30th
Sermon - Mothers of the Messiah: Tamar
November 30, 2008
The Gospel of Matthew begins like this:
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;
3And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;
4And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon;
5And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;
6And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
And it continues on through Mary and Joseph before getting to Jesus’ birth. This is the original Christmas list, a collection of Jesus’ ancestors that ultimately points to who Jesus is and how God works through the generations to accomplish divine purposes.
I have some friends who are really into genealogy, one has visited cemeteries around the country trying to put together the most complete family tree he can. For the most part, family trees and lists of ancestors are only significant to those who belong to the family that’s being traced (and certainly not everyone in the family is going to be so enthralled). It’s easy to dismiss the genealogy of Jesus as uninteresting, but I want us to pause and consider five persons on the list that didn’t have to be there, and certainly stick out from the rest; the are: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary.
These five women did not have to make the list. Indeed, precedent says that Matthew should have just left them out. But he doesn’t, and their presence gives us reason to pause… which is what we will be doing this Advent season leading up to Christmas. Families and lists… that’s what this season is all about afterall.
The fact that Matthew includes the first four of these women has been a topic of discussion for theologians, each of which have tried to answer two questions: a) Why are they included here? And b) What does their inclusion say about Jesus?
The early church father Jerome, the patron saint of theological learning, tackled these questions and came up to the following conclusions: a)T hese women are all quintessential sinners and b) Jesus came to save sinners.
Martin Luther answered these questions by saying: a) they are all foreigners and b) Jesus came not just to save Jews, but to save Gentiles, also.
A more contemporary, and more satisfying, attempt to answer these questions say puts their roles in comparison to Mary: a) these are all women surrounded by scandal, or in unconventional marriages, who worked actively to advance the cause of God, and b) Jesus is also a scandalous, unconventional advancer of God’s will, the product of Mary’s radical partnership with God. Father Raymond Brown puts it this way: “These women were held up as examples of how God uses the unexpected to triumph over human obstacles and intervenes on behalf of his planned Messiah.”[1]
Which is where we are in Advent 2008: looking to how God uses the unexpected to make Christmas happen despite all the obstacles we and others put in God’s way. And all of this leads us back to Tamar.
Tamar married Judah’s eldest son Er, but before they could have a son Er was killed for being a downright bad dude. The levirate law established by God said that Tamar must then be married to Er’s brother Onan.
Now, this story is already a bit creepy: we don’t experience God as one who just goes off and kills wicked people, and we do not follow the tradition of levirate marriage… where a man is obligated to marry his brother’s widow, especially if they did not have a male heir. The levirate laws remained in Judaism even to Jesus’ times, and were designed as a safeguard on three major fronts: 1) most importantly, providing male heirs to continue a man’s legacy; 2) preventing too much intermarriage with outside groups; 3) lastly, providing support to widows.
Well, Onan gets concerned that if does successfully spawn an heir for his late big brother, then that heir will receive the bulk of his father’s estate and he practices a bit of birth control. So God takes care of him. Tamar’s father-in-law Judah is down to one last son, and fears that Tamar has been the cause of the end of his first two, so he drags his feet on sending his baby boy into her arms. He apparently also refuses to release Tamar to marry someone outside his family.
Tamar is tired of living back home and realizes that she’s probably not going to get a third marriage proposal out of this family. She’s not getting any younger, so she takes matters into her own hands, going into town disguised as a prostitute and seducing old Judah. Judah’s not carrying any cash on him, so he leaves his signet ring and staff as collateral. Tamar then slips into back into something less comfortable and heads home. When Judah’s buddy Hirah went to find the prostitute and settle the debt, he was told there were no working girls who met that description.
Fast forward three months and Tamar is pregnant. She’s carrying twins, so she’s really beginning to show. When word of this gets back to Judah he immediately calls for her to be burned at the stake, but when she produces his staff and signet ring he realizes he is the father and that he is in the wrong, admitting that she should have been married to his last son.
And that’s how the story ends, with twins born into a family of rivalry and scandal. Except the story doesn’t end there. This is the family that Jesus will eventually be born into many generations later.
So, what are we supposed to do with this R-rated story from the pages of our bible? How is this story any indication of who Jesus is going to be? Does anyone know any Christmas carols that even mention Tamar?
Yet, this woman is a foremother of Jesus of Nazareth. Her deception, her use of her sexual power, her claims to her rights no matter the means points in an important way to Jesus’ life and character. When the men resisted God’s commands, Tamar accomplished God’s will as her son Perez becomes a part of the lineage that links Abraham, David and Jesus. For the men in the story, with their power and the perogative that came with it, God’s law was something to be used and ignored on a whim. Their manipulation and neglect of God’s law pointed to their petty and selfish destructiveness; when God’s law is best understood as a set of standards to protect our relationships with God and one another.
Jesus says during his ministry: Matthew 5:17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
We are all expecting a child this Christmas: the fulfillment of God’s plan. On this Advent journey we will encounter other Mothers of the Messiah: a prostitute and protector of spies, a loyal convert who will go to great lengths to care for her mother-inlaw and herself, an unwilling adulterer who becomes aqueen and ambitious mother, and an unwed, pregnant teenage. All these woman are part of Jesus’ genealogy, and like Tamar they remind us that what we expect in this Christmas child may happen in an unexpected way.
[1] Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah. 73-4.
