There's Room for Every Story
Isaiah 2:1-5 & Matthew 1:1-17
Sunday November 27, 2022
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, who bore Jesus, who is called the Messiah. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
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In her book, And the Word Came With Power, Joanne Shetler writes about how she stepped off a boat in 1962 onto Philippine soil to begin her work—work that would change her—work that would transform a people. She was a missionary with Wycliffe. Her job? To translate the Bible into Balangaos.
The Balangaos people are mountain people in the remote, northern part of the Philippines. Headhunters with an animistic religion. The Balangaos men, at that time anyway, wore G-strings and the women wore wrap-around skirts. From Manilla it was a three-day bus ride and a two-day hike up and down hills and through leech-infested waters to reach them. This was where Joanne, the young gal from California, decided to go so that the Balangaos people would have a Bible in their own language.
But first, she had to develop a written language for them. The Balangaos language, you see, was only oral. So this mission trip wouldn’t be a week or a year or even a couple of years. Joanne Shetler would spend two decades living among the Balangaos people to accomplish this work.
A respected elder in the community, a tiny, G-string wearing man named “Ama,” offered to work with Joanne. He spoke a bit of English, and he would teach Joanne Balangaos. Every day they worked together, and eventually the two of them developed a written form of Balangaos. Every day that Ama and Joanne worked together, Joanne would talk with Ama about Jesus, but Ama wasn’t having it. He wasn’t ugly about it . . . he just didn’t believe this “Jesus” story this young American girl kept telling him. But day after day, Joanne remained hopeful that Ama would one day believe.
Then one day, twenty years after Joanne first came to live with the Balangaos, Ama picked up an English New Testament that was sitting on Joanne’s desk. He began to read from the beginning—Matthew 1—the passage with the list of names we read together earlier. Ama stood frozen, staring at the Bible. Incredulous, Ama said, “You mean this has a genealogy in it?” Joanne said, “Yeah, but just skip over that so you can get to the good part.” Ama, with eyes still riveted to the page, said, “You mean this is true?” Joanne could tell this might be the breakthrough she had been praying for. She got out some paper and wrote down a genealogy from Adam in the garden to Jesus, the Christ. Ama took the list all over the village telling his kinsmen that this story the American girl was sharing with them was true.
It wasn’t immediate, but the entire village would come to believe the story of Jesus, the Christ. All because of the genealogy in Matthew 1.[1]
Maybe you’re like Joanne, finding little value in the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. “Skip over that so you can get to the good part.” As I read the passage, I might have noticed more than a few eyes glazing over as I spoke the unfamiliar names, the rhythmic monotony of the text rolling like a gentle wave.
But for a little Balangaos man in a G-string, this “Word came with power.” To him, a genealogy signaled “truth.” And at the end of the day, aren’t we all seeking truth?
That’s why some of you have sent off your DNA to 23 & Me or one of the other DNA testing companies. You’re curious about your ancestry—if what you’ve been told about your family history is “true,” or if there’s more to the family story than you’ve been told. I’m a little reluctant to do that—I’m not sure I want my DNA on file in some lab somewhere. What if they clone me? Could the world really handle another Rhonda? But I am curious about my ancestry. For instance . . . this is a photograph of my maternal great-great-great-great grandmother, Mary Bird. My grandmother claimed that Mary was full-blooded Cherokee, and not only that, but she was a Cherokee princess! It would be nice to know if I’m royalty. Maybe I’d get a little more respect around here. J
Speaking of Native American tribes, many tribes hold dear a philosophy known as the “Seventh Generation Principle.” The idea is that the decisions made today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future. I’m seven generations after my Cherokee princess grandmother, and I’d say she and her generation did alright by me and by us. Are we following suit? Are our decisions and our practices serving those who come behind us seven generations from now?
Diving into the genealogy in Matthew, the author tells us that from Abraham to Jesus, there are three sets of fourteen generations. Some scholars speculate that this number is important because it’s six sets of seven (for the math wizards out there). Whenever you encounter the number seven in scripture (or in this case, a variation) think “completion.” The number seven holds special significance in scripture—some process is complete whenever there’s a seven.
The genealogy begins with Abraham. God called Abraham, you may remember, to “go to a land I will show you.” God promised to make a great nation from Abraham’s line, and not only that, but through Abraham, all the nations of the world would be blessed. Listen to God’s promise to Abraham from Genesis 22:17-18 (NIV):
I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.
All the nations of the world would be blessed through Abraham’s line, God promised. But this promise would not come to fruition overnight. In fact, by the time of Isaiah’s writing many generations later, this idea of “all nations” finding blessing and oneness is still just a dream, a vision in the prophet’s imagination. Hear the holy vision from Isaiah:
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
On God’s holy mountain, the nations aren’t learning war, rather, they’re beating their weapons of war into farm equipment. “Swords to plowshares.” It’s a beautiful vision Isaiah puts before the people, but it is just a vision. An unrealized pipe dream during Isaiah’s time.
By the time Matthew sits down to write his gospel, his first-hand account of the Jesus narrative, Matthew sets out to show how Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. Matthew must trace Jesus’ ancestry all the way back through King David, all the way back to Father Abraham. Six sets of seven generations. And finally, through Abraham’s line, all the nations of the world will be blessed. Forty-two generations later, God’s promise is fulfilled—fulfilled in a most unusual way—fulfilled in the birth of a tiny baby boy named Jesus who would be called the Messiah. Thanks be to God!
As we begin our Advent journey together, there are two holy ideas I invite you to consider.
The first holy idea is this: God’s timing is not our timing.
I’m sure Abraham would have enjoyed seeing the fulfillment of God’s promise to him in his generation. But no. It would be six sets of seven generations—forty-two generations later before God’s promise would be realized (and even then they/we wouldn’t understand it). When we want something, we often give God a timeline:
· God, heal my friend NOW!
· God, heal our land NOW!
· God, grant my wish NOW!
We tend to think of God as some kind of genie in a bottle that will fulfill our wishes instantaneously. We are an impatient people. We have little taste for hopes fulfilled forty-two generations later.
But God’s time is not our time. In the unfolding human narrative, our generation is but a blip on the screen, a grain of sand on a beach. God holds the past, the present and the future—hopes born today may not come to fruition for generations to come. But alongside that idea, consider this: we are the fulfilment of the hopes of our forefathers and our foremothers. I hope I’m making Mary Bird proud. I hope we’re all making our great-great-great-great grandparents proud.
God’s timing is not our timing. What hope do you hold that has not yet come to fruition? Place your hope in the Lord. Once you do that, you can let go of the compulsion to control the outcome. God’s got it, now you don’t have to.
The second holy idea I invite you to consider is this: God’s way is not our way.
When you look at this cast of characters in the genealogy of Jesus, don’t you think God could have done a little better?
· There are prophets and there are also prostitutes,
· there are legends and there are liars,
· there are rock stars and there are rapists,
· there are slaves and there are slaveholders,
· there are saints and there are sinners.
And here’s the kicker, sometimes the saints and the sinners are one in the same! Couldn’t God have used better people?
But if God only used perfect people, God couldn’t use us.
Therein lies the beauty of this genealogy. It’s a cast of perfectly imperfect people God chooses and uses to accomplish God’s divine will. Reading this genealogy, we realize . . . there’s room for every story. Even yours. Even mine.
God’s way is not our way. What isn’t working out the way you’d hoped for? Place your hope in the Lord. Once you do that, you can let go of the compulsion to control the outcome. God’s got it, now you don’t have to.
When we remember God’s time is not our time and God’s way is not our way, we can let go of our Messiah complex. Oh certainly, we can and should do our part, but only the part that’s ours to do. We don’t have to save the world. Jesus already did that.
God’s holy mountain was established when that babe was born in Bethlehem so many years ago. All nations, all people of the world can now stream up God’s holy mountain—past, present, and future—saint and sinner and somewhere in between.
Thanks be to God for that babe born in Bethlehem, the hope of the world! Your hope! My hope! The hope of generations prior and generations to come!
So set your sights on Bethlehem this first Sunday in Advent. To a lowly manger. It wasn’t where the Christ story began. No, that story began forty-two generations beforehand. That manger simply held the Christ story for a moment in time—God’s time, God’s way.
There’s room for every story. The question for you is this: is there room in your heart for the Christ story this Advent?
Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
[1] Joanne Shetler, And the Word Came With Power: How God Met and Changed a People Forever. Multnomah: Portland, OR, 1992. The story of Matthew’s genealogy begins on page 81.