December 18, 2022 + Fourth Sunday in Advent + Matthew 1:18-25 + Pr. Craig Mueller
Jared Rosenthal owns two truck that make the rounds in New York City, offering on the spot DNA testing. Emblazoned on the side of the truck is a slogan that is both blunt and effective. Who’s your daddy?
Rosenthal isn’t a doctor or a lawyer. He’s not a priest or a psychologist. The trucks seem unlikely confessionals. But people tell Jared things they would never tell their closest friends or family.
Over the years Rosenthal has brought together long-lost siblings. Told others they were not, in fact, related. Told men that the children they raised were not biologically their own. Told others they were fathers of children they never knew they had. Sometimes the DNA results bring tears of joy. Sometimes bitter disappointment. Sometimes simply shock.
Rosenthal adds: “it is the essential question: ‘Who am I? Where do I come from?’ No one knows who they are. People have been asking questions about paternity as long as couples have been making babies. Only now we have a test.”
The question who’s your daddy? is at the heart of today’s gospel. Who is the father of the baby in Mary’s womb? Joseph knows he is not. And there is no DNA test to find out who is.
Let’s be clear. We have the making of a scandal here. When the whole village finds out, Mary could be stoned for adultery.
Take a step back. Joseph is the main character in Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ birth story. But Joseph doesn’t say a word. Joseph has a plan, though. He will break things off quietly. To save Mary from being shamed. Perhaps to save his own embarrassment. Being resolved and determined, it is Joseph’s typical way. His DNA, we might say. But when Joseph’s defenses are down. In the vulnerability of sleep. An angel comes to him in a dream with another plan.
Plan B. The child is of the Holy Spirit. That is Matthew’s theological point! There is a divine purpose to it all. Name him Jesus, the angel says, for he will save his people from their sins. Be open to the mystery. It may seem a scandal, but through strange events, God’s purposes will be worked out.
Maybe Joseph, the silent type, is a hero. When his ordered universe falls apart, he doesn’t run away. He reenters the story. Obeys God. Or at least an angel. Takes a huge risk. And does the right thing. Joseph may not have a starring role in the Bible. But ever since that moment, he is known for being a righteous and upright man.
During these Advent days we think about our ancestors in the faith. The prophets who foretold of a better day coming. Zechariah and Elizabeth. Joseph and Mary. And so many more.
This time of year we also remember our own ancestors and the Christmas traditions they passed on to us. The customs, the food, the carols.
A number of years ago I joined the craze of those intrigued to find out more about their ethnic background. I knew that all but one of my great-great grandparents were German with one being Swiss. Right next door on the map. So I spit into a bottle and mailed it to ancestry.com. And sure enough, I didn’t learn much new. I hoped for something more exotic. A Native American ancestor. Or one from Africa or Asia. I would have even taken Spain!
A little while later my brother took the 23andMe DNA ancestry test. And his results were a bit different from mine. Not exotic, but different in a small way I can’t remember. So I thought I would have a bit of “who’s your daddy” fun and tell my parents that my brother and I have different fathers! There was no bewilderment in my mother’s reaction. I could tell that there was no question of paternity. No scandal.
Despite the pristine nativity sets that pop up this time of year. If you dig deeper into Jesus’ ancestry, it is complicated and messy. There’s King David who rapes Bathsheba and murders her husband. Rahab, who sells sex for a living. Tamar, an outsider, a Canaanite who disguises herself as a sex worker and then seduces her father-in-law to get a son! Ruth, the Moabite, another outsider. And finally Mary, with a rather unconventional pregnancy out of wedlock. What kind of book is this Bible we read, anyway?
We continue to hear of books being banned by the morality police of our day. Like a novel called Out of Darkness that involves a fictional love story between an African American boy and a Mexican American girl in 1937. The characters cross color lines and navigate familial tensions and traumas. The objection is usually that these books in school libraries have pornographic content. But what is really in the books is messy human experience, including sexual experience. If we’re going to ban books, after what I just named in Matthew, the Bible should be banned!
For Jesus’ DNA testing would reveal shocking results. Ancestors with questionable moral values. But it fits with the ministry Jesus will have with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes, and lepers. As one author (Gail Godwin) puts it: “Matthew’s genealogy is showing how the story of Jesus Christ contained—and would continue to contain—the flawed and inflicted and insulted, the cunning and the weak-willed and the misunderstood. His is an equal opportunity ministry for crooks and saints.” Which includes us!
You may not be asking the question who’s your daddy these final days of Advent. Yet your ancestors are part of what you carry. Your families, your histories, your pasts get merged with your present. Whether you have skeletons in our closet or not. Whether there are scandals or secrets. You hold memories from the past—Christmases good and bad. Your emotional make-up. Your DNA. Hopes and expectations. Realities and disappointments. It’s all part of the complicated emotional palette of these days.
So who is your daddy? There are DNA tests, sure. But spiritually, in baptism, you are beloved child, also born of the Holy Spirit. Born of God, your father and mother.
The geneology. The pregnancy out of wedlock. The scandal. The dream. Plan B. It’s not just the background to the story. It is the story. Christ comes amid the least likely people and places and situations. In all the messiness and wonder of being human.
And God is with us, in it all. You shall name the child Emmanuel, which means God with us.