Matt 1-2

Intro

Thinking about a way to enter this conversation with the gospels during Lent, I recalled the following three questions which some scholars have discerned as the big questions which shaped Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology and life. *

1. Who is Jesus?

2. Where is Jesus?

3. What then shall we do?

I think I’ll reflect on those questions as I listen to each of the gospel texts this year. They are big questions, and shelves sag under the weight of the pages written about them. But this is a blog, not a systematic theology.

Matthew 1-2

A few years ago I set out to teach the Gospel According to Matthew to a college group and asked them to read the first chapter for our first meeting. One of the young women in the group asked if we could skip the begats, as in “Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judah and his brothers,” etc. A reasonable request. When, for example, was the last time you heard a Christmas sermon on Matthew 1:1-17? Can’t remember one myself.

Too bad. Because the genealogy of Jesus is good stuff. It shows a great deal about who Jesus is. And he’s a subversive little baby.

He starts out as the perfect Hebrew: son of David, son of Abraham. But his perfect patriarchal lineage is interrupted by the inclusion of four women: Tamar (a seducer and adulterer), Rahab (harlot of Jericho), Ruth (a Moabite), and Bathsheba (stolen wife of the murdered Uriah the Hittite). This sweet, little Christ child, just by his genealogy, subverts the racial barriers between Jew and Gentile, subverts the patriarchal barriers, and subverts the barriers between saints and sinners. Racial, sexual, and religious barriers all fall when this child with this lineage is declared “Emmanuel.”

And that’s not to mention unwed Mary and the subversion of the natural order by this miraculous conception. Or Joseph’s subversion of legal righteousness by his choosing not to divorce her. Highly irregular.

It is an altogether subversive birth of a King, don’t you think? In fact, one of the few normal responses in the story is Herod the king’s imperial order to murder children in an effort to nip this subversion in the bud. Political refugees, collateral damage in the name of homeland security, weeping mothers—normalcy.

From the beginning—the genesis—of Jesus’ story we are taught that in Jesus, all racial, sexual, and religious barriers are subverted. And we are taught that the reaction of the kings and rulers of this world will be violent.

What then are we to do? We are to regard racial, sexual, and religious barriers as the genealogy regards them, knowing that God (and, as we shall see, Jesus) will not be bound by any of them. We are to practice mercy and forgiveness over our legal rights, as Joseph did with Mary. We are to care for unwed mothers, for who knows what child they bear. We are to care for the ones that the rulers of this world displace and damage in their murderous efforts to maintain the status quo. And we are to be forewarned that we will encounter violent resistance to our message and our actions. 

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's story. That’s enough for now, I think.**

*Andrew Root. Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2007), p.82 and footnote.

**From the beginning I need to acknowledge my debt to F. Dale Bruner’s commentary on Matthew. It is simply one of the best commentaries I have ever read. At the same time I need to absolve him for any of my heterodox opinions. OK?