Sermon 12/05/04
Second Sunday of Advent
Mt 1:1-17The Five Women in Jesus’ Past This morning, instead of talking about John the Baptist for the umpteenth time, I thought it would be fun to preach on the Jesus’ genealogy as found in Matthew. I decided to have it printed and inserted into the bulletins this morning because the only thing I can think of that is worse than hearing someone preach on the genealogy is to hear someone read it!
Yet I actually think that this is eerily relevant today. In yesterday’s edition of The Monterey County Herald there was an article about two of the major television networks refusing to air an ad which was produced by the United Church of Christ. The article began by describing the ad:
•
• As church bells chime in the background, a burly bouncer guards the velvet ropes at the church entrance. “No, step aside, please,” he tells two men holding hands. “I don’t think so,” he says to a young black girl, blocking her entrance. A Latino man and a person in a wheelchair are also denied entry. The scene fades to black and a message: “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.”
By Bonnie Miller Rubin and Manya A. Brachear of the Chicago Tribune, published in the Monterey County Herald on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2004
The article goes on to describe some of the controversy this stirred:
•
• . . . two major networks have declined to air the ad, deeming it “too controversial” because it champions one side of the public debate on gay relationships. Spokespersons for both CBS and NBC cited longstanding policies against accepting what is known as issue advertising.
An explanation from CBS said that the network found the spot unacceptable because it challenges the exclusion of minorities by other institutions and because “the Executive Branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Ibid.
The article went on to quote a professor of religion, Alan Wolfe, who said,
•
• “CBS and NBC seem to be afraid, not of stirring controversy, but of alienating potential viewers, the kind, moreover, that like to organize boycotts and write letters,” Wolfe said. “There may be a new form of political correctness arising in America, one in which attempts are made to avoid violating the sensibilities, not of women or racial minorities, but of conservative Christians.”
Ibid.
As we shall see this morning, the Bible violates these sensibilities more often than we realize!
Let’s keep this issue in mind as we explore the first seventeen verses of Matthew’s gospel.
It is very unusual that women are named in Matthew’s genealogy, particularly the first four women (Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the fifth). What did they have in common with Mary? Why just these four?
What did Matthew know about these five women based on the literary material he was familiar with?
Is Matthew trying to tell us something about the kind of person Jesus would be?
Matthew’s genealogy (just like Luke’s) is clearly not historical fact. It’s a theological statement which makes the claim that Jesus is a descendant of David and of Abraham. It’s legitimizing him. Matthew, who is the most Jewish of all the gospel writers, does this by including in his genealogy four women with infamous reputations which would be well known to anyone familiar with the Torah.
Tamar
A woman who pretended to be a prostitute
Genesis 38
Tamar was married to Er, a son of Judah. Er was “wicked in the sight of Yahweh and Yahweh slew him.”
Er’s brother Onan is now obliged to marry Tamar and produce a son for his dead brother. But when Onan sleeps with Tamar he practices a culturally taboo form of birth control we call coitus interruptus, for which he too gets slain by Yahweh. But there is another brother left, Shelah, who is now obligated to marry Tamar and produce a son but his father, Judah, fears a similar fate will befall Shelah so he sends Tamar back to her parent’s home to wait for Shelah to “grow up.”
Tamar soon realizes that Judah has no intention of allowing Shelah to marry her and thus fulfill his obligation, so she takes matters into her own hands. She dresses as a prostitute, puts a veil over her face, and waits beside a road where she knows her father-in-law, Judah, will pass. Judah does indeed pass by and mistaking her to be a harlot, has intercourse with her. When he is unable to pay for her services, Tamar insists that he give her his seal and his staff as a pledge for payment later.
Several months pass and Tamar is now obviously pregnant. Since both her husbands have been dead for a while now, she is accused of harlotry and her father-in-law, Judah, still unaware of his involvement in this situation, pronounces the death penalty for her. Tamar then produces the seal and staff of the man who impregnated her. Judah immediately recognizes them as his, overturns the death sentence and says, “She is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” (Gen 38:26)
Jane Schaberg writes,
•
• This strange ending to the story leaves the reader with the impression of a legitimized illegitimacy. Tamar herself has acted to secure her rights and demonstrate her righteousness. Suspected of bringing death and disgrace, she has in the end brought life . In truth, she shows more loyalty to the name of Judah than Judah himself does. She risks her life in order to bear a son who would continue her husband’s name and the covenant promise. And she is rewarded for these actions. Judah’s acknowledgment of Tamar as the mother of his children-to-be regularizes her position in society.
“Before Mary: The Ancestresses of Jesus,” p. 14f of BR vol. xx, no. 6, December 2004
I find it even more interesting to note that the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria “hailed Tamar as a sign of victory, and of chastity ‘inviolate, undefiled and truly virginal.’”
(Ibid., p. 15)
Rahab
A prostitute
Joshua 2 and 6
Joshua sends two of his men to spy on the Canaanite city of Jericho in preparation for an attack upon it. While they are in the city they decide to check out a local prostitute, Rahab, and spend the night with her. Since we are not told why they visit Rahab, the prostitute, we must assume it is for the usual reasons!
When the king of Jericho learns that spies are lodging in the city he sends his soldiers out to search for them. When the soldiers get to her house, Rahab hides Joshua’s men on her roof and sends the soldiers off on a false trail. She then helps the men escape after getting them to promise that she and her family will be allowed to live when they return with their fellow Israelites and conquer the city. After the battle of Jericho, Joshua honors this promise.
Schaberg writes,
•
• Rahab, like Tamar, was a survivor in the world of men. Through her ingenuity and faith, she saved the spies from the Canaanites and her own family from the Israelites. Rabbinic tradition emphasizes Rahab’s extreme generosity in order to emphasize her repentance and conversion to Israel’s god. . . . [Also] According to rabbinic tradition, Rahab later marries Joshua and becomes the ancestress of several prophets. The tradition Matthew cites, in which Rahab marries Salmon and gives birth to Boaz, is not known from any other source.
(Ibid., p. 16f)
Rahab is also mentioned is two other New Testament texts, Hebrews 11:31 in which she is held up as a model of faith, and James 2:25 in which she is an example of someone who is justified by their good works. According to the Bible, Rahab is a good prostitute.
Ruth
A sexually forward widow
The Book of Ruth
Ruth gets a whole book in the Bible named after her! Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi are both childless widows, social misfits, with little or no security, worth, protection or identity in the male-dominated culture of their day. They have been living in Moab for many years when Naomi decides to return to her homeland in Judah, particularly, Bethlehem. Ruth decides to join her though she will be an outsider in Naomi’s homeland.
Not long after they arrive in Bethlehem, and with encouragement from Naomi, Ruth charms and seduces Boaz, a rich relative of Naomi’s. They get married and Ruth will become the great-grandmother of King David. The significance of this lies in the fact that Ruth was a Moabite and the Torah forbade Moabites and their descendants from being included in Israel’s covenant. Duet 23:4 says;
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• No Ammonite or Moabite, nor their descendants, not even to the tenth generation, shall become a member of the community of Yahweh.
So there are several scandals here: Ruth’s ethnicity which should have jeopardized David’s status as an Israelite, and her forwardness in sleeping with Boaz before they were married which easily could have earned her a reputation as a harlot.
Bathsheba
A woman taken in adultery
2 Samuel 11
Matthew refers to her as “the wife of Uriah,” he doesn’t even write her name. This is a blatant slap on the face for David.
Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah. She had a reputation for her stunning beauty. King David spies her from the rooftop of his palace one day as she is bathing. He sends a servant to bring her to him and they have sex. Later, Bathsheba realizes that she is pregnant and that her husband, Uriah, could not possibly be the father because he has been away at battle for quit some time. David brings Uriah home from the battlefield so that Bathsheba and Uriah can sleep together and thus prevent anyone from being the wiser when the child is born, but Uriah refuses to enjoy the luxury of his home while his fellow soldiers are sleeping out in the open field in the midst of a war.
So David plots to send Uriah back to the battlefield and instructs his generals to put him into the thick of the fighting without any back-up or protection. Essentially, David sends Uriah to his death. Uriah is killed in battle and after his wife, Bathsheba had made lamentation for her husband, David marries her and she bares him a son.
The Biblical narrative makes it very clear that David’s actions were displeasing to God. The son born to Bathsheba and David dies and the prophet Nathan warns David that there is even more tragedy ahead as punishment for his behavior.
Bathsheaba seems to be just a victim or a pawn in all this. She is not proactive as the Tamar, Rahab and Ruth were. She and David do have another son, Solomon. Bathsheba is instrumental in Solomon’s acquisition of the throne.
Mary
Now we get to the real question behind all this: What do these four women have in common with Mary that would explain their inclusion in Matthew’s genealogy?
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• 1) All find themselves outside the mainstream patriarchal family structure of their time.
2) All have been wronged. (In Mary’s case she is about to be wronged when an angel intervenes to convince Joseph to go ahead with the marriage.)
3) All, in their sexual activity, risk damage to the social order and their own condemnation, shame and disgrace.
Ibid., p. 23
Is Matthew responding to rumors of improprieties on the part of Mary or the illegitimacy of Jesus’ conception and birth by inserting into the genealogy four women with spotty reputations who are all redeemed by their faithfulness to Yahweh as exemplified in their roles in the history of Israel and in carrying forward the lineage of Judah? There were rumors of a scandal surrounding Jesus’ birth since Joseph was allegedly not Jesus’ biological father.
Was he in essence saying, why yes, all these women may have had spotty reputations but look at the big picture and the role they played in history?
I certainly think that he was making the case that Mary, by giving birth to Jesus, had just as significant a role in the history of Israel as these other four women.
And I think he was also foreshadowing the kind of people that would be included in the coming kindom of God as Jesus preached and practiced it. God’s family includes a lot of folk we probably wouldn’t include. And if we can’t include and welcome women like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary then we won’t be able to welcome Jesus, either.
When Jesus grows up he will have a lot to say about welcoming the outcast, excluded and oppressed, even when this challenges our cultural taboos or codes of honor and shame. (Although we probably won’t hear about this from NBC or CBS!)
Despite their spotty, sometimes scandalous reputations, these five women share a special place of honor from Matthew’s point of view. They also serve to remind us that how we treat people who live outside the traditional family structure today may reveal more about our true Christian values, or lack thereof, than the moral self-righteousness and fear-based condemnation and exclusivism of many religious conservatives today.
For Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary, and all that they have to teach us about following our brother Jesus today let us say, “Thanks be to God!”
• Matthew 1:1-17
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
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.
Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
•
• “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of Yahweh,
make the paths of God straight.’ ”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
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