University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

“What Is Before Came After”

A sermon preached at University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill

By Anna Pinckney Straight

December 23, 2007

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. (NRSV)

It is a season in the church year when getting things in order, biblically and faithfully, can be a little bit difficult.  Jesus Christ was born.  Jesus Christ is born.  Jesus Christ will come again.   Which is it?  All three.   It is not a time of year for linear thinking.

The gospel of Matthew doesn’t help matters with this genealogy.  Because.  The birth of Jesus came after.  I know that doesn’t makes sense, but bear with me a moment. 

The birth of Jesus came after.  Came after the miracles, the prayers, the preaching, after the crucifixion, after the resurrection.  It wasn’t until after people began to understand who Jesus had been that they began to ask, from where he had come.  How did he get here?

They were just learning who he was, and those early believers wanted a glimpse into Jesus’ beginnings.  To understand what made him so special.  We want a glimpse, insight, understanding, too.

Of course, the story of Jesus begins long before the events that are the focus of our Christmas celebrations.   It begins with Adam.  With Eve.  With fruit that they were told not to eat.  Noah, the flood, and a new start.  Then God decided to make the relationship more official, and so he calls some gentiles to go where God would send them.  A covenant was established with Sarai and Abram, changing their names and just about everything else, too, including their expectations.   All the generations that have come since and are still to be.  People that God loved, nurtured, and called. 

And so that’s where Matthew begins the story. With the covenant. 

Only, there are some problems with Matthew’s records.  They just don’t fit together the way that you might think they would.

There are gentiles included.  Women included.  There is one generation, Aram, which covers 400 years of history.  There are just a little more than 40[1] generations here, Luke includes 56.  Un-resolvable loose ends.

Of course, it’s only a problem if you are submitting your genealogy for historical approval.  Trying to prove that you are descended from this or that bloodline, horse thief or president.

And that’s not what Matthew is doing at all.  The cover-story for detailing the generations may be establishing Jesus’ bloodline, but it’s not a very convincing cover, because what Matthew is really doing here, and what all those listening know that Matthew is doing here, is telling a story.   A story about what can happen when God and humankind get together.  There are even some who think that all you need to know about God is contained in these 18 hard to read verses of Matthew.

Raymond Brown, theologian and priest, claims that “it [the genealogy] contains the essential theology of the Old and New Testaments that the whole Church, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant, should proclaim….." [2]

This is all because of who Matthew includes.  Matthew has made some interesting and telling choices in the named  predecessors of Jesus. 

Jacob is included, but not Esau, his brother. Not the honest twin, but Jacob, the twin who connived and schemed.

Judah, but not his brother Joseph.  Judah, the one who sold his brother into slavery and told his father was dead.

David, the King who kills a woman’s husband so he can have her for his own.

Then, there are the women.  Matthew includes women in a patriarchal culture.  That doesn’t sound so odd to us, but to those first listeners, it would be like looking at 1940s West Point yearbook and seeing, among the 100s of male pictures, five women.  And not just any women—memorable, outspoken women.[3]

Supporting the saying that well behaved women rarely make history,[4] Matthew includes in this genealogy women who would not be considered well behaved. 

Rahab, a prostitute.

Ruth, a Moabite.  A Gentile.

Tamar, who did some rather unorthodox things, like seducing her father in law, to ensure her survival.

Matthew includes sinners, Matthew includes daring women. And then, there are the people we know little if anything about.  Those who did not make the editorial cut.  Azor, Zadok, and Eliud to name just a few.  They don’t appear to have done much of anything to be included in this list, and yet there they are.

Of course, these selections, are anything but accidental.  Anything but without meaning.

Offering insight into these choices, Raymond Brown writes:

Matthew is faithful to an insight about a God who is not controlled by human merit but manifests His own unpredictable graciousness…..

Still another indicator of the unpredictability of God’s grace is that He accomplishes His purpose through those whom others regard as unimportant and forgettable…..

The God who wrote the beginnings with crooked lines also writes the sequence with crooked lines, and some of those lines are our own lives and witness. A God who did not hesitate to use the scheming as well as the noble, the impure as well as the pure, men to whom the world hearkened and women upon whom the world frowned – this God continues to work through the same mélange.”

And at the beginning, this is what Matthew wants, needs, us to know about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The beginning of this story is about expanding.  Inclusion.  Possibility in the places that seem impossible.

It is a truth that was true in Matthew’s time and one that is just as true today.  As we consider what it means to look at the world through the eyes of God, the eyes of faith, our vision continues to expand beyond what we expect.

Harry Emerson Fosdick once preached:

Christianity is not a finished article, a static system; it is a growing movement.  It is like a tree whose roots are deep in the spirit of Jesus.  Sometimes it puts forth misshapen branches that must be pruned.  Sometimes old branches die and must be lopped away.  Because it is a growing, living, vital thing, it never has been quite the same thing in any two generations.  We do not see it as our fathers did [and to prove his point I would add mothers]; our children will not see it as we do: but so long as its roots are in the spirit of Jesus let it grow, for its leaves shall be for the healing of the nations… 

My friends, [says Fosdick] we have our choice.  Christianity can be to us a completed system, a pool that you can walk all around and measure and define and accept, or it can be that far nobler thing, a river, whose fountains are in the life of Jesus, whose flowing is the spirit of Jesus, an ever growing, enlarging stream.  But if we do accept that second of the alternatives we must face the consequences.  We cannot be static disciples of an advancing Lord.[5]

We cannot be static disciples of an advancing Lord.

And so Matthew begins the gospel by telling this very story, so that when we look ahead, we will know that God works with people we do not expect in ways we may not anticipate.  So be open.

God continues to advance.

The birth of Jesus didn’t come first, it came after. 

Because Jesus Christ was born.  Jesus Christ is born.  Jesus Christ will come again. 

Yes to all of these things.

If we believe that God continues to work with people from all places and circumstances.  If we believe that God continues to advance, than we cannot help but believe that God is present here and now and working even with us.  With you.  With me.

“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.”

In the words of Raymond Brown, all of this is to remind us that  “the authentic ‘story of Jesus Christ’ is that Jesus called Peter and Paul… Paul called Timothy…  someone called you… and you must call someone else.

The genealogy is not a conclusion, it is a beginning.  It is our beginning.  And it expands from there.  It expands from here.[6]