Aug 5 2007 "Unsavory Family Trees Spell the End, Right?"

Anyone ever had the question; why the heck do we have four stories of Jesus right after one another that say mostly the same thing, but sometimes contradict one another? The meaning of the gospels: written to specific communities first with different emphases…Gospel of Matthew was written to a primarily Jewish audience, and as we progress through the gospel, we’ll have a chance to see why Matthew wrote this way. The Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts were written by the same author to a primarily Gentile crowd. The Gospel of Mark was the first one written, and you can tell through a couple things; the two most important being that the gospel focused on two big things; the complexity and confusing nature of Jesus’ teaching and the inability of the disciples to understand that he was going to die.

Either way, I mentioned this because the gospel writers, because they had different intents with their stories or different audiences at first, emphasized some parts of Jesus’ life and de-emphasized other parts to illustrate their point. That’s why if you take a glance at the geneology of Matthew 1 and the geneology of Luke 3, there are differences between the two. That doesn’t mean the authors were liars, but genealogies were written to establish one’s family lines and prove their standing as one of God’s chosen people, so some generations are left out while others are highlighted to prove a point.

That’s what makes Matthew’s gospel so unique, because either he was a completely clueless idiot or carefully chose his genealogy to prove a shocking point. When I was at Brethren Woods Camp two weeks ago, we spent some time in the book of Ruth, and I emphasized how the story of Ruth might have been handled by the first hearers of the story. Because people weren’t walking around at this time with manuscripts in their hands of complete books of the Bible or multiple translations like we have today, quite often persons would hear stories for the first time from rabbis that would travel around from town to town teaching, and folks from the area would gather in the town center and listen to the rabbi share a story. And I’ll tell you this, the first few times some folks heard the book of Ruth, at certain points either you’d hear a bunch of folks muttering under their breath (give me some muttering), or some rustling and whispering to neighbors, or you might have an outright riot of angry Israelites on your hands. There’s a reason why Jesus accused his own people of persecuting and shedding the blood of their own prophets; because they did. They didn’t like to hear stories that turned what they thought was true about reality upside-down; and we often don’t either. Now, the story of Ruth is for another time and another day, but this genealogy would have gotten much of the same reaction that stories like Ruth got back in the day

(read story, have youth hold up signs)

Matthew writes to make us disciples of this man, Jesus, which means that we must be transformed if we are to live in obedience to this new way of doing things revealed by Jesus. The life of Jesus turned what we consider to be “normal” or “common sense” upside down, or, to put it positively, we only know what “normal” is because of his life.

Therefore, the gospels are not information where we have the option what we will take or leave. It’s not like Coldstone Creamery or Kline’s Dairy Bar where we have options in front of us, and we can decide to pick what we want. Matthew desires that we would have our understanding of the world fully transformed as the result of our reading of his gospel.

And so we recognize that this gospel exists to call attention to the fact that we are called to be disciples of Jesus. Matthew wrote knowing that many of his readers knew, as he knew, that Jesus had been killed and raised from the dead. The problem was that such knowledge did those persons little to no good unless they were trained to see reality in the way that Jesus did and live the way Jesus lived. Matthew understood that most of us will be tempted to be a member of the crowds shown in the gospel. They often impressed by Jesus’ teachings and his miracles, but when push came to shove, they called for his crucifixion. The story is a complex one with many characters, plots, defeats, and victories.

And in the first seventeen verses of his gospel, Matthew manages to tell us a great deal about the background story necessary to understand the story of Jesus. And if we miss some details along the way, we don’t need to fret because Matthew is intentionally repetitive throughout the story so his readers get the point.

The author of the gospel of Matthew, along with all those who have been a part of the people of God over the last several thousand years, want us to recognize that a Biblical perspective of reality reveals to us that the world is storied. What that means is that the people of ancient Israel and members of the church over the last 2,000 years are expected by God to assume that there is no more truthful way to understand human existence than through the story found in scripture. Creation is the first movement in the story, then human disobedience, the loss of relationship with God, the persistent human desire following to BE GOD, and God’s response of calling Abraham, the nation of Israel, kingship, sin, exile, and redemption. For Matthew, Jesus is the “summing up” of the history of Israel so that Jew and Gentile alike can now live as God’s people.

Why is Jesus identified as “the son of David, the son of Abraham?” Traditionally speaking, genealogies began at the person described first and worked backwards, but here Matthew starts with David and Abraham (which is even chronologically out of wack). Jesus is identified as the son of David, son of Abraham, because his meaning is deeply rooted in the history of Israel. Matthew reminds us time and again that “this happened to Jesus” or Jesus did or said this or that so that the scriptures could be fulfilled. “Matthew is not just running around the Bible looking for random Old Testament passages that Jesus might somehow fulfill; rather he is thinking about the shape of Israel’s story and linking Jesus’ life with key passages that root him in the story of Israel.

It is interesting to ask why Matthew names Jesus as the son of David first and the son of Abraham second. The answer may simply be that that’s just the way he wrote it, but no words or ordering of words in Scripture is without significance. David was what? And one of the most famous events in the life of Abraham happened after his one and only son had been born to Him…Matthew knows in telling of Jesus he is telling the story of one who is a king, yet a king to be sacrificed.

So smack dab at the beginning of his gospel Matthew introduces us to the central question that weaves its way all the way through the story he will tell: How can it be that the one long expected, the Messiah, the one Israel believes will free it from being under the thumb of pagan nations, will not triumph as kings do with their armies? To be trained as a disciple is to learn why this Jesus, the son of David, the one true king, must suffer crucifixion. Matthew’s gospel is meant to train us, his readers, just as Jesus had to train his disciples, to recognize that the salvation carried out on the cross is the Father’s refusal to save us according to the world’s understanding of salvation, which is that salvation depends on having more power than my enemies.

The crucial turning point in Matthew’s gospel is Peter’s confession at Caeserea Philippi. Jesus comes up to Peter and asks, “Who do you say I am?” Peter rightly confesses he is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Yet Peter rebukes Jesus when he goes on to show the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem to “be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Matt 16:13-23). Peter cannot imagine that the one to save Israel, the successor to David, should die. Jesus’ prediction of his resurrection does not, however, prevent Peter from rebuking Jesus, for Peter is unable to hear anything other than what he takes to be a prediction of failure. Peter, as well as the other disciples, is not yet prepared to comprehend how God will save not only Israel, but all of God’s creation through a crucifixion.

The crucifixion of Jesus esplains his identification as the son of Abraham. Abraham was told by God to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, the very embodiment of God’s promise to make Abraham the father of a nation. We must confess the story of sacrificing Isaac is terribly offensive to us. Yet it seems that if we are to read Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane rightly, as well as his trial and crucifixion, a sacrifice must be made so that we might be free from the sacrificial systems that dominate our lives. God restrained Abraham, providing a ram in place of Isaac; but He did not spare his only Son’s becoming for us the sacrifice that frees us from us trying to grasp salvation for ourselves on our own terms.

This human being, Jesus, the Son of God, is a king who puts an end to all the sacrifices the leaders of this world demand to give their rule legitimacy and power. Christ’s sacrifice is the one true sacrifice calling into question all sacrifices asked on behalf of lesser causes or lesser gods. That is why the rulers of this world who spend their lives trying to prove to others that their interests are most important that their citizens should give their lives for them, will finally tremble before the throne of God. One day they will have to answer for why their kingship was obsessed with power and influence and protecting their own interests while Jesus’ kingship was entirely different.

Next week we will see political power exposed in Herod’s response to the news of the birth of one identified by wise men as the “King of the Jews” when Herod does not hesitate to murder in order to secure his power.

The gospel of Matthew places a focus on the whole life of Jesus. That Jesus’ teachings and life have been separated from what some understand to be salvation reflects the accommodation of Christians to the world. As we looked at last week, Jesus does not save by dying so that by praying the “Sinner’s Prayer” a bunch of individuals can go to heaven when they die. (If that’s all that the gospel is, you’ll find that those people watch the same movies, listen to the same music, spend their time and money and have relationships that display little to no difference than their friends around them who aren’t “going to heaven when they die”) He came, lived, die, was resurrected, and sent the Holy Spirit to make us participants in a new community with a different way of living and dying and the name of that community is church.

The genealogy that Matthew provides from Abraham to Jesus is but a commentary on the extraordinary claim that with Jesus we have a new beginning. The genealogy is separated into three series, the first two consisting of fourteen generations and the last of thirteen generations. The last group has only thirteen generations because the church that Jesus calls into existence of Jews and Gentiles is meant to be the fourteenth generation.

The first series of fourteen generations is meant to tell the story of Israel’s triumph as a nation, because it ends with King David, who clearly represents for Mathew the climax of Israel’s history. David, the mighty king, the lover of justice, ruled Israel in fulfillment of the law given to Moses. But the next series of fourteen generations climaxes with the Babylonian captivity, which haunts Israel’s life all the way up to those who listened to or read Matthew’s gospel.

And the last genealogical series is about the restoration of Israel through the birth of Jesus. Now, the scandalous thing, the crazy thing about Matthew’s genealogy is that it not only includes a passel of unfaithful and downright evil kings, but it also includes four women; Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba wife of Uriah the Hittite. That Matthew names these women is unusual because the genealogies of Israel are lists that are male only. So their mention is significant. Some suggest they represent women engaged in sexually doubtful activity (And three of them do). But more likely is Matthew wielding a double-edged sword here by first mentioning women and second that all four of these women were either pagans or married to a pagan and they were grafted into Israel by God. So he means to show from the very beginning that Gentiles were meant to be a part of God’s people.

These women and the genealogy at large represent the undeniable reality that God’s promise to Israel has spread to the Gentiles and that God is not afraid of wading knee-deep into the messiness of our lives. In fact, if we run down and grasp an overview of the folks mentioned in this section, we quickly find that they are anything but an admirable group of folk.

Jacob won his position in this lineup by lying and cheating his blind father; Tamar was a pagan Canaanite woman who masqueraded as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law so she could have a kid; David was a ruthless and highly successful bandit who hung out with the Philistines before he was king, Rehoboam lost most of David’s gains through arrogance and greed; Ahaz continued his father’s ways as a sadistic mass murderer, Jehoram killed all his brothers when he got the kingship so they wouldn’t conspire against him, Ruth was a pagan woman from Moab, and Rahab was a prostitute who allowed two spies of Israel to “stay with her” while they were in Jericho. Not the most clean lineup of folks you could think of.

Matthew’s genealogy is a stark reminder that God’s plan is not always accomplished through clean-as-a-whistle people, but through disreputable people as well. And it really sets the table for the fact that Jesus did not belong to or spend all his time in the nice clean world of the people with money and prestige and reputations to protect but rather came from a family of imperfect people who did the best they could to follow God, with a generous sprinkling of murderers, cheats, cowards, adulterers, prostitutes, pagans and liars in the mix. And so he wasn’t afraid to get down and messy with the issues of folks’ lives he ministered to. Nobody was too messy for him to spend time with, to love, and to transform. And all of us are those folks deep down, even if we seem clean and together to those around us. He didn’t float down on a cloud in gleaming white clothes and refuse to touch us nasty people, but instead rode on a donkey, grasped the hands and arms of people whose limbs were rotting and falling off, wept when his friends died, and was angry at those who used religion to chain folks down. He belonged to us and came to help us, was murdered because of that commitment, and through his resurrection gave us hope for the future through our circumstances.

And so Matthew’s gospel begins in a surprising way for his hearers and the readers.