Father of Jesus
As a father and as a student of the roles we take on and assign each other in this life journey I have given a lot of thought to the role of father. Certainly, as our all roles in our culture, the role of father is constantly evolving. My friend Doug Gertner has a radio program and blog originating in the Denver area entitled The Grateful Dad. Doug has long been a scholarly and very personal leader in the invitation to we dads to examine and honors our role as co-parent; sometimes as co-parent with live in partner/spouse and sometimes as co-parent where both parents are single parents.
Since we just celebrated Easter and since I have been reading a book by Father Gregory Boyle about his fatherly and brotherly role with men and women who are currently or former gang members in Los Angles, I have also been thinking about Joseph, the father of Jesus. Yes, I am aware that many refer to Joseph as a stepfather and to the siblings of Jesus as his half-siblings. Whether or not Joseph was the sperm donor does not really matter to me although I am well aware of the fact that for most in the Christian Church the belief is that God directly impregnated Mary whereas all the other children born to Mary was the result of Joseph’s sperm and Mary’s egg co-joining!
We are all well aware that the role of a day-to-day father is much more than that of a male physically sharing his sperm during the act of sexual intercourse or via artificial insemination (otherwise knows as the turkey baster method). While the source of the sperm will certainly affect certain physical and even perhaps psychological factors with the resulting child(s), one will never observe a sperm delivery system changing diapers, paying the bills, staying up all night with a sick child, reading a nighttime story, cooking a meal, cleaning house, comforting a broken heart or doing any of the million tasks which provide the nurturing and day-to-day care which all children need to thrive.
If we accept what I have just posited, Joseph was the de facto father of Jesus and his siblings. We know very little about Joseph and even less about his other children. The male siblings are named James, Joses, Judas and Simon. There is also mention of daughters, but no mention of their names.
Mary, as the mother is Jesus, is revered by many in the Church. She has a very exalted role in the Christian church and, in fact a place of particular honor and worship in the Roman Catholic Church. Joseph, on the other hand, gets very little credit and is barely mentioned in the surviving stories of the life of Jesus. Why is this, I wonder? We can pretty well surmise that Jesus learned his carpentry skills from his father. We also know that that reference is made to barely pubescent Jesus smarting off to these parents. In both Luke and John we read similar accounts:
In Luke 2:49 “Why were you looking for me? Knew you not that it behooves me to be about my Father’s business? Fort the works that the Father has given me to finish – the very works that I am doing – testify that the Father has sent me,
In John 10:30 if I am not doing the works of my farther, then do not believe me.
I assume that this frustrated both of his parents. We have to assume that in most respects he was a pretty typical child and that his parents only had a rudimentary acceptance and understanding of any mission He might have had. Despite the auspicious beginnings, including the possibility of the virgin birth, one has to assume that life was pretty routine for this family; that it required all of them doing their chores to keep the household running. Mary and Joseph certainly did not need a smart mouth teenager telling them that He if they would just pay attention they would have heard and remembered that He has more important work – the worth of this TRUE father! Although we do not know the age difference between Jesus and his siblings we can well imagine that when Jesus did not do his share of the chores that it fell to this siblings to take up the slack.
We can just imagine the lecture or the bitten, bleeding tongues of His parents.
It is difficult to find out a lot about the role of the father in Biblical times. Thee are references to educating the child in terms of practical skills as well as teaching them what it means to be a responsible and spiritual person. There are even references to modeling being a good husband and making sure that the male children learned a trade. It appears that it would have fallen to Mary to teach a trade or adult responsibilities to the girls.
There have been an increasing number of studies documenting that the roles of both parents is important in the development of the child. It seems that the role of the same sex parent type person/mentor is vey important. It certainly seems that if both parents are of the same gender, but opposite of that of the child, that it is important that the child have role daily hands on models of the opposite sex. Certainly it is of vital importance that children learn that they are valued and loved by both parents. One of the ways children learn that they are valued is for them to have responsibilities at which they can learn to excel. Schoolwork is one of those responsibilities as is a sense of ownership in the home and being a member of a family. Increasingly we are learning that the gender roles can be much more fluid that many previously believed.
With Mary and Joseph we are dealing with a very traditional family. It seems as if Joseph was the primary breadwinner while Mary ran and maintained the home. One also must not forget the fact that she was one who carried and delivered each of the children.
I am sill left without a solid picture of the relationship between Joseph and his children. Although I have not researched this question with anything resembling scientific rigor, a rudimentary search did not reveal even many Google hits. Now, to be honest, I did not check out all the Google hits but I did check out several, none of which were very helpful. Neither do I remember much mention of Joseph or his role in my 3 years of study at the theological seminary. I am sure that I am not the first one to wonder why Joseph is given so little attention as the de facto father of Jesus.
I suspect that the paucity of information or emphasis on his role has left Christians to dwell mainly on the role of God the Father as the example of fatherhood. That certainly is not very helpful. We have the contrasting examples of God the stern, jealous, punishing, often-angry father and God the father who sacrifices his son. Neither is very helpful.
To be fair, there have been some attempts by those in the Christian church and some others such as my friend Doug, to speak out about the need for we fathers to be more present in a loving, teaching, nurturing way to our children. Recent studies indicate that more fathers are very active in the day-to-day life of their children. There has been some movement to provide opportunities for fathers to take paternity leave after the birth of a child. I think California, however, is the only state to mandate that paternity leave be paid. Still we are a long way from those societies in which both the role of the father and the mother is considered valuable enough to support the parents financially during at least the early stages of a child’s life. In some countries at least one parent is assured of up to 3 yeas of paid leave after the birth of a child. Sometimes both parents can be home at the same time, but, for the most part, only one parent can get paid parent leave at the same time.
If we, in the United States, are going to accept and honor the fact that an actively involved father figure is important in the development of a child, then we should decide to honor the role of father as more than a bread winner, sports model, or “pal”.
Perhaps if we are going to use our concept of God as the primary father figure we need to decide if we want the angry, judgmental, jealous, punishing God or the unconditionally loving, accepting God that people such as Father Gregory Boyle envisions. The loving figure of the Buddha who suggests that we honor our strength, courage and loving core would also be a good role model. The absent father is not, however, a helpful or effective role model.
I personally think Joseph was much more active as a father than has been discussed or thought about. Goodness knows given the number of versions of the stories about Jesus and his life, there is nothing to prevent us from envisioning a more hands on Joseph helping to shape Jesus into the man who is able to find the courage to claim his vocation; the role, which God has planned, for him.
As a father and as a student of the roles we take on and assign each other in this life journey I have given a lot of thought to the role of father. Certainly, as our all roles in our culture, the role of father is constantly evolving. My friend Doug Gertner has a radio program and blog originating in the Denver area entitled The Grateful Dad. Doug has long been a scholarly and very personal leader in the invitation to we dads to examine and honors our role as co-parent; sometimes as co-parent with live in partner/spouse and sometimes as co-parent where both parents are single parents.
Since we just celebrated Easter and since I have been reading a book by Father Gregory Boyle about his fatherly and brotherly role with men and women who are currently or former gang members in Los Angles, I have also been thinking about Joseph, the father of Jesus. Yes, I am aware that many refer to Joseph as a stepfather and to the siblings of Jesus as his half-siblings. Whether or not Joseph was the sperm donor does not really matter to me although I am well aware of the fact that for most in the Christian Church the belief is that God directly impregnated Mary whereas all the other children born to Mary was the result of Joseph’s sperm and Mary’s egg co-joining!
We are all well aware that the role of a day-to-day father is much more than that of a male physically sharing his sperm during the act of sexual intercourse or via artificial insemination (otherwise knows as the turkey baster method). While the source of the sperm will certainly affect certain physical and even perhaps psychological factors with the resulting child(s), one will never observe a sperm delivery system changing diapers, paying the bills, staying up all night with a sick child, reading a nighttime story, cooking a meal, cleaning house, comforting a broken heart or doing any of the million tasks which provide the nurturing and day-to-day care which all children need to thrive.
If we accept what I have just posited, Joseph was the de facto father of Jesus and his siblings. We know very little about Joseph and even less about his other children. The male siblings are named James, Joses, Judas and Simon. There is also mention of daughters, but no mention of their names.
Mary, as the mother is Jesus, is revered by many in the Church. She has a very exalted role in the Christian church and, in fact a place of particular honor and worship in the Roman Catholic Church. Joseph, on the other hand, gets very little credit and is barely mentioned in the surviving stories of the life of Jesus. Why is this, I wonder? We can pretty well surmise that Jesus learned his carpentry skills from his father. We also know that that reference is made to barely pubescent Jesus smarting off to these parents. In both Luke and John we read similar accounts:
In Luke 2:49 “Why were you looking for me? Knew you not that it behooves me to be about my Father’s business? Fort the works that the Father has given me to finish – the very works that I am doing – testify that the Father has sent me,
In John 10:30 if I am not doing the works of my farther, then do not believe me.
I assume that this frustrated both of his parents. We have to assume that in most respects he was a pretty typical child and that his parents only had a rudimentary acceptance and understanding of any mission He might have had. Despite the auspicious beginnings, including the possibility of the virgin birth, one has to assume that life was pretty routine for this family; that it required all of them doing their chores to keep the household running. Mary and Joseph certainly did not need a smart mouth teenager telling them that He if they would just pay attention they would have heard and remembered that He has more important work – the worth of this TRUE father! Although we do not know the age difference between Jesus and his siblings we can well imagine that when Jesus did not do his share of the chores that it fell to this siblings to take up the slack.
We can just imagine the lecture or the bitten, bleeding tongues of His parents.
It is difficult to find out a lot about the role of the father in Biblical times. Thee are references to educating the child in terms of practical skills as well as teaching them what it means to be a responsible and spiritual person. There are even references to modeling being a good husband and making sure that the male children learned a trade. It appears that it would have fallen to Mary to teach a trade or adult responsibilities to the girls.
There have been an increasing number of studies documenting that the roles of both parents is important in the development of the child. It seems that the role of the same sex parent type person/mentor is vey important. It certainly seems that if both parents are of the same gender, but opposite of that of the child, that it is important that the child have role daily hands on models of the opposite sex. Certainly it is of vital importance that children learn that they are valued and loved by both parents. One of the ways children learn that they are valued is for them to have responsibilities at which they can learn to excel. Schoolwork is one of those responsibilities as is a sense of ownership in the home and being a member of a family. Increasingly we are learning that the gender roles can be much more fluid that many previously believed.
With Mary and Joseph we are dealing with a very traditional family. It seems as if Joseph was the primary breadwinner while Mary ran and maintained the home. One also must not forget the fact that she was one who carried and delivered each of the children.
I am sill left without a solid picture of the relationship between Joseph and his children. Although I have not researched this question with anything resembling scientific rigor, a rudimentary search did not reveal even many Google hits. Now, to be honest, I did not check out all the Google hits but I did check out several, none of which were very helpful. Neither do I remember much mention of Joseph or his role in my 3 years of study at the theological seminary. I am sure that I am not the first one to wonder why Joseph is given so little attention as the de facto father of Jesus.
I suspect that the paucity of information or emphasis on his role has left Christians to dwell mainly on the role of God the Father as the example of fatherhood. That certainly is not very helpful. We have the contrasting examples of God the stern, jealous, punishing, often-angry father and God the father who sacrifices his son. Neither is very helpful.
To be fair, there have been some attempts by those in the Christian church and some others such as my friend Doug, to speak out about the need for we fathers to be more present in a loving, teaching, nurturing way to our children. Recent studies indicate that more fathers are very active in the day-to-day life of their children. There has been some movement to provide opportunities for fathers to take paternity leave after the birth of a child. I think California, however, is the only state to mandate that paternity leave be paid. Still we are a long way from those societies in which both the role of the father and the mother is considered valuable enough to support the parents financially during at least the early stages of a child’s life. In some countries at least one parent is assured of up to 3 yeas of paid leave after the birth of a child. Sometimes both parents can be home at the same time, but, for the most part, only one parent can get paid parent leave at the same time.
If we, in the United States, are going to accept and honor the fact that an actively involved father figure is important in the development of a child, then we should decide to honor the role of father as more than a bread winner, sports model, or “pal”.
Perhaps if we are going to use our concept of God as the primary father figure we need to decide if we want the angry, judgmental, jealous, punishing God or the unconditionally loving, accepting God that people such as Father Gregory Boyle envisions. The loving figure of the Buddha who suggests that we honor our strength, courage and loving core would also be a good role model. The absent father is not, however, a helpful or effective role model.
I personally think Joseph was much more active as a father than has been discussed or thought about. Goodness knows given the number of versions of the stories about Jesus and his life, there is nothing to prevent us from envisioning a more hands on Joseph helping to shape Jesus into the man who is able to find the courage to claim his vocation; the role, which God has planned, for him.
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