A few months ago my husband John needed to take the 7:00AM train from Newburyport, and needed me to drop him off at the station a little before 7:00. So he woke me up, I pulled on some clothes, and drove him the three minutes from our house to the Newburyport station. The station is right near a traffic circle at the end of where there is a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Dominoes Pizza and a car wash. I dropped John at the station and was leaving and entered the traffic circle. Suddenly I looked to my left out my driver window and there was a police car right next to me and a little behind! Somehow I hadn’t seen the police car and here I had cut off a police officer as he was heading to Dunkin Donuts! Sure enough, he moved in behind me and his flashing light went on. So I pulled over.
When he came up to my window I was very apologetic, I was so sorry, I didn’t see him, and so on. Then he said, “do you know what you did wrong?” I said, “I cut you off?” I left out the part about Dunkin Donuts. He said, “What should you have done when you entered the traffic circle?” I thought for a few seconds and said, “Put on my turn signal?” “He said “No. Look, in the State of Massachusetts, what is a driver supposed to do when they enter a rotary?” I paused, and said, “Um, um, I know! . . . Yield!” And that’s the topic of today’ sermon . . . Yield! When we are drivers we have to learn to yield the right of way to other drivers. When we are participants in God’s work of salvation, we have to learn to yield our right of way to God’s way. [By the way, the police officer was very kind and only gave me a stern talking to, rather than a ticket. But I learned an important lesson…to yield.] God allows us to share in the work of his kingdom, being bearers of good tidings of great joy, the good news of the gospel; He allows us to be his vessels in bringing the light of Christ into places of darkness in the world. But in order for us to be participants in God’s work in the world, we need to be a people who are yielded and submissive to his ways.
Often at this time of year we think about Mary and the ways she yielded herself to God to become the mother of Jesus. Here she was a young woman, probably only about 14 years old, who finds herself approached by the angel Gabriel and told that she has found favor with God and will conceive in her womb through the Holy Spirit and give birth to a Son who will be the Son of the Most High and will be the longed for Messiah who will establish an eternal kingdom upon the throne of David. All of that news comes to her from the angel in just a few sentences! This young girl is given an overwhelming, even frightening message from God about the task that lies ahead of her, and she responds with such grace and obedience. She yields. She says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Lk. 1:38) Through all ages of the church, Mary has been a model for us of perfect yielding to God. Through her yielding, the Christ is formed in her, and she becomes what the Orthodox Church calls the God-bearer. She is an example to us of yielding our will to God’s will, to allow God to give birth to Christ in each of us.
But this morning our gospel reading is primarily about Joseph. Joseph is a man who was so important in bringing forth God’s plan for salvation in Jesus, and yet he often gets overlooked. In our gospel reading this morning we read about Joseph learning to yield to God’s way. We actually know very little about Joseph, and most of what Scripture tells us about him is here in Matthew in chapters 1 and 2, which you can find on page ______ in your pew Bibles. He is called a righteous man, a just man. And he is engaged to be married. At that time the betrothal of a couple was a much more binding relationship than what it means today to be engaged. There were no sexual relations between the couple, but the only way this binding relationship could be broken was through death or divorce. So here is this good man, Joseph, engaged to Mary, and she tells him she’s pregnant. The obvious conclusion is that she has been with another man.
It’s really a remarkable part of the story, that Joseph, this righteous man, does not seek the justice that is due him. He must be feeling humiliated by this discovery about his betrothed. He could go to Mary’s family with great indignation at the embarrassing position he had been put into. But to do that would mean even greater humiliation and possibly even death by stoning for Mary, which was the Levitical punishment for adultery. Joseph is in a dilemma with this girl, whom he probably barely knows. Maybe she has tried to explain to him that the Holy Spirit is the child’s father. What would you think if you were in his position? You’d have to think that either she was a ridiculous liar, or the girl was out of her mind. She was crazy. Even so, Joseph chooses the way of kindness and protection for her, by deciding to divorce her privately without public attention. Already, without having received any dreams from the Lord, we see that Joseph is open to God. He wants to do the right thing. So the first thing we notice about Joseph’s yielding is this openness to God. He is open to God’s ways of kindness and love.
But now God intervenes in Joseph’s plans. Joseph has a powerful dream, in which an angel comes to him and calls him “Joseph son of David.” The angel reassures him that the child in Mary is conceived in her from the Holy Spirit. The angel corroborates Mary’s story. And Joseph’s world, his plans for the future, are turned upside down. Yet he chooses to yield to God’s way. It is a difficult path that lies ahead. In the first place, people in his community will think he is a fool, marrying this girl when she has just given birth to another man’s child. That will be the story told about him for many years. In fact, in John chapter 8 the Pharisees seem to make accusations that Jesus doesn’t know who his father is, “but we are not illegitimate.” Joseph yields with humility. He chooses the humble way rather than the way of self-protection and aggrandizement. He yields to God with openness and humility.
More than that, Joseph as the head of the household, becomes a partner with God in providing care and safety for his young family. Rather than acting on his own agenda, he partners with God in God’s plan. He has to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, about 100 miles, most likely on foot, with a very pregnant young woman in order to pay some taxes. When he gets there he has to scramble to find a place for them to stay, a place where Mary can give birth to the Son of God. Do you suppose Joseph ever thought God might have done better than that, better than providing a stable and some hay for his Son’s birth? Why didn’t God open a door for them in a nice warm house, with a comfortable bed and hot food? Joseph has to try to make Mary comfortable in a stable, provide for her, deal with the dirty diapers, get her food and water, and the care she needs so she can feed and care for the infant Jesus. I doubt if this is anything like what Joseph imagined his first months of marriage would be. Joseph has to yield his agenda to become a partner with God in bringing the Savior into the world.
But Joseph’s situation gets worse. In chapter 2, Magi from the East come to do homage to the baby King, but their visit has the tragic result that the ruling King Herod sends death squads to Bethlehem to find the baby and kill him. Again the angel comes to Joseph in a dream, and tells him to take Mary and the baby Jesus in the middle of the night and flee for their lives to another country. Traveling well over 100 miles this time, they become refugees in the Egyptian desert where they must stay for a number of years until Herod dies and they can return home to Nazareth. How much could Joseph have understood God’s plan of Salvation at this point? Very little. Yet he yields to God’s wisdom, rather than relying on his own, even when God’s ways don’t seem to make sense. He is faithfully obedient to God. And through his obedience he experiences God’s faithfulness as God brings the family safely home from Egypt back to Nazareth.
Yielding to God’s way of bringing his salvation in our own lives can be difficult. We may find ourselves wondering, “Can this be right?” Is this really part of God’s plan? Why are things so difficult? Why are there so many obstacles? Yet, as we learn from Joseph, the path of salvation is often difficult and challenging. Yet God is completely faithful and worthy of our trust and our obedience, our yielding to his ways.
There is not a greater example of yielding than God himself. Jesus yielded himself completely in giving up his kingly power and might to become a helpless baby lying in a manger, completely dependent upon others. How can this be, that the king of glory, the Lord of the Universe became a tiny child for our sakes? Jesus yielded up everything, and finally his own life, to bring to us the gift of salvation.
God’s ways are not our ways. They are too high and too strong for us to fully comprehend. But as God called Joseph and Mary to yield to his ways, they became God’s partners in his great work of salvation, the Incarnation of the Son of God. God calls us also to yield our lives to him, to let go of willfully following our own paths and agendas, and to become faithfully obedient to his ways. Through our yielded lives, God is able to work through us also. Car drivers have to learn to yield the right of way to others. As the people of God’s kingdom, we learn to yield our ways to God’s ways, so that we too become his partners in his work of salvation.