Happy Mother’s day! Today’s lesson will be a brief overview of the mothers listed in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew with a focus on the most prominent quality of each.
What would you say is the defining characteristic or quality in your own mother?
Of all the things that stand out in my mom’s life, the one feature that I see above all the rest is her Christian faith and also loyalty to the church. That central quality set has shaped and informed more of her decisions and deeds than anything else I can think of. I personally am beneficiary of her faith as are my brothers and sister.
If you read the books of Kings and Chronicles carefully, you will notice how often they name the mother of the king’s children and where each mother is from. This is not insignificant at all! Many good kings who were born of evil fathers have this in common, their mothers were faithful even as their faithfulness fathers stayed busy and absentee with kingdom business. The opposite is also true. Some good fathers raised up wicked boys due in part to their mother’s idolatrous influences.
While fathers may have the lion’s share of influence and authority in the home, if they use it, many do not use it, and thus lose it by default. The saddest thing is when both parents, moms and dads, give over their primary duty of raising their children to others and fail to be the influence God intended them to be, to shape little souls into servants who are godly and faithful. How often do your children hear you pray for them? How often do they see you reading scripture or discussing God’s word together? What primary characteristic or quality do your children see in you? Let me suggest that you ask your children about this and discuss with them how God can strengthen your influence for faith in their lives.
Matthew’s gospel lists five mothers in the lineage of Jesus Christ. All of them are caught up in some kind of deep plot, sometimes scandalous, out of which each builds a prominent identity in the Bible. Matthew mentions each one surely knowing that his readers will be aware of who they are and what each one did whether good or bad.
He didn’t have to mention them at all. Luke, who writes about the women in Jesus’ life more than any other gospel writer, gives his genealogy without a single women’s name mentioned. Matthew could have done the same. But the Holy Spirit guided Matthew to remind us of these, so let’s look at them as we celebrate motherhood today.
First in line is Tamar from Genesis 38. Little is known about her life except for this fully detailed story about how she came to be mother of Perez through Judah. It’s a PG13 story that many parents who read to their kids at night would pass over, and get back to Joseph. It is a very unpleasantly interesting story that reveals the moral weakness of Judah and his two oldest sons. Tamar is not Judah’s wife, but his daughter-in-law. Though she gets pregnant by Judah as an intentional act of deception by Tamar, Judah says that she is more righteous than he. If you haven’t read the story, I leave it to you to do so: Genesis 38.
Several things stand out about Tamar in this story. One is that she’s a Canaanite. In fact, all of the women Matthew mentions as mothers of Jesus’ line are foreigners to Israel, with the possible exception of Bathsheba, but she is married to a Hittite. Tamar is first married to Judah’s oldest son, Er. But Er is wicked and God puts him to death. Then Tamar is given to Judah’s second son Onan. He is wicked too, and God puts him to death. Judah sees Tamar as a sort of black widow. He has one other son, but will not give him to her to carry on the family line because Judah thinks he might die too. Interestingly, we never hear from this younger son again after Genesis 38, but we do hear of Tamar and how she got pregnant by Judah. By the way she even had twins!
Since Tamar was married to Judah’s oldest son, and her first son would have carried the family line. Perez, who was born to her from Judah, took this position.
Tamar’s chief characteristic might be her willingness to risk death to achieve what she saw as justice and family loyalty. You have to read the story to understand that. One might argue that in her case, the end justifies the means. Even Judah says that she more righteous than he because Judah failed to give Tamar his youngest son to maintain the family line.
Maybe you are thinking: Greg, what kind of sermon point is that? What are you trying to say here? My only defense is that this is in the Bible, and perhaps we need to see that God can work in spite of our messy attempts at justice. Let’s just move on, what do you say?
The second mother in the line of Jesus is Rahab, of Jericho. Now we have another Canaanite in the line of Christ with another story of family loyalty. Her story is told in Joshua chapters two and five. There is danger and deception and deliverance in this story too. Joshua had sent two spies to Jericho and while they are within the walls of the city, staying at Rahab’s house, the king of Jericho finds out and sends soldiers to catch them. Listen to Joshua 2:1ff.
After the walls of Jericho fall, we read again about Rahab in Joshua 6:17f. At the end of verse 25 we discover that Rahab stayed in Israel. She married Salmon of the tribe of Judah and thus became a mother in the line of Christ. Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 mention her as a harlot, but commend her for her faith because she believed in God and was willing to protect the spies of Israel and trust in God’s deliverance through them to save her and her family.
So, what chief characteristic stands out in Rahab? There’s a lot here, and not all is good. She’s known as a prostitute with an Inn. She’s a Canaanite. She lies to protect foreign spies. She defects from her own people and joins with Israel. She marries an Israelite and becomes a part of the line of Christ. While the Bible is open and plain about her weaknesses, there is also a strength that Rahab has that brings redemption and reveals her character. She turns to God and gives herself to Him and his people in faith. Whatever bad in her life might stain her character is overcome in the Bible because of her acts of faith. She becomes a mother to a man named Boaz, who is a prominent figure in the book of Ruth. Ruth is our next mother to discuss.
Ruth, third mother mentioned in Matthew is a Moabite. She is perhaps the most well known and loved of the mothers Matthew mentions. Ruth even has a book of the Bible named in her honor. What a rarity! An Old Testament book named after a foreigner to Israel! Her character of loyalty to family is tested and proven and ultimately greatly blessed by God. Ruth becomes related to the people of Israel by marriage to one of Naomi’s sons. After he dies Naomi encourages her to go back to her family and find another husband. Ruth will not leave Naomi’s side, but follows her to Israel and begins working as a poor widow, gleaning in the fields of Boaz. Ruth’s reputation as a noble woman becomes known and Boaz shows kindness to her and at Ruth’s own request, prompted by Naomi, takes Ruth as a wife and has children with her.
Ruth’s son through Boaz is named Obed, who is the father of Jesse, and Jesse is the father of David who becomes king over all Israel.
I realize this brief overview has gutted all the good stuff out of Ruth’s story. The study of Ruth is a study of God’s redeeming grace. It is full of irony with bitterness turned to joy. We will just have to do that at another time.
Ruth’s chief characteristic is again loyalty to family through faith in the God of Israel.
Now we come to David and Bathsheba. This is one of the sad stories of motherhood in scripture. As I was reading to prepare for this lesson, I happened to look at 2 Samuel 8:2 where it tells of David defeating the Moabites. It says that he made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death. Only those in the third length were allowed to live. I wonder what David’s great grandmother, Ruth, the Moabite, would have thought about that. Those were terrible times of war. We sometimes forget all the bloodshed that went on as we read through these stories.
Anyway, David was a warrior. He was known by the saying, “David has killed his ten thousands!” a saying that made Saul jealous enough to try to kill David. David was no one to mess with. David also took many wives. In 2 Samuel 3:2-5 we have six of David’s wives listed. That does not include Saul’s daughter, Michal, who would make seven. Then in 2 Samuel 5:13 the writer simply says that David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem and more sons and daughters were born to him. So David is both a warrior and a father of many children through many wives of various places. This is not a side of David that I am comfortable with, but God’s word doesn’t cover the warts, does it.
The story of David and Bathsheba falls in line next: 2 Samuel chapter 11.
It is spring, the kings are off to war, but David is home relaxing in bed. He gets up, walks around on his roof and sees a woman bathing. That sets up the story that we all know as a great turning point in David’s life. Jesus would later say with the authority of heaven and the history of his ancestry, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Therefore, if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it from you. It is better to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it from you. It is better to lose one part of your body that for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
David’s story here helps us understand this. David’s sin with Bathsheba started before he took her to bed. David even sent to find out who she was. He didn’t even know her name. He wanted her in lust, not in love. Bathsheba is a victim in this story, not the culprit. Of course, she could have refused to come. Her husband is doing what David should be doing, Uriah is out there fighting the enemies of Israel. David knows how to fight those enemies, but he fails miserably to fight another enemy that stalks him and brings sin into his heart and spreads it from lust, to adultery, to deceit, to murder. This fire that started with a look of lust will not go out until it claims several of David’s own children’s lives with it. Before it is over, David will weep and wish he were dead.
I’m sure, if David had torn out his eye and turned from his lust, he would have been happier than the future that his sin dragged him through.
Bathsheba became pregnant through this adultery with David. The cover up David attempts fails. David is rebuked by the prophet Nathan, and though David’s life is spared and his sin atoned for by God, the sword begins to devour David’s family. The first to fall is this child conceived in adultery. Bathsheba’s baby dies. David has already killed her husband, Uriah. Now she had to endure the death of her child.
The end of 2 Samuel 12 gives us the first glimmer of light in the darkness. David, now married to the widow of Uriah, having lost the child they conceived in sin, comforts Bathsheba and she has another son by David. This one lives. David and Bathsheba name him Solomon, meaning peace. But God names him Jedidiah, meaning loved by the Lord.
Bathsheba’s character is cloaked in the story. We hardly know if she is a willing partner or not. What we do know is that she figures into the line of Jesus Christ in a most uncomfortable way.
Scholars have looked at this and seen in Matthew’s imagination a preparation for Mary’s predicament with Joseph. Mary becomes pregnant as an act of God, and Joseph has been a man of righteousness, perhaps expecting to live out his days with that reputation in his family. How does one maintain such a reputation and take a wife who is pregnant with a child that is not his?
One writer puts it this way: In our own age of people who raise children without the benefit of marriage, the issue of legitimacy sounds a bit quaint, but the heart of this story is much bigger and more profound than that. The heart of the story is about a just man who wakes up one day to find his life wrecked: his betrothed pregnant, his trust betrayed, his name ruined, his future revoked. It is about a righteous man who surveys a mess he had absolutely nothing to do with and decides to believe that God is present in it. He claims the scandal and gives it a name. He owns the mess – he legitimates it – and the mess becomes the place where the Messiah is born.
These mothers all were placed in very difficult situations and faced very uncertain outcomes. What we learn is that God’s hand works in the midst of messy matters of life to bring about blessings for those who trust Him. While all of us would prefer to avoid the hardships and messes of this fallen world, God allows us to suffer and struggle but does not abandon us.
Mary’s gift of faith and humble obedience to God were not always immediately appreciated or applauded. In fact, what Mary teaches us is that God’s greatest gifts may require our being misunderstood and threatened if we accept and bear them. Every mother in Matthew’s list experienced this same struggle of faith.
God’s ways are not simply about comfort and personal satisfaction, peace and prosperity and then you die and go to heaven. Those may certainly be there! Thank God when they come. But do not make those the goal of your life. Motherhood in Matthew reminds us that God’s ways ultimately bring us into the line of Jesus and eternal rewards follow. And that is worth all the struggle of the path.
