Ordinary 4 – Year of St. Joseph III

The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time – The Year of Saint Joseph III

2021 Cycle B – Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 95; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-41

This is the third in a series of homilies on Saint Joseph marking the Year of Saint Joseph declared by Pope Francis 8 December 2021.

Are we drawn by danger? Is it the knowledge of safety that draws our feet…?There is no danger for us, and there is no safety…an act which our eyes are compelled to witness, has forced our feet….We are forced to bear witness.*

Like the women of Canterbury in Eliot’s verse-play, “Murder in the Cathedral”, there are times when we too are drawn, even forced, to witness an event. Rubbernecking with morbid curiosity at a vehicle accident along the thruway, being a care-giver for a suffering and declining spouse or parent, the events of 9/11 or now, 6 January [2021]. Instantaneous and ubiquitous communications compels us to bear witness to events and it is difficult to avert our eyes.

Much of Joseph’s life is bearing witness.

A father looks into the rear view mirror watching the son or daughter he has left at college standing there waving goodbye. They recede into the distance, a corner turned and they are gone. I remember my parent’s car driving off as they left me at the university in Washington and again at the seminary in Rochester. What are the thoughts of a parent, a father, as they make that long emotional drive home?

What was it like for Joseph after that last supper? Not the supper before Jesus died but the supper the three of them shared as a family the last night Jesus would be home.** What did the three of them talk about? How did Joseph accept all this talk from Jesus about doing his father’s business, knowing Jesus was not referring to him?

As Joseph walked Jesus up the road away from Nazareth to enter on a rabbi’s life, did he reflect on whether he was a good father and teacher?** Did he question whether he fully prepared Jesus to be faithful to God, to read Hebrew and understand the ancient prophets, to be a just and righteous person?

It is never mentioned in the Gospels that Jesus did work with wood. Was it all time wasted teaching Jesus a dependable livelihood? Did Joseph see himself as a failure? I never did take up photography or fishing that my father tried to instill in me. What did your father want to pass on to you – accepted or rejected?

Though the Gospels do not record his presence, was Joseph at Calvary with Miriam? John records Miriam at the foot of the cross, was it dangerous for a male to be close to the executed under the eye of the oppressor’s soldiers? Was Joseph with the other women or standing at a distance a solitary, veiled, figure bearing witness?** What is it like for parents to know that their child have been bullied, harassed or arrested; to experience, guilty or innocent, their execution?

What was it like for Joseph to see another Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea, cradle his son’s body in death as he had so often done in life when Jesus was an infant, as a toddler picking him up from scraping his knees, as a boy who had gotten in a scuffle with boys from the next town?** Into the hands of how many other men – teachers, coaches, trainers, mentors – do fathers leave their children, their sons, and witness these relationships deepen?

A heart wrenching aspect of being a parent as I see it is that in the end you must let go of your children if they are to follow their life’s path. They are not yours to keep.

Much of Joseph’s life is bearing witness.

For Christians being called to witness is not about standing on a street corner hawking religion and Jesus as if they were a consumer product nor is it giving testimony to facts in a court of law. Christian witnessing is taking note and observing God’s presence in the world and inviting other people into that presence.  At times this is a presence that is filled with wonder and awe and at other times it is God present in human suffering. Or the quiet presence of God in the balm of solace, forgiveness and compassion healing the wounds of sin and division.

Joseph witnessed the birth of the Messiah. A mixture of pain, blood and water. He probably did not fully understand the depth of meaning of what he was seeing, that in birth is death. That in this birth he was seeing death for our salvation: pain, blood, water, new life. The crucifixion in another guise.

Isn’t the whole purpose of setting up a crèche in our homes and in church but to gaze, to bear witness to the mystery of God in birth and in death? The statues themselves are created to look at the Christ Child as their hands gesture and invite us into the scene. That is Christian witnessing: to look, to ponder meaning and ask questions and then to invite others into the mystery of God.

So Joseph gazes and ponders.

Who are these outcast shepherds and exotic foreign astrologers? What is the meaning of their presence at this child’s birth?

Who is this old man and widowed woman who are coming up to us in the Temple? They speak uncomfortable words about the child and his mother; words of praise, of swords, of contradiction, of people’s future rising and falling.

What father? What business is this teenage Jesus talking about?

To bear witness to the presence of God is to ask the question of meaning. Joseph teaches us quiet witnessing and questioning.

Parents have you at times just sat and from a distance watched your children? Watched them caught up in some activity, interacting with others, soundly sleeping. What were – what are – your thoughts as you gaze even upon your adult sons and daughters; gaze on the gift you have been given, a presence of God.

What wondering thoughts have risen up within you?

* “Murder in the Cathedral” by T.S. Eliot

**Reflections using imaginative portrayals of Joseph’s life are taken from The Agon of Saint Joseph by Bertrand Fay, a series of poems.

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PLEASE NOTE: Homilies presented here are also being videotaped and put up on the Saint Mary, Oneonta website: http://www.SMCCOneonta.org.