First, I want to wish all
of you a holy and merry Christmas! To our visitors: Thank you for joining our
community in prayer. For our parishioners: thank you for making St. Michael
your spiritual family.
In case you didn’t notice it, we just heard 47 names
in the gospel; most of which you will never hear outside of the bible. To be
honest, I wouldn’t give many of those names to my worst enemy.... or a goldfish.
What we may have missed in these unusual names is the fact that four women were
included. This doesn’t seem strange to us, but in the time it was written it
would have grabbed people’s attention because it was not customary for Jews to include women in their records and
genealogies. And these were not just four women! They were imperfect, wild,
scrappy, and sometimes manipulative. I would call them the real housewives of
the Old Testament!
FIRST WE HAVE … Tamar who was the daughter-in-law of Judah. She was a
childless widow, who was given to her brother-in-law after her husband's death,
according to Jewish law. By this marriage, her offspring would continue the
family name and receive an inheritance. Unfortunately, Tamar's brother-in-law
refused her as his wife and they did not have any children. He was punished by
God and died. Afterwards, Judah (Tamar’s father-in-law) would not give Tamar to
any of his other sons. So Tamar disguised herself and became pregnant with
Judah’s child! Through him, she
became the mother of Perez! Though her methods were unconventional, she
persevered in following the law.
SECOND WE HAVE … Rahab. Rahab was a woman of the night who lived in Jericho. Risking her own
life, she hid the two spies of Joshua. Because of this, Joshua spared her life when they conquered
Jericho. She later became the wife of Salmon, and the mother of Boaz. Rahab's
faith was praised in the Bible even though at one time she had lived an immoral
and disordered life.
THIRD WE HAVE … Ruth. She was a foreigner from the land of Moab and a widow of a
Jew. Her mother-in-law, Naomi, also lived in Moab. After both women lost their husbands, Ruth left her home and
devoted herself to caring for her mother-in-law. While in Israel, Ruth was
married to Boaz, one of Naomi's relatives. Despite the fact that she was not
Jewish, Ruth became the mother of Obed, the grandfather of King David.
FOURTH WE HAVE … Bathsheba. She was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a
captain in the army of King David. We all know the story of David and
Bathsheba. She was discovered by
King David, who saw her and fell in love in her. She and David had an affair
when URIAH was away, fighting for David’s army. When David discovered Bathsheba
was with child, he tried to cover it up by summoning Uriah home from war,
hoping that Uriah would have relations with his wife. Uriah came back to
Jerusalem, but refused to stay with Bathsheba as long as his army was at war.
As a result, David sent Uriah back into battle, with orders that Uriah should
be sent to the front lines so that he would be killed in combat. After Uriah died,
David took Bathsheba as his own wife. Bathsheba eventually became the mother of
King Solomon.
These
four women were not the kind of women you would expect to have such an impact
on the kingdom of God. They were nowhere near perfect, and yet God, in His kindness
and mercy, made them part of His perfect plan to bring forth the Savior of the
world.”
I
hope these stories touch the very core of your soul. Tamar's story is one of
utter perseverance. Rahab's story reminds me to have faith. Ruth's story is a
reminder of the power of love. Bathsheba's heart spurs us all to have more
grace towards people.
What appeals to me in these stories
of TAMAR, RAHAB, RUTH and BATHSHEBA
is that each one of these women was flawed. They were not a typical choice to
carry the lineage of Christ the King. They made mistakes. They were deceived by
the world at certain points in their lives … and they also deceived.
But they also believed in GOD. They
kept their faith. They knew deep within that God was supreme. They knew that
God could restore them. They knew that He could redeem their past.
I find these stories encouraging for
all of us. I think these stories
are relevant. It’s very easy to
“GET THEM”. The characters are
just like people who we might meet. In many ways, when we look at them, we are
looking in the mirror.
It’s easy to understand their despair
... their shame ... their perseverance ... their hope ... and their desire for
redemption. And I rejoice in God
who saves, restores, and uses the unlikely for His greater
purpose in this world. EVEN PEOPLE AS unlikely and sinful AS YOU AND ME!
Matthew's
genealogy of Jesus certainly reminds us that God does not always do things the
way we do. For this reason, there
are some important lessons to be learned from Matthew's inclusion of the first
four women.
a) Be very careful when you come to the conclusion
that you have God "figured out" and know what God would do; you may
be deceiving yourself.
b) God measures
righteousness by different standards than do most of us; we need to place our
faith in his standards and not our own.
c) God can make use
of anyone to accomplish His purposes if that person places his or her faith in
God in a dependent relationship.
d) Through His
forgiveness, God often uses His power to value those we would reject.
To me, the greatest
lesson of all is accepting this truth: God's ways are not our ways. No one ever understood God as completely and correctly as HIS SON,
Jesus Christ. No one ever modeled
the physical behavior that God wants and honors as Jesus did. If we want to
understand God and be a part of his plan to save, heal, and renew then we must
stay close to Christ, whose birth we celebrate tonight/today. The best way to
do this is by receiving the sacraments properly, coming to mass each week and
making time for daily prayer. Through these things, we allow Jesus to teach us
what it means to be sons and daughters of God.
May God bless you and your loved ones in this
special season of grace. May you allow him to use your life to write the next
chapter of salvation history so that you will be a blessing to many in the coming
year.
