Matthew 2.13-23: What Joseph Makes Possible

Ann Weems asked, "Who put Joseph in the back of the stable?"* That's what we tend to do...put mother and child in the center, and sheep and shepherds in front. Magi with camels off to one side. Angels in the sky. And Joseph in the back of the stable with the donkey and the ox. Joseph becomes just another working animal in the story. And it is true that Joseph is working throughout the gospel infancy narratives, but surely Joseph has a story worth telling. He does. It's in Matthew's gospel (2:13-23).

In the course of Matthew 1 and 2, Joseph is visited not once, not twice, but three times by angels. Joseph is called to move forward with his marriage to Mary. He takes his great-with-child wife on a 90-mile journey to his family's town of origin where his wife gives birth to a baby boy. After another visit from an angel, he is instructed to take his wife and child to Egypt. He must get them out of town as deadly danger marches toward them and keep them safe as they travel more than 400 miles. When the time is right, he will bring his family home. Joseph definitely has a story.

Joseph's handling of unexpected scenarios should earn him our admiration and respect. He is resourceful and capable. His actions show him to be devoted to his family and responsive to God's direction. No wonder God chose him.

Scenes of the family's travel to Egypt are often romanticized or sentimentalized. The two adults are often in the landscape with a moon shining down highlighting the people, the donkey (there's usually a donkey), and an obligatory palm tree. It is quiet and contemplative. The realities of traveling via donkey (even donkey cart) for 400+ miles with an infant are no doubt more prosaic than we imagine. And certainly they are more prosaic than Caravaggio's image here. But I think Caravaggio gets Joseph's role right.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Rest on the Flight into Egypt. 1597. Rome: Galleria Doria Pamphilj

Caravaggio has chosen a rest stop as the family travels. Mother and child both rest, their heads touching. The vegetation is lush, though stones are scattered on the path. Joseph and the donkey look at the angel who faces away from us and toward the family. The angel is playing the violin, presumably lulling mother and child to sleep. Joseph's eyes are focused on the angel, but in his hands he holds the music manuscript, making the angel's music possible.

That seems to be Joseph's lot: keeping focused on doing what God calls him to do while making other people's work possible. Bless him. Let's give Joseph a little more attention this Christmas season.

* Weems' poem "Getting to the Front of the Stable" is in the collection Kneeling in Bethlehem.

For additional thoughts on Matthew 2:13-23, click here.

Exodus 1.8-2.10: Forgetting and Remembering

And there arose a king who did not know Joseph. That is the chilling beginning of the Israelites' changing fortunes in Egypt. Originally welcomed as the family of Joseph, who saved Egypt from famine, the Israelites are known to this new king only as a threat to his position of power. He doesn't care what happened in the past or what was promised to these people. So the king decides to neutralize the threat. That's the beginning of the reading from Hebrew scripture for Proper 16(21)A/Pentecost 12A (Exodus 1:8-2:10).

Probably no contemporary artist has devoted more time and energy to the art (and necessity) of remembering the past than Anselm Kiefer. Born in post-war Germany in 1945, Kiefer has continued to prod his own and the world's remembrance of Germany's legacy of World War II.

Anselm Kiefer. Fur Paul Celan: Aschenblume. 2006. Oil, acyrlic, emulsion, shellac, and books on canvas. Private collection. For Anselm Kiefer, see: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kief/hd_kief.htm

Kiefer's Für Paul Celan : Aschenblume is a large-scale work (more than 10 feet tall and 25 feet long), includes various paints, shellac and burned books. Books, for Kiefer, symbolize the storehouse of human history and knowledge. Burned books are a reminder of Nazi book burnings and can also be a reference to the linguistic root of the word holocaust. Holocaust comes from the Greek holokauston, related to the Hebrew olah ("burnt whole").

George Santayana (Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás) gave the world the eminently quotable aphorism Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Kiefer's work demanded (and still demands) that the past be remembered. What are the dangers we face when we "do not know Joseph"? And who will be Shiphrah and Puah when Joseph has been forgotten?

For thoughts on how the gospel reading intersects with the reading from Hebrew scripture, click here.

This week on Facebook, consider how many artists "know Joseph" in their paintings of the Exodus. Click here. 

Genesis 37.1-4, 12-18: It's the Horizon

Proper 14(19)/Pentecost 10A gives us an early episode in Genesis' Joseph cycle of stories (Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28). Having been identified as his father's favorite, Joseph is quick to let his brothers know of the newly announed rankings. As you might expect, the news is not well-received, and the brothers decide to move Joseph out of the picture. They throw him into a pit and then sell him to a passing caravan of Midianites.

The two images below tell the story of the pit and the selling. On the left is an image by Karoly Ferenczy. Painted in 1900, the action of the story is in the foreground. Joseph, stripped to the waist, is handed off to white-garbed travelers passing through Jacob's land. At the right, the same story is told by a contemporary artist Yoram Raanan. The action is in the foreground with figures standing around what appears to be a well-like hole.

(Left) Karoly Ferenczy. Josseph Sold by His Brothers Into Slavery. 1900. Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest. http://mng.hu/gyujtemeny/jozsefet-eladjak-testverei-21148. (Right) Yoram Raanan. Joseph's Brothers Throw Him Into the Pit. http://www.yoramraanan.com/single-post/2015/11/30/Josephs-Brothers-Throw-Him-Into-the-Pit

The two images share a color scheme: brownish-yellow earth tones, blue and white. Both compositions are similar with the action happening at the bottom/front of the painting. But both also remind us of "the rest of the story": that there IS a rest of the story. In both paintings, it is the distant horizon that draws our attention in the upper half of the composition. And that is where we need to at least glance as we read the Joseph cycle. Incidents along the way seem to be the end, but they are not the end. Not the pit, not prison, not famine. There's something more waiting for Joseph, for Joseph's descendants and for the people of God. It's probably a good reminder for us, too.

For an additional consideration on Joseph and his brothers, click here.
For a take on the gospel reading for this week, click here.

Click on the Art&Faith Matters Facebook link below for some thoughts on the dreams that got him in trouble with his brothers.

Joseph, His Brothers (and Tissot) in Egypt

God meant it for good. That's what Joseph tells his brothers in Egypt. They came by different routes, of course, and set off on the journey from different impulses. Joseph has traveled there with the caravan of traders to whom his brothers sold him. The brothers have traveled to Egypt at the direction of their father in hopes of buying grain. The Bible says it's Egypt, but artists have, at times, seemed unable to help themselves. Their "Egypt" looks remarkably like France or Flanders or a Greco-Roman temple. For those artists, every Biblical subject was painted in their own time, using their own architecture and their own clothing styles.

At the other end of the spectrum is French artist Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902). Tissot traveled to the Near East several times between 1877 and 1902, when his energy was consumed with paintings for, first, a Life of Christ and then with illustrating the Hebrew Bible. Criticized as being "too photographic", Tissot did indeed photograph settings, buildings and landscapes, documenting the places and details he would need when he was back in his studio painting.

For the painting, see: http://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26324-joseph-and-his-brethren-welcomed-by-pharaoh

While his work is by no means fully authentic, elements of Tissot's paintings can be identified with places in Egypt. In "Joseph and His Brothers Welcomed by Pharaoh" (above, right), the clerestory windows in the painting are direct quotations from the Karnak Hypostyle Hall in the Karnak temple complex (above, left).

The Jewish Museum, NYC, has a collection of Tissot paintings, including his version of the episode where Joseph announces his identity to his brothers. Under Tissot's brush, Egypt is vividly colored and patterned, distinctly different from the more subdued garments worn by Joseph's brothers. No doubt the brothers felt somewhat out of place even before Joseph makes the grand gesture in this painting. Though the architectural setting has not been specifically identified, the repetition of columns, windows and panels provides a geometric background for the organic forms of Jacob's sons. 

http://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26323-joseph-maketh-himself-known-to-his-brethren

The columns seem more slender than most Egyptian columns (refer to the drawing above), but they echo the rather willowy figure of Joseph whose brothers do, in this moment, bow down to him as he dreamed long ago.

For a surprising expression of Egypt in church architecture, see the Art&Faith Matters Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/artfaithmatters