I have never been fond of Matthew’s focus on Joseph in his telling of the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:18-25). This is, after all, Mary’s story. It is Mary whom God chooses. Mary who conceives the child. Mary whose body gives him life. Mary who bears the pain of childbirth. Mary who becomes the mother of God.

And while Mary turns out to be something of a badass revolutionary, Joseph seems a much more passive character. He frets about whether or not to divorce Mary. He dreams a dream. He names a child. That’s pretty much it.

And yet here is Joseph, front and center in Matthew’s birth narrative. What do we possibly have to learn from him?

Accompanying the Revolution

Yet the more I have lived with this text, the more I have come to think that the story of Joseph may actually have something to teach us. It provides a lens through which people of privilege can think about our proper role in the revolutionary work of God, which—in this story at least—is being carried out by a woman granted no privilege in her society. Indeed, as liberation theologies have taught us well, this almost always the case. God most often engages the world through those pushed to the margins of society. Those of us who bear the marks of privilege must learn to act accordingly.

When I refer to Joseph as a person of privilege, I have two things in mind. First, Joseph is a male in a culture that privileges males. Second, Joseph is a descendant of the house of David, which means he is in a privileged position when it comes to the birth of the Messiah. Jesus needs Joseph’s credentials to complete his messianic résumé. Mary can give Jesus life, but she can’t give him status.

Don’t Screw It Up

As the story opens, we find Mary already pregnant. While the reader knows from the beginning that the child is “from the Holy Spirit” (1:18), Joseph doesn’t initially have access to this information. Before Joseph knows what is happening, the child is already conceived in Mary’s womb. Joseph comes into the picture only belatedly. The revolution is already underway.

Yet, while Joseph is secondary to the birth of the messiah, he is nonetheless necessary to the story. It couldn’t happen without him.

Joseph’s first role in the story of Jesus’s birth is to trust Mary. When he discovers that Mary is pregnant, he would be within his legal rights to divorce her—or even to have her put to death.

While it is true that the two are not yet married, they are engaged, a status that makes them legally committed to one another. At this stage, to have sex with someone else would be considered adultery. According to the book of Deuteronomy,

If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. (Deut 22:23-24)

Yet Joseph, discovering his betrothed to be pregnant and knowing he was not the father, chooses not to take such drastic public action against her. Instead, he decides to “dismiss her quietly,” (Matthew 1:19). Joseph doesn’t want to expose Mary to disgrace, but nor is he able to comprehend the revolution she is instigating. It’s only when the angel appears to Joseph to assure him that “the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (1:20) that he at last decides to marry her.

Honestly, we might hope for more from Joseph, being by all accounts “a righteous man” (1:19). We might wish for him to trust Mary even without the need for angelic intervention. We might wish for him to support her unconditionally as she renders the world transformed.

But at least he has managed not to screw things up. And when it mattered most, he has come through for her, albeit with a little divine prodding.

The Power of Privilege

Yet the angel’s reassurance to Joseph isn’t really the point of their encounter. When the angel appears to Joseph, he addresses him as “Joseph, son of David” (1:20). The reference is, of course, to the fact that Joseph is a descendant of the great King David, from whose line the messiah was to be born.

Moreover, the command that the angel gives Joseph is “to name him Jesus” (1:21), which Joseph does in 1:25. It is Joseph who names Jesus and thereby giving Jesus standing in the line of David. Without Joseph, Jesus is the son of a woman of unknown lineage. With Joseph, Jesus is a son of David.

This seems to be Joseph’s main function in the story of the messiah’s birth. He doesn’t start the revolution. He doesn’t nurture it in his body. He doesn’t bear it into the world. He can do none of that.

What Joseph can do is use his privileged status to give the revolution legitimacy in the eyes of the people. That, and to accompany Mary, through whom God has radically upended the world.

For those of us who bear our own marks of privilege, perhaps it is our role to do the same.