A Advent 2 Pilg AL 2022
Matthew 1:1-17
December 4, 2022
(Trigger warning: Within this sermon are allusions to sexual violence.)
As
I hope anybody who has been a part of our Bible 101 and Bible 201 classes can
tell you, I don’t get really excited about providing answers when it comes to
Bible study. Certainty and answers are
not what the Bible even tries to provide.
What really gets me going, has me super stoked, is when the class starts
to realize that many of the questions they have long had, questions many people
thought disqualified them from garnering meaning from the Bible, are the real
and true questions needed to engage Biblical story, parable, and genealogy. And that happened in both Bible 101 and Bible
201.
Wonderful
questions, great questions by people in each class showed folks to be deep and
courageous thinkers, willing to challenge the tradition they grew up to
sometimes feel isolated our out of place in that tradition. The two Bible studies described who we are as
a United Church of Christ church. We are
a people of good questions rather than certainty and final answers—true of any
healthy and deep and whole spirituality.
In
that vein, I would like to read the gospel passage for today, one rarely
included in church services. It is the genealogy
of Jesus, according to the writer of Matthew.
I don’t know about you, but when I first began reading the Bible, all of
those “begats” added to my boredom with the Bible. Puhlllllease.
Why? Why include all these
begats?
The ”begats” are
important. And this one is different and
unique. The Biblical text is usually
male-dominated, patriarchal, particularly genealogies. In other words, Biblical genealogies are
exclusively male in tracing our ancestors.
Except this one. Matthew’s
genealogy includes some interesting females from the stories of faith.
Begore we begin, I’ll
need a good question from you to help me move through Matthew’s genealogy, as a
way of imagining how that genealogy must have fallen on the ear of the reader
or listener in ancient times.
Six
years ago, Dean James Ryan gave the address at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education’s diploma ceremony.[1] Ryan told the soon-to-be graduates that life
had five essential questions. The first
one was, “Wait. What?” as in talking to his kids, the first thing
they must hear from him is “Blah, blah, blah, blah,” and then he breaks into
their consciousness with “and then clean your room.”
“Wait. What?” they respond. This is a question of clarification to ensure
understanding, a question to ask before making decisions or coming to
conclusions. The “wait” is a reminder
that we need to slow down to make sure we truly understand. Dean Ryan goes on to share that the final
question is, to which hopes the graduates will all respond, “I did,” is, from a
poem by Raven Carver called, “Late fragment.”[2] In that poem, Carver asks, “Did you get what
you wanted out of life, even so.” Even
so, is a wonderfully poetic phrase which reminds us that there will be tragedy,
trauma, pain, and suffering in life. Did
you get what you wanted out of life, even so—even with the tragedy, trauma, and
pain? And the answer in the poem is, “I
did. I wanted to call myself beloved, to
know myself as seen.” I am able to say,
“I did,” because I faithfully moved through life’s essential questions.
So I am going to read
through the genealogy of Jesus responsively.
Responsively, because when I say one of the women included in the
genealogy, you all are going to be great United Church of Christ people and ask
that great clarification, “Wait, what?”
And then I will help with the clarification. When you hear the females in the story of
faith—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, Bathsheb—I would like you to
respond with, “Wait, what?”
Ready? Matthew, chapter 1, verses 1 through, well,
we’ll go through about the first seven verses.
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, and Jacob the father of
Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of
Perez and Zerah by Tamar,
Wait,
what?
Tamar disguised
herself as a prostitute and deceived Judah, her father-in-law, in order to have
sex with him, become pregnant from that sex, and have a child from him. From
this union, Perez was born
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,
Wait
what?
Rahab wasn’t even a Jew or Israelite. But was a foreign woman who was a prostitute
living in Jericho who hid the messengers Joshua sent to spy in Jericho.
and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth,
Wait
what?
Ruth the Moabite was certainly not a Jew and did something that must surely have felt
“improper”: after Boaz had eaten and drunk… she came softly, uncovered his
feet (a euphemism for genitalia in the Hebrew Bible) and lay down. In other
words, Ruth offered to have sex with Boaz to redeem her life and the life of
her mother-in-law.
and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and
Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of
Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7
Wait what?
Well,
the wife of Uriah was Bathsheba, who was married to a Hittite and raped by King
David. She lost this pregnancy but was
later taken as David’s wife and gave birth to the child who would become King
Solomon.[3]
I’m going to end it there, the final
woman mentioned in the genealogy being Mary who gave birth to Jesus. All of these women named by the writer of
Matthew, sexually suspect in some way, all of them included in genealogies that
are almost always exclusively male.
Could it be that Matthew includes these women to say something about
Mary of Nazareth?
Just before the birth of Jesus, the city of Sepphoris was
considered a Jewish city of rebellion, strongly anti-Roman, and within view of
the rural community of Nazareth. When
King Herod the Great died, Jews saw an opportunity, and revolted. Rome had had enough. Quinctilius Varus marched with his legions from
Antioch and burned Sepphoris to the ground, wiping the city off of the map and
then turning to do that to the city of Emmaus.
Men of fighting age would have been slaughtered or enslaved. Every implement of rebellion or revolt
impounded, taken as treasure, or burned.
All of the women would have been raped.
This was the way the Roman Empire, the Roman legions would have
maintained the peace, by crushing any hope of conquered peoples, to traumatize those
already living in so much poverty, sickness, and death.
Wait. What? What do we think the writer of Matthew is
trying to say to include these women in the genealogy of Jesus, to then also
include Mary of Nazareth?
I share this genealogy so that all of us might be able to see
ourselves in the Biblical story. Too
often we think the story of faith is about pretty, romantic stories that are
for the “in crowd,” the ones who live charmed lives, the people who live lives
without pain or blemish or suffering or death.
What I want us all to hear is that if our lives have been messy, maybe
filled with trauma, or a life that has sometimes felt like everything has been
against you, what these stories tell us, is that we can get what we want out of
life, even so. That even so, even when
our lives might be marked by pain or torment, we can know that we are beloved
by God, seen by God.
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary of Nazareth were beloved
by God, seen by God. Into such a
scandalous family tree, Jesus is born, to bring a different kind of peace. So let us continue to be people of questions,
remembering that though we may think our lives too scandalous for us to be
known as beloved or seen by God, the scandalous has already been written into
the story for us.
Too often, during this time when we tell the Christmas story, we
read these stories with so much romanticism and a lack of critical questioning
that we wonder how we might be worthy of them—that there must be something we
do to believe this season is written on behalf of the scandalous, the suspect,
and those who are regularly seen as unworthy.
Do not believe that anything we have done or that has been done to
us has taken us outside God knowing us as beloved and seen. For we are.
Wait, what? Yes, that’s
right. Did you get what you wanted out
of this life, even so? We did. For in this story, that tells us of the
ancestors of Jesus, the family of faith, we know we are beloved. And we are seen. Amen.
[1] “Dean
James Ryan’s 5 Essential Questions in Life,” Harvard Graduate School of
Education, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW0NguMGIbE&ab_channel=HarvardGraduateSchoolofEducation
[2] Raymond
Carver, “Late fragment,” A New Path to the Waterfall, Atlantic Monthly
Press, 1990.
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