“A Rose by any other name...” “Lo, How a Rose ere blooming.” See, it fits! Actually, I’m pretty sure you didn’t need me to make that connection. Everyone knows where the title phrase comes from. One of the most famous, most quoted Shakespearean quotes. Actually, it is one of the most commonly misquoted Shakespearean quotes. At least the first part of the soliloquy.
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” It sounds sort of like a question of location. Where are you, Romeo? But in fact Juliet is not trying to find him, she is wondering why he is who he is. Why does he belong to the wrong family, the enemy. Why did you have to be named Romeo? Although it was more the family name that troubled her. It was the connections, the relationships that were upsetting her, not the fact that she didn’t know where he was. Why couldn’t he have been a Smith or a Jones or a Moskowitz?
It sounds like a throw away question, “what’s in a name,” like she wanted the response to be “nothing! No big deal, a name is a name, don’t worry about it!” In fact, it was that name that carried the tragedy of the story. Had Romeo not been named Romeo Montague there would have been no story, no conflict, no tragedy.
Now, you’re wondering what this fascinating literary excursion has to do with the scripture on the Sunday before Christmas. At least you should be. Because I am. I had a point in all of that, but it seems to be slipping away. Naming, hmm, what’s in a name? You shall name him. ... Ah, that was it. Take a look at our scripture for this Fourth Sunday of Advent, and I’ll gather up all my scattered wits and come back in a moment.
Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
The first thing to notice here is that the story begins at verse 18. OK, big deal, we jump from verse to verse and passage to passage all the time. Granted. But I point it because this one sounds like the beinning of the story. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way...” Sounds like a “once upon a time” kind of intro to the tale. And it is. But it is verse 18! Which means that there is a seventeen verse prologue, there is an overture to this symphony. And that overture is the intoning of name after name. Like bells that are tolled, like a drum beat of history, there is this list of unpronounceable names to launch the Gospel according to Matthew. OK, we skip over it, as though it weren’t even there. But it serves a purpose for Matthew. A theological purpose.
Matthew is defining Incarnation for us in this first Chapter of his Gospel. And Providence. And he presents both of these complex theological essays with a list of names. And what a list. I know it isn’t the passage we have assigned for this week, but I can’t help but look at it for a moment. Partly because it helps us understanding what is going on in the verses that we are assigned.
The Gospel begins with names, and the two names it begins with are David and Jesus. OK, Abraham appears there pretty quickly, too. But it is David and Jesus that Matthew wants us to focus on. He backs up to Abraham, primarily to establish David’s credentials. David is the first hinge point of the history of the people of God - that’s the 14 generation thing there in verse 17 (you are interested enough to dig out a bible, aren’t you?) Fourteen generations before David (from the establishment of God’s people in Abraham, that is) and fourteen generations after David (OK, scholars will tell you Matthew left out some folks for the sake of symmetry - but just hush, Matthew’s on a roll!) David, Matthew argues was the first big hinge and now Jesus is the ultimate hinge, the culmination of history.
That’s Providence - the ultimate plan of God, from the foundations of the people of God, Jesus was in the works. But Incarnation? Well, look at the names on the list. It is a very human list. Oh, heroes a plenty, indeed. But also some shady characters. And many who were a little bit of both. This is the mix out of which Jesus arises. Or the mess, we should say. Luke has a stable, Matthew talks about the mess of human existence. Incarnation is diving into the messiness of that human existence, our human existence. Are any of our family trees any purer? Yet, this was the method God chose to enter into our reality.
God could have stayed aloof and apart. Gone halfway, but still untouched by the mess. There is even that possibility in the story. Our passage depicts a mystery – “she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Wait, what? Explanation, please! But no explanations are forthcoming. It just is. Mystery.
But notice how little attention Matthew pays to this mystery. We tie ourselves up in knots over this. For centuries the church has torn itself apart, battling over the virgin birth - did it happen, how did it happen, what does it mean, are we supposed to hold it as foundational to our faith, what do we do with it? All these questions and more have choked the church and the people of faith for centuries. But Matthew merely mentions it in passing. That’s God’s work, he announces. And your belief or disbelief doesn’t matter one iota to the activity of God in human history. Let it go, Matthew says, you’ll never be able to explain God to your own or anyone else’s satisfaction anyway. Let’s get on to what is really important.
And what might that be? “You shall name him Jesus.” God wanted adoption papers. God could have been aloof, in the world but not of the world, but instead chose to be immersed fully into the mess of human existence. But, and this is the incredible part, God chose to do so by the faithful response of the people of God. God depended, chose to depend on us to complete the job. Matthew says Jesus would not have been a Son of David if Joseph had said no, if he had walked away from an unacceptable situation, an illegal situation. In the eyes of the law, Mary was guilty as sin and should have been put away. In the eyes of righteousness – because Joseph was a righteous man, Matthew tells us that right away – she was an instrument of an incredible act of God.
Joseph got to decide, with a little angelic assistance, whether to participate in this plan or not. Whether to legitimize the little Son of David. When he claimed him, when he named him, Joseph sealed God’s plan. The genealogy was true, it was real. Adoption, you have to understand, makes the relationship as real as if there was shared DNA. It never ceases to amaze me when people ask, “what happened to their real parents” or are they “really brother and sister” when talking about my own children. Just live with them for a little while and you will know they are really brother and sister, and as the real parents we are doing just fine thanks for asking. Joseph made Jesus a real Son of David when he named him.
And I wonder, since he had no doubt heard the story many times, whether Jesus had this event in mind when he asked his disciples 15 chapters later, “Who do you say that I am?”
What’s in a name? A relationship, a family, the presence of God. Everything.
Shalom,
Derek
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” It sounds sort of like a question of location. Where are you, Romeo? But in fact Juliet is not trying to find him, she is wondering why he is who he is. Why does he belong to the wrong family, the enemy. Why did you have to be named Romeo? Although it was more the family name that troubled her. It was the connections, the relationships that were upsetting her, not the fact that she didn’t know where he was. Why couldn’t he have been a Smith or a Jones or a Moskowitz?
It sounds like a throw away question, “what’s in a name,” like she wanted the response to be “nothing! No big deal, a name is a name, don’t worry about it!” In fact, it was that name that carried the tragedy of the story. Had Romeo not been named Romeo Montague there would have been no story, no conflict, no tragedy.
Now, you’re wondering what this fascinating literary excursion has to do with the scripture on the Sunday before Christmas. At least you should be. Because I am. I had a point in all of that, but it seems to be slipping away. Naming, hmm, what’s in a name? You shall name him. ... Ah, that was it. Take a look at our scripture for this Fourth Sunday of Advent, and I’ll gather up all my scattered wits and come back in a moment.
Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
The first thing to notice here is that the story begins at verse 18. OK, big deal, we jump from verse to verse and passage to passage all the time. Granted. But I point it because this one sounds like the beinning of the story. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way...” Sounds like a “once upon a time” kind of intro to the tale. And it is. But it is verse 18! Which means that there is a seventeen verse prologue, there is an overture to this symphony. And that overture is the intoning of name after name. Like bells that are tolled, like a drum beat of history, there is this list of unpronounceable names to launch the Gospel according to Matthew. OK, we skip over it, as though it weren’t even there. But it serves a purpose for Matthew. A theological purpose.
Matthew is defining Incarnation for us in this first Chapter of his Gospel. And Providence. And he presents both of these complex theological essays with a list of names. And what a list. I know it isn’t the passage we have assigned for this week, but I can’t help but look at it for a moment. Partly because it helps us understanding what is going on in the verses that we are assigned.
The Gospel begins with names, and the two names it begins with are David and Jesus. OK, Abraham appears there pretty quickly, too. But it is David and Jesus that Matthew wants us to focus on. He backs up to Abraham, primarily to establish David’s credentials. David is the first hinge point of the history of the people of God - that’s the 14 generation thing there in verse 17 (you are interested enough to dig out a bible, aren’t you?) Fourteen generations before David (from the establishment of God’s people in Abraham, that is) and fourteen generations after David (OK, scholars will tell you Matthew left out some folks for the sake of symmetry - but just hush, Matthew’s on a roll!) David, Matthew argues was the first big hinge and now Jesus is the ultimate hinge, the culmination of history.
That’s Providence - the ultimate plan of God, from the foundations of the people of God, Jesus was in the works. But Incarnation? Well, look at the names on the list. It is a very human list. Oh, heroes a plenty, indeed. But also some shady characters. And many who were a little bit of both. This is the mix out of which Jesus arises. Or the mess, we should say. Luke has a stable, Matthew talks about the mess of human existence. Incarnation is diving into the messiness of that human existence, our human existence. Are any of our family trees any purer? Yet, this was the method God chose to enter into our reality.
God could have stayed aloof and apart. Gone halfway, but still untouched by the mess. There is even that possibility in the story. Our passage depicts a mystery – “she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Wait, what? Explanation, please! But no explanations are forthcoming. It just is. Mystery.
But notice how little attention Matthew pays to this mystery. We tie ourselves up in knots over this. For centuries the church has torn itself apart, battling over the virgin birth - did it happen, how did it happen, what does it mean, are we supposed to hold it as foundational to our faith, what do we do with it? All these questions and more have choked the church and the people of faith for centuries. But Matthew merely mentions it in passing. That’s God’s work, he announces. And your belief or disbelief doesn’t matter one iota to the activity of God in human history. Let it go, Matthew says, you’ll never be able to explain God to your own or anyone else’s satisfaction anyway. Let’s get on to what is really important.
And what might that be? “You shall name him Jesus.” God wanted adoption papers. God could have been aloof, in the world but not of the world, but instead chose to be immersed fully into the mess of human existence. But, and this is the incredible part, God chose to do so by the faithful response of the people of God. God depended, chose to depend on us to complete the job. Matthew says Jesus would not have been a Son of David if Joseph had said no, if he had walked away from an unacceptable situation, an illegal situation. In the eyes of the law, Mary was guilty as sin and should have been put away. In the eyes of righteousness – because Joseph was a righteous man, Matthew tells us that right away – she was an instrument of an incredible act of God.
Joseph got to decide, with a little angelic assistance, whether to participate in this plan or not. Whether to legitimize the little Son of David. When he claimed him, when he named him, Joseph sealed God’s plan. The genealogy was true, it was real. Adoption, you have to understand, makes the relationship as real as if there was shared DNA. It never ceases to amaze me when people ask, “what happened to their real parents” or are they “really brother and sister” when talking about my own children. Just live with them for a little while and you will know they are really brother and sister, and as the real parents we are doing just fine thanks for asking. Joseph made Jesus a real Son of David when he named him.
And I wonder, since he had no doubt heard the story many times, whether Jesus had this event in mind when he asked his disciples 15 chapters later, “Who do you say that I am?”
What’s in a name? A relationship, a family, the presence of God. Everything.
Shalom,
Derek
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