LESSON: Matthew 1.1-17

SERMON TITLE: Genealogies

INTRODUCTION:

1. Genealogies
1. How are we going to create a sermon from this passage of scripture?


Illustration:

Boy who wanted to know where he had come from.

1. Picture dad sitting in his favorite chair watching the evening news.
2. His young son comes charging into the room and asks, "Dad where did I come from?"
3. Imagine the consternation in the mind of Dad.
1. This is that moment that he has been dreading.
2. How to approach the subject of human reproduction.
3. He hesitates and begins to mutter something about the "birds and the bees."
4. His son interrupts, "Dad, that's not what I am asking. I am learning that in school. Where did I live before we moved here?"
2. Where do we come from?
1. It refers not only to our biological origins.
2. It refers not only to our physical journey.
3. It also refers to our very personhood as individuals with both human and divine ancestry.
3. Genealogies are important.

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MAIN BODY:

1. Genealogies are important for the establishing of one's identity.
1. Who is this person?
2. Who am I but a descendent of my family from the past.
1. Helga has been researching and generating the Vaessen genealogy.
1. She has 8 generations.
2. 10 if you include her daughter and granddaughter.
2. Jesus' identity as the Messiah is established by his genealogy.
1. He is a descendent of Abraham.
2. He is of the Royal Line and Lineage of David.
3. He is the one to assume his rightful place as head of the government.
3. Genealogies also have a need for realism and accuracy.
1. Helga has not yet found the pirate that is lurking in her background.
2. Thomas W. Mann in "To Taste and See", ⁽¹⁾ writes this way about Matthew's genealogy of Jesus
   

Matthew's genealogy of Jesus, extending roughly 840 years, contains adulteresses and whores and pagan social pariahs--and ends with the Virgin Mary.

Here is seen, as nowhere else in Scripture, 'the intersection of incompatible, human imperfection and divine perfection.' Do we not see, in fact, the scandalous mystery of the Incarnation, that God would take on human form and bear the name Emmanuel, 'God is with us, that the Word would become flesh and dwell among us, full of grace and truth'? When we look first at Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, and then at Mary, do we not see the full humanity of Jesus as well as his divinity? As much as Christ represents a new act of divine creation by the power of the Holy Spirit, just as much does he represent a family of questionable parentage, including our four ladies of ill repute. 'God is with us' means precisely what it says--that God has taken on our human condition; God has become part of the human family, warts and all.

We may well not be whores, or social outcasts or murderers, or adulterers, but each of us, like so many biblical characters, is a tangle of ambiguity, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes kind, sometimes mean, sometimes faithful, sometimes faithless--and sometimes, perhaps, even wondering if the Christmas story is really true. But this is the nexus of incompatible intersections. It is precisely to be with us as imperfect men and women that God has come in Christ. Jesus would say later he came 'to call not the righteous but sinners' (Matthew 9:13).

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3. I remember a time when my mother sent me to a boarding school in North Carolina.
1. What I ran into was an attitude that paraphrased asked the question, "Your grandfather and your father were such good people, what happened to you?"
2. I proceeded to demonstrate the differences.
3. In some ways, it was not a very productive year.
2. Genealogies are important for establishing the validity of one's credentials.
1. Who is this person?
2. Where has he/she gone to school
1. Jesus did not attend the established rabbinical schools of the day.
2. This is clearly understood in the challenge of the religious authorities about Jesus' educational credentials
1. John 7:10 through John 7:18 (NRSVA)

10But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. ¹¹The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, "Where is he?" ¹²And there was considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were saying, "He is a good man," others were saying, "No, he is deceiving the crowd." ¹³Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews.

14About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach.

1. In verse 15 you read:


¹⁵The Jews were astonished at it, saying, "How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?"

¹⁶Then Jesus answered them, "My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. ¹⁷Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. ¹⁸Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.

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1. It is reported of him that he taught as one who had authority and not as the scribes.
2. Because of this the common people heard him gladly.
1. Credentials are important, but they are not the be all and end all of our lives.
1. They are not something of which we ought to boast.
2. They are not something in which we ought to take excessive pride.
1. Genealogies are important for establishing one's personal history.
1. We know how vital to our own physical well-being is an understanding of our personal history.
1. The diseases that might be in the family genes.
2. How they impact on us as individuals.
2. Who is this person?
3. What is the nature of his/her family?
1. When Jesus was found, after three days, arguing with the educated in the temple, he responded to his mother's admonition, "Do you not know that I must be in my Father's house.
1. His mother and Joseph did not immediately know what he meant.
2. His Father is not Joseph, but the Father.
2. In Matthew 13:54 through Matthew 13:58 (NRSVA) Jesus is criticized because of his family connections..

5454He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? ⁵⁵Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?" ⁵⁷And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house." ⁵⁸And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.

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3. In Matthew 12:46 through Matthew 12:50 (NRSVA) Jesus is told that his mother, his brothers and sisters are outside and want to see him.


⁴⁶While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. ⁴⁷Someone told him, "Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." ⁴⁸But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" ⁴⁹And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! ⁵⁰For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
 

4. His response indicates clearly the true nature of his family.
5. This is not to deny his family, but rather to expand it to include all who do the will of God.
2. Genealogies are important for establishing one's future potential.
1. Who is this person?
2. What may he/she become?
3. I remember reading George Orwell's 1984, but then in 1884 I read it again.
1. There is one quotation that has constantly stayed with me.
2. Orwell writes:
   

"...if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' and yet the past, though of its nature unalterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control,' they called it; in Newsspeak, ;Doublethink.'" ⁽²⁾