The gospel for today is St. Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. It is Matthew’s way of showing how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament storyline and takes up the first 17 verses of the gospel – and since Matthew’s gospel is almost always the first book of the New Testament, one could say it is the first 17 verses of the entire New Testament! … and I am sure most people skip it and move on to the Nativity and Infancy narratives.
Genealogies in the Old Testament are always working to communicate multiple layers of information to readers. Genealogies obviously trace family trees, but they also help us follow priestly and royal lines through Israel’s story. You can see each of these types of genealogies in the first nine chapters of Chronicles. In fact, there’s little doubt that the author of Matthew had the book of Chronicles and its genealogies in mind when he wrote his own Gospel account and began it with a genealogy.
Okay… But why does this genealogy matter?
Matthew tells us the two key people who are most important in this genealogy: “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” From this opening statement, we expect this family tree to help us understand not only the ancestral past of Jesus but also his identity and mission. Jesus is called the son of both David and Abraham.
By calling Jesus the “son of Abraham,” the author is connecting Jesus to the father of the people of Israel. Abraham represents the moment when God selected and separated his family from the rest of the nations all the way back in the book of Genesis. It was through these Israelite people that God promised to bring blessing to all of humanity (Gen 12:1-3). By linking Jesus to Abraham, Matthew is bringing the reader’s attention back to the promise of God’s rescue plan for the world. He wants us to see that Jesus is the long-awaited son of Abraham who will bring God’s blessing to all humanity. But how, exactly? Jesus is also “Son of David.:
The opening verse one is the first of ten appearances of the phrase in the book, and it draws our attention to the royal line of King David. Abraham’s name pointed to a belonging amongst the people of Israel. David’s name tells us that Jesus was royalty. Matthew shows us that Jesus is the royal successor and rightful heir to the throne of David’s kingdom.
Interestingly, consider the unique appearance of four women in the genealogy of Matthew: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. All four are either non-Israelites or connected to non-Israelite families. Not only is it unconventional for Matthew to list these female names in an all-male genealogy, but these particular women are all associated with potential scandals. Matthew could have highlighted Jesus’ connection to Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, the matriarchs of Israel. But instead, he mentions Canaanites, prostitutes, and Moabite women, who would be associated with Israel’s sin and covenant failure.
Matthew wants his readers to see that God has been using all types of people to move his plan forward. This portrait of an inclusive and expanding God and kingdom will continue to appear beyond Matthew’s genealogy into the rest of his gospel. He will continue to include the rejects and outsiders into his family. And this non-Israelite strand in Jesus’ family history will expand even wider in his final commission to his followers to go and “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19).
The genealogy of Matthew shows us the One who will bring the blessing of Abraham to the whole world. He’s the royal son of David that all of Israel has been waiting for. He’s the one that the prophets wrote about, and the psalmists sang about. He will be the king of Israel who blesses all of the nations of the world, especially the outsiders.
Why does this genealogy matter? Because Matthew begins his gospel telling us that Hope that has arrived in Jesus.
Image credit: Photograph | South dome of inner narthex at Chora Church, Istanbul, depicting the ancestors of Christ from Adam onwards | Wiki Commons from José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro | CC BY-SA 3.0