God has a habit, which never ceases to amuse, amaze and irritate people. He never fails to choose the most humble and most marginalized people to accomplish his plans. For example, when God called on Gideon to rescue Israel from the Midianites, Gideon replied; “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the tribe of Manasseh and I am the least important member of my family.”
When Mary praised God for the miraculous conception of Jesus, she sang; “My heart praises the Lord… for he has remembered me, his lowly servant.” She wasn’t just being modest – she really was socially lowly, being betrothed to a poor man.
St. Bernadette said; “Don’t I realize God and the Blessed Virgin chose me to carry the message because I was most ignorant? If anyone could have been found that was more ignorant than myself, she would have been chosen!”
The same kind of things could be said about St. Joseph. The Gospels mention St. Joseph a whopping 19 times. You would think we’d know a lot about him. Unfortunately, most of the time that Scripture verses refer to Joseph they’ll read something like Matthew 13:55; “Isn’t this the Carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, etc…” Not exactly informative, and what’s worse? We don’t have even one quote from the man himself.
Why is Scripture so silent in regard to this man? When, in fact, his role is so important that I can say; if it were not for St. Joseph’s faithful service, None of us would be sitting here, Christianity would not exist. And yet, Scripture says so very little about him. Why?
Perhaps because Joseph was not a man of words. Unlike most of the people in the Bible, he was not a: prophet, evangelist, scholar or scribe. In fact, I would bet money the man was illiterate. Because Luke 2:24 says when Joseph took Jesus to the temple to be circumcised, he offered 2 pigeons for sacrifice. Pigeons were allowed only for people who could not afford a lamb. So, he was poor at a time when reading was a skill reserved for those in the upper classes, who had money and power.
Another thing about Joseph, the word in the Bible for “Carpenter” is the Greek “Tekton”. Yeah so? Well, most of the portraits and statues I’ve seen of Joseph portray him as lean, even skinny, with an almost feminine face and scholar’s hands. Maybe he’s standing at a workbench measuring wood or gently sanding a board. This is Not the work a Tekton did! The word Tekton would be better translated as “Construction Worker”. A Tekton not only carved wood, they carved stone. They were not only artistic types who made chairs, tables and cabinets – which were rare, by the way. They built houses, aquaducts and roads. That big, heavy, round stone that was rolled in front of Jesus’s tomb, the one that required several men to move it? A Tekton carved that thing. So let me tell ya, Joseph was not a skinny, little, scholarly lookin’ fella, who had an upper-class, artistic job with wood. He was a big, burly, illiterate, poor construction-worker with a sore back and calloused hands. An average Joe… But let’s not confuse “poor” and “illiterate” with “stupid”.
Confucius said; “Show me a man who gets up and goes to work everyday, who feeds and clothes his family, who respects his parents and takes care of them in their old age, who volunteers to improve his community and who is courteous… If you tell me this man is uneducated, is ignorant? I will tell you he is educated, even wise!”
So, when St. Luke tells us Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, who may we suppose has been teaching him? After all, Joseph does not have a whole lot of money to devote to his son’s education. It is Joseph the wise man himself! He never fails to provide an example of compassion and self-sacrifice for Jesus to learn from.
When Mary, his betrothed, turned up pregnant and Joseph knew he was not the father? His duty, according to the law of Moses, was to see her stoned at the wall as an adultress. She was to die and Jesus and the Church were to die in her womb. But Joseph chose the way of compassion, taking Mary for his wife and taking guardianship of Jesus. We also see Joseph compassionately offering hospitality to shepherds and Gentiles when both groups were despised, held in contempt by society at large. Joseph, apparently, loves God and is obedient to the temple, making pilgrimages and sacrifices. Finally, we see him sacrificeEverything! His business, his house, his extended family, he sacrifices it all to save Mary and Jesus from the bloody, murderous hands of Herod and flees into exile. Joseph did all of these incredible things and I’m sure the young, impressionable and growing Jesus watched and learned from the many more incredible deeds Joseph performed later, but which (unfortunately) were not written down for our reading pleasure.
The Body of Jesus Christ needed protecting 2,000 years ago and the Body of Christ still needs protection today. One person God has recently called upon to protect the Body of Christ (the Church) was Oscar Romero.
Oscar Romero was elected Archbishop of El Salvador because he was seen as a “nobody”, as a political push-over who would go with the flow and not make waves – while the Government allowed corruption to reign, leaving the people in dire poverty, suffering and starvation. When the people began to speak out against this injustice Government Death-squads silenced them in the most horrific ways. And as the blood literally ran in the streets, the good Archbishop experienced a conversion, an awakening. This man, who had been so Heavenly-minded that he was no earthly good, responded to God’s call to action. He stood up and became a hero in very much the same way Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did: fighting for the poor, the oppressed, for the most basic human rights. And I cannot think of a better way to honor him than to share with you the very words of St. Romero himself. And as you listen, you’ll find that Oscar Romero had very strong opinions of his own about who should be protecting the Body of Christ in our day.
Christianity – Christianity is not a collection of truths that one has to believe, of laws one has to keep, a list of prohibitions. That would be repugnant. Christianity is a person that loved me so much that he demands my love. Christianity is Christ.
Sin – A Christian ought not to permit that the enemy of God, sin, reign in the world. A Christian has to work so that sin is marginalized and love of God is established. Why? What is sin? Sin is the death of God – because of sin God died on a cross.
Social Sanction – There used to be social sanctions. They say that the people who went to a casino had such a strong sense of their own nobility that, if a murderer or a thief came in, even though he was apparently a great man, they would not shake hands with him, because offering him their hand was a sign that they were in complete agreement with him. I wish this noble sense of social sanction would be resurrected and we would reproach all those who are not in accord with God’s will.
Conversion – If you live out a Christianity that is good but that is not sufficient for our times, that doesn’t denounce injustice, that doesn’t proclaim the kingdom of God courageously, that doesn’t reject the sins humankind commits, that consents to the sins of certain classes so as to be accepted by those classes, then you are not doing your duty, you are sinning, you are betraying your mission. The Church was put here to convert humankind, not to tell people that everything they do is all right.
The Prophetic Church – The Church cannot remain silent when it sees these injustices of an economic nature, of a political nature, of a social nature. If it remains silent, the Church is complicit with those who marginalize themselves and are asleep in a conformity that is sickly and sinful, or with those who take advantage of this unawareness of the people to abuse them and corner the market politically and economically, marginalizing the immense majority of people. This is the voice of the Church, brothers and sisters. And as long as they don’t allow us the freedom to proclaim these truths of the Gospel, this is persecution. What we are talking about are substantial things, not something of little or no importance. This is a question of life or death for the kingdom of God on this earth.
The Test – Brothers and sisters, do you want to know if your Christianity is real? Here is the test. With whom do you get along well? Who are critical of you? Who do not accept you? Who flatter you? We know that at one point Christ said: I have not come to bring peace but rather strife and there will be division even within the same family because some want to live in greater comfort, following the norms of the world and money, while others, on the hand, have understood the call of Christ and have to reject everything that isn’t justice in the world.
For preaching and, more importantly, for living out the truth of these words, Archbishop Romero was assassinated at the altar, shot down while consecrating the Eucharistic Bread and Wine, March 24th 1980
