Matthew Review

Where do you begin telling a great story?  Of course, you begin at the beginning.  But sometimes it can be hard to know where that beginning place is.  If I tell you about being born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that is my beginning.  But it is NOT the beginning of my parents relationship.  And my parents relationship is NOT the beginning of their life either.  They had a story before they met.  They have stories of dating and marrying and having my older brother before I was even a glimmer in their eye.  Beginnings matter.  Each of the four Gospels begin in a different way.  Mark jumps in with both feet and we are taken to the edge of the Jordan River with John the baptizer.  John gives one of the most beautiful poems that ties Jesus' life with the beginning of Creation.  Both Matthew and Luke decide to focus on Jesus' birth...each in their own unique ways.  Luke is the more familiar, the one quoted in the beloved Charlie Brown Christmas Special.  Matthew's version is a bit more heady.  He begins in chapter one (click here to read the whole of chapter 1) with a genealogy.   So and so begat (or was the father of) so and so.  I know people who love genealogy, who are passionate about tracing their roots as deep as possible.  Then there are people who yawned the moment they read the word "begat" above...but I pray did not stop reading.

Where we come from matters and leaves an impression on our hearts.  While today the truth is that we believe we construct our own identity through the clothes we wear or the cell phone we buy (I am an iphone guy but often admire the Galaxy people) or even the jobs we perform, family still makes its mark on who we are.  As I said above, my parents had a story before I was even a glimmer in their eye.  That story impacted how they parented me.  So knowing a bit about Jesus' parents, grand parents, great grand parents (etc...) does help.  What is interesting in chapter 1 is that Matthew names five women.  Each of the women were...shall we say...not exactly Victorian/Downton Abbey approved.  Each had a part of their past that might have marginalized them or caused them to be the topic of gossip.  But Matthew does not shy away from that past, he lifts and names these women as important to who Jesus is.  That means something, especially when the Christian Church has not always been kind in issues of sexuality with women.  We need to let Scripture speak truth to our understandings.

It is not only women, but also men.  Joseph is called a "righteous" man.  Usually when I hear "righteous" I think "self righteous".  People my grandmother said needed to get down off their high horse.  But this is NOT Joseph's righteousness.  Joseph swims against the cultural current.  He decided to not dismiss Mary with a divorce, but quietly.  By doing so, people...when they found out Mary was pregnant....would have assumed Joe was the dad and he was not living up to expectations of a father.  He would have been looked down on, the topic of gossip...not Mary.  Righteousness in Matthew can mean going against cultural and even religious norms.  

I encourage you as we read and look at Matthew to look for ways he uses righteousness.  I invite you to think of your definition of righteousness.  Where do you need to swim against the cultural and religious norms?  Why?  Is it for your own sake or the sake of another?  I pray as you ponder these questions, you sense a trace of God's grace in your life.

Blessings and pax (peace)