I’ve always been a rule follower. The older sister, and oldest cousin on my mother’s side and second oldest cousin on my father’s side, I believed myself responsible for keeping my younger sister and cousins in line. And while I was a normal kid who made mistakes, I developed a good deal of my personality around knowing and keeping The Rules – rules at the dinner table, rules at church, rules for how to play board games, rules for how to march in Pathfinders, rules for how to behave as one should, to be a “good girl.” I trained myself not to be rowdy, rude, or loud (in public). I lived inside what was deemed appropriate for my gender. I was a bit of an informant, insisting that the adults (read: Rule Makers) knew if someone or something was out of line.
My ability to follow The Rules was what I believed made me valuable. It was part of my identity to figure out the appropriate behaviors in a situation, and then adapt to those as quickly as possible. I wanted to fit in, not stick out. I firmly believed this part of my identity was what made me worthy of love and attention. I kept The Rules, and I reminded everyone around me to do the same. I understood people who did not follow The Rules to be less valuable and less worthy. People who lived outside of societal expectations needed to just try harder.
I feel like Joseph may have been a bit of a rule follower too. When he finds out that his betrothed is pregnant, he resolves to “quietly divorce her.” This was well within his rights in his society, and we even have insight into his thoughts–we are told that Joseph doesn’t wish to expose Mary to public disgrace. I was raised to believe that this is how we know Joseph to be a supposedly “quality guy”–that when he finds out about Mary’s pregnancy, he decides to privately undo their marriage so as not to shame Mary by publicly divorcing her. He is being more than fair. He was engaged to an appropriate young woman, but then her appropriateness changed. He has resolved to stay within the confines of the law, to disintegrate his attachment to a woman who is pregnant with a child he did not father. And to do so “nicely,” I guess. I remember thinking but Mary would still be pregnant and alone in a time when that was not an acceptable thing to be. How does that make Joseph a “quality guy”?
Then God intervenes and invites Joseph to stop following society’s rules, to believe Mary when she tells him how she came to be with child. To marry a woman who is already pregnant. Mary is already outside of Jewish law. Already outside of what is deemed respectable. Her voice does not hold weight anymore, based on the baby growing inside of her. Joseph is invited by God to listen. To believe. To choose a life that transcends The Law, to be more than nice or fair. I would argue that Joseph’s true worthiness comes when he accepts the invitation to do more than live by the rules and expectations of his time, but to transform into something greater. He supports and partners with Mary as she follows her divine calling to carry, birth, teach, and raise the son of God, to challenge a society that revolves around rules, laws, and hierarchies, with a calling to a life of critical thinking, of exponential grace, of calling out systems of injustice, because that is what radical love looks like.
Joseph chooses to believe the woman in the story. To make a life with Mary which revolves around cherishing and protecting a baby he didn’t plan for–and in doing so, he becomes a traveling partner, a stable dweller, stall mucker, a midwife, manger changer, an escapee, and an immigrant, before settling down in Nazareth and teaching Jesus the simple, hardworking trade he himself practices, of building and repairing things. Of creating. Of loving those deemed less worthy of love.
God asks Joseph to love and accept and support Mary and her son in a way that transcends even the most gracious of societal expectations, to participate in the beginning of a revolution, where keeping The Rules was not the most important part of someone’s identity or existence or worthiness, but where, instead, love, and all the incredible, beautiful, revolutionary things love is capable of, become the goals instead.
It was years before I learned that following The Rules was not a particularly valuable, healthy, or mindful way of existing–it was just an easy one, for me at least. I was privileged, and that privilege made it easy for me to keep the rules; I was very similar, in many ways, to those at the top of the hierarchies who had created social systems and rules that I attached my value to. These days I’m working on following the radical principles of love, instead of The Rules. Love is interested in knocking down hierarchies, and embracing those on the outside of societal expectations. This kind of love is not necessarily easier than keeping rules. But it’s So. Much. Better.
