Back in the Day

Read Genesis 38

Back in the day…

If you got married and your husband died, his brother should take you in marriage and give you at least one kid.  One day, she is your sister-in-law.  The next day, after her time of mourning, she is in your bed.  And it’s no harm, no foul.

At least that’s the way it was for those chosen by God.

As a brother, it was your duty. Of all of the family duties that a brother might incur, this one should not have been terribly debilitating.

But Onan didn’t want to give Tamar a child, because it wouldn’t really be his even though it really would have been his. So, he wouldn’t give her his seed.  He abbreviated the conception process.  He practiced birth control.

Some will say that birth control is not a godly thing because of this single episode.  It was not a good thing for Onan, that’s for sure.  His life was over as was his wicked brother’s before him.

But, the line of the Christ would come through Judah and Tamar and not through any of Judah’s sons.  That’s the story we will follow in the next service.

Does this birth control thing go against God’s will?  He did charge humankind to populate the earth, but did he want us to have a kid a year for all of our childbearing years?

You can anchor your belief on a single verse if you want, and some have, but I can’t find much else to corroborate this no birth control business.

We anchor our salvation in John 3:16. If you have that, you have enough, but I can give you all sorts of corroboration for that one.

So, my thoughts, and I’m not trying to convince you to make them yours, are that God’s displeasure was just with Onan and that he knew the Christ would come from Judah and Tamar. Onan didn’t affect the coming of the Christ.  There wasn’t a “didn’t see that one coming” moment with God and the angels in heaven.

How about those children—twins—conceived by Judah and Tamar?  Leviticus 18:15 should be called the Judah prohibition.

In all fairness to Judah, he didn’t know that he was having sex with his daughter-in-law.  He thought he was doing the deed with a prostitute. There is plenty of counsel concerning prostitutes, but we don’t see any real Old Testament prohibitions.

In Judah’s mind, the only thing of moral consequence was paying the girl what he promised. Do you ever wonder how the story might have changed if Judah carried a little cash with him?

Wives, if your husband says he needs to check on how the sheep shearing is going, tell him to leave his wallet at home.

In 1986, the USS Saipan ported at Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It was a fun stop.  I played some golf there.  On the way to the golf course, the taxi driver pointed out some very colorful apartments where he said divorced people lived.  The separated parents lived next door to each other with a small, child-only-sized door between the apartments.

I bet those kids really mastered the art of manipulating their parents.  But Mom said… But Dad said… Then back through the door.

I bring up Rotterdam only because on our last night in port, the colonel called his company commanders into his stateroom and said, “Let’s go window shopping.”

We all looked at each other.  We were all married, as was the colonel.  He said, “We are just going to look.”  We went and we looked and we lived to tell about it.  In some places, prostitution is just a thing. It’s part of the culture.

Window shopping was never on my bucket list. In fact, I don’t think bucket lists were much of a thing back then, but I checked it off my bucket list anyway.

Paul might counsel us more sternly concerning prostitutes.  The two become one flesh, and we are the body of Christ so joining with a prostitute goes in the that dog don’t hunt category.

In Judah’s mind, he was out of the house, his wife was dead, and sheep shearing wasn’t all that exciting anyway, so why not make a brief stop while your friend waits out on the road.

So where is all of this going?  How about, “Once upon a time in the Land of Perfect People, there were no people.”

Judah’s marriage was the first we seen in the line that leads to Christ where the wife came from the local population.  Joseph took an Egyptian wife and produced 2 children which would be apportioned land in the Promised Land.

When we get to Leviticus, God told his people that he gave them these laws because the people in Egypt and the people in Canaan did a bunch of perverse things and they would be different.

They would be set apart.

But those Chosen People would have people from many different sources, including many who had been pagan. That diversity within the Chosen People began here and would continue.  One day the Hebrew people would close ranks and not want others to marry with them, but at this time the line of Abraham began including those from the local inhabitants.

The line from Abraham to Christ became more inclusive of those who did not grow up with the one true God. As they came into the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they surely learned of the one true God, but only after coming out of Egypt would God shape his people to be truly set apart.

It is this setting apart by God that makes the Hebrew people the chosen people, not their bloodlines.

It is our response to God’s free gift of salvation that sets us apart as his people of this age.  We are to be known by our love.

So, let’s realize that we are not perfect, we all fall short, only Christ makes us complete, and we are to be known by our love.

I hope that part sounds familiar.  

Amen.