God demands Joseph wake up to a deeper reality, where love takes priority over obedience to God’s law and scandal forms the womb of grace. One from the archives. (Listen here.)

This Sunday, in the midst of Christmas chaos plus a funeral, I brought out an oldie but a goodie for Manningham Uniting Church. You might hear it as a simple reflection personal faith, and that’s well and good. But for those who have ears to hear, it also has much to say about current events, whether the shootings in Bondi, the ongoing deaths in Gaza, or so much more. For, in Matthew’s story, God demands that notions of righteousness and holiness are set aside in favour of love. In such a faith, violence is impossible, not only the violence of holy war but the violence which demands we destroy the violent. This loving insistence on nonretaliation is one incarnation of the scandal of grace. But for now, let’s turn our attention to a man caught up in another aspect of scandal incarnate: Joseph.