Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC
Advent 4 A - December 18, 2022
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| Br. Robert Leo Sevensky's paternal great grandparents - parents of grandfather Barney |
David, the son of Abraham.”
This is followed by fifteen verses filled with names that are almost unpronounceable. The passage begins by reminding us that: “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 Zereh by Tamar…” and on and on, forty-two generations from Abraham down to Joseph the husband of Mary. But these verses are not unimportant for they set the story of Jesus in context and help us to understand who he is and how he came to be who he is for us. These verses, this genealogy, places Jesus directly in the Davidic royal lineage, the lineage from which the Messiah was to come. And as we know, for Matthew it is the messiahship of Jesus which is central to understanding his person and his power.
There has been a lot of interest lately in genealogy. The TV show Roots on PBS remains very popular as celebrities are introduced to distant and previously unknown ancestors. Ancestry.com has allowed many of us to become amateur genealogists. And DNA testing has allowed people to trace the long history of their ancestry as revealed in their cellular structure. It's all pretty fascinating.
During the recent COVID pandemic some of these ancestry tools were made available free of charge through the local public library system. I took a stab at trying to clarify something of my own family history. I was not very successful, however, and my family lineage remains rather short, essentially going back to grandparents and no farther. But just last week my cousin Paul sent me photos of my great grandparents, the parents of my father's father who himself died in 1925. I had never seen pictures of them before and never knew that any existed.
There was certainly nothing remarkable about the photos or the people pictured it in them. They both looked dour, a bit stern, and somewhat down at the heels as I would expect of immigrant laborers from Eastern Europe in the 1880s. But it was fascinating to me none the less. I studied the photos searching for family esemblances and traits. Can I learn anything about myself by looking at this photo of two strangers about whom I know virtually nothing but who paradoxically are part of my history and who to some degree, however small, shape who I am today? I think that's why most people are interested at some level in their genealogy. It's not because it will reveal some exotic past, even though we might hope otherwise, but that it helps us in some small way to understand who we are today.
I think the same dynamic is operative in those first seventeen verses of Matthew's gospel which offer us a genealogy of sorts of Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One, the Messiah. And there are several interesting characteristics of this genealogy.
First, it is not exactly historically accurate. It is rather a fanciful or idealized genealogy, nicely divided into three groups of fourteen generations, each group populating a certain era in the history of Israel. And it reminds us, if we need such reminding, that Jesus is the fruit of a long historical process at the heart of the Jewish story. It may not historically accurate. But that may not be its point at all nor its importance for us this morning.
As I mentioned before, this genealogy establishes the royal messianic line right down to Joseph: “…the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who was called the Messiah.” This is not so much an historical claim as it is a theological one.
And like most genealogies, the one that Matthew offers us contains some surprises and perhaps even some cautions. Jewish genealogies were generally patrilineal, as this one is, tracing ancestry through the male parent. But there are five women mentioned in this list, and as a footnote in my Bible says of these five women: “…each acted independently, in some cases scandalously, at critical junctures in Israel’s history to ensure the continuation of the Davidic line.” And they are quite a controversial group indeed. There is Tamar, a gentile, who use subterfuge to conceive and bear. There is Rehab, a gentile and a prostitute, who hid Joshua’s spies and insured victory over Jericho. There is Ruth, a gentile and grandmother of King David who refused to go back to her gentile world and chose rather to be incorporated into the Hebrew people. There is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, a gentile who, depending on how you read the story, is either an adulteress or a woman sexually exploited by a powerful ruler. And lastly there is Mary, definitely not a gentile, but unmarried and pregnant and not by her betrothed. In truth Joseph's genealogy--and by extension Jesus’-- is as messy or messier than yours or mine. Yet look what God did with it and through it.
Finally, and it's easy to miss this in our English translations, the word genealogy in Greek is the word genesis which is, of course, the title of the first book of the Hebrew Bible, a word filled with layers of meaning and associations. Matthew begins his gospel with this proclamation: “An account of the genesis of Jesus.” And that’s a clue, and more than clue, that we are being offered something radically new: a new story, a new beginning, a new creation coming out of a rather messy, if royal, history.
Which brings us at long last to today's gospel reading with its focus on Joseph. We could mention Joseph being a dreamer like his namesake, the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery in Egypt but whom God used for the survival of the Davidic line. We could highlight Joseph’s righteousness and compassion in not subjecting his betrothed to public shame and disgrace. But what's most important about this passage from Matthew’s viewpoint is Joseph's obedience, his obedience to the Angel who said to him: “… you are to name the child Jesus.” This is not a casual command, for in act of publicly naming the child, Joseph legally accepts him as his own. In doing this, in claiming the child as his own, he also and very importantly places the child in the Davidic line. Jesus is capable then, and only then, of assuming the role of Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ.
Yes, Joseph was a dreamer. And yes, Joseph was a just man and compassionate. But above all, Joseph was obedient, listening, as Saint Benedict would say five centuries later, with the ear of his heart, acting on what he heard, and opening for all the way of salvation.
I think once again of the picture that I received last week of my great grandparents and how interesting that is to me. But I think also of another picture, an icon or image, that is yet more interesting and much more important.
O that birth forever blessed, when the Virgin full of grace,by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race;and the Babe, the world's Redeemer, first revealed his sacred face,evermore and evermore!
Brothers and sisters, let us keep an eye out for that face this Christmas season. In it, we will see our own true face. And through, it we will come home to our own heart, close to the heart of God.
O yes!
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