughter of the innocents (28^th December). There is a message somewhere in there for us today.

Postcripts

1   Did it really happen (and so what)?

Some academic theologians and biblical scholars might question the historical nature of the birth stories in Luke and Matthew including the flight into Egypt which is unique to the gospel of St Matthew. What matters, in my view, is the key message or messages in these stories that form part of a living tradition of transformative faith and love. As for the literal historical truth of these stories and the many details therein (sticking with post-enlightenment terminology and understanding of terms of like ‘history’ and ‘truth’) I reckon that unless there is convincing evidence to the contrary (which there is not) then one may assume that the stories link to events that ‘actually happened’ as narrated give or take a few details.  I acknowledge that this view may be viewed with some disquiet by some our illustrious and learned academics. 

2   Dysfunctional families in the bible?

Egypt is mentioned a lot in the Bible. The patriarch, Abraham, went there to avoid a famine in the land where he came from (Genesis 12:10). Joseph the son of Jacob ended up in Egypt after a foiled attempt to murder him triggered slavery for him (Genesis 37:12-36). And Jacob pulls a smart one on his brother Essau by means of lies and trickery.  All of this  suggests that dysfunctional families are not a modern day invention! In Genesis 46:1-7. Jacob goes to Egypt with his family on a mission of mercy to rescue Joseph. We may note that this same Jacob had twelve sons (who gave rise to the 12 tribes of Israel) and at least one daughter – all by two concurrent wives, first cousin Leah (the one with the ‘lovely eyes’ according to Genesis 29:17) and her younger sister Rachel (the one actually preferred by Jacob who had special taste) and by their handmaidens Bilhah (referred to Jacob by Rachel for additional procreation) and Zilpah (referred to Jacob by Leah for yet further procreation).  That could pass for a 21^st century soap based on the Tudors! (If you think this is all dodgy check out Genesis 29:1-30:24).