"AND JOSEPH FLEW IN ANGER"

 “AND JOSEPH FLEW IN ANGER”

When Mary says “yes,” to Gabriel the angel, says “yes” to allowing herself to be the vessel for the birth of Jesus, she puts herself at great risk.  Engaged to Joseph and soon to be pregnant by someone else, she would be subject to humiliation, exile, and even the death penalty.  Her path was made much easier by her fiancé Joseph, who decided to stay with her and claim the child as his own.  He was not without his struggles, however.   Whereas Luke’s gospel gives us Mary’s version of the events,  Matthew’s gospel gives us Joseph’s approach.  He seems to be a decent guy, so when he finds out that Mary is pregnant by someone else, he decides not to take her to the elders for punishment.  He decides to divorce her quietly.

Matthew tells us that an angel also comes to Joseph in a dream to tell him to claim the baby in Mary’s womb as his own, to hear that this baby will bring a sense of God’s presence with humanity in a new way.  Joseph decides to stay with Mary and to claim the child as his own.  He decides to stay with her and to give her and the baby male protection, bringing them just a bit closer to the center of the power of patriarchy.  This story has been sentimentalized in a thousand different ways, so we must be very careful with it.  On Mary’s end, author Margaret Atwood captured the danger and terror of the story in her chilling novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,’ drawing on the earlier English translations of Mary’s response to Gabriel when she says “Yes”:   “I am the handmaid of the Lord.”

Joseph’s simmering anger at being forced and cajoled into accepting Mary and the baby did not make it into the New Testament, but it has been portrayed in other stories and songs.  “The Pseudo Gospel of Matthew” was written about 650 CE and obviously did not make it into the canonical Bible, but it became part of the readings of the church for a long while.  It is the basis for a Christmas song “The Cherry Tree Carol,” whose lyrics were first known around 1500 CE.  The song portrays Joseph and a pregnant Mary on a trip (some lyrics have Bethlehem as a destination, another the flight to Egypt, others just a stroll in a garden).  

In the song, the couple passes a grove of cherry trees, and Mary asks Joseph to get some cherries for her, since she is pregnant and cannot reach them.  Joseph feels the anger and resentment swell up in him, and he responds to Mary:  “Let the father of your baby gather cherries for you.”  As that anger simmers, the baby Jesus speaks out from Mary’s womb to command the world to change:  “Then up spoke baby Jesus from out of Mary’s womb: ‘Bow down you tallest cherry that my mother might have some.”  The cherry trees bow down, and Mary is delighted and lets Joseph further know his place:  “Oh, look now, Joseph, I have cherries at command.”  

In a song whose verses are constantly being altered and adjusted, there is a sense of the power and the complexity of what seems to be a sweet and sentimental story:  the vulnerability of Mary as a teenage pregnant before marriage, the lingering anger and resentment of Joseph, and yet the power of God moving even in these complicated story lines.  There are many versions of “Cherry Tree Carol,” but one of the loveliest is Peter, Paul, and Mary’s cover of it . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ClJpQDRRA   The song traveled through Appalachia to modern times, and Jean Ritchie’s version of it is powerful  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7FeXU7PlWc

Whichever version you prefer (or another one, which I’d be glad to learn from you), please hear the great news of this last week of Advent:  “For unto us a child is born, and they shall be called Bringer of Peace, Wonderful Counselor.”  In the midst of all the craziness and terror and anxiety of our present age, may each of us and all of us know the power and grace of this message and this event, complicated as it is. Complex as our lives are, may we find its peace and love.