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The Family of Jesus
by the Rev. Rich Smith
December 3, 2006 - Advent 1
Jeremiah 33:14-16
When our son was about seven, he came and asked us that
most dreaded of questions: "Where did I come from?" After we gave him a
labored and somewhat detailed explanation of the facts of life, he
exclaimed, "O Wow! Johnny said he came from Iowa!"
I suppose we all need to know where we came from. And from the
tremendous interest in genealogy in our time, it would appear that a
lot of people agree. People make rather large hobbies of it, traveling
to the small towns where their ancestors lived, searching the official
records, seeking to discover who these folks were, establishing their
lineage, getting in touch with their roots. I know many of you have
done this and found your lives enriched and your sense of identity
strengthened by it.
Of course it can also be a dangerous thing: There was once a Hollywood
movie producer who spent some $30,000 in connection with his genealogy
-- $5,000 to have it looked up, and $25,000 to have it hushed up!
I’ve done enough research on my own family tree to discover that my
last name would have been "Schmidt" had it not been for World War I,
when my third generation German immigrant great-grandparents changed
it. I found as ancestors Mennonites in Pennsylvania, Vikings in Sweden,
and a 14th century English clergyman named John Ball, who was beheaded
because of his preaching. (I'm not sure if it was what he said or that
he was just so bad.... It certainly inspires me to do better! I learned
that I married my cousin, 13th cousin, or something like that, since
Pam and I both have connections to Patrick Henry! I tried very hard to
establish the link our family supposedly had to George Washington --
his mother and my grandmother had the same family name -- but the link
was mostly circumstantial. Yet it was something we grew up with -- the
idea that George Washington was a distant cousin. It made us feel
proud, and more than once my grandmother reminded us of his example
when he said, "I cannot tell a lie". But then a cousin of my mother's,
in her genealogical diggings turned up evidence disproving our claim to
be related in any way to George Washington. What a blow! Talk about
shaking up your identity! So you see it can be dangerous finding out
where you came from. You might find out you are not who you think you
are!
Now this recent interest in genealogy is not really all that new. You
can even find it in the Bible, where you will happen, from time to
time, upon long lists of names, genealogies, or "the begats" as they
are often called. President Eisenhower wrote that when he left home as
a young man, his mother gave him a Bible, and exhorted him to read it
all. "Except," she said, "You may skip the begats." And we're tempted
to do the same, because after all, they do seem rather boring, full of
obscure and unpronounceable names. But I think we make a mistake if we
do, for to the people of Biblical times who put them there, they were
most important! No one could be a priest, for instance, who could not
trace his ancestry back to Aaron, the brother of Moses, who was the
first priest. And two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, include
genealogies of Jesus, in order to establish his identity as the son of
David, and so that the earlier prophesies about who the Messiah would
be -- the "righteous branch," as we read in Jeremiah -- would be seen
as fulfilled in him.
Very important! Now as you may have followed Eishenhower’s mother’s
advice, I'm going to read Matthew’s version to you now. But since I
don't want to put you to sleep, I have annotated it so that we can
understand a bit about who these people were. And I'd like your help in
reading it. Let's pretend it's a melodrama. Some of these folks were
heroes, and should be cheered. Others were pretty much villains, and
should be booed. And others -- well, we just don't know anything about
them. Amber will hold up cue-cards to let you know what to do....
An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. (APPLAUSE/CHEERS)
The son of David. (APPLAUSE)
the son of Abraham. (CHEERS)
Abraham was the father of Isaac (APPALUSE)
who was the father of Jacob, (APPLAUSE)
(who stole his brother's birthright) (BOO)
and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
(who sold Joseph into slavery) (HISS)
and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, (HUH?)
and Perez the father of Hezron, the father of Aram, the father of
Aminadab, (HUH?)
and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, the father of Salmon,
who was the father of Boaz by Rahab the prostitute, (CHEERS/BOO)
and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, (CHEERS & APPLAUSE)
& Obed the father of Jesse, & Jesse the father of King
David.(CHRS)
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,
(whom he had murdered) (HISS)
and Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
(who was a good king but abandoned God's way for several years) (BOO)
and Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
(who had fourteen wives) (CHEERS/BOO)
and Abijah the father of Asaph,
(a good king, but who did not walk in the way of the Lord at the
end of his life so died of gangrene of the feet.) (MOAN)
and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat,
(who was a fine king ruling wisely most of the time) (APPLAUSE)
and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
who was the father of Uzziah, (whose pride brought his fall.) (BOO)
& Uzziah the father of Jotham, (a very good king in every way) (CHR)
and Jotham the father of Ahaz, (a very bad king in every way)(HISS)
and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
(who cleansed the temple and the kingdom) (CHEERS)
and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
(who ruled for forty-five years) (CHEERS)
(but who was evil for most of that time) (BOO)
and Manasseh the father of Amos,
(who did evil in the eyes of the Lord) (HISS)
and Amos the father of Josiah,
(who did right in the eyes of the Lord) (CHEERS)
Josiah the father of Jechoniah & his brothers at the time of the
deportation to Babylon. (HUH?)
And after the deportation to Babylon:
Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel,
the father of Zerubbabel,
(a governor of the people and chosen by God) (APPLAUSE)
and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, (HUH?)
the father of Eliakim, (HUH?)
the father of Azor, (HUH?)
the father of Zadok, (HUH?)
the father of Achim, (HUH?)
the father of Eliud, (HUH?)
the father of Eleazar, (HUH?)
the father of Matthan, (HUH?)
the father of Jacob, (HUH?)
the father of Joseph (APPLAUSE)
the husband of Mary, (CHEERS)
of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
(APPLAUSE & CHEERS)
So what does this tell us about Jesus' family tree? It certainly
establishes Jesus’ credentials, that Jesus was the son of David, and
the son of Abraham (legally, if not genetically, since Matthew also
tells the story of the virgin birth -- but that's another sermon!)
Matthew says in this way that Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel’s
purpose and hopes, the “righteous branch” prophesied by Jeremiah. But
there is something else, just as important, proclaimed here. Along side
all the heroes of Israel's past (the ones who got the cheers) are an
equal number of scoundrels, who in just the first fourteen generations
have already broken every one of the Ten Commandments! These are the
kind of people who, if they showed up in our family trees, would be
pruned! These are the black sheep of the family, the ones we'd rather
not talk about! And yet they do show up, right there on the Biblical
page as Jesus' ancestors. There’s no cover up here. It's Matthew's way
of saying: Okay, genealogy is important, but at the same time it's not
determinative. Heredity does not necessarily define who you will be. In
the list, bad ancestors follow good ones, and good follow bad. Bad
children come from good parents, and good children from bad parents,
just like some political families we could think of – if not our own
families!
So this genealogy of Jesus may be more interesting than we thought it
was! And there is something else, even more surprising, and that is
that within this long listing of Jesus' ancestors are the names of five
women. Now some of you may say “only five?” And there are some modern
biblical scholars who take the rather radical view that as many as
fifty per cent of Jesus’ ancestors may have been women! But we don’t
know who these women were, and normally, in Jewish and other ancient
genealogies, only male names were listed, for this was how legal
ancestry and rights of inheritance were established, through the male
line. But here are five women – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, “the wife of Uriah”
known as Bathsheeba, and Mary. Four of them are not Jewish. Ruth was a
Moabite, specifically excluded from the elect. Rahab was a prostitute,
Tamar committed a veiled form of incest, and Bathsheeba went along with
her husband Uriah’s murder so that she might marry her lover, King
David! And the final one, Mary, was an unwed pregnant teenager! What a
group! Hardly candidates for "Mother of the Year" or the Family Values
medallion of honor!
It could be that Matthew is interested in affirming that the plan of
God has often been fulfilled in unanticipated ways, and that God works
through irregular, even scandalous ways, and through women who took the
initiative, like Tamar and Ruth. But I think the main reason Matthew
included these five women is to put Jesus’ message of radical
inclusiveness front and center! Into the dominant culture of patriarchy
and Jewish nationalism, Jesus came preaching the love of God to women
as well as men, to Jew and Gentile alike, to the poor and outcast, even
to one’s enemies!
Matthew understood this. He understood the love of God embraced all and
accepted all equally. But he also knew his congregation harbored the
strong vestiges of the patriarchal and nationalistic mind set. So he
starts his Gospel with a genealogy, something they would value and
relate to – both to establish Jesus’ credentials and to challenge their
narrow world view. It’s so clever on his part, I think, just when they
think they’re reading this nice family history to slip in all this
radical, surprising stuff! Before Jesus is born, before a parable is
told, before a miracle is performed, here is the essence of the Gospel,
laid out for all who would see it. What might appear to us as a bunch
of boring begats is really an in-your-face statement of radical
inclusivity, for here is a Messiah who comes from a line that includes
Gentiles as well as Jews, and people who are not models of saintly
behavior. At the very beginning of the Gospel, Matthew summarizes
hundreds of years of God’s activity urging us to hear that upon which
the Gospel is founded – inclusivity, equality, and grace – for after
all it is by the shear Grace of God that out of this crazy, mixed-up
lineage could come the one who embodies, incarnates all of this, the
righteous branch, Jesus who is called the Christ!
Two thousand years later, that lineage continues through us! We are the
family of Jesus, not biologically, of course, but by adoption. We’re
often as errant as were his ancestors, certainly not perfect by any
means, and yet God’s grace continues to be operative, as God manages to
work through us in spite of our foibles and imperfections. And we are
called to be at least as inclusive as Jesus was, in our welcoming and
embracing of others and including them in the family which is the Body
of Christ.
Our United Church of Christ has been expressing that welcome, that
radical inclusion, for the last couple of years with our “God is Still
Speaking” ad campaign. I think most of you have seen the “Bouncer Ad”
and its successor, “The Ejector Seat,” where the kind of people
mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy, that is, those who are somehow
different, are either turned away from a church or ejected from their
pews, quite literally up through the ceiling. And always there is the
tag line, “Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are
welcome here.” It’s had a huge impact!
You may not have seen a third ad, known as “All the People.” It
features a young girl reciting the old nursery rhyme - “Here is the
church, here is the people, open the doors and see All the People,”
over a montage of many different types of people – the same ones
bounced or ejected – the point being all the people are welcome here!
This Advent this ad is being featured not on TV, but on the Internet –
you can see it at ucc.org – with a message from our General Minister
and President, John Thomas, which reads,
“The decisions we make every day have a huge impact on the lives of
others. Sometimes we feel powerless to make changes in a world often
filled with strident voices of division and exclusion. But, there is
one simple thing you can do in this Christmas season that will help
unite us. I invite you to join with thousands of members and friends of
the United Church of Christ to pray for "all the people" our friends,
family and coworkers as well as the vulnerable, the lonely and the
outcasts -- using the simple prayer below.... As we lift hearts and
hands and voices, we take a positive step towards making the world a
better place for all the people.”
And now, the prayer:
God of wonder and delight,Warm us with your love. Embrace us with your
presence. Remind us that no matter who we are,Or where we are on life's
journey, You welcome us. Fill us with comfort and joy,That we might
reflect the hope of the Christ Child.Because all the earth cries out
for peace with justice,We pray for all the people! Amen
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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