Scandalous Christianity

Matthew 1:1-19

Matthew started his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus, which seems a strange place to start. It certainly does not seem to be the most stimulating way to begin a gospel account. If I were to tell you the story of my life and began with a long list of the names of my ancestors, you might be inclined to go make an urgent phone call or go respond to an urgent need. But Matthew begins with a selective genealogy of Jesus, tracing his line back to King David and then back to the father of the faith, Abraham.

Every family has a few stories in its past. My father came from a Norwegian family and his oldest sister, my aunt, was very much into her Norwegian heritage. She collected Norwegian antiques, went almost every year to Norway, was fluent in Norwegian. She traced our lineage back to the 16th century and was proud that we were descended from a Norwegian king. She would point out that we had long, elegant royal fingers, not short, stubby peasant fingers. But the story of how we were descended from a Norwegian king was a story my grandfather did not like to tell. He was a bit embarrassed by it.

Back in the days when Norway had more than one king, when a king visited a village under his control, he might be given a maiden for the night. We are descended from one of those nights. Supposed proof of this story’s historicity is that the family received money from the king that allowed them to buy a hardware store in Farsen, Norway. I have a picture of this store from the 1800s.

One of the Norwegian families from which we are descended is the Lunde family and there is a famous Lunde – or should I say infamous Lunde. Gulbrand Lunde was hated by his fellow Norwegians for collaborating with the Nazi occupation of Norway. Lunde was the Propaganda Minister and second in command in the traitor Quisling’s Nazi government. Lunde modeled himself after Joseph Goebbels, the German Nazi Propaganda Minister and was called “lille Goebbels”. Time Magazine in their Nov. 9, 1942 issue had this obituary for him.

Last week Norwegians heard their Propaganda Minister no longer. The last to see him were the villagers of Vage, a tiny hamlet on the Norwegian coast. In the dark of a Sunday evening, Lunde, with his wife and a district party leader, arrived in Vage to take the little ferryboat that went across the fjord to Andalsnes. The chauffeur drove the limousine out on the slip, got out and strolled aboard the ferry. An instant later, slip and ferry parted. The car teetered, plunged into the icy water.

On the crest of a gigantic air bubble bobbed the head of the party leader. Lunde and his wife stayed down. The Norwegian skipper of the ferry dived into the fjord, came up gasping, dived again. But it was not until 7 o’clock the next morning that the bodies were hauled up with the car.

In their homes Norwegians heard of the Propaganda Minister’s death from the German-controlled Oslo radio. Their grim jest: the ferryboat skipper had “made those dives to be sure the car doors were locked.”

In every genealogy there are some interesting stories and the genealogy of Jesus is no exception. A genealogy might not seem the most obvious text for a sermon, but I have, in fact, three observations from this passage this morning, one long observation and then two short, but important observations at the end.

Observation one.

Matthew wrote his gospel to influence Jews to come to Jesus and so when he listed the ancestors of Jesus, he listed the ancestors that would place Jesus firmly in the Pharisaic tradition. Abraham was the father of Jewish faith, so the genealogy was traced back to Abraham. David was the great king of Israel and it was prophesied that the Messiah would come through the line of David, so the genealogy was traced back to David. And in a very unusual move, Matthew included four women in the genealogy. These four women had something in common, each had a scandal associated with their marriage and inclusion in the family line of Jesus. But the Pharisees had elevated these women and they were viewed as heroic figures in the history of Israel and perhaps for that reason, Matthew included them.

Most of us do not know much about our ancestors from the past. I look at the list of ancestors that takes me back to the 16th century and the names on that list mean nothing to me. I do not know what they looked like, if they were good at sports or academics or if they were well liked and respected or hated and despised. But I can guarantee that in my family line are buried more scandals than the ones I mentioned.

And I am confident that in your family line there are likewise some scandals.

Let me remind you of the four scandals we know about in this list of the ancestors of Jesus.

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

Judah was the fourth son of Jacob, the grandson of Isaac and great-grandson of Abraham. Judah’s first son married Tamar but he died. So under the law of levirate marriage, Judah’s second son married her but then he too died. Judah did not want his third son to marry her for fear that he too would die so he denied Tamar what was her right.

This left Tamar with the problem of how to continue her husband’s line. In a morally questionable but noble effort, Tamar then disguised herself as a prostitute and met Judah by the side of the road. Their sexual union produced twins: Perez and Zerah and the line of Jesus came through Perez.

Judah was the one mostly in the wrong but the whole sequence of events reeks with scandal.

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

Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho. When two spies for Joshua came to scout out the city, she hid them and lied about their presence to cover for them. As a consequence, when Jericho was destroyed, her life and the lives of her family were saved. According to Matthew she married Salmon and bore a son Boaz who was the great-grandfather of King David.

“Mommy, what did grandma do when she lived in Jericho?” Scandal.

Verse 5
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth

Ruth was from Moab and married a son of Naomi who was from Israel When her husband died, in a great act of love and loyalty, she returned to Israel with her mother-in-law Naomi. They returned, two widows without property or rights. They were allowed to glean from the fields of a relative of Naomi’s dead husband. One night Ruth crept into the tent of Boaz and offered herself to him. Boaz was an honorable man and followed the legal customs and took her as his wife. Their great-grandson was David.

Scandal.

Verse 6
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife

This is a story with which we are quite familiar. David was at home when he should have been on the battlefield. He was bored and looked out over his balcony and noticed Bathsheba bathing on her balcony. (Perhaps Bathsheba was a bit bored as well.) David sent for her and she conceived a child from that union. David sent for her husband to come back from the battlefield so he could be with his wife and that would explain the baby, but Uriah did not want to give himself pleasure when his men were on the battlefield. So David sent word to his commander to put Uriah in a place where he would be killed.

Adultery, lies, murder. Scandal.

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

There was scandal in the genealogy of Jesus and there was scandal in his birth. Mary was a young teenager, a virgin, promised in marriage to Joseph and then she announces to him that she is pregnant. Joseph immediately begins running through his mind the possibilities of who in this small town could have slept with her. “But Joseph, I was not with another man. An angel came to me and that’s how I am pregnant.” “I’m sure,” and Joseph begins thinking of the travelers who had recently come through town.

Proof of the character of Joseph is that he did not denounce her to the community but began planning to quietly divorce her. When an angel appeared to him and explained the situation, Joseph took her and married her. But the neighbors were not stupid. The wedding had been planned for some months in the future and now there was a quick wedding. And Mary began to show signs of her pregnancy sooner after the wedding than was normal.

Scandal.

The scandals in the genealogy of Jesus were matched by the scandal of his own birth and it is appropriate that Jesus was born in scandal for the faith that came from his life, death and resurrection is itself a scandalous faith.

Jesus has a habit of picking scandalous people to do his work.

Jesus did not recruit among the righteous for his disciples. If he had gone to a consulting firm, they would have told him to go to the Rabbinic schools and pick the best and brightest. But Jesus picked up uneducated, Galilean fishermen, passionate zealots who wanted to overthrow the Roman occupation of Israel, a traitorous tax-collector who collaborated with the Romans.

When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, I Corinthians 6, he pointed out some of the people God had picked to be part of his church.
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders  10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

And God is still picking heroin and crack addicts to be his preachers. He is still picking people who were involved in every kind of sexual deviancy to be his evangelists. We make a huge mistake when we begin to think we are respectable. When we begin to value respectability, we limit the ways in which we can walk along with God in his work in this world.

Jesus picked scandalous people to be his friends.

Jesus rocked the respectable social world by eating with tax-collectors and sinners. He allowed a prostitute to wash his feet with her tears, wipe them with her hair, kiss them and anoint them with perfume. A collection of women who had been prostitutes began to follow him.

Throughout church history, God has picked up the unrespectable and made them his leaders in the church and when Christians move toward obedience to Christ, they do things that shake up the established order. If you were respectable when God called you into his family, it seems that he wants to lead you to throw off that respectability and follow him.

A businessman has a partner and the partner becomes a Christian. That’s ok but then the partner announces that 25% of the profits of the company should be given to charitable works. “What do you mean? This is our money. We worked hard to make this money. What kind of crazy cult have you gotten yourself into?” And then the partner announces he wants to leave this business and go off to work in a home for children in Africa, putting the success of the business at risk. This is not what respectable people do.

The Avian flu becomes a full-blown pandemic and instead of staying inside, avoiding contact with people, your daughter announces she is  going out to help care for the people who are dying. “Are you crazy? Do you want to die too?” But your daughter tells you that it is more important to live well than live long and Jesus would be out there caring for people who are suffering and so that is what she must do.

You go to church with a friend from work and this normal, decent, kind, respectable woman lifts her hands up when she is singing and then begins to speak in a loud voice in words no one can understand until another person says that he understands what she was saying and translates for everyone to hear. Is she nuts? What’s wrong with sitting quietly in the pew until it is time to go home?

God’s goal is not to make us respectable people. The prophets did all kinds of crazy public things. Ezekiel each day went out and lied on his side and did this for more than a year. Another time he shaved his head and beard because God told him to do so. Hosea married a prostitute because God told him to do so.

Michal thought she had a good deal when she married David. But he turned out not to be the man she thought he was. When he brought the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem, he was so carried away in his enthusiasm, he took off all but his underwear and danced as a common slave in front of the procession.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians
I Corinthians 3
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise.  19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.

Your family might think it is crazy for you to be living and working in Morocco. They may not understand the choices you have made but know that you stand firmly in the best tradition of the church when you choose obedience to God over the established, respectable wisdom of the world.

The good news for us is that God is able to pick the most unlikely people and use them to do his will. God’s redemptive power is greater than any sinful lifestyle. There is no one without hope. There is no one God cannot use powerfully for his purposes.

In May 2002 I said in a sermon:
There is no one who is so bad that they cannot come into the Kingdom of God. If Paul, the persecutor of the church was invited into the church by Jesus, is there not hope for us all? There is still hope that Ossama bin Laden, if he is still alive, can turn his heart to Jesus and become an advocate in his world for the Gospel.

I still believe that because God is at work in every person in this world and there are no limits to who he brings into his kingdom.

Observation 2

This is a quick observation and yet I have felt that this might be helpful to someone.

Jesus was not the only person with his genealogy. Jesus had four brothers and an unspecified number of sisters who shared his same genealogy and yet the gospel of Matthew concerns Jesus and not his siblings. Why is this?

It was not automatic that Jesus would be who he was. His genealogy did not determine his life. Jesus made choices throughout his life that put him in the position he is today. He choose to enter into a public ministry. He chose to spend intimate time in prayer with his heavenly father. He chose to care for the crowds who came to him, teaching, healing and casting out demons. He chose at the Mount of Transfiguration to head toward Jerusalem and death by crucifixion. He chose to endure the suffering of the cross and to take of the weight of our sins on himself.

Jesus is who he is because he chose the path of obedience.

You may come from an influential family. You may have a magnificent genealogy. Your parents or grandparents may have done truly wonderful things. But so what? That may help you get a job but you are still responsible for making good choices and making good use of your life. Mohammed VI is king because his father was king. But what Mohammed VI makes of his life will be depended on the choices he makes.

On the other hand, your parents or grandparents may have done some terrible things. The truth is that everyone of us has ancestors who did terrible things. Your life is not determined by what your ancestors did. You can make good choices and make your life a life that benefits the world and pleases God.

You are not a prisoner of what your parents or grandparents have done. You are free to make what you will from your life. Don’t live off the glory of what your ancestors accomplished. That is a sad, empty life. And don’t live in shame of what your ancestors did. Learn from their mistakes and lift up your head and live a life that brings honor and glory to God.

We all have a genealogy but what our life will be is dependent on the decisions we make.

Observation 3

Matthew wanted to make clear from the start that Jesus was not an imaginary person, a mythical figure but that he was rooted in history. Jesus was fully divine but also fully human. Jesus was God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.

In many ways, that is all we need, to know that God is present with us.

I was reading The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson this week when a friend who was very discouraged called and I read to him this passage.

My job [as pastor] is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives. It’s hard to do because our whole culture is going the other direction, saying that if you’re smart enough and get the right kind of help, you can solve all your problems. The truth is, there aren’t very many happy people in the Bible. But there are people who are experiencing joy, peace, and the meaning of Christ’s suffering in their lives.

Sometimes I think all I do as pastor is speak the word “God” in a situation in which it hasn’t been said before, where people haven’t recognized his presence. Joy is the capacity to hear the name and to recognize that God is here. There’s a kind of exhilaration because God is doing something and, even in a little way, it’s enough at the moment.

Jesus was born into a suffering world. Just the next chapter of Matthew tells about King Herod’s attempt to prevent anyone from taking his throne from him and a slaughter of all the male babies two years old or younger. Imagine the suffering that was experienced in the area of Bethlehem when those baby boys were grabbed from their mothers and fathers and killed.

There has always been suffering in this world and there will always be suffering up to the day when Jesus returns and takes us to be with him. Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you.”

In Acts 3 Peter healed a man crippled from birth, a man Jesus had undoubtedly passed but not healed. Jesus did not heal all the people crippled or sick when he was on earth. Mental and physical sickness did not disappear when Jesus came. Jesus demonstrated the power of God and the kingdom of heaven was revealed in powerful ways on earth, but that kingdom will not be fully realized until the end of time.

We work and pray to bring the kingdom of God on earth but we will never see that happen in its fulness. We cannot solve all the problems of the world but we can help people to be present with Jesus.

It may be that you are being threatened by some sickness or disease. You may be facing deep discouragement or depression. Someone you love may be going through a very difficult time. It is good to help find a solution to the struggles you face or someone you love is facing, but what is most important is that God is present with you.

Jesus entered history, took on a body made of the same dust we are made of. He demonstrated in a material way that God is present with us and when he ascended to heaven, he promised the Holy Spirit would be sent to be God present with us.

So you are not alone. You may not have solutions to the struggle you are facing, but you are not alone.

In Genesis 1 in the opening verse of the Bible we read:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Over the chaotic, disharmonious mass of matter of the universe, the Holy Spirit was hovering. And the creative energy of the Holy Spirit brought order out of disorder, harmony out of disharmony, beauty out of blandness.

Tiny, delicate flowers with beautiful colors were formed and tropical fish and the leaves of different plants and trees and birds and other animals. Humans were created, all this by the creative life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

The same Holy Spirit is hovering over you and if you are a Christian is in you, filling you with creative energy. Your problems will not overwhelm you. Your fears will not imprison you. You will not receive more than you can bear. All this, not because you are so strong and bright and creative but because God is present with you in the Holy Spirit.

If you have never offered your life to God, do that this morning. Confess your sin, tell God how much you need his presence in your life, open yourself to God, submit your will to God. Be filled with the creative power of the Holy Spirit.

If you are a believer, confess your sin and open yourself to being once again filled with the Holy Spirit.

As you come forward for communion this morning, come forward with hope because the life-giving creative force of the Holy Spirit comes with you.