Faith Over Feelings

The Sunday morning sermon in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on December 17, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 1:18-25.

            If you were in church last week, you may have noticed that our Bible reading was the same one that we read last week, the story of Jesus’ birth in the gospel of Matthew.  This won’t be the same sermon you heard last week.  There’s another aspect of this passage I want to talk about.

            Matthew starts his gospel by tracing Jesus’ earthly lineage back from Abraham through David and then on up to Joseph, who Jesus’ earthly father.  It was important for Matthew to do that because the prophecy had been that the Messiah, the Savior, would be of the line of King David.  After he does that, Matthew goes on to tell us Jesus’ birth story.

            But this is not the birth story we hear the most.  This is not the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and the trip to Bethlehem and “No room at the inn” and the stable and all that.  Matthew’s tells the story very quickly and efficiently.  Mary and Joseph are going to be married, but are not married yet.  Mary is pregnant.  Joseph knows the child cannot be his, but he does not want to publicly disgrace Mary, so he plans to end things quietly.  Then an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to go ahead with the marriage because the child is from the Holy Spirit and will save the people from their sins.  Joseph wakes up and does what the angel told him to do.

            And that’s it.  It’s no wonder this is not the version of the Christmas story we usually hear.  There’s no drama in it.  There’s no emotion.  There’s no Hallmark Channel warmth or tears or anything.  It’s just the facts.  It’s not easy to make the Christmas story boring, but Matthew just about manages it.  Why would Matthew choose to tell the story this way?

            I think part of the reason has to do with the way people looked at faith back then.  We’ve talked about this before, but in Old Testament Jewish society, emotions were not the main focus of faith.  Instead, the emphasis was on obedience.  It was on doing your duty to God.  You did what God wanted you to do because it was God who wanted you to do it.  God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise.  You are not.  So, if God said to do something, you were supposed to do it.  Period.

            And that seems to be the perspective Mary and Joseph had on this whole thing.  When Mary found out what was going to happen, she says “Let it be to me according to your word.”  When Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, Joseph’s first thought was to do what he thought God would want him to do.  And when he found out the truth, he again tried to handle the situation the way God wanted him to, doing what the angel said.  The reason we’re not told what Joseph thought, or how he felt, is mentioned because to Matthew, none of that was important.  What was important, in the case of both Mary and Joseph, is that they obeyed God.  Mary and Joseph did their duty to God.

As I said, that’s kind of an Old Testament idea.  It kind of fell out of fashion later on.  It certainly has fallen out of fashion now.  Our life today is all about feelings.  It’s all about emotions.  Doing something we don’t want to do, because it’s our duty to do it, is not something we talk about very much.  We’re told we should follow our hearts.  We should do what makes us happy, not do things just because it’s our duty to do them.

            And don’t get me wrong, feelings and emotions are important.  When we talk about God’s love for us, that’s a feeling.  That’s an emotion.  And when we talk about loving God and loving others, we’re talking about feelings and emotions, too.  And I’m not suggesting that we should do things that will make us unhappy all our lives.

            But the thing is that our hearts are not always reliable guides.  Have you noticed that?  Have you ever followed your heart and discovered it led you down a path that was not all that great?  I suspect some of us have.  In fact, sometimes following our heart can take us to a place that it’s not good for us to go at all.  Sometimes, following our heart and doing what we thought would make us happy gets us into all kinds of trouble.  I think a lot of us, if we’re honest about it, can think of times when that’s happened.

            Being happy is important, no question about it.  But being happy is not the ultimate goal in life, at least not for a Christian.  For a Christian, the ultimate goal in life is to do God’s will.  The ultimate goal in life is to trust God and be faithful to God.  Now, I believe that doing God’s will and trusting God and being faithful to God will make us happy.  But even if sometimes it does not, it’s still what, as Christians, we’re supposed to do.

            Did agreeing to give birth to the Savior of the world make Mary happy?  Did she follow her heart when she did that?  We don’t know.  She knows it’s an honor.  She knows it’s a blessing, in a way.  But did it make her happy?  We’d like to think so, but we’re really not told.  Did having to go to Bethlehem when she was ninth months pregnant make Mary happy?  Was she following her heart when she did that?  I doubt it.  Did having to give birth in a barn make Mary happy?  Was she following her heart then?  Probably not.

And how about Joseph?  Did taking Mary as his wife in this situation make Joseph happy?  Did he follow his heart when he did that?  We don’t know.  We’d like to think so, of course, and we can make an argument that it did, but we really don’t know.  We’re not told how Joseph felt.  Later on, we’re told that Joseph had to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt for a while to get away from King Herod’s army.  Did that make Joseph happy?  Did Joseph follow his heart when he did that?  Probably not.  And of course, here was Joseph, trying to take care of a wife and raise a son that was not actually his.  Did that make him happy?  Was he following his heart then?  Again, we’d like to think so, but we really don’t know.  

That’s the thing.  We’re not told anything, anywhere in the Bible, about how Mary and Joseph felt about any of this.  All we’re told is that they did God’s will.  All we’re told is that they had faith and were obedient to God.

            And maybe that’s enough, you know?  Maybe that’s enough.  I’m not saying that we should shut our brains off and just follow things blindly.  God gave us brains and God expects us to use them.  I’m not saying we should ignore our feelings, either—our feelings came from God, too.  And it’s certainly all right to want to be happy—I don’t know anyone who does not want to be happy.

            But in the end, there are always going to be things we don’t understand, no matter how hard we try.  And there are always going to be times when our feelings are confused or lead us in the wrong direction.  And there are times when the things that make us happy in the short term will wind up being the exact wrong thing for us to do in the long term.

            And so, maybe just doing God’s will, just having faith and trusting God and being obedient to God, is enough.  Doing the will of God will never lead us in the wrong direction.  Trusting God will keep us headed in the right direction even when we don’t understand.  Being faithful to God may or may not make us happy in the short term, but being faithful to God will always be the right thing for us to do in the long term.

            I’m sure Mary and Joseph did not understand what was going on here, not really.  I would think their feelings must have been very confused.  And I would think that this whole situation did not make them all that happy.  It certainly was not the way they’d planned for their married life to start out.  But none of that mattered.  They put all of that aside.  They knew what God wanted them to do.  And they did it, no matter what their feelings or emotions might have been.  We don’t know whether Mary and Joseph followed their heart.  What we know that they did their duty.  Mary and Joseph did their duty to God.

            And it was enough.  It was enough for Matthew, when he wrote his gospel.  And it was enough for God.

            And it’s enough for us, too.  Trusting God, being obedient to God, being faithful to God, and doing our duty to God are enough for us.  We may or may not be following our hearts when we do that.  But we will be following God’s heart.  And God’s heart is always reliable.