Joseph's Begats: Gospel Reading for Christmas Vigil

The gospel for the Christmas Vigil is mainly one of those lists of “begats” that are, notoriously, the most tiresome reading in the Bible:

Joseph's dream

From Matthew:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham became the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar.
Perez became the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab became the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz,
whose mother was Rahab.
Boaz became the father of Obed,
whose mother was Ruth.
Obed became the father of Jesse,
Jesse the father of David the king.
David became the father of Solomon,
whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.
Solomon became the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asaph.
Asaph became the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
Joram the father of Uzziah.
Uzziah became the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amos,
Amos the father of Josiah.
Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers
at the time of the Babylonian exile.
After the Babylonian exile,
Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud.
Abiud became the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor the father of Zadok.
Zadok became the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud,
Eliud the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar became the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

St. Joseph the father.

Inspiring, ain't it?

Two things stand out immediately as odd: first, this list traces the geneology of Jesus through his father Joseph—just before making the emphatic point a couple of verses later that Joseph was not Jesus`s natural father. So what's the point?

Second, it traces Jesus`s heredity from Abraham. Why not Adam? Or, if the point were to establish his claim to kingship, why not David?

This second anomaly, I think, helps explain the first. Abraham is not the founder of the human race, of our physical part; and he is not the founder of the Jewish state, our social part. He is the founder of our religious tradition, of ethical monotheism.

This is explaining the sense in which Joseph really was Jesus's father, and the sense in which his contribution as father was critical: in passing on the religious and moral traditions. In educating the child. The body, the nature, comes primarily from the mother; the spirit, the nurture, comes primarily from Dad. This in turn points up the father`s significance within the family, and to his children. It is not his physical contribution, and not his financial contribution from his work outside the home. His most important task is educating the children, in particular their moral education,”raising them up in the way that they should go.” Most folks I know, male or female, look to their fathers for exactly that: a moral model.

Father and son

In doing this for Jesus, therefore, Joseph really was Jesus`s father in the important sense. Joseph passed on to Jesus, by talk and by example, the long tradition of spiritual truth and righteousness passed from father to son since Abraham.

Note that four of Joseph`s female ancestors are also mentioned; and when they are mentioned, it is in three out of four cases a woman whose own morality was doubtful. Were moral education from the mother, this would be a spot on Jesus's heredity, and would have made this lineage less than optimum for the one chosen by God to be the Messiah. Specifically, Tamar and Rahab were prostitutes; Bathsheba was an adulteress.

Bathsheba

The fourth ancestress named, Ruth, was of sterling moral character. On the other hand, she was not a Hebrew, but a Moabite; if blood rather than tradition were the significance of this geneology, her inclusion would be a disqualifying factor. Moreover, her own story illlustrates the very point that tradition and education comes from the father. As a model of the good woman, Ruth unhesitatingly abandons her own homeland nad her own traditions in order to adopt those of her husband's family: “wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.” QED.

Ruth the Moabite.

The fact that it is the moral educaton, not blood ties, that matters, is far more emphatic, of course, in the Christian than the Hebrew covenant; and so it is central and foundational at this point.

David and Bathsheba

At the same time, this core significance of the father brings home the true depth of the current catastrophe of homes without fathers. At birth, the most important work of the mother is already done; it is now the father who is critical, for the proper spiritual growth of the child. In these times, in our culture, he is often gone, often indeed driven out, and the children forbidden even to see him. The latest figures I find on the Internet say 26% of all children under 21 in the US today are being raised by a single parent; that single parent is the mother in 84% of these cases. That is a perfect recipe for cultural death and spiritual disaster.

Yet that probably understates it: that is today, a one-day snapshot. Over the course of a childhood, the figure for single-parent children is apparently something north of 35%.

It were better if we were all tossed into the sea with millstones around our necks.

Even if every home had a father, this essential masculine part in education would also make it vital that teachers, of all professions, should be male. This becomes doubly vital if children are getting no male influence at home.

And guess what? Teachers are now overwhelmingly female. Men are actually systematically being driven out of the profession, by the risk of fake accusations of sexual misconduct.

This may be an overlooked and critical factor in the generally acknowledged overall decline in North American educational standards.