Mary gets a lot of the attention—and for good reason. After all, she literally gives birth to God. Her response to the angel Gabriel when told that she will bear a child is a powerful demonstration of faith to which we should all aspire. The Magnificat she sings while visiting her relative Elizabeth so vividly depicts the saving action of God that it has been sung daily by the Church for centuries. A faithful disciple of her son from his birth to his death, Mary is present at key moments in Jesus’ adult ministry, including his death on the cross. It’s no accident that she is the most talked about—and arguably most loved—of all the saints.
Her husband Joseph is a much more peripheral figure. Outside of the birth and childhood narratives in Matthew and Luke, he never appears in the canonical stories about Jesus’ life; he is only mentioned offhand a handful of times. He spends the majority of his life offstage, as a supporting actor, a mere afterthought. And yet Joseph, too, is an inspiring paragon of faith.
In the Gospel reading appointed for this Sunday, Joseph agrees to marry Mary even though she is pregnant with a child that is not his. Against all reason, he believes the angel’s claim that the child Mary is carrying is God’s. The text makes clear that Joseph would have remained a “righteous man” had he ended the engagement quietly. But Joseph does nothing of the sort. He supports Mary and stands with her, though his dismissal of her would have been entirely justified.
In making this choice, Joseph commits to an entire life as a secondary actor. Joseph will never be a great patriarch like the big names of the Hebrew Bible. He is not Jesus’ father in any biological or ultimate sense. He is an earthly, human stand-in for a heavenly, otherworldly, omnipotent being. He is also a supportive partner to the one who can fully and wholeheartedly claim to be Jesus’ parent, who actually carries Jesus inside of her and gives birth to him. Joseph can’t share that claim in the same way.
In our impatient and indignant age, Joseph has a lot to teach us about the value of being flexible, generous, and open-minded. He is a testament to the importance of not pursuing every course of action that we believe we are entitled to pursue. By staying with Mary despite initially choosing to leave her, he played a vital role in the nurturing and growth of the Son of God. If he had stubbornly stuck to his principles, Joseph would have turned his back on a valuable opportunity to love and serve the Holy One in his midst.
A verse of a hymn we are singing at the 11 am service this coming Sunday proclaims the following about Joseph:
For him there was no glory here,
No crown or martyr’s fame;
For him there was the patient life
Of faith and humble name.
As the hymn suggests, Joseph’s sainthood was not about glory or fame; it was about patient and humble service. Imagine how much we could contribute to God’s action in the world if we could be as patient, as humble, and as good.
