In the past, I have taught a course entitled "Disciples of Christ in Community," called DOCC ("dock") for short. Some of you took DOCC last year at St. John’s. DOCC is a twenty-two week program that requires a very strict commitment to attend every week unless you’re really sick or your house burned down. When I’m telling people about the course, I always emphasize how important the commitment to attend is. Needless to say, it scares people. People have asked me to help them decide whether they should sign up or not. What they are always worried about was whether they could keep that kind of commitment. They are always worried about whether committing to spend two hours a week for twenty-two weeks would mess up their busy lives.

It is a realistic concern. Some of you are probably thinking about signing up for the DOCC course starting in January, and you probably have that concern. Twenty-two weeks is a long time, and people have to prioritize and build their schedules around that commitment. So people are probably smart to think about whether this commitment will mess up their lives.

But I always think the commitment is the lesser of the concerns folks should have had if they want to avoid messing up their lives. The DOCC course combines learning about Christianity with experiencing it in small groups, where a trust level develops that allows people to open up without fear of condemnation. It doesn’t always work in every small group, of course. But when it does, it is powerful. So I always start the first talk of the year with a warning. It is a warning about what the participants should be concerned about even more than the strong commitment. I always say, "I want to warn you. If you are diligent in keeping your commitment to attend, and if you open your heart and are willing to risk, this program will mess up your life. Because God will come into your life in a new way, and God is no respecter of tidy, well-planned lives."

It is not the two hour a week commitment that will mess up your tidy life; it’s God.

You can almost hear Joseph saying, "No joke!" His plan for his life was clear enough. Like his father and his father and his father, Joseph would learn a trade, make an honest living, marry, have children, and grow old peacefully. There wouldn’t be scandal, there wouldn’t be intrigue; it would not be a life of historic significance; he would not be long remembered for being especially wonderful or for being especially terrible. He was a good man, and it would be a quiet life, an honest life, a predictable, tidy, well planned life.

So, sticking with the plan, Joseph becomes betrothed to a sweet young woman. Betrothal means you’re legally married but just haven’t started living together yet. But everybody knows she’s his wife. And then disaster strikes. She turns up pregnant.

Now, Joseph knows how women get pregnant, and Joseph knows for a fact that he is not the daddy. He is overwhelmed by feelings of disappointment, and embarrassment, and betrayal. He can’t bear to even think of her. How could he have been so wrong about her? How could she be so different from what she seems? He is crushed. But, he is also sensible, and he knows that he can recover his plan for his life. He is a good man, so he won’t raise a stink about it, but he will quietly divorce Mary.

And then God comes to him. In a dream. Gotta watch those dreams. Our defenses are down when we sleep. In our house, Charlotte and I have a piece of artwork by Brian Andreas. It has a picture on it, and it says, "Most of the stuff I say is true, because I saw it in a dream, and I don’t have the presence of mind to make up lies when I’m asleep."

In dreams, God can tiptoe in, careful not to wake us, and mess up our tidy lives. You know what God said to Joseph in his dream. An angel appears in the dream and says the most amazing, astounding, unlikely, improbable, ridiculous, absolutely insane things: "Conceived from the Holy Spirit." "Name him Jesus." (Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, which in Hebrew means "God saves.") "Name him Jesus because he will save his people from sin." "He is the fulfillment of prophecy." "He shall be the one whose life means ‘Emmanuel,’ or ‘God with us.’"

Crazy stuff. Messy. Untidy. Definitely not part of the plan. Joseph wakes up from his dream, sweating. He knows he has two choices: to follow the path of the tidy, well planned life of his father and his father and his father before him, or to follow the path of this amazing, astounding, unlikely, improbable, ridiculous, absolutely insane message from an angel in a dream.

And it all depended on the path Joseph chose. Whether God could be "Emmanuel," whether God could be with us, whether there would be a Christmas two thousand years ago, all depended on Joseph’s answer when God wanted to mess up his tidy, well planned life..

Whether God will be "Emmanuel" this Christmas all depends on your answer.