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I love recycling Thanksgiving leftovers
(last night we had turkey pot pie!). It’s great for
a while, but then it gets old, and tastes too recycled and
too old. I grew up in a tradition that didn’t celebrate
the church calendar much (including Advent), because we feared
that it meant recycling leftovers, that it would be old,
irrelevant, and just going through the motions…and,
I guess, there is that danger in tradition. But I have grown
to love watching and waiting to see how God will bring this
season to life.
Our passage today is one that we could be in danger of seeing
as old, irrelevant, or recycled…but thankfully God
breathes new life into all his Word (all quotations NRSV,
in italics):
Malachi 4:5-6, the
last words of the Old Testament…
5 Lo, I will send you
the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of
the Lord comes. 6 He will
turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts
of children to their parents, so that I will not come and
strike the land with a curse.
…and God’s voice was silent (at least
400 years of silence), and the people of God waited…
Matthew 1:1-18a,
1 An account of the genealogy
of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham
was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob...
Dan Baumgartner: Wait …Jacob?
The sneaky guy who tricked his twin brother out of his
birthright, and who tricked his uncle Laban out of his
best of his flocks, and who wrestled with God himself at
the stream?
Steve: Yeah, that
Jacob.
Dan:
...and Jacob the father
of Judah and his brothers,
Steve: Hold on…you
mean the
brothers who kidnapped their brother Joseph and sold
him into slavery?
Dan: Yep, them.
Steve:
3 and
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar...
Dan: Tamar? The woman
who pretended to be a prostitute, and tricked her father-in-law
into sleeping with her after her husband died, and had
a twins by him?
Steve: Yeah, that
Tamar.
Dan:
...and Perez the father
of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4 and
Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of
Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and
Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab...
Steve: Rahab? The
Canaanite whore who hid the two Israelite spies in her
home? What’s
she doing in this?
Dan: Yep, Rahab’s
here.
Steve:
...and Boaz the father
of Obed by Ruth...
Dan: Ruth? The Moabite widow who had the complicated
second marriage? She wasn’t even an Israelite!
Steve: Yeah, that
Moabite Ruth.
Dan:
...and Obed the father
of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the
father of King David...
Steve: David?
The guy who slept with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, got
her pregnant, and had Uriah killed to cover it all up?
Dan: Yeah, that was
King David.
Steve:
...And David was the father of Solomon
by the wife of Uriah, 7 and
Solomon the father of Rehoboam...
Dan: Rehoboam? How
did he make it in here? That dense Israelite king who listened
to his cronies instead of his elders, and ended up with
a divided kingdom?
Steve: One and the
same, Rehoboam.
Dan:
...and Rehoboam the
father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and
Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father
of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah,
Steve: Uzziah? The king who allowed
Judah to worship other gods, and who God struck with leprosy?
Dan: Yeah, Uzziah
the leper.
Steve:
9 and
Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz,
and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Dan: Hezekiah?
The naïve king who showed the Babylonian delegation all
the national treasures, so that they would plunder them
and take God’s people into exile?
Steve: Yeah,
Hezekiah, that’s the guy.
Dan:
10 and
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father
of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and
Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the
time of the deportation to Babylon.
12 And after the deportation
to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and
Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of
Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and
Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim,
and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and
Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of
Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and
Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary,
Steve: Mary? Mary the teenage girl
who got pregnant out of wedlock, and claimed the Holy Spirit
was responsible?
Dan: Yeah, that
Mary… of
whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
Steve:
17 So
all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations;
and from David to the deportation to Babylon , fourteen generations;
and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen
generations.
Dan:
18 Now
the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way…
Genealogies aren’t normally the
parts of the Bible that we get real excited about. We don’t
memorize them, most of us skip over them when we read, we
joke about how we can’t possibly pronounce the names
correctly (although I think Dan got pretty close on that
last set!). Let’s face it, at first glance anyway,
genealogies like this are tedious and boring.
My Great Uncle Leroy is the family historian and genealogist.
And Great Uncle Leroy compiles somewhat regular editions
of my family genealogy…over 200 years of Lympus family
blood-lines and history: births, marriages, divorces, deaths,
and all kinds of stuff in between. (I thought we could read
some passages out loud, but Dan wouldn’t go for it.)
Other important books have genealogies too, like The
Lord of the Rings (I think Dan actually
would be up for reading passages from this…but I’ll
refrain!).
So Matthew’s genealogy might seem really long to
us…but it’s really not, at least not in comparison.
And it was certainly not long and boring to a first-century
Jew. For in their culture, the importance of pedigree – a
pure Jewish background, no foreign bloodlines – was
crucial. This was anyone’s proper introduction, not
as much where I come from, but who I come
from. The infamous King Herod the Great (who we meet later
in the story) was actually hated because word had it he was
half Edomite (as well as Jewish), and so Herod destroyed
his ancestral records to protect himself.
A Jewish genealogy of this time period was not used strictly
for biological descent, but also (and maybe more importantly)
for identity and status…genealogies told people who
you were. Often in the Old Testament, someone’s genealogy
determined their office or vocation (priest, soldier, farmer,
etc.). It’s not so different with Jesus and his genealogy.
Matthew tells us that this Jesus
is the…
Son of David: a synonym at the time for
the Messiah, the King of kings. By mentioning “Son
of David,” the genealogy already tells us that Jesus
is royal, he is the King.
Then Matthew tells us that Jesus is the…
Son of Abraham: Abraham, who God had
called and given the original blessing to, and to whom God
said “in you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Jesus came not for a few,
but for all people (Matthew 28, “make disciples of
all nations”). By mentioning “Son of Abraham,” this
Jewish genealogy already tells us that Jesus came for more
than the Jews…Jesus came for us all.
No wonder Dale Bruner says that this “is not only genealogy,
it is theology.” Jesus is the King who came
to save us all.
The Christ, the Messiah was about to be born, and this
was surely a new beginning –but this was not the
beginning, not the first beginning. See, Matthew is
telling us something else…
This passage starts and ends in a similar way:
“An account of the genealogy (literally
genesis) of Jesus the Messiah…now the genesis of Jesus
the Messiah took place in this way…”
Matthew is trying to tell us that the story of Jesus didn’t
begin when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary…the story
began ages before, when Abraham was blessed – and even
before that, before Creation. God was making a new beginning
with the birth of Jesus. But this was not the first beginning.
There was a story of
Jesus that stretched back far beyond the beginning of time
itself. Matthew picks up that story with Abraham, and
traces it all the way to…Joseph, Jesus’ legal
father but no biological connection. An adopting father gets
a full lineage – isn’t that something? – this
son of a virgin mother was a descendant of King David, through
his adoptive father, Joseph. Thinking of all the fathers
and mothers here at Bethany who have adopted, I love that.
But between Abraham and Joseph, Jesus had a pretty dysfunctional
family tree…Eugene Peterson is advocating for
the removal of the term “dysfunctional” in
relation to persons. People are people, “functionality” sounds
like we’re talking about kitchen appliances.
Certainly “functionality” is not a prerequisite
for being in God’s family. For Pete’s sake, just look
at the mixed bag of people who show up in Jesus’ family
line:
- There were some kings who walked in the ways of God,
and many kings who failed miserably and brought God’s
people to ruin.
- There were younger brothers who weren’t even supposed
to be carrying on the family line.
- There were some faithful people, but also scoundrels
and cheaters, prostitutes and adulterers, the foolish and
the easily-fooled.
- You don’t have to be a perfect “saint” to
be in Jesus’ family tree. After all, salvation happens
in unlikely ways, to unlikely people.
Speaking of “unlikely people,” there
are these four women in Jesus’ genealogy: women were
not normally found in ancient Jewish genealogies, women had
little legal standing and were regarded in much of the ancient
world as possessions of fathers and husbands.
Now if Matthew was wanting to rock the boat and include
some women, why not mention the four Old Testament
matriarchs – Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah – the
models of faith? These four are even in the flannel-graphs!
Instead, he mentions four other women who
are either foreigners (non-Jewish outsiders) or caught
up in some sexual scandal – or both. Four women
who were also used and victimized, or chastised…
Then there’s Mary! “Mary, of whom
Jesus was born.” Mary, who doesn’t even have
a biological father for her child…just a hard-to-tell
story about the Holy Spirit impregnating her.
Even here in an ancient genealogy—the most boring
place—the walls are coming down: walls between Jew/Gentile,
man/woman, sinner/saint…Jesus who came not for the
righteous but for the sinners (Matthew 9:16 ) also came from sinners!
This genealogy has the gospel message written all over it.
And this genealogy even has a “gospel
shape”…14 generations, 14 generations, 14 generations:
- First 14 generations, the rise from
Abraham—an
obscure shepherd—to David, the shepherd turned
Kingdom-builder who made Israel a world power. This is
the story of triumph.
- Second 14 generations, the fall from
grace, King David to the Babylon Exile, the lowest point,
shame and sorrow, God’s judgment. This is the story
of tragedy.
- Third 14 generations, from Babylon to
Christ. When God’s people were lost and hopeless
in exile, God began shaping salvation again. A “root
out of dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2). As in the first
Genesis (1:2), “darkness covered the face of the
deep…” but the Spirit was moving over the
chaos, doing something new. This is the story of triumph through tragedy,
and that’s the shape of redemption…the
shape of Jesus’ story.
This is the “gospel shape” of our story too…the
glory of being created human, the tragedy of the falling
into sin, and then redemption in Christ. This is a genealogy
today—a Genesis, a new beginning—for any
one of us who thinks that they’re too much of a loser
to be of any interest to God. God loves losers…after
all, this is the God who sends his Son into the world as
a helpless child, a poor son of an insignificant carpenter
and his teenage wife, living in the backwater town of Nazareth.
- He will come into the world as a child, and he will overcome
barriers of race,
- He will overcome barriers of gender,
- He will overcome barriers of sin,
- He will be overcome on a Cross…and
then he will overcome death.
Salvation still happens in unlikely
ways to unlikely people, people like you and me, who make
room for God to move in their lives. Friends, he is coming… the
Savior of the past, the present, the future—the Savior
of our past, our present, our future…he is coming.
Let us “prepare him room.”
And Jesus makes room for all of us, here at his Table,
this Communion Table.
Jesus later said, “many will come from east and west
and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom
of Heaven …” (Matthew 8:11). If there is room
in Christ’s genealogy for all these sinners, then surely
there is room at Christ’s Table for you and me.
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