Was "Jesus" a "bastard" & the Church tried to Cover it up with the VirginBirth Stories?, page 5

A QUESTION OF BREEDING
What Does Christ�s Family Tell Us About Him and Us?
Rev. Daniel Meyer, Senior
Sermon For December 14, 1997
Text: Matthew 1:1-17
It is one of the first rules of communication: don't lose your audience at the start. Whatever else you do, make sure that the words with which you begin your message are words which hook the imagination and make your audience scoot forward in their seats wondering "What next?!" It is that very fact which makes the start of today�s lesson so puzzling, if you think about it. Here at the very start of the New Testament�at the place where it is most important that the author grab our attention�the gospel-writer, Matthew, seems to violate the first law of communication.

Now, it would be bad enough if he were trying to sell us a vacuum cleaner or enlist our help to save the humpback armadillo but, my heavens, he's trying to tell us about Christmas�the wonder and mystery of the eternal God come to earth! How can he begin the tale of such a world-shaking event by reeling off something so devotionally dry and dead as a list of almost unpronounceable names?! We want to shout out: who cares whose father Amminadab was; can't you see I'm trying to make sense out of life? Tell me about Jesus! Who gives a holy hoot about Zerubbabel when you're under the kind of pressure we are these days? Tell us about the Lord! "So, why would Matthew�the very gospel-writer who was most fascinated with the teaching genius of Jesus�begin his record with a genealogy, of all things? Had he lost his mind?! Or is it just possible, he was trying to help us find ours? I believe Matthew understood a truth that is almost all but lost to the generations who walk the earth today�a truth central to the way that the Jewish mind looked at life. What Matthew is trying to say is that before we can ever really understand who someone is, we must know from whom he has come. Identity�whether of a woman, man, or a messiah�all comes down to a question of breeding.

In our heart of hearts we know that, don't we. No matter how much we in our society may sometimes try to divorce ourselves from our roots�claim to be fully independent entities�deep down we know that who we are depends a lot on from whom we've come. That explains, for example, why parents want to know what kind of family their child's current dating interest has. Although as one parent observed: "One of the great mysteries of breeding is how that idiot whom your daughter married can be the father of the brightest grandchildren in the world!" In most cases, breeding does matter. It explains why horse buyers want to know the lineage of the animal they are considering for purchase? It's why psychiatrists or counselors ask a client what their parents were like. And, I might be bold to suggest, that is why�when he could have begun the story of Christmas in a thousand other ways�Matthew chooses to give us the genealogy of that sweet babe lying in a manger. "Do you want a clue to what yonder child is really all about?" he says. "Then listen closely, my friends, and let me tell you about his breeding...let me tell you about "the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham."

II

The FIRST thing Jesus' bloodline tells us is who Jesus really is�someone whose full nature and role we can only understand by knowing something about two of the relatives who came before him and pre-figured the role that Jesus was to play. On the one hand, Jesus is in every sense a "son of David;" that is, he was born to rule. Under the kingship of David, Israel had enjoyed a brief shining moment of unsurpassed glory, purity, and unity. For one moment in time, the Jewish nation had seemed to embody the kingdom of God on earth, and then it was gone. All that was left after the moral bankruptcy of the nation took its final toll was a promise, spoken through the prophets, that one day God would give Israel a second chance. Out of the same bloodline as David would spring a new King who would establish a kingdom and throne that no force on earth could unseat.

"Don't you see," Matthew is saying, "this baby before you is him�the son of David�the promised King? Wake up Israel�this is your second chance! Listen to the authority with which he speaks and recognize a wisdom by which to live your life. Watch how even demons flee before him and tempests become calm, and believe that he has the power to fell the giant forces which weigh against you. Feel the tenderness with which he embraces his lambs and trust that there is a place in the Shepherd's arms for you. For in Jesus you are meeting no ordinary man�but a wisdom, power, and love so sovereign it is not crazy to call him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

"But that's not all that Christ's breeding tells us about his nature," Matthew would say. "He is worthy of your love and your loyalty not merely because he is the supreme sovereign in the line of David, but also because he is the supreme servant in the line of Abraham." No other figure besides David stood so tall in the Jewish mind as did that elderly saint who surrendered all that he had and was to the service of God. From his willingness to pack up all his belongings and move hundreds of miles from his ancestral home to a destination he did not know, to his readiness to sacrifice his own precious son to the purposes of the Lord, Abraham's name became synonymous with humble obedience. And for that sacrificial service, God had made Abraham a promise. He promised that through the bloodline of Abraham would come forth another servant�Someone through whom the light of salvation would be given to all nations.

"When you meet Jesus," suggests Matthew, "does it ring any bells?" Have you noticed that like his ancestor Abraham before him, this Jesus maintains an obedience to following God's calling that is nothing short of radiant? Does it intrigue you as much as it does me that the teachings of this "son of Abraham" seem to cut like a beam of light through the moral fog of our time? Is it pure coincidence that his very character seems to cast a loving warmth into every room and heart he enters? Isn't it just possible that the light of the world has really come to illumine the pathway home?!

III

Dear friends, the genealogy of Jesus tells us first and foremost who Jesus really is�the promised son of David who comes to be our sovereign Lord; the precious son of Abraham who comes to be our servant Savior. And yet there is a SECOND vital thing that his bloodline tells us that has to do with who we really are. You see, if you look closely, you will notice that there is something very strange about the family bloodline. To understand what I'm getting at you need to understand that genealogical records were fairly common in the ancient world. They were treasured not only as a means to helping people develop a sense of familial identity, but also as a proof of religious and social credibility. Most genealogies followed a couple of simple rules. First, there were no females allowed on the list, since the common assumption in the Jewish world was that both property and identity passed down through the patriarchal line. Secondly, no foreigners (i.e. non-Jews) who had married into the family would be mentioned, lest anyone see that the family bloodline had been ethnically diluted. And finally, since the limits of paper or memory required that genealogies be somewhat abbreviated, no failures�moral or otherwise�made the final cut. Only the most illustrious figures would be included on the list.

The practice reminds me of the story of a very prominent family of this century who commissioned a professional biographer to record the family tale. In giving him instructions, the family cautioned the writer to deal carefully with the one "black sheep" in the family, a certain Uncle George who, in a drunken stupor, had somehow committed murder and was subsequently sent to the electric chair. The biographer assured them he could handle the situation with a minimum of embarrassment. He would simply write: "Uncle George occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a real shock."

What is so striking about the genealogy of Jesus is that it is so full of Uncle Georges�without any attempt at disguise. At almost every turn it violates the normal conventions by which such documents were written. Amidst a society where conservative Jewish leaders doubted whether women even had souls, five females make the short list as ancestors of the Son of God. On top of that, the names of four "foreigners" are there unabashedly disrupting the ethnic purity of the list. And as if all of that wasn't radical enough, the genealogy contains eight people who would be regarded by Matthew�s readers as failures in one way or another. There were two people who were the product of the illicit union of a father and his daughter-in-law; one prostitute who betrayed her city into enemy hands; two adulterers; a murderer; and a pair of wicked kings.

The thing I want to know is "Why?!" If you or I were setting out to promote a figure as the Messiah of the world, wouldn't that be the last sort of genealogy we would compile or allow to be published? Wouldn't such a bloodline raise too many embarrassing questions of breeding? Then again, what an incredible thing the genealogy we do have says about the kind of Messiah Jesus is. You see, dear friends, Matthew is reminding us that the story of Jesus is not about fairy tales; it's about real life, real people, and the real love which redeems it all.