Whaley Bridge Parish
December 17th 2022
Matthew 1: 18 – 25
Allow me to introduce myself; the name’s Matthew, Matthew the Gospel-writer. St Matthew, if you want to stand on ceremony. It makes me feel very proud, when I come into a church like this, to hear my Gospel being read. Just to think: after all these centuries, it’s still making people sit up and listen. It’s still making the Good News of Jesus come alive for people. My Gran would be so proud. She was a great story-teller, and she was the one who taught me the story-telling art. . And in the Christian Community I belonged to there were always stories about Jesus. nothing much written down, of course, we all told stories from memory As I grew older I noticed that people were sometimes muddling the details of the stories and leaving bits out. I thought the Good News of the Risen Jesus was too important to get muddled. One day when I was praying the idea suddenly came to me: Matthew, why don’t you get it all written down. So that’s what I did.
It took me years. I had to go around listening to all the story tellers, sifting through all the material. And then of course I had to find a way of joining it all up so that it made sense. But I can’t claim complete originality for the idea: Mark wrote a Gospel, and I’d had sight of that. But he leaves so many things out. I wanted to write a Gospel that was true to the Jesus we worship in our Community: a Jesus who is very close to us: a Jesus who is with us when we share the bread and wine, the word and the prayers. That’s what my Gospel is about.
Anyway, Gospel writing started to catch on. Did you know that there are twenty two Gospels, or bits and pieces of Gospels. When they started putting the New Testament together in the fourth century they just chose the four best, the ones that were truly inspired by God. And mine was right there ahead of the queue. The first book of the New Testament. As I said, my Gran would be proud.
Now I haven’t come to speak to you this morning just to do a sales pitch….though if you’re short of a read at Christmas, you might just find my Gospel fits the bill. No, I’ve come for a bit of a grumble. It’s about Nativity Plays. And Carol Services. When Christmas comes around, I never get a fair hearing! It’s Luke’s Gospel every times. Now far be it from me to criticise Luke: I’m sure he was a godly man, and he knows how to tell a great story. But everywhere you look at Christmastime, it’s stables, shepherds, and angels singing! The kids love them, everyone loves them. You can’t get away from the ox and the ass and tea-towel-headed shepherds. But that’s not how I tell the story of Jesus birth. In my community we didn’t have any stories like that, so I didn’t put them in. In my Gospel, Jesus isn’t born in a stable. He’s just born at home. Normal home delivery. But nobody wants to know about that. For a start it would put the crib making industry out of business. Tea-towel sales would fall.
OK, I admit it. Luke’s birth stories are a stroke of genius. The shepherds, the stable: they all tell us something really true about God: how God in Christ identifies with the poverty-stricken, the outsiders. But it’s not what I wanted to say. It’s not the way the Good News of Jesus had come to me. I, Matthew, wrote my gospel as I had heard it and I didn’t hear different but that Jesus was born at home in Bethlehem.
Now the wise men: that’s a different matter. The wise men belong to my story. Luke didn’t know anything about any wise men. In my story, the wise men visit Jesus at home, and they’re not tripping over any shepherds either. It’s funny how they’ve come to be known as the three Kings. Because in my story, actually there’s aren’t three Kings, there are two. There’s evil King Herod, and new King Jesus. And when Herod hears from the wise men about the birth of a new King he goes ballistic. He thinks his power base is being threatened. Gets his henchmen to slaughter every baby boy within a mile of Bethlehem. Pure evil. But the angel warns Joseph and they become refugees, hide out in Egypt for a couple of years till things have cooled down.
People fleeing their homes, hiding out to escape the grip of terror – it still happens, and people escaping from violence read my gospel they’ll know. This good news is for them.
But never mind my gospel: everyone knows there are three kings at Jesus’s birth! Any nativity play you go to, there’s be my wise men slumming it in Luke’s stable. That’s how you folks like it. OK. It just goes to show how stories get changed over time. People muddle things and forget bits. Actually, that’s why I wrote my Gospel down in the first place. But once in while, just once in a while I wish you would let me tell my story of Jesus’ birth.
You see, in my story, Joseph is a really important figure. Luke doesn’t say anything about Joseph. He’s all for Mary, and I can see why. Luke’s always interested in outsiders, and so he’s interested in what women have got to say: goodness knows women were outsiders in Jesus’ time. No-one gave their opinions any credit. So yes, Luke gives you the scene with Mary and the angel, and pretty good it is as well. But I wanted to give Joseph his due..
You see, Joseph is the person that links Jesus with King David, with all the glories and hopes of the people of Israel. That’s really important. Jesus doesn’t just come out of no-where: he’s been longed for and prayed for and looked for by Israel’s prophets for generations. There had been ages of expectation, patiently building up. Haven’t you read the Old Testament? It’s all in there. That’s why I start my Gospel with Jesus’s family tree: David begat Solomon, and Solomon begat Rehaboam, and Rehaboam begat Abijah……….OK, I admit it’s boring, but I was making a point. Jesus is the fulfilment of the hopes of Israel. Don’t you sing something like that in a carol? “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Hits the nail on the head, that does.
So Joseph’s important, and I start with Joseph. It’s a dilemma for Joseph. There he is, engaged to the girl, then all of a sudden she gets pregnant and he knows for sure it’s not his. Imagine what’s running through his mind. Adultery, shame, the end of his hopes. Imagine him going to bed tossing and turning, haunted by anxiety. And then, some how he falls asleep, and in his dream: there’s an angel, a message from above. It’s going to be alright. Him, Mary and the child. It’s going to be alright, even if the child isn’t his, because the child is God’s. It’s going to be alright, because in this child God will come to be with us. Immanuel, God with us.
Sometimes I wonder: what if I hadn’t had the chance to write my Gospel? What if only had the change to write one sentence to pass on to Christian believers of the future? What would it be? Well, I’ll tell you.
It would be this: God is with us. My Gospel in four words. God is with us. And that’s what I want you to remember when you read my Gospel: that God is with us. I put it in at the beginning and in the middle and again right at the end of my gospel, so you can’t miss it. The last hing Jesus says. “I am with you always, to the very end of the age – remember?” Here in this funny and beautiful world, this tired and aching world. God is with us in Jesus, sharing our life. That’s what Christmas means. Simple really.
Frances Eccleston
December 2022