The Big Story of God Part 3: Who do you think you are?

Have you ever watched “Who Do You Think You Are”? It’s a programme where celebrities attempt to trace their family tree. I have been reading some of the discoveries made by celebrities on their website and it is really interesting.

Nigella Lawson tracked her family back to the 16th century and discovered that without an ancestor fleeing to England to avoid a prison sentence, she would never have been here at all – and now she is a British institution!

It’s fascinating when the people on the programme discover a part of their past that doesn’t “fit” with who they think they are.
Ainsley Harriot traced his family back to his great-great-grandfather, James Gordon Harriott, and discovered he wasn't a black slave as he had thought, but the descendant of a long line of white slave owners.

Very unusual things come up when we start tracing our lineage. One of my sisters has been carefully plotting our family heritage through both my maternal and paternal line. She keeps me informed of her discoveries and some of them are at times in the category “skeleton in your cupboard!”
Working through the paternal line has really helped me as I haven’t met anyone in my Dad’s family as he died before I was born and they didn’t keep in contact with my mum. It gives a sense of ‘having roots’ – although sometimes the roots do grow in strange directions!

I was humbled to discover that at one point, way back in my Dad’s family line, the family were sent to a poor house, a place for those with no work, no money and no hope. They suffered awful conditions and had to work their way out. They ended up in London.
In contrast, on another branch we discovered a relative who has a park named after her and inherited three fortunes! The emerging stories of people’s lives are fascinating. Why did they make the decisions they made? What would have happened if?
I began to realise they were real people, with real experiences, real friends, real struggles and real emotions. They stopped being names on a piece of paper and began to help me understand where I have come from. History teachers often say studying the past helps us to understand our future and for me, this has been the case. It helps us to understand the story we are part of or in.

When a man named Matthew wrote his account of the life of Jesus, he also had a sense of the importance of family history and lineage. He wrote about the life of Jesus for a Jewish audience and sought to show how relevant to the Jewish people Jesus was.
He begins his Gospel with a family tree – let’s read it now. You can find it in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 1:1-17.

Let’s read:
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife,
Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Eliud,
Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.

Many people find these passages a bit bewildering or even dull – so many names that aren’t famous anymore. Many skip these verses, but Matthew includes them for a reason. I find it interesting to know why they were remembered, why there were named, why Matthew sought to preserve them for all time.

If I was to sum up the Big Picture of Matthew’s Gospel, I think I would say that he tells us the Good news that Jesus is the promised Saviour, the one through whom God fulfilled the promises he made to his people. This Good news, that Jesus is the Saviour is not only for the Jewish people among whom Jesus was born and lived, but for the whole world.

That’s quite a manifesto and the genealogy of Jesus is a good place to start because there are some people mentioned there that ought never to have been remembered at all. People who needed a saviour – people like us.

To fully grasp the significance of this passage, we need to know a few cultural things:

Firstly, there is some debate about the differences between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke’s Gospel. They don’t quite match. There are a few theories, about this and one explanation may be that they follow different family lines one through Joseph, one through Mary. Another possible explanation may be that one follows physical descent while the other shows Kingly descent.

Secondly, it was fairly common practice to skip a few un-noteworthy people in a Jewish genealogy and it seems Matthew may have done this in order to have his genealogy fit into a pattern of 3 sets of 14 . This is called a Tesseradecade. Fourteen is double seven and seven is the number of perfection in Jewish teaching. For a Jewish reader, this would have been helpful symbolism, showing that the important connections in Jesus’ life fit. Also, if you use the Hebrew spelling of David and convert the letters to numbers, totalling them adds up to 14 – a detail not lost on the readers of this in 70 odd AD
Missing a few people out doesn’t make it inaccurate, only selective! The aim is to establish essential connections not minor details. It shows Jesus was well connected.

If we read verse 1, we see Jesus is called Son of David and Son of Abraham. Son of David shows his descent from a Kingly line and a contender for the position of Messiah as prophecies of the time indicated the Messiah would be a descendent of King David. Messiah is a title meaning ‘anointed one’ someone sent by God to save the people from sin and death.
Son of Abraham shows the humanity of Jesus as Abraham was a man – the father of the Jewish faith. In the book of Genesis at the beginning of the Bible, God promised Abraham that he would bless all peoples of the earth through his family line.
There is also the word ‘Christ’ – Messiah in Greek. Not a surname of Jesus as my Year 7 students think; but a title that explains who he is. He is the Christ, the anointed one of God, the long awaited for Saviour, the one who will change everything. He is a descendent of David, he is a Son of Abraham. His humanity, Kingship and divinity all shown in one sentence! He is the real thing .
Having placed Jesus in the context of Messiah, Matthew then does something a bit odd!
He mentions women in the genealogy and that was not common practice. Not only that, these women are what some may call ‘bad branches’ of the family tree! These could be the skeletons in the family closet; yet without them, Jesus would not have been born of Mary, the wife of Joseph.
With every passage of scripture, I like to ask, “why is it there?” and with genealogies the question is really important. What was Matthew trying to tell us through this list of names of people dead long ago? Is there a truth in this list of names that can affect my life today? I think there is.
Five women are mentioned, the first four are gentiles, non-Jews, the last is Mary the mother of Jesus. It is very odd that they are mentioned – therefore, Matthew must have a good reason for mentioning them – he is trying to tell us something about Jesus.

The first woman we find is Tamar. She is the daughter in-law of Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, a man who walked closely with God. You can find their s story in the book of Genesis.
Tamar had a difficult life. Her first husband died and the reason given is he “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord”. We are not given much more information than that, but suffice to say – he probably wasn’t a good husband. She had no children, so by law her husband’s brother should marry her and she should get pregnant so that he first husband’s family name could continue. But he also’ did what was evil in the sight of the Lord’ he prevented her getting pregnant – he wouldn’t honour the law which was there to protect women from financial ruin. There was another brother to marry, but Judah wouldn’t let it happen. She was sent home to her father’s house.
A women widowed twice, rejected by her husband’s family whose responsibility it was to provide for her, sent home in disgrace. Tamar held onto God’s law that Judah should provide for her within his family home. I’m not sure if she did what was right, but she was a desperate, shunned woman with little hope of a future. She tricked Judah into getting her pregnant by disguising herself as a prostitute, enticing him on the roadside and keeping his family seal and staff as proof of his sin. Later, when the pregnancy was discovered, he ordered her death for getting herself pregnant – she had disgraced his family, she should be living as a widow. However, Tamar proved he was the father by presenting his family seal and so forced his hand. He had to finally take responsibility for himself and for her – as was God’s law.
She gave birth to twins, one of whom was called Perez and so family line of Jesus continues...
That’s quite a branch of Jesus’ family tree!

A little bit further down the family tree, we find Rahab. A foreigner, a gentile, a prostitute. A woman people only mixed with for the wrong reasons. How did such a women become part of Jesus’ story?
You can find the story of Rahab in the book of Joshua chapter 2. When I read the story, I am always impressed by Rahab – her names means ‘fierce’ and I bet she was! She lived right on the edge of the city – an outsider geographically, morally and it would seem spiritually too.
At the time she lived, the people of Israel had escaped slavery in Egypt and believed God was leading them to the ‘promised land’ a land promised to Abraham by God himself. They had crossed the desert under the leadership of Moses. Moses has sent in Joshua to spy out the land ahead of them.
When Joshua comes to Jericho where Rahab lives, he is spying out the land to see how to take the city for the Lord. He meets Rahab and she agrees to help them. Why would she do that? What’s in it for her? She’s not in it for the company nor financial reward. She says “I know that the Lord has given this land to you” – she’s a woman who sees the awesome power of our God and because of this she wants to be part of his promise to his people. She doesn’t want to be an outsider anymore; she wants to be an insider. She wants to be part of the promised people, the chosen people. She wants to be with God. Her agreement to help the spies saves her life and the lives of her family. She becomes a believer in the one true God and marries a man named Salmon, a man who was part of Joshua’s army. They have a child called Boaz and the family line of Jesus continues...

Boaz was a business man and a good manager. He was well respected. He noticed Ruth, our third woman, gleaning in his fields. Gleaning was a way of providing food for the poor and widowed, also for the foreigner. Ruth was all three! Ruth was a Moabite, a foreigner, who had accompanied her widowed mother-in-law back to the town of Bethlehem. She was also related to Boaz through her dead husband. Ruth went to Boaz in the night and asked him to be her kinsman-redeemer. This means he would marry her and provide her with a child for her dead husband. As male head of the family, it was his duty. However, there was another man who could take on the role. Boaz negotiates with him on Ruth’s behalf and they marry. Boaz agrees and they marry. They have a son Obed, the great Grandfather of King David. You can find this story in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament.
The family line of Jesus continues...

It’s fascinating to see that so far, in the lineage of Jesus there is a woman denied of her rights who disguises herself as a prostitute to seek justice, a prostitute who turns her life to God and a widowed foreigner who becomes the Great Grandmother of Israel’s greatest King.
It seems that God is in the habit of turning outsiders into insiders. God brings in those whom society rejects. He loves the least, the lost and the lonely, he gives them a home, a place. I love how in Psalm 113 verse 7, King David himself wrote:
“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap”

The fourth woman mentioned by Matthew is not mentioned by name, only by implied reputation! In verse 6 there is mentioned Solomon – King David’s son whose mother was ‘Uriah’s wife’. This story is the shame of King David and a tragic moment for our next woman.
In the second book of Samuel, chapter 11, we find the story of King David and Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.
David sees Uriah’s wife ‘Bathsheba’ taking a bath on top of the house. Did she know he was watching and entice him? Was it accidental? Who knows – but it led to a terrible sin. David wanted Bathsheba for his own and they slept together. She became pregnant. David panicked – Uriah was one of his finest soldiers. He had Uriah brought home from battle and tried to make him sleep with Bathsheba so the pregnancy could be his, but Uriah refused not wanting to compromise himself before battle.
At a loss, David had Uriah sent back to battle carrying a note requesting he be placed on the front line. He carried his own death sentence. David then took Bathsheba as his own wife.
I feel for Bathsheba – she could not have denied the King his request to sleep with her – he was the King after all.
Their child died soon after birth.
Yet God is a God of restoration. He can turn an ugly situation into something glorious for his Kingdom and his people. Bathsheba became pregnant again and gave birth to Solomon, the next powerful, wise and well respected King of Israel and also, an ancestor of Jesus.
The family line of Jesus continues...

What strikes me about Matthews’s inclusion of these women is that he includes them for a good reason. There is shame, mystery, sin, hurt, hope, despair in their lives, and yet God used them to do something extraordinary.
Matthew names them in the lineage of Jesus because of the good choices they made, not the bad. No matter what they had done, or had done to them, they have a place in the Kingdom of God and will be remembered for the part they played in bringing the saviour to the world. They needed Jesus and his merciful grace, just as we do now.

In the past few weeks, we have explored the awesomeness of God’s creation and his plan for this world. That God intended us to be here and has a plan for our lives, for your life today. That God ‘made stars’ – just like that. What an awesome God!
Yet, it went wrong, we turned from the plan God had for our lives and sought a different route. Sin, pain, hurt comes into our world. We need rescuing – we need help to save us from the brokenness of the tale we find ourselves in.
God didn’t just look down one day and go “oh, better do something I guess”. No, God had a plan and that plan was Jesus and Jesus was intended and his lineage was intended. These stories from the Old Testament show that God always planned for his love and mercy to be for all people and it still is. Many of the people Jesus drew to himself throughout his life were outcasts and sinners, people with stories just like these women; and Jesus is still drawing people to himself today. The death and resurrection of Jesus gives hope to all who need rescuing, redemption or help like these women.

David Wallace quoted from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ the other week: Sam to Frodo “I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?”
What is this Big Story we are part of? We are part of that same family of Jesus – not one of us is on the outside of God’s love or mercy. We are all welcome to take our place beside him.

Matthew, who wrote this lineage, did so to show who Jesus was – a son of David, a son of Abraham, God yet human, the Messiah, the anointed King of God, the saviour of all people. All people. All are welcome in the family – the prostitute, the rejected, the widowed, the ignored, the vulnerable, the sinful, the broken, the hurting, the man and the woman. All are welcome. Through Jesus’ birth and his death and his resurrection, the sinfulness of our lives need not be our Big Story, our tale. Our story is that of being set free and welcomed into God’s family.