CEC News:
… Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist Tuesday, Christmas Eve, at 5pm. Caroling will begin about 4:40pm. Invite others to join us.
…Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer December 29, 2019.
…Our annual congregational meeting will be January 19, 2020, following the 10am service. At the meeting the 2020 budget will be presented and we will be electing the vestry for 2020. All members in good standing are encouraged to run for a vestry position and serve our congregation. If you wish to run for a vestry position, please contact Faye Corson, Vestry Secretary, by January 15, 2020, so she may place your name on the ballot.
Father Riley's homily:
There was a reason why God chose Mary to be the mother of his incarnate Son, Jesus, just as there was a reason why God chose Joseph to be the foster father of Jesus. The answer in both cases is to be found in one word - obedience.
On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, the gospel reading turns our attention to Joseph. What little we know about him is recorded in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus tracing his lineage to the house of David through Joseph. This was to fulfill the prophecy that Messiah would come from the house of David.
In addition, in today’s reading Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in the naming of Jesus as Emmanuel. God always makes good on His promises. He often uses human characters to carry them out, characters like Joseph who accepted his role in God’s divine plan for the salvation of all mankind.
Scripture is replete with examples of the way in which God communicates his will. Last week’s Canticle was The Song of Mary, known as the Magnificat. It was Mary’s humble response to God’s having chosen her to be the mother of Our Lord.
The angel Gabriel had surprised her with his unexpected visit and the Annunciation that Mary would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit and become the mother of the Son of God. Joseph, on the other hand is told in a dream by an angel what God’s plan for him is to be and he obediently accepts his role and takes Mary to be his wife.
It was no small thing for him to do in light of the fact that Mary was with child. Under the circumstances, Joseph could have legally divorced her that is, breaking the engagement and leaving her to tend for herself pregnant and unwed. No one would have thought any less of him for doing so.
However, it would have been a devastating situation for Mary. She would have been ostracized. Her reputation ruined. But Joseph did not do that which speaks to his character and to the reason why God chose him in the first place.
He set aside his initial fear of what people might think and say about him if he proceeded to take Mary as his wife. Instead, he assumed his God-given role as her husband and the foster-father of Jesus. He named the child, which in the Jewish tradition the father is supposed to do, and in doing so, publicly proclaims the child as his own.
In the Jewish world of Jesus, the father was the one who taught his son the traditions of their race, culture, and religion. Joseph, then, was the one who took Jesus to the synagogue where he heard and learned the scriptures and Psalms. There the child Jesus listened to the ancient prophecies concerning messiah.
Joseph was the one who taught Jesus the table prayers, which the Lord Jesus would one day use in the presence of his disciples in the upper room as he celebrated the Last Supper. Joseph taught him how to earn an honest living by working with his hands, a skill that would one day enable him to provide for his mother.
Joseph taught Jesus how to be a man by the examples he set for the child during his formative years as a husband, father, and as a man of faith. He fulfilled his role as the provider and protector of the Holy Family. Joseph is often depicted in the background of the Nativity scene sometimes holding a lantern that shines light on the Blessed Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus.
However, in Matthew’s gospel, Joseph is at the forefront of the birth of the Messiah. We can learn much from him from the few verses Matthew records concerning Joseph. He was a righteous man. That says a lot. He was not one to make a snap decision.
Although he had decided to dismiss Mary quietly, he slept on his decision. So often, we make quick decisions that we later regret. Many of us are so busy that our minds are filled with many things and we often decide to sleep on it, as we like to say, before we make a final decision.
God has a difficult time getting through to us, especially when our thoughts are so crowded. I have to admit that God often speaks to me in dreams. Not that I see images and hear voices, perhaps some of you do? But the fact that I go to sleep with an issue on my mind, one I have prayed about, and when I wake, it has become clearer in regards to the direction I am to take in resolving it.
There are other times when I might be standing in line at the grocery and again with something that has been weighing on my mind. When I happen to overhear an exchange between two rank strangers standing near by that reveals the very answer, I have been searching for. God speaks to all us if we will but listen.
In addition, he uses other people to deliver his message - sometimes it may be an angel in disguise - other times it can be someone we are close to and know, and then again, it may very well be a rank stranger who surprises us by delivering God’s message whether they realize it or not.
The thing we can best learn from Joseph is once God revealed his plan for him he said, “Yes,” as Mary did. He was a righteous man and he was obedient to God’s word. He fulfilled his role in accordance with God’s plan for him. With the birth of the Christ-child, the Holy Family was complete and in Him, and through Him, God’s plan of salvation was revealed.
As we stand on the threshold of celebrating yet another Christmas and view the familiar Nativity scene, we see
Through Joseph’s obedience to God’s call to him, he became the protector and provider for the Holy Family. Through the waters of Holy Baptism, we have given our “yes” to God’s call to us in His Son, Jesus Christ to be part of His Holy Family, the Church.
It is no small thing to call our self a Christian. To be a part of God’s family is to live a life of obedience in accordance with God‘s will, a righteous and holy life. One in which we are to fulfill our divinely appointed role, as did Blessed St. Joseph.
Not by calling attention to our self but, to Him, as St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans, “who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…” AMEN+
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