Series: October 2022
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"Resourceful and Revealing: Jesus’ Grandmothers I"
Genesis 38:1-30
38It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. 2There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to her. 3She conceived and bore a son; and he named him Er. 4Again she conceived and bore a son whom she named Onan. 5Yet again she bore a son, and she named him Shelah. She was in Chezib when she bore him. 6Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar. 7But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. 8Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’ 9But since Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother. 10What he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also. 11Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up’—for he feared that he too would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.
12 In course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died; when Judah’s time of mourning was over, he went up to Timnah to his sheep-shearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13When Tamar was told, ‘Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep’, 14she put off her widow’s garments, put on a veil, wrapped herself up, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. She saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him in marriage. 15When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a prostitute, for she had covered her face.16He went over to her at the roadside, and said, ‘Come, let me come in to you’, for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, ‘What will you give me, that you may come in to me?’ 17He answered, ‘I will send you a kid from the flock.’ And she said, ‘Only if you give me a pledge, until you send it.’ 18He said, ‘What pledge shall I give you?’ She replied, ‘Your signet and your cord, and the staff that is in your hand.’ So he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 19Then she got up and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood.
20 When Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite, to recover the pledge from the woman, he could not find her. 21He asked the townspeople, ‘Where is the temple prostitute who was at Enaim by the wayside?’ But they said, ‘No prostitute has been here.’ 22So he returned to Judah, and said, ‘I have not found her; moreover, the townspeople said, “No prostitute has been here.” ’ 23Judah replied, ‘Let her keep the things as her own, otherwise we will be laughed at; you see, I sent this kid, and you could not find her.’
24 About three months later Judah was told, ‘Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the whore; moreover she is pregnant as a result of whoredom.’ And Judah said, ‘Bring her out, and let her be burned.’ 25As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, ‘It was the owner of these who made me pregnant.’ And she said, ‘Take note, please, whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.’ 26Then Judah acknowledged them and said, ‘She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.’ And he did not lie with her again.
27 When the time of her delivery came, there were twins in her womb. 28While she was in labour, one put out a hand; and the midwife took and bound on his hand a crimson thread, saying, ‘This one came out first.’ 29But just then he drew back his hand, and out came his brother; and she said, ‘What a breach you have made for yourself!’ Therefore he was named Perez. 30Afterwards his brother came out with the crimson thread on his hand; and he was named Zerah.
Resourceful and Revealing: Jesus’ Grandmothers I
Christians speak often of Jesus’ father, that his was heavenly being the most basic of theological claims. Some speak a good deal about his mother, both as God-bearer, how she is sometimes described in the tradition, and also as a special portal through which many relate to God. What about Jesus’ grandmothers? When have you ever heard of them? This was the topic of a series of beautiful papers colleagues of mine wrote for our annual preaching gathering this past year, and I found the subject both informative and inspiring. Lineage is an impactful thing, whether it’s one’s family tree or one’s chosen set of influences. Many have taken to exploring their own blood line either through online tools or DNA testing. How far back could you go? I would argue an exercise of just as much import is to build a spiritual lineage, a moral and intellectual lineage. In whose line do you see yourself, and what values flow through it? How does this shape who you try to be in the world? The next three weeks we will explore three women who are part of Jesus’ line, women the tradition wanted to be sure we remembered as part of Jesus and therefore part of who we are to follow. These women have names: Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba.
You’ll find them in the genealogy that begins Matthew’s gospel. Matthew begins with a genealogy because Matthew wants to signal something about where Jesus comes from, many things really, from the outset of the gospel story. I had a New Testament professor who either did or at least considered writing a master’s thesis just on the genealogy. There is so much there. Don’t sell Matthew or yourself short with biblical literalism, here, one of the worst inventions of modernity; this is a chosen genealogy. These are names put there because Matthew is teaching something through them, just as Luke does, whose genealogy differs from Matthew’s, for example not including these women. What is in them for us?
Let’s begin with Tamar. There are multiple Tamars in the scriptures. This Tamar is from Genesis 38. Let’s recap: Tamar is married to a man named Er. Er was “wicked in the sight of the Lord” so God kills him (Gen. 38:7). Judah, Er’s father, commands Er’s brother Onan to take Tamar as his wife, which was his duty in the culture and tradition of the time. Onan appears to, but stops short of helping Tamar get pregnant, spilling his semen on the ground every time they were together (notice he doesn’t refrain from the act altogether) because he is upset that the offspring won’t be his. This displeases God too who then kills Onan. Judah responds by sending Tamar back to her own father’s house. He literally “returns” her to her father for his care and provision. There she is to wait until Judah’s next son, Shelah is old enough to do his duty and take her as his wife. However, after Shelah is old enough, Tamar notices he is not given to her. Time passes, Judah’s wife dies, his time of mourning comes to an end, and Judah goes up to shear his sheep. Along the way, he takes a prostitute, which turns out to be Tamar in disguise. From their encounter, she conceives out of the bloodline she was promised.
Tamar has taken her fate into her own hands. In that time and culture, having offspring was essential to a woman’s wellbeing. She uses trickery to get her father-in-law to do what the other men, and he to an extent, in her family would not, faithfully provide for her and their family. Matthew wanted the people who followed Jesus to know this story. Think of that. A woman was vulnerable and needed to be included in a household for her own survival is passed around by men and more accurately a system, a system that grants her virtually no agency. In the midst of that, she manufactures what agency she can, and claims some power if only under the veil of disguise. Remarkable.
In spite of these incredible actions of Tamar, some seem to miss the point and chalk up Tamar’s story and those of the other women’s in Matthew’s genealogy as a sign of God’s grace in the face of theirflawed characters! One very famous pastor who I will not name because I am about to be critical said, “Read the genealogy of Jesus, and you have to see how the four women in that genealogy God used their sins for His glory.” Theirsins. What was her sin? I think we can acknowledge craftiness, even outright deception, are among the only tools one has when one is denied real choices and power. Remember, the text says, Er was wicked, Onan was wicked, Judah was negligent at worst and minimally compliant with his responsibilities at best. Hersin?
Thankfully, deeper in the tradition there is a lineage of praise for Tamar. What courage. What resourcefulness. What endurance. Remember she is only able to achieve her end through an intimate encounter with her father-in-law. There is no glory nor dignity in her path. The story is a complex one. Rev. Emily Wilmarth, pastor in Highlands, North Carolina, who wrote on this topic helps illuminate this. Wilmarth wonders, somewhat painfully, if Tamar’s actions don’t take us away from a bigger problem. She writes, “I have to admit, I struggle with Tamar’s story. On the one hand, Tamar’s actions don’t seem to change the particular system that oppresses her. The patriarchy rages on. And the tradition celebrates her for allowing it. We have no idea what happens to Tamar in the end. Only that her name and her role are codified in the long, deep family history.”[1] In celebrating her for navigating that system so deftly, Wilmarth effectively asks if the story reinforces that unfair system or at least fail to dismantle it or appropriately critique it, a system which so disadvantages one half of its population. That is, to say, unless we hear the story inviting us to critique the system it reveals. We have a role to play.
“On the other hand,” Wilmarth continues, “I celebrate Tamar’s ingenuity and her nerve. Systems don’t usually crumble in an instant. Tamar was never going to dismantle the patriarchy. But she does what she has to do. She exploits Judah’s proclivities, and she gets what she needs to survive. She claims her own agency and outsmarts the system in which she exists. It’s heartbreaking, but inspiring, how she joins with countless oppressed women and men who have taken matters into their own hands for the sake of their own survival. Women and men who have risked breaking stupid laws and or ludicrous social norms to ensure that they, or their children, or their people won’t continue to suffer. Her story is not excluded from the scriptures.”[2]
Her story is the story of all who have had to face rules or norms or laws that do not fully accept their humanity or put them at a disadvantage. How revealing that by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit the author of Matthew saw fit to include this as the beginning, the “genesis” of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Robert Williamson Jr. a pastor and Old Testament professor writes, “One cannot tell the story of Jesus without also telling the stories of remarkable women, without whom Jesus would never have been. Yet nor can one tell the story of Jesus without remembering all of the tragedies inflicted upon women by men living in a patriarchal culture.”[3] Matthew can’t tell this story without them because they are essential to who Jesus is and what he carries within him. This is a story of a remarkable woman whose resourcefulness, predicament, and the inherit unfairness of it, are embedded in Jesus’ spiritual DNA. Her story is his story and therefore it is our story. Her name is Tamar. Remember her. Tamar was the 41stgreat grandmother of Jesus. Amen.
[1]Emily Wilmarth, Jesus’ Grandmas: Tamar.
[3]https://robertwilliamsonjr.com/women-matthews-genealogy/