Jesus' Grandmothers

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 20, 2014

Who were the women in Rabbi Jesus’ family tree? What did their oddness say about him?

Some people call the genealogies in the Bible “the begats,” and they are hard to read. Why would I want to be reading you one? Well, because there are stories embedded in this one. Every name has a story (same with each of our genealogies) and I thought you might be interested in these. Women are hardly ever mentioned in these. This is the genealogy of Rabbi Jesus. Count on your fingers the women in this as I read it.

Matthew 1 – The Genealogy of Jesus

1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob,

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,

Perez the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

4 Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon,

5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

6 and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

…then 24 generations without the mention of a woman, then…

16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

The usual genealogy in the Bible is a list of fathers. The mothers are rarely mentioned. In this genealogy of Jesus, there are a several items of interest. One is that it’s a list of Joseph’s forbears, which leads you to believe that the Virgin Birth didn’t mean the same thing to Matthew that it does to people today, but that’s another sermon. The second unusual thing is that there are four grandmothers mentioned in Jesus’ list of forbears: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah. Not only are they mentioned, but they are women with interesting stories, stories I would like to tell you today.

Matthew wrote this genealogy in a time when the rules for women were narrow and mean. There wasn’t much women who weren’t married to kings or emperors could do to distinguish themselves in the Greek and Roman cultures. The most you could go for was to be really good, stay under the radar, do what you were supposed to do, and not get yourself in trouble. It was easy to get in trouble. If you got pregnant without being married, if you didn’t get pregnant when you were married, if you got raped, if your husband died, all of those things were bad, and they were your fault.

Were these grandmothers of Jesus exemplary church ladies, following all the rules to the letter and making cautious moves so their lives could be free of turbulence and pleasing to those around them? NO. These women did not do the nice thing, pleasing those around them. What they did would now be called risk-taking. Doing the higher right thing, rather than the nice thing. Good rather than nice.

These women embody the difference between being good and being nice.

TAMAR

Tamar’s story is in the book of Genesis (38:6-30). It was the custom of the day, if a man died leaving no children, his brother would marry the widow as one of his wives and have children with her to be counted as the children of his dead brother. That way the brother’s line would continue. Tamar’s husband was one of the sons of Judah. Judah was the one the whole nation was named after later. Judah was a brother of Joseph, one of the ones who sold Joseph to the Egyptians and then told their father that Joseph had been eaten by a wild animal. They gave their father the coat of many colors, dipped in animal blood, as evidence. It wouldn’t have fooled CSI, but it was enough for Jacob, their father.

Anyway, Judah moved away and married, and had some sons and the eldest son married a woman named Tamar. The story says he was wicked in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord killed him. Judah told his next son, Onan, to have intercourse with her and make some children. He spilled his seed on the ground in front of her, refusing to make children with her. The god in the story gets mad at him for that, so he died too. We still have people whose beliefs about solo sex are shaped by interpreting this story wrong, and “Onanism” should be a term for refusing to do the right thing, instead of a term for having sex by yourself. Whew. This is awkward to talk about, but that’s the scriptures for you. The third son was still too young to fulfill the brotherly obligation, so Judah told Tamar to go back to her father’s house and live there as a widow. He worried that the third son would die too, as it seemed to him that some kind of doom was emanating from Tamar

11 Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

12 After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him.

13 When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,”

14 she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.

15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

16 Not realizing that she was his daughter-inlaw, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” “And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked.

17 “I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said. “Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked.

18 He said, “What pledge should I give you?” “Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him.

19 After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again.

20 Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her.

21 He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” they said.

22 So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’ “

23 Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.”

24 About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”

25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.

27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb.

28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.”

29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez.

30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah. She was good, not nice.

According to the Book of Ruth, this Peretz becomes the great great great great grandfather of Boaz, who is the great grandfather of David.

RAHAB

Rahab was a prostitute who lived in Jericho. The Israelites wanted to conquer that town, and their commander, Joshua, sent two spies to look it over.

Joshua 2 Rahab and the Spies

1 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

2 The king of Jericho was told, “Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.”

3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”

4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

5 At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.”

6 (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.)

7 So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut….

She made a deal with the spies for the life of her family. ” please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign

13 that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death.”

14 “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the LORD gives us the land.”

15 So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall.

16 Now she had said to them, “Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way

21 “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.”

So she sent them away and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window. She and her family were spared when Joshua and his troops took the city. She was good to her family, compromised herself for them and saved them.

RUTH

Ruth was a foreigner, from Moab. She married the son of Naomi, who was from Judah, Israel. Naomi’s husband died, then her two sons. She told Ruth and her other daughter-in-law Orpah (where Oprah got her name) to go back to their mothers and find other men to marry. But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Isn’t it interesting that the words many people say at their weddings were originally said between a woman and her mother-in-law?

They got to Judah at the time of the barley harvest, and Ruth went to work in the field of a near kinsman Naomi pointed out to her. He wasn’t next in line for her, but second. Ruth reaped in the fields, and he noticed her. He offered her protection and food, and she stayed with his folks in the field. When the harvest was over, Naomi told her to go to the threshing floor where the men slept and lie down with him. He did not reject her. His mom was Rahab, remember from the genealogy? He was thrilled, but wanted to do the honorable thing, so he went and negotiated with the next in line so that he could take her as his wife. They made it happen the way they wanted it to, and she gave birth to Obed, King David’s grandfather.

BATHSHEBA

King David saw her bathing on the roof, and she was beautiful. Uriah, her husband, was off fighting David’s war. He called her to the palace and she slept with him. She found out she was pregnant, and David called her husband home for R and R. Uriah refused to go home while the war was still being fought. He slept at the gate of the city with his some of his men, like an athlete who won’t shave until the championship is won. David got him drunk and tried to send him home, but he slept with his men at the gate again. Then David placed him in the fight so he would get killed. He was killed, and Bathsheba mourned him, but she went to the palace and became David’s wife, and bore a son. The story says God was mad at David, so the son got sick and died. One of Bathsheba’s next sons was one of Jesus’ grandfathers.

What are these women doing in this genealogy? Commentators have worked for years trying to figure out what they had in common. They all made choices that were risky. They gathered up all the dice and rolled them, changing their lives. Life pushed them one way and another. Loved ones were killed, but they chose life. They put themselves in danger of rejection and harm. They chose life.

Especially Ruth and Tamar made a leap, instead of subsiding into resignation and bitterness over their fate. They didn’t shrug and say, well, I got dealt a bad hand, I’m just unlucky, or I’ve been done wrong. They took what power they had and used it to move their lives forward.

The gospel writer is telling the story of Messiah, the Redeemer. In the beginning of his story he embeds five women who chose to do a brave thing, even though it could get them into trouble. Is there something about redemption that takes guts? That takes a willingness to face rejection? Foreigners, a prostitute, a beauty who married King David, but is named in the genealogy as “wife of Uriah,” and Mary, the young woman who was with child before she had been with a man, yet her baby’s lineage is traced through her husband. Mystery comes into the world, redemption comes into the world with its own morality, with its own sense of the good that plays in all shades in between black and white. These are family stories that would not play well in some sweet Pleasantville. They are real families, real choices, real risks, and we learn that you never know how redemption will come to the world.

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