Sermon for December 21, 2025
Advent 4 A
Matthew 1.1-25
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
There’s an animated movie that came out a couple years ago called Encanto. It’s about a close-knit family, and every member of the family has a unique magical power that they use to build up their community—all except for one, a girl named Mirabel. She doesn’t have any magical power, but she is curious and takes it upon herself to try to heal some of the cracks in the family relationships. So, she asks about her Uncle Bruno, who is estranged from the family, because his special power is the gift of seeing into the future. But rather than thank him for his warnings about bad things that are going to happen—they blame the messenger, and accuse him of making them happen! When Mirabel asks about Uncle Bruno the family answers with a very catchy song as they sing “We Don’t Talk About Bruno (no, no, no)”.
From that moment on you know, if the movie is going to come to a satisfying conclusion—at some point they are going to have to talk about Bruno! The movie explores the tension many families feel: the blessings of a close-knit family, where people look out for each other and use their God-given gifts to build each other up—well, you can have all of that and also have cracks that need mending and hurts that need healing. But to reconcile the blessings and the challenges, they are going to have to be honest about the unhealthy patterns in their family lineage. They are going to have to talk about Bruno.
In today’s gospel we hear St. Matthew’s version of the birth of Jesus, which tells the story from Joseph’s perspective. (In contrast to St. Luke who tells it from Mary’s). And to do so, Matthew begins by “talking about Bruno” (so to speak). Matthew spends the first 17 verses of chapter 1 listing the genealogy of Jesus. I’ve heard from many people over the years that if there’s one part of the Bible that makes their eyes glaze over, it’s the genealogies. Few modern readers glean much from “so and so begat so and so, etcetera, etcetera”. I promise, I won’t read the genealogy to you—but I do want to point out a few key things that we can learn from it.
Jesus, and Joseph (who adopted Jesus into his family line), had some amazing ancestors! This included the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the great kings David and Solomon—yet by the time Joseph is born, he has no noble position; he’s a carpenter, a construction worker. The gospel does describe Joseph as a “righteous man”, though. Righteousness, honor, dignity—Joseph shows that these virtues come not by accumulating wealth, power, or prestige, but through living by faith, and by the way you treat others.
Some of Joseph’s ancestors were Gentiles. Rahab was a Canaanite; Ruth a Moabite. Even though they came from nations who were enemies of the Israelites, through faith in God they became heirs of God’s promises to Abraham and Sarah—just like we do through our faith in Jesus Christ. Rahab and Ruth are also women, of course. And it’s notable that they are included, because genealogies back then were determined by the male ancestors. The gospel is uncovering a truth hiding in plain sight: both woman and men have an equal share in the gifts, and promises, and calling of God.
Some of Joseph’s ancestors were victims of sexual exploitation and violence. Rahab was a prostitute. Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was sent to the front lines of battle on a suicide mission by King David himself; that way David could marry Bathsheba in his attempt to cover up his own sin in exploiting his power over her. These are the kinds of painful legacies that are often silenced in a family lineage. “We don’t talk about Bruno” as the song goes. But these are included in Joseph’s genealogy, not silenced, because even things of the past that might cause pain or shame are not beyond the scope of God’s redemption, healing, and grace.
Some of Joseph’s ancestors were models of belief; King Hezekiah was famous for his complete trust in the Lord. His father King Ahaz, however, was a model of unbelief. Even when God sent the prophet Isaiah to him, and begged Ahaz to ask for any sign he wanted as proof that the Lord would help him when Jerusalem was threatened by advancing armies, Ahaz refused and turned to the neighboring king of Assyria to place his trust. It’s at this point when Isaiah prophesied to him “Behold, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). Scholars debate whether the child being referred to is Isaiah’s child, or Ahaz’s child, but the point is that God is telling Ahaz, you may be turning away from me, but I’m going to give you a sign whether you want one or not. God will always be faithful and find a way to be “with us”, regardless of our faith or lack of faith.
This prophecy of Isaiah (found in Isaiah 7:14), to king Ahaz the ancestor of Joseph, is where the gospel finds the answer to what God is up to in the birth of Jesus. Even though the wrinkle in Mary and Joseph’s relationship is a totally different situation from the time of war Ahaz was facing, St. Matthew believed that if God could speak once using the words of Isaiah, then God would use those same words to speak again with a new message of hope and promise.
I mentioned earlier that Joseph was a “righteous man”. So when he found out that Mary, his fiancée, was pregnant, and it wasn’t by him, he wanted to do the right thing. In his culture, the “right thing” was to “divorce her quietly”. That’s because getting engaged in that culture was a legally binding contract that had been arranged in advance by their families. And Mary getting pregnant in this way was essentially considered a breach of contract. But that pesky angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
I wonder, when the angel said he was a “son of David”, did Joseph think back over his genealogy? Did he remember all the outsiders, the blemishes, the unexpected twists and turns that went into his family tree? Did he think about the events of his lineage that people wouldn’t want to talk about—and realize that keeping silent would get in the way of God’s creative power to bring healing and new life? Did he think of Ahaz, the scoundrel king, who couldn’t be bothered to ask the Lord for a sign, even when God was promising to give one?
Well, Joseph hadn’t asked for a sign either, but the Lord was speaking the very same promise he once made to Ahaz; the same promise but fulfilled in a new way, for a new day: “Behold, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel”. This is your sign, Joseph. What will you do with it? Will you use it to learn what it means to really be a righteous man? Does your righteousness mean fulfilling the letter of the law to divorce Mary from the marriage contract that she seems to be in violation of? Or is true righteousness about courage? About character? About compassion?
“Mary will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” the angel says. I can imagine Joseph thinking: My family line isn’t perfect. Sure, it’s easy enough to be proud of the good parts, but what about the unsavory parts that no one wants to talk about? No matter how righteous I try to become, I’ll have to live with whatever happens to Mary. Besides that, the sins of my family history will keep showing up and be nipping at my heels. The hurts of the past still need to be healed, the cracks mended, the sins forgiven—and my own righteousness could never be enough to fix all that. But God is promising to do what I cannot do for myself; God is promising to send One who is righteousness itself!
OK, then. I guess I’ll take Mary as my wife; I’ll name the boy Jesus; I’ll adopt him as my own family. And then I’ll put it all into your hands, Lord, that in this Jesus whom you’ve sent into the world—in Jesus, God is with us, to meet us exactly as we are, to walk with us exactly where we are, to redeem us from whatever we’ve done or left undone, or whatever we’ve been through, until we are saved by the grace of being born with Jesus into God’s promise of a new creation in Christ. Amen.