The Unsung Hero Of The Gospels
Who would you say were the heroes of the Gospels? Apart from Jesus, I mean. We’re not looking for gold, silver, and bronze medal positions, exactly, but there are probably several contenders.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, has to be right up there. The Catholics are pretty good at giving Mary the respect she deserves—maybe a bit OTT at times—while Protestants tend traditionally to downplay her significance (almost certainly as a reaction against the Catholics overdoing things). But definitely something worth correcting there for us Protestants. One bit of Mariology we should all take on board is Mary’s final words in John’s Gospel, at the wedding in Cana, “Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you” (John 2:5). Timeless truth there, I think.
Perhaps John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, would be a strong candidate. He’s mentioned in all four Gospels, and Mark starts his account with John’s ministry as “the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah.” (Mark 1:1–4.) Jesus said, “Of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist,” (Matthew 11:11), which is pretty remarkable when you think that would include Abraham, Moses, and King David. Not only was he the greatest Old Testament prophet (that’s how we would need to classify him) but Jesus added that he was “more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:9).
Other obvious contenders would be Jesus’ disciples (specifically, the twelve apostles). They get quite a few things right, but the stories often show them getting things wrong. Maybe Peter deserves a special mention for his landmark answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?”—when he’d first asked them, “Who do people say I am?”: “You are the Messiah sent from God!” (Luke 9:20).
However, none of that addresses the title of our blog, which is looking for an unsung hero. An unsung hero is someone who is truly a hero, but people don’t usually celebrate them: they’re (literally) heroes who are not sung about. I’m particularly fond of unsung heroes in the Gospels, especially those who don’t even get named, and especially the women: for example, the Samaritan woman at the well (in John 4), and the woman caught in adultery (in John 8). (It’s easy to overlook for posterity people who don’t get named.) Hold on, you may say, weren’t these morally deficient women? No, they are only that if you read their stories a certain way (basically, if you already bring that assumption with you, to the text, because you’ve heard so many (male) preachers take that for granted). Note to self: I must do a sermon on that one day.
But the candidate I want to commend to you is Joseph: the father of Jesus (who we should properly call his “stepfather”). The first thing that Matthew says about Joseph is that he was “faithful to the law.” (Matthew 1:19). Reformed evangelicals will likely gloss over that (or treat it as hardly a compliment, given their traditional disdain for Torah—wrongly equating faithfulness to Torah with dead legalism) but it was the highest compliment Matthew could have given Joseph. His audience would also have read it that way. Not only that, Joseph clearly understood not just the text of the law but the heart of the law. Devastated though he surely was when Mary told him she was pregnant (and he knew he could not be the father), his kind and loving instinctive response was to end the betrothal quietly because he did not want to see Mary publicly disgraced. (Matthew 1:19). Contrast his version of faithfulness to the law with that of some Pharisees and (deep irony) “teachers of the law” in John 8—how they treated the woman caught in adultery, based on the law: “In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.” (John 8:5). Actually, they were big on misquoting proof texts to suit their interests as well as lacking in kindness, justice, and mercy. The verse in Torah that they are referring to is “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbour—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10). If the woman involved was “caught in the very act” (as verse 4 tells us) then by definition the man was there as well. What happened to him, when Jesus was asked to affirm the law only against the woman, in a way that suited these selectively self-righteous religious male bigots? Surely the heart of the law reflected in that Levitical commandment was as a deterrent, an encouragement to faithfulness, not an opportunity for the public humiliation—no doubt, having been “caught in the act,” she was naked—and lynching of a vulnerable woman for the entertainment of some sick-in-the-head “teachers” of the law.
On three occasions in and around the nativity story (Matthew 1:20; 2:13; 2:19), Matthew tells us that “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.” Hardly notable, you might think. But in each case, the angelic revelation was profoundly significant. In the first instance, it concerned going through with the marriage—the angel affirming that Mary was telling the truth: her child had been conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Now remember this was a dream. Like the rest of us, Joseph must have dreamed frequently—usually (like the rest of us) no doubt largely sourced in events, burdens, fears, regrets, TV programmes (not in Joseph’s case, obviously) that we recognise from our waking day, manifesting in dreams formed in our deep subconscious. On this occasion—indeed, on these three occasions—Joseph had the faith to believe this was, indeed, the Lord speaking through an angel. That faith is not to be taken lightly. Plenty of faith (trust is a better word—faith in action) was needed to be willing to share Mary’s shame over the pregnancy, not least because it would have made Joseph look weak in the eyes of his male peers. On the second occasion, the dream was a warning to flee to Egypt with his family, because of Herod’s imminent pogrom of male children, thus making them refugees. The potential cost and hardship for the family from Joseph taking that decision—again, based only on a dream that he took as being from God—should not be underestimated. And so, too, when it comes to the third occasion—when the angel said it was time to return home to Nazareth. What if Joseph had poo-poohed any one of these dreams and ignored it? It’s hypothetical, but perhaps too easy to say God would not have let that happen. In any event, he is to be commended.
The last occasion on which Joseph features in the Gospels is when Jesus is 12 years old, when he visits Jerusalem with his parents, and they somewhat carelessly manage to leave him behind. (Luke 2:41–50). No doubt they assumed he was with their extended family since it’s likely that travellers banded together on long journeys for safety in numbers, but even so . . .
It is generally reckoned that Joseph died before Jesus began his ministry. He is not named as being at the wedding in Cana in John 2, when it expressly says, “Jesus’ mother was there” (along with his disciples). Shortly before his death, Jesus entrusted his mother to the care of the Apostle John, a sure sign that Joseph was no longer around. (John 19:25-27). On other occasions, such as in Matthew 13:55–56, Mark 3:31–35, and Acts 1:14, we see references to Mary alone, where one would have expected Joseph also to be named. Early in Mark’s Gospel, Mark 6:3, Jesus is spoken of as “Mary’s son,” (though in John 6:42, following his “bread of life” discourse, his critics said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?”).
Was Joseph a carpenter? (Matthew 13:55: “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?”). Yes, and no. The New Testament Greek word tektōn—which appears only in this story—can refer to a range of woodworking roles, from a builder to an artisan, or a shipbuilder, or to other kinds of craftsman, such as a stonemason. The vagueness is in part due to its usage in the Greek Old Testament (the LXX, or Septuagint). Modern words that derive from tektōn include an architect and technician/technology.
Despite being a largely unsung hero, Joseph is recognised as a saint in Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches. March 19 is St. Joseph’s Day in the ecclesial calendar.