Transcript
Jesus’ Family Tree
First Baptist Richmond, January 19, 2025
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Matthew 1:1-17
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
On my kitchen wall at home there is a framed copy of the Somerville family tree. It’s not especially well drawn, but it communicates. It lets me know that the first of this line in Scotland (my ancestral home) was Sir Gualtier of Saint Omer-ville in France, who came to the British Isles with William the Conqueror in 1066. His descendants were given land and a barony by Alexander II in 1214. That barony became dormant after the death of John, Lord Somerville, in 1870, and later became extinct because no heir could be found in the United Kingdom. They had all moved to the United States, including my direct ancestor, James Somerville, who worked for his uncle in Fredericksburg for twenty years before moving to Culpeper County, and to a house on the Rapidan River he called Somervilla.
But there he is, on the trunk of the family tree. He married Mary Atwell and together they had fourteen children. One of those was Robert Briggs Somerville, whose limb on the family tree is perhaps the heaviest. He was the father of Atwell, who was the father of Walter, who was the father of James, who was my father. If you look way up in the upper branches of that tree you can see my name, along with those of my five brothers, and in the little twigs that come off my branch the names of my wife and two daughters; the grandchildren hadn’t been born yet. But
that’s my family tree. I keep it on the wall to remind me of who I am and where I came from. Outside of my family, it’s not very important, but if I were ever to become hugely famous (which is not likely) somebody might like to get hold of it just so they could know more about me.
In just a few weeks we’re going to celebrate President’s Day, somewhere between the actual birthdays of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and George Washington on February 22. Those are some truly famous people, and someone took the time to track down their family trees. “George Washington, sometimes called the father of his country, was born into a family of modest wealth in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1732. His father, Augustine Washington, was a planter and ironworker, and his mother, Mary Ball Washington, was known for her resilience and discipline. Raised among Virginia’s landed gentry, Washington grew into a man of integrity and leadership, qualities shaped by his family’s values and the agrarian culture of colonial America.”i
“Abraham Lincoln, often called the ‘Great Emancipator,’ was born in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1809. His parents, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, were hardworking farmers of humble means, deeply rooted in frontier life. Losing his mother at an early age, Lincoln’s determination to rise above poverty and educate himself became a defining characteristic, shaped by the struggles of his early family life.”ii
And then there’s Martin Luther King, whose birthday we will celebrate tomorrow. “King, who was the leader of the civil rights movement, was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, into a family deeply rooted in the African American church and the fight for racial equality. His father, Martin Luther King Sr., was a Baptist minister and a leader in the Atlanta NAACP, and his mother, Alberta
Williams King, came from a lineage of strong church leaders. The legacy of faith, activism, and education in his family profoundly influenced King’s vision for justice and equality.”iii
Maybe you can see that where and who you come from can make a big difference in what you eventually become. Maybe that’s why Matthew wants us to know where Jesus came from, and who his people were. He starts his Gospel with Jesus’ family tree—his genealogy—which I’m not sure I would have advised, especially if I thought that someone might have to read it from the pulpit someday. But that’s what I’m going to do this morning and I’ll simply ask you to be patient, and forgiving, as I mispronounce large portions of Matthew 1:1-17. Ready? Here we go:
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel,
and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, who bore Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. But why?
Why, Matthew, did you think it would be a good idea to start your Gospel with a genealogy? Charles Dickens started A Tale of Two Cities by writing, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Herman Melville started a very long novel called Moby Dick with a very short sentence: “Call me Ishmael.” But Matthew started his Gospel by writing, “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why? I believe it was because the scribes and Pharisees were saying that Jesus was not the Messiah, insisting that he couldn’t be, because as far as they knew he wasn’t a descendant of King David and he wasn’t born in Bethlehem. So, what does Matthew do? He digs down to the roots of Jesus’ family tree. He exposes them so that everyone can see: Jesus was a direct descendant of King David. And then he tells the story of how he was born in Bethlehem.
Luke does the same thing, only he begins with the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and waits until chapter three to share the genealogy. And his is a little different. Luke starts with Jesus and works back from there, calling him the son (as was thought) of Joseph, who was the son of Matthat, who was the son of Levi, and so on back to David, and then to Abraham, and then all the way back to
Adam, whom he calls “the Son of God.” Luke seems to be saying, “You want a genealogy? I’ll give you a genealogy. I’ll show you that Jesus is not only the Son of David, and not only a Son of Abraham, but also—in a way Adam never was—the Son of God.”
But here’s an interesting thing: Luke—who has always struck me as a champion of women—doesn’t mention a single woman in his genealogy whereas Matthew—who has never struck me that way—mentions five. Five women. And although we know that women were involved in every generation of this genealogy (because so far we haven’t figured out how to bring children into the world without them) Luke ignores them while Matthew pays attention. He doesn’t mention every woman in Jesus’ genealogy but the ones he mentions bear further scrutiny because each of them, in their own way, is associated with some sort of scandal.
Tamar, for instance. She’s the first woman mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy, and she’s mentioned as the mother of Perez and Zerah, whose father was Judah. But Judah was also Tamar’s father-in-law! Scandalous!
And then there’s Rahab of Jericho, who was a prostitute. We all know her story: she protected those two spies who came across the river to find out what God’s people would be up against when they entered the Promised Land. But after the walls of Jericho fell Rahab married into the family of God and became the mother of Salmon, who was the father of Boaz.
Boaz shows up in the next story because he’s the one who married Ruth, a foreigner, who came to Bethlehem from the land of Moab. She’s part of the genealogy as well. But if you want to know how the Israelites really felt about the Moabites, read Genesis 19 sometime and learn about their scandalous origins.
And then there’s “the wife of Uriah,” also known as Bathsheba. You’ve heard her story before and know that she became part of the family tree only after David had committed adultery with her (some would use a different word) and had her husband killed.
And then, finally, Mary herself. You may wonder how the Blessed Virgin could be associated with scandal. But as both Matthew and Luke acknowledge Mary was found to be with child before she was married to Joseph, and in a small town like hers, and in times like those, that would have certainly been a scandal.
You’ll hear more about each of these women in the weeks to come because this is the beginning of a sermon series on Jesus’ Family Tree. I believe the stories of these women can give us some further clues about who he was, and how he became (at least in my opinion) the most important person who has ever lived. I find myself obsessed with Jesus, always wanting to know more. I love the way Brian McLaren has described him, as “fascinating, mysterious, uncontainable, uncontrollable, enigmatic, vigorous, surprising, stunning, dazzling, subtle, honest, genuine, and explosive.”iv I once tried to describe who Jesus is to me, and this is what I said:
He is the One: the One who has shown me what a life full of God looks like; the One who has revealed the heart of his heavenly Father; the One who has given himself completely to the will and the work of God. He is both the bravest and the freest person I have ever known. He is the One who inspires my dreams of God’s Kingdom, the One who calls me into deeper relationship with him, the one who challenges all my previously held assumptions and knocks the props out from under all my existing prejudices. He is the One who helps me see the world that has not yet come and to pray for the day when it will. The one who looks at the world as it is through the eyes of God’s love. The One who looks at me through those same eyes. He is the One who loves me, saves me, and sets me on my feet again, the One who sees in me something worth redeeming even when I am covered in sin. The
One who looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and says, ‘Come, follow me.’ The One who makes me think I could walk on water. The One who lifts me up when I am sinking down….v
So, if looking into the stories of these five women who are part of his family tree will help me know him even better, then I think it’s worth the investment of time. I think it’s worth writing and hearing the sermons that will be shared from this pulpit over the next five weeks.
One of the things we may learn as we look more closely at these women is that, while their stories are associated with scandal, they themselves are not. And Matthew may be trying to tell us something. Because Jesus’ ancestry and his birthplace weren’t the only things that kept the scribes and Pharisees from believing in him. There was this other thing: the fact that he was crucified. In traditional Judaism to this day there is the belief that in every generation someone is born with the potential to be the Messiah. “But if that person dies before he completes the mission of the Messiah, then that person is not the Messiah.”vi
And Jesus didn’t complete the mission of the Messiah. He didn’t run the Romans out of town, or restore the nation of Israel, or sit on the throne of his ancestor David. No, instead he was arrested by the religious authorities, who accused him of blasphemy. He was crucified by the political authorities, who condemned him for insurrection. His dead body hung on a cross under a placard that read “The King of the Jews” as if it were some colossal joke, and the people walked away disappointed. They had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel.vii
But then some people began to say that he had risen from the dead, and
that changed everything. If he were alive again he could still be the Messiah, couldn’t he? In fact, restoring the nation of Israel might be only the beginning of what he would do. And then one of those Pharisees had an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus that changed his life forever—and his mind. The Apostle Paul began to preach this incredible juxtaposition—Christ crucified. To the Jews it was a scandal, and to the Greeks pure foolishness. “But to us who are being saved,” Paul said,
“It is the power of God.”
—Jim Somerville © 2025
