In the Line of David and the Christ

 Read Genesis 38

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

Judah, the brother who came up with the bright idea to sell Joseph into slavery and make a couple bucks, decided to go live on his own. 

Judah took a Canaanite wife.  It seems that this business of going back east to get a wife had come to an end. We don’t know her name but we know the names of the 3 sons born of this union.  They were Er, Onan, and Shelah.

Judah got a wife for his oldest son.  Surely that was preceded by a bicycle and, a baseball glove, but now it was time for a wife and Judah picked out a local girl. Her name was Tamar.

The problem was in the quality control department, and with the husband not the wife.  The first son, Er, was wicked and God took him out of the picture before a child was conceived.

Judah told his second son, Onan, to give Tamar a child.  It was his duty as the oldest surviving brother.  He wasn’t too keen on this idea, so he practiced the first form of birth control that we see in the Bible.

God did not approve, so that was it for Onan. 

Now Judah had only Shelah and he was too young for marriage and making children. So, Judah told Tamar to live in his household until Shelah was old enough to marry her.  She did.

We are told that after a long time, Judah’s wife—still unnamed—died.  After Judah recovered from his grief, he went out to check on his sheep.  It was time for sheep shearing.

Tamar got wind of this and went ahead of him to a place called Enaim.  She was veiled and not wearing her widow’s clothing.

What was she thinking?  The third son, Shelah, had grown up and was of marrying age but Judah had not given Tamar to him.  What’s up with that?  What had she been waiting on all this time?

In any case, the stage was set.  Judah was headed to Timnah.  Tamar picked out a spot near the road at the entrance to Enaim.  For general reference, this was about 25 miles west, northwest of Bethlehem.

Judah saw her and thought she was a prostitute.  Evidently, there was a pagan shrine in these parts and he thought she was a prostitute for the local shrine. 

If your wife is dead and you are on the road with your buddy and the opportunity presents itself, then you tell your buddy that you will be back in a few.

Judah wasn’t carrying any cash and Tamar would not take American Express.  He had to leave a pledge that he would pay her.  The agreed-upon price was one young goat.

The pledge for that goat would be some personal items—his seal and the cord that goes with it along with his staff.

Judah got what he wanted and Tamar got pregnant.

We don’t know the status of the sheep shearing but Judah returned home with his friend and sent his friend, Hirah the Adullamite, to deliver the goat.

He couldn’t find the prostitute.  The men in the area said that couldn’t remember there ever being a shrine prostitute there.  Hirah came come and told Judah.

Judah said, well we tried.

A few months later, Judah received a report that Tamar was pregnant.  It must have been from prostitution as she wasn’t married.

There was little hesitation in Judah’s decision. Burn her!  The penalty for adultery—not specifically prostitution—was death for both parties, but Tamar was the only guilty party available.

As she was being carried away to her execution, she sent a message to her father-in-law in the form of the items left as a pledge.  They were Judah’s seal and cord and staff.  Her message was that these belong to the man who got me pregnant.

I don’t think the word Oops was in the lexicon of the people of that time until that very moment. Judah realized the entirety of his error.  He had not given Tamar to his third son as he promised and had pronounced a sentence upon Tamar that appropriately would have been for him too.

Tamar gave birth to twin sons.  There was a little tussle to see who would emerge first and it was Perez.

Zerah came out second.  In Zerah’s family Bible, the lineage states that Zerah was born second and Perez was born next to last.

What does all of this mean?

If you go to the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel, you will find the lineage of the Christ.  You need only go 3 verses until you see Judah, Tamar, and Perez.  In Luke’s gospel, the genealogy goes all the way back to Adam and includes Judah and Perez but does not include Tamar.  Women seldom received much billing in the Bible.

Later in Genesis, Judah is described by his father as a lion. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah is Jesus Christ.  

Why do we care?

Jesus—yes Savior of the world Jesus—came through a line that went through Judah.  None of Judah’s sons continued the line. Judah and Tamar did.

Judah, who had the bright idea to sell his brother, Joseph, into slavery is in the line of the Christ.

Judah, who made a quick stopover with a woman he thought was a prostitute on his way to see how the sheep shearing was going, is in the line of the Christ.

Judah, who in all his self-righteousness was going to put his daughter-in-law to death for prostitution, is in the line of the Christ.

Judah, who had two sons by his daughter-in-law, is in the line of the Christ.

Tamar, who didn’t have a son by her first 2 husbands, is in the line of the Christ.

Tamar, who dressed up like a prostitute and fulfilled the role of a prostitute, is in the line of the Christ.

Tamar, who had 2 sons by her father-in-law, is in the line of the Christ.

Tamar, who was a single mother—Judah never married her, was in the line of the Christ.

We have begun the story of Joseph.  We know that in the end, he saves much of the known world.  Wouldn’t he have been a better candidate to be in the line of the Savior of the World?

But while God was working through Joseph to save a very large portion of the world in Joseph’s time; he was also setting the course to save all humankind with the advent of Jesus.

So what are our takeaways?

Let’s start with if you are on your way to a sheep shearing, always bring cash.

How about, insurance policies come in many forms.  The Seal, Cord, and Staff policy was a lifesaver for Tamar.  I think it was a Liberty Mutual policy.  You only pay for what your need.

How about, if God decides he will use you for his purpose, then he will use you for his purpose.  Neither your accomplishments nor life choices will qualify or disqualify you from serving God if he has called you to accomplish his purpose.

How about, we don’t always see the big picture.  That one should sound familiar.

How about, sometimes our own devious natures can be used for good in God’s plan.  We have seen this one in play since Abram.

We shouldn’t try to be devious, dishonest, destructive, deceptive or even words that don’t begin with the letter “d.”  We need to understand that our human frailty does not disqualify us for God’s work.

I have shared this a couple of times.  You have seen variations on the internet or on the back of a tee shirt but consider this anew this morning as we consider the people that God chose.

Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old

Jacob was a deceiver

Leah was not good looking

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem and was a murderer

Gideon was afraid

Samson was a womanizer

Rahab was a prostitute

David had an affair and was a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Isaiah preached naked

Jonah ran from God

Naomi was a widow

Job went bankrupt

Peter denied Christ

The Disciples fell asleep while praying with Jesus

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced many times

Zacchaeus was too small

Jesus called the disciples dull--slow

Judas would betray him

Paul was too religious

Timothy had an ulcer

Lazarus was dead

Judah and Tamar were a Netflix series waiting to happen. In fact, I have already written the first three seasons.

Don’t think that God won’t use you to complete his plan.  Be ready to respond to the leading that God’s Spirit places on your heart.

If God was looking for reasons to disqualify you from doing his work, he could find them without much effort.  We all fall short but disqualifying us for his service is just not his thing.

Yes, there are some judgments for wickedness along the way, but God is not looking to disqualify you from serving him.  You have what it takes to do his will.

He chose you—with all of your flaws and defects—to do his will, to live out his plan.  He chose you in spite of everything that you might think reasons that he wouldn’t.

He chose you.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart!  We know that part.

Now, let’s live in a way that brings glory to God.  That’s part of the plan.

Amen.

 

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.