Reading the Gospels for Lent

 

Read Matthew 1-3

 

Woo-hoo, you have finished one gospel!  You are one-fourth of the way through.  You clearly deserve to celebrate…by turning to the second gospel of Matthew.  You thought I was about to give you permission to go get some ice cream or chocolate or a cookie right?  You don’t really need my approval, but feel free to celebrate however you would like now that we  have John’s witness to God’s love.

 

Matthew begins with a genealogy, an account of Jesus’ ancestors.  I want to call your attention to fact that in that list of names there are three women mentioned: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth.  One important note is that all three women have complex and perplexing stories.  These are not women who wear white gloves and hats and their Sunday best to church.  These are women who were mistreated, pushed to the fringe and fray, and often not seen for as beautifully created in God’s image or as fully human.  I think Matthew in naming these women is offering something beautifully subversive ~ that God’s good news doesn’t always sound or feel like good news.  God’s love shows up in the most tumultuous and tragic times.  In each of these women’s stories, there is pain that is palpable and human responses that perpetuate the pain.  What does it mean that Matthew says God is at work even when things are less-than-ideal?  What would it mean, especially today, to witness to God when it doesn’t seem like God is being God…or that maybe our understanding of God’s job description is off?  God shows up that is what the name Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23) means ~ God with us.  To be clear that doesn’t necessarily mean God is on our side or God agrees with us or God baptizes our beliefs.  Rather to say God with us is an invitation to open to God’s presence that can confound and challenge and even contradict our deepest beliefs! 

 

God with us even when the Herods of the world (oh there are still so many power hungry, controlling, and harmful leaders today) try to scheme and offer decrees as in Matthew 2 (this is an echo of Pharoah in Exodus).  In Matthew, Jesus is the new Moses.  Both in how he becomes a refugee with his parents in Egypt (where Moses was born) and how he will preach a Sermon on the Mount just as Moses got the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. 

 

One final note on chapter 3, John the Baptist with his fashion-forward attire and keto- based diet.  John with his harsh words, I mean seriously, who starts a sermon out, “You brood of vipers!”  That will really warm the hearts of the congregation, John!  A prophet in the Bible will tick everyone off…that was true of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and John the Baptist.  A prophet in the Bible will be dismissed as having some kind of problem, even seem anti-social.  A prophet in the Bible might get attention in the same ways we gawk at a traffic accident, even as our stomach does somersaults.  Yet, John offers a ritual washing.  Today, I invite you to hold your baptism as a reminder of God’s claiming love on your life.  God names you, Beloved, that God enters your life with a promise of presence.  Note that this presence isn’t a guarantee of smooth sailing and no storms, but God’s promise of presence is to go before and beside us always.  May the One who is our God of ages past and our hope for years to come be felt in real ways today.