Session 2 - The “Annunciation” to Joseph

About the Facilitator: The most important element needed for the success of this class is a facilitator who is at ease with open-minded, sometimes rambling discussion. The job might rotate among several people, or one person could lead all four discussions.

Preparation: The job is the same for each meeting. Find below the list of questions and quotations that amplify the theme of the week. The facilitator’s first work is to prepare the materials: simply print off the list, cut the paper into slips so that there is one question or quotation on each slip, and put the slips into a bowl. Participants will draw a slip randomly. The facilitator moderates by inviting someone to read a slip then opening discussion, encouraging others to contribute, suggesting alternate points of view, inviting participants to ground discussion in examples and personal stories, and deciding when it’s time to move to a new topic.

Structure of the Class: The structure for each meeting is the same: after a few minutes for greetings, the facilitator will open with prayer (suggested prayers are included), lead the group in reflecting on the week’s readings from The Upper Room magazine, read the week’s scripture passage, facilitate the discussion, and close with prayer (guidelines included). If there are carryover ideas from the previous week, the facilitator can attend to those before starting the current week’s discussion.

Other Materials:

• Provide an appropriate and attractive focal point if your room allows. This can be as simple as a purple cloth and a candle, perhaps with a manger to remind participants of the Mystery at the heart of the season. You can invite different participants to set this up each week.
• To encourage fellowship and foster a livelier conversation, you might provide light refreshments and music at the beginning of each meeting. After a few minutes, invite participants to bring their food to their seats and begin the session.
• Ask participants to bring their Bibles and provide a few in the room.
• Provide index cards and pens/pencils each session.
• You will need copies of The Upper Room daily devotional guide each week.

WEEK 2: December 3-9

Opening Prayer: “Gracious God, Thank you for your presence among us tonight. Bless our time and our talk together, and help us listen for you with the open mind and open heart of Joseph. Amen.”

Invite the participants to sub-divide into groups of three or four and say, “Joseph’s example of obedience challenges us.” Give them a few minutes to look back through the week’s meditations and list the ways they see people obeying scripture or God’s nudges inside them. (You may need to distribute additional copies of the November-December issue so each person has a copy.) Invite group members to talk within their small groups about the examples of obedience they see in the week’s meditations. Ask them to identify one example they can follow in their life.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 1:18-25 Joseph’s Dream

Questions and Quotes:

• In the meditation for Sunday, December 3rd, Sharon Kidd writes, “Following her example, as I encounter children in my everyday life, I silently pray for them — by name if possible.” What children do you pray for? What do you pray?
• In her meditation for December 6th , Upper Room author Martha O’Brien tells of lighting a candle to remind herself to pray. What objects, sounds, or acts serve as a “call to prayer” for you? How could you make something in your physical environment a reminder to pray in the coming week?
• Like Mary, Joseph is in the middle of a totally unlooked-for challenge. What may be his fears, his hopes, his preoccupying thoughts?
• How do you feel when you find yourself implicated in somebody else’s deep story — that is, when suddenly you discover you’re the confidante or the witness or the one who’s got to rescue the situation or finance it? How do you know when a situation God’s challenge for you, and when it’s something to let go of?
• Joseph has five dreams in the first two chapters of Matthew, all of which guide him in the care and safety of the Christ child. See if you can name the dreams or find them in your Bible. What do these convey to you about Joseph?
• Can you draw some conclusions about our own Joseph-like roles in our time and place and culture?
• Do you think there is truth in dreams? Would you allow yourself to be guided by dream images? Discuss. Share stories if it seems appropriate.
• What are your greatest anxieties during the times that you, like Joseph, must move from a situation that is relatively comfortable and predictable to a situation that’s full of unknown, uncomfortable risk? Can you think of an example?
• Do you also feel a kind of excitement and trust in the unknown? (Stories are welcome.)
• Walter Wangerin tells a story of Joseph as a righteous man who intends to follow the Law — that is, he will not, in the face of this unexplained pregnancy, marry Mary. But he tempers his legalism with mercy, in that he will “put her away” quietly rather than claim his legal right to punish her, perhaps even by stoning. Discuss how, after the revelation about the divine child, Joseph moves into another understanding of following the law. Have you ever had a reversal like this in your thinking because of God?
• Does your family or church do anything specific to honor Joseph during the Advent and Christmas season?
• Who are the “Josephs” in your life? What do they do, and how do you honor them?
• If you were making a movie about the holy family set in contemporary America, whom would you cast as Joseph? What would be his work? Where would he live? What sort of clothes would he wear? What kind of car would he drive? What music and food would he favor?
• Share some Christmas traditions that you’ve changed over the years — things you once did but altered somehow or even eliminated to fit your growing understanding of the faith. What new practices have you tried? Discuss what you’ve changed in your celebrations and why.

Leader says: “This week's readings from The Upper Room are full of messages from an interesting assortment of messengers. Read the meditation for December 5, in which the scraps of cookie dough point to the reassurance that God works with the seemingly useless bits of our lives to make something beautiful. How is this true for you? For your church?”

Note: Look ahead to next week’s topic. You might invite participants to bring Christmas music (in the form of CDs or tapes) for next week.

Closing: Ask participants to take an index card and write down one idea or phrase that stands out from the discussion. Invite them to keep this in mind and prayer this week.

Prayer: “God, you lead us into complicated, unlooked-for situations with the apparent confidence that we have what it takes: the energy to do, the generosity to give, the talent to make, the simplicity to be. Remind us that this is true because you are with us. Grant us the courage and humility of Joseph as we help you do your work in the world. In the name of Christ. Amen.”