| December 23, 2007
You are Welcome to reflect on this message The Fourth Sunday in Advent – December 23, 2007
Everybody knows Matthew’s Gospel opens by pointing to a manger. What you may not realize is it begins in a graveyard. Before he turns to the future, the author sees value in continuity with the past, as he takes us on a stroll among the tombstones that hold the remains of Jesus’ family. His pedigree recorded in the 1st 17 vss. of Matthew is carefully arranged in 3 sections based on Israel’s most important eras. The first epoch ends at vs. 6, the period from Abraham to “Jesse, the father of David the king.” That’s a stopping place for Matthew, because it highlights the glorious rise from slavery down in Egypt to the most regal nation on earth at that time. But this isn’t just for the Hebrews. It has universal implications. And symbolizes what God wants to happen to every nationality. Israel’s calling was to be “a light to the Gentiles,” so that everybody could belong to the family of God.
The next genealogical section goes in the other direction. Continuing among the markers, Matthew cites the story of Israel’s unwillingness to pursue her universal calling, eventual decline, and inevitable exile. Vs. 11 is his next place to pause“...the deportation into Babylon.” Imbedded in Jesus’ family tree is the reminder of our failure to be what God expects of us. Created for nobility, the people of God lost their identity. Instead of being servants of God, they became infatuated with being “chosen,” being number 1, that they forgot God’s intention. Section 2 is about how pride caused them to blow it! “If ya’ll can’t get it done, I’ll just get somebody else,” God seems to say.
Enter the church. Our graveyard excursion continues in section 3 where Matthew takes us to the arrival of God’s Messiah, the most recent marker. 16 verses before we get to Matthew’s Christmas! “And Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is the Christ.” Matthew sets the stage for Advent historically, showing how Jesus, like Moses, came to deliver us from slavery, and liberate us from bondage, to turn our tragedies into triumph. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (v. 21).
Taken together, by the way he arranged Jesus’ heritage, Matthew relates how God created us for greatness, like Israel in the 10th century BC. But we lost our footing, and became captives in exile. But through Christ our redeemer, we can become what we were intended to be. Don’t you find this up, down, up stuff fascinating? Most people ignore these hard-to-pronounce-names, to get to Mary and Joseph and the angelic birth announcement. It lends itself to commercializing Xmas. So the first gospel is not just historical, but also theological. It’s more interested in telling us what Jesus did than who he was. The gospel makes it clear that Jesus was one of us, thoroughly human. Matthew gives special attention to ancient grave markers to impress Jesus’ unabashed humanity upon us. Connecting the Christ to such undesirables as Judah and Manasseh, its striking how many skeletons were in Jesus’ closet. And that ought to say something to us. Because if Jesus had such imperfect forbears, yet God could bring the kind of life he did from that tarnished ancestry, is this not a word of hope for us? The opening words of the New Testament stand as a testimony to the power of God to redeem, “For he will save his people from their sins.”
But Matthew is equally want to say, having maverick kinfolks didn’t rub off on Jesus. He was not compelled to reproduce any part of them. Of the 3 forces that come to bear on who we are, heredity and environment are powerful, but pale in light of freedom. In spite of those from whom he descended, Jesus was free to be the kind of son God intended him to be. That’s because evil is not hereditary. I know, I know, what about original sin? First of all, it’s not all that “original.” But then Matthew shoots that Calvinistic determinism down here at the beginning. If sin could be inherited, Jesus would’ve been a pre-destined loser. That I can’t inherit my father’s goodness is bad news for me. That my kids can’t inherit my sins is good news for them.
“The word became flesh and dwelt among us...” with real people in his background, some good, some bad. Even though Jesus came from a mixed ancestry, he was not coerced to re-enact any part of it. What Jesus became was a product of his own decisions and we have the same freedom of choice. We don’t have to let what our ancestors did impact who we become.
But that’s not the best part. The most amazing thing about this imperfect pedigree is the inclusion of the ladies. That Jesus had females mentioned in his genealogy was unheard of, because women didn’t count in the ancient world. But there they are, right alongside the men. And even more astounding is the kind of women they were. The Hebrew scriptures have many heroines, Sarah, Hannah, Ruth, Queen Esther. And mentioning them would’ve been remarkable. But to find folks like Tamar, Ruth, Rahab, and Bathsheba in the family tree is staggering! You need to do a character study of these gals sometime. None were Jewish. Tamar was an Arab. Rahab and Bathsheba were Palestinians and Ruth was Jordanian. All were Gentiles. I can’t highlight that enough, because no self-respecting Jewish male would acknowledge having foreign, female blood in his veins. So Jesus grew up with an ecumenical/universal spirit.
In your character study you will discover that Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was an alien. Tamar manipulated her father-in-law into an act of incest. And Bathsheba was involved in the most notorious triangle of immorality in the Bible...featuring adultery, murder and cover-up! So Jesus had a historical precedent for favoring Mary Magdalene. Matthew could’ve ransacked the pages of holy writ, and not found more improbable candidates as forebears for the son of God. Their presence demands an explanation. I don’t think they got there by accident.
Matthew is telling us something graphic about Jesus; about what Jesus spent his whole life doing...breaking down barriers of separation, mostly religious barriers, the most passionate kind. Like the “values and morality” crowd is trying to erect in this country today. As always we have to ask “whose values and who’s morality?” Matthew is intent on showing us God’s. And it’s unifying not divisive. Anything that excludes somebody met with the hostility of Jesus. They tried to kill him for being too inclusive the first time he preached.
But Jesus’ agenda is the same as God’s, who created us for oneness, made in one image, of one blood. But we can’t seem to get past the skin, and are much better getting at one another, than through to each other. So we have male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave or free, straight or gay, black or white, baptized or unbaptized. Just some of the barriers we construct.
But fence-building was a pattern of living Jesus never gave into. He made no distinctions and treated persons as if they were more than their gender, their color, their beliefs, their morality or their nationality. It made no difference to Jesus whether you were handicapped or female or even a sinner. “The ones He came to save from their sins.” Those morality-kinds-of-things were inconsequential when bathed in his gracious acceptance. Walls of division came tumbling down wherever he went, except in religion. “He came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.” Because to the law-keepers, change is destruction.
Matthew is telling us with these tombstones, what Jesus did. He embodied the universal love of God for all people, to be what Israel never became, “A light to the Gentiles.” Israel is still over there trying to put the Gentile’s lights out! Still stuck with the “eye for an eye,” mentality. Jesus fulfilled that, with the most impractical law ever adjudicated, “the law of love.”
In Jerusalem, is the Western Wall, where the men have to be separated from the women. Jesus broke down walls between male and female. The presence of females in Jesus’ heritage attests to that. He wasn’t too good to have a few scandalous ladies sprinkled here and there. Because in the eyes of God, men and women are equals. So Jesus broke down walls between saint and sinner, and we’re left with sinner/saints because somehow God keeps using us to accomplish his purpose. None of us are pure. We’ve lived too long to for innocence. But you don’t have to be spotless to be used of God. Just willing: “Let it be to me according to Thy word,” said Mary.
Imperfection doesn’t disqualify you. Not repenting will. Failure to grow and fear of the new sure will! But sinning won’t rule you out. Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” That’s what Matthew’s Advent is about. “He shall save his people from their sins.”
When it comes to Christmas, Luke’s is the most popular Gospel, because he tells Mary’s side of the story. But Matthew gives us Joseph’s. The reason we have Christmas is not just because Mary gave birth, but because of men like Joseph. It’ll always be Christmas as long as God can find somebody who “does what’s right.”
Joseph didn’t throw the book at Mary, when he could have. He went with his dream over his morality. The Book says to stone her, ‘cause the Bible-before-Jesus had only 2 options: He could either put her away publicly or privately. Joseph chose privately because of his love for Mary. And love always wins, sometimes...like Good Friday was a victory. But Joseph went with the spirit of the law, not the letter. For that to happen, God had to send a messenger to advise him that there was a 3rd option: Marry Mary anyway! And the Christ will come! As bad as it looked, as hard as it was, Joseph did “what was right,” instead of “demanding his rights.” And Jesus came to give to the world Christmas.
“What’s right” is not just to read the scriptures. But what’s even more right is to take them seriously, though not always literally, to read the Bible in light of the love and grace and kindness of God. That’s where Matthew leaves us, with the last grave marker in Jesus’ genealogy: with Joseph, the Nazarene carpenter. The one person in all the world, whom God selected to be Jesus’ Daddy.
Because when people like Joseph raise kids, they turn out to be like Jesus! That’s still what makes Christmas. The question for us, of course is, whether we will be that kind of person. And whether this will be that kind of church. * Credit Craddock for the outline of this message Pastoral Prayer (12-23-07)
We think of Jesus as a descendant of Abraham, who left the security of his homeland, in search of a better place, “Whose builder and maker was God.” Even so Jesus “in the fulness of time, Jesus emptied himself, born of a woman,” to redeem us as one of us. Thru this entire season of Advent, enable us to lift him up so that all will be drawn unto him.
We think of Jesus as descendant of Ruth, a stranger among God’s chosen. Great-grandmother Ruth reminds us to remember all who don’t belong to the in-crowd, who are different from the majority, who need the welcome of a loving community. May ours be that.
We think of Jesus as a descendant of David, and for all who need a shepherd to be gentle with them, mend their wounds, guide them from danger, take them back to the fold when they get lost, and be a giant-killer, strong in the Lord for them, “leading them in the paths of righteousness for your name’s sake.”
We think of Jesus as part of the family of Joseph the carpenter – a man of few words, but great faith; more interested in doing what’s best more than what’s good; who cares more about Mary than what other people may think. Give us more people like him today, who live their faith and not just talk it.
When you came long ago Lord, nobody recognized you. Help us this Advent to be more aware of your comings and goings among us in unexpected people and unnoticed places. Grant us the courage to follow you as best we can, for we pray in the name of him who is at once, the man from Nazareth, and the Son of God...even Christ the Lord...Amen. |
