Beginnings
The
First United Presbyterian Church
“Beginnings”
Rev.
Amy Morgan
January
19, 2020
Jeremiah 1:1-10
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the
priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
2 to
whom the word of the LORD came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah,
in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3 It
came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the
end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the
captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
4 Now
the word of the LORD came to me saying,
5
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I
consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
6 Then
I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a
boy."
7 But
the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a boy'; for you shall go to
all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.
8 Do
not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD."
9 Then
the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.
10
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull
down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."
Matthew 1:1-17
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, 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, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, 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 and Solomon the father of
Rehoboam, 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,
9 and Uzziah the father of
Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
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, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
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.
My dad and my sister both decided in the last couple of years to get one
of those DNA tests that tell you about your ancestry. Not surprisingly, they
learned that we are mostly a mix of English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish and
Northern European heritage. Our ancestors have been in this country since at
least the War of 1812. We don’t have genetic markers for any serious illnesses.
And my sister may be genetically inclined to dislike cilantro.
This kind of detailed, biological information…is not what we find
in the Gospel of Matthew. Ancient Jewish genealogies were rare, with the
exception of kings and priests. And even those genealogies were constructed,
not with an eye toward historical accuracy, but with the intention of telling a
meaningful story.
The word the NRSV translates as genealogy is actually the Greek word
genesis. As in the first book of the Hebrew bible. It’s meaning is much
richer than simply a list of names connecting Jesus to Abraham and David. In
Greek, the first sentence of the New Testament reads: The book of the genesis
of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. This is the book of Genesis for
Christians, the beginning of a new story for all humanity.
Like any good story, Matthew’s genesis story has structure, meaning, and
purpose.
He organizes the generations numerically: 14 from Abraham to David, 14 from
David to the deportation to Babylon, and 14 from the deportation to Babylon to
the Messiah (though if you count carefully there are only 13 generations in
that last grouping). Like many of us involved in theology, Matthew’s not great
at math. (How do you think Christians came up with the Trinity?)
The numerical construct is more important than historical accuracy for
Matthew. Anyone can trace this genealogy through the Hebrew scriptures and see
that there are three kings missing in the lineage as well as gaps of hundreds
of years between some of the generations. Again, Matthew isn’t concerned about
historical or biological record. He’s constructing theological meaning.
Both the number 14 and its derivative, the number 7, were thought to be
significant and sacred numbers in ancient Israel. Hebrew letters had numerical
values, and the value of the letters in the name David add up to 14. The number
7 represents creation, good fortune, and blessing. Just in the way Matthew
structures this genealogy, we’re to understand that Jesus is the promised king
in the line of David, the one anointed to bring God’s reign to earth; he is
destined to inaugurate a new creation, and he is blessed by God in this
mission.
Also hidden in this genealogy is a subversive message of inclusion.
Unlike the genealogy of Jesus found in Luke’s Gospel, Matthew includes 5 women:
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, “the wife of Uriah,” whom we can only assume is Bathsheba,
and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now, some of these names may be familiar to you,
and some might not.
Tamar was the Canaanite wife of Judah’s eldest son, who died
prematurely. In this case, strange as it sounds, Judah was obligated to take
Tamar as his wife, but he refused to do so. So Tamar dressed up as a
prostitute, and Judah took the bait. When Tamar shows up pregnant after this
encounter, Judah is ready to put her to death. Tamar then ingeniously proves
that Judah is the father, and he instead declares her righteous.
There’s no evidence anywhere in the Old Testament or extrabiblical
Jewish texts for including Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho, in a Davidic
genealogy. She wasn’t an Israelite. And the timeline doesn’t match up by about
200 years. But here she is, mentioned in the most sacred of all family trees.
We likely know the story of Ruth. She’s got a whole book of the bible
named after her. She was faithful to her mother-in-law, Naomi, and caught the
eye of Naomi’s kinsman, Boaz. The book of Ruth makes it clear that she is the
grandmother of King David. What is remarkable, though, is that Ruth is another
outsider, a Moabite who marries into the Israelite lineage. Later Jewish law
dictates that the people of Moab be specifically excluded from Israelite
community, even after 10 generations. What is she doing in the lineup of Jesus’
foremothers?
And then there is “the wife of Uriah.” She isn’t named. But what she is
called is significant. King David marries Bathsheba before she gives birth to
Solomon. Matthew could have simply said, “And David was the father of Solomon
by Bathsheba.” All the other women in this genealogy have names. But Matthew
chooses to call special attention to the sin of King David. He doesn’t wipe it
away or hide it, as David himself tried to do. Matthew puts Israel’s shame on public
display in the lineage of Jesus.
Prostitutes and pretend prostitutes. Foreigners and enemies. Reminders
of a shameful past. These are the women included in the story of Jesus, up
until his mother is named. She is not called a virgin or anything special at
all. She’s simply defined by her relationships to her husband and son, squeezed
in the middle of male identity.
I would love to, someday, preach a sermon focused just on these women
included in Matthew’s genealogy. But alas, that is not the sermon the Holy
Spirit gifted to me this week. But the inclusion of these women does provide insight
into Matthew’s purpose in constructing this unlikely genealogy. The male
players are famous forefathers, kings and prophets. He includes the good with
the bad, the righteous and the wayward. But what the women in this genealogy
tell us is that the family of Jesus, and therefore the family of God, includes
those who count for nothing, those who were specifically excluded. The hope and
promise and redemption of Jesus Christ is for everyone.
The word genesis does not simply imply a story of the past.
Genesis is the beginning of a story that continues. Some scholars believe that
Matthew’s use of the word genesis in the first sentence of his gospel indicates
that the whole gospel, not just this opening genealogy, is the beginning of the
story. All 28 chapters of Matthew are equivalent to the first 2 chapters of the
Hebrew book of Genesis. And, just like Genesis goes on for another 48 chapters
and spills out into the rest of the Pentateuch, Matthew’s genesis extends past
the closing words of Jesus, “And remember, I am with you always, even to the
end of the age.”
The genesis, the genealogy of Jesus, persists through all the ages. Not
through his bloodline since, as far as we know, he had no offspring.
The continuing genealogy of Jesus, like the one given to us by Matthew,
is theological, not biological. His theological descendants include his
disciples, who are sent to “all nations.” They include Paul, and Tabitha, and
Lydia. They include martyrs like Perpetua and Stephen, desert mystics and
Christian apologists.
Once Christianity merged with the powers of empire, the picture gets
muddy. Like Matthew, we might pick and choose, skip some generations. We might
choose to exclude the extended periods of brutality, violence, and genocide, of
which there have been many. But maybe, like Matthew, our genealogy includes
those who draw attention to the sins of our past. We might also follow
Matthew’s lead by including some outsiders: deists, like Thomas Jefferson and
several other Founding Fathers of our nation; critics of institutional Christianity
like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Gloria Steinem; the Hindu Gandhi, or the Muslim
Malala. And, of course, we’ll be sure to include all the heroes and heroines of
the faith, the greats like Francis of Assisi and Hildegard of Bingen, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer and Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life we will
commemorate tomorrow.
Winding through sinners and saints, insiders and outsiders, skipping
around and organized selectively to tell a coherent story, the genealogy of
Jesus eventually leads here, to all of us. We are part of the ongoing story of
God’s activity through Jesus Christ in time and space and through ordinary
people.
Christian mystic and author Richard Rohr suggests that “We are still
carrying the DNA of our great, great grandparents of faith, and knowing that
can give us deep identity and meaning. Not knowing this heritage will allow you
to cling to superficial Christian distinctions that emerged much later, and
largely as historical accidents.”
We have theological, spiritual DNA. It isn’t necessarily based on our
biology or history. But it is full of meaning and deep identity. Like DNA, each
person’s genesis is unique. But we share many common ancestors.
As we begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, this is an
appropriate time to reflect on our common ancestry. While Christianity today
may be fractured into thousands of denominations and millions of churches
around the world, we are united in the continuing story of Jesus Christ. We are
all part of that genealogy.
And, in our unity, we each possess a distinctive, personal genesis. Our
faith has an origin story that continues on through us. It will pass along
through us to future generations. Not just to our physical offspring, but to
all of those who are influenced by how we live and teach and express our
faith.
The ancestors of this community include ordinary and wonderful folks
like Bill and Sylvia Spearman; Bob Fisher; Jeanne Grether; Heather Janssen; and
many others near and dear to us. It also includes many ordinary and wonderful
folks we have never met or even heard of. The folks who, through the course of
145 years, served on committees, called pastors, taught Sunday School, sang in
the choir, cooked for pot-lucks, managed finances, repaired the building, and
so many other everyday, ordinary things that have allowed this to remain a
flourishing community of faith today. Some of their names are enshrined on
windows or plaques. But most of them are buried in dusty books of church
records. They won’t show up in our list of names, but they are part of our
story all the same.
And today we will add to that list new officers of the church. Deacons
and elders who have been called by the voice of this congregation to be a part
of our story, to help form and shape our community and our faith. When we
ordain church officers, it is a life-long ordination. Because we recognize that
these folks are now a permanent part of our genealogy. The influence they will
have on this community will last much longer than their brief term of service.
Their story will continue on after them.
All of us, not just these folks called to particular service in the
church, have a vocation that has been shaped by our spiritual genealogy. It
begins in Jesus Christ, and it will continue after us. But we have our own
story within this larger story. And knowing our genesis, our spiritual DNA, can
help us discern and live into that vocation more faithfully.
So this week, for the first time, I think, I’m giving us all some homework.
It’s a research assignment. I’m sure enough of us have done some digging into
our biological ancestry. This week, or however long it takes you to do this,
I’m going to encourage all of us to construct our spiritual genealogy.
Beginning with Jesus, the Christ, how do you trace your spiritual lineage
through the ages? Where is the through-line of spiritual influence for you?
Some points in history may be sparse. You might get more detailed when thinking
about those most recent generations. You’re welcome to include siblings as well
as parents. Matthew does. You might include some renegades and outsiders.
But do some digging. Trace the
route of your theological development, your faith formation. Who are the
ancestors whose life and thought and work have shaped who you are today?
And when you’ve done that, take some time to pray about what it all adds
up to. What calling does this genealogy place on your life? Because this is
your genesis, the beginning of your story. And you are not the end of the
story. There are others who are depending on you to pass along your spiritual
DNA. This is only the beginning.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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