Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way …

Why start with a conjunction? Well if you are conjoining things there is something after the conjunction and something before it. So what is it that the writer is seeking to bring together? Our reading starts at verse 18, so let’s look at verse 17:

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah are fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place …

Well hang on a minute. This is the first chapter of the gospel of Matthew; we’re in the eighteenth verse, and we’ve heard that Jesus is Messiah twice already. What happened to the secrecy that surrounds the true identity of Jesus? That’s not in Matthew’s gospel. All that secrecy stuff is in Mark’s gospel, written for a very different audience, for a very different group of people.

Actually, in the first eighteen verses of the first chapter of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is identified as the Messiah four times, and the first mention of his Messiah-ship is in the very first verse. Matthew’s gospel opens with:

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah

… the ninth word in the English translation. Jesus is the Messiah. Matthew is in no doubt about the Messiah-ship of Jesus, and he underlines that truth from the very outset.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about this morning.

Actually, have you ever studied the genealogies of Jesus in the gospels? They’re quite interesting. There are two of them: one in Luke’s gospel and one in Matthew’s. Luke is determined to prove, writing for his particular audience, that Jesus is the son of God. Matthew, writing for his audience, needs to show that Jesus has a clear link to David and to that Davidic royal line, which goes a bit like this:

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.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about either!

My point this morning is very simple: that this is a very interesting group of women who are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. The last one being Mary, who, we all now know, we know nothing about. This totally unknown, unremarkable, very ordinary teenager, who was plucked from obscurity to become the mother of Jesus. She is not alone in playing a central role in this genealogy.

Judah is the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Now Tamar was a bit of a seductress. She was married to Judah’s eldest son, Er: so she was Judah’s daughter-in-law. Er died without having had any children with Tamar, so Judah’s second son, Onan, was expected to go and be a husband to her. But Onan was not that way inclined. Scholars suspect that he …. Well, one of the books says:

Onan resorted to that unfruitful practice since named after him.

So we draw a veil over him! Judah’s third son was called Shelah, but he was far too young. So Tamar dressed herself up as a harlot and enticed Judah, her father in law, to bed with her and she got pregnant. Judah, not knowing he had been to bed with Tamar, denounced her for getting pregnant outside of marriage and sentenced her to death. Whereupon Tamar – clever woman – produced the tokens of affection that Judah had given her at moments of heightened excitement. Judah realised it was him all along, that he was responsible for her pregnancy so he reprieved Tamar. Twins were the result of their liaison: Perez and Zerah. And Perez is an ancestor of David and, thus, of Jesus. So this royal line is perpetuated by deception.

But that’s not all. Salmon is the father of Boaz by Rahab. We have to accept that there is some uncertainty about this. We cannot be sure that this is the same Rahab of Jericho who made a deal with spies and thus saved her own skin by her highly developed political abilities. But if it is (any many scholars suggest this is so), then the line of David and of Jesus has been maintained by some careful political manoeuvrings.

Thirdly we meet Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth. Boaz ended up being married to Ruth because he bought some land and it appears she came as part of the package. But that’s not the important point. More significantly, Ruth was not a Jew. She was from Moab. She was a foreigner, and for a Jew to marry a non-Jew went against the law as laid down by Ezra and Nehemiah. So the line of David and the line of Jesus evolves outside the Judaic law.

Finally we hear of David father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. This poor woman is the only person not to be given a name in the genealogy. However, this nameless woman is very well known to us, for she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite: Bathsheba, whom David spies from his palace as she takes her bath on her roof top whilst her husband Uriah is away fighting on the front line, fighting for king and country, being a loyal servant and subject. David summons Bathsheba to his palace. He has his way with her: was it rape? If it wasn’t it was very close to it. And while the loyal, dutiful soldier husband is away fighting on the front line, Bathsheba gets pregnant. David recalls Uriah in the hope of being able to send him back to the bedchamber. But Uriah has more honour than that. When he comes back to the city he refuses to go to his home preferring to sleep at the city gates instead. So David, that glorious king, sends him back to the front line carrying sealed instructions for the army commander, which Uriah, in the ultimate irony, delivers to the troop commander, saying “Advance towards the enemy with Uriah the Hittite at the forefront and then withdraw leaving him isolated and vulnerable.” Sure enough Uriah gets killed in the line of duty. As my book says,

God was vexed by this disgraceful act and made their child sicken and die.

Well God’s vexation didn’t last long as David and Bathsheba had another child called Solomon who grew up to be David’s choice as king. So Jesus’ line evolves outside any normal sense of morality and justice.

Five women: deceivers and deceived; perpetrators and victims; loyal and lawless. Five women without whom Matthew could not have stated and so clearly and so categorically

an account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah.

This is one of the reasons why I find the Christian faith so compelling. For it is rooted in the mess and tragedy of real life: in real lives of real people who need to survive; who fall foul of their lusts and desires; and yet show skill and tenacity in the face of adversity; who hold onto the rules and traditions of their society, until they don’t.

And it is into this true reflection of the human condition – not into some flock wall papered, tinsel covered, marzipan laden, robin red breasted, holly and ivy, sickly sweet version of life – but into this true reflection of the human condition that Jesus is the Messiah.

That is what we are about as Christians. That is what we are celebrating this coming week: God breaking in to the true reality of our human lives. Not by taking away the hurt and the failure; not by denying the pain and the aggression; but saying that it can be transformed, that it will be transformed: by my love.

By my love for you as you are, not as you would like to be, and certainly not as ‘they’ say you ought to be; but just as you are.

Transformed, into love, by love, and all for my love’s sake.