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Tracing the family tree

A conversation during a sermon

Colin Gibson

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PREACHER:
Today's readings from scripture included the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew,  in which Matthew sets out the genealogy,  the ancestral tree of Jesus Christ.   Appropriate enough to think of the beginnings,  at what is still nearly the beginning of the year.  —  What?   You missed the reading?   You were too busy talking to your friend about her holiday on Norfolk Island?   Well I'm sorry you missed it:  you might have learned something.   I suggest you pay more attention to what's going on in the service and less to chattering to your friend.

Anyway,  let me remind you of how Matthew begins his Gospel.

'This is the family tree of Jesus the Anointed One,  who was a descendant of David and Abraham.'

Now we all know that Matthew takes Jesus' ancestry back through the generations to Abraham the founder of the Jewish race,  and David,  the founder of the Jewish nation.   If you want to go back even further  —  as some of you might  —  you have to read the Gospel according to Luke,  who traces Jesus' line back through 77 generations to Adam,  and so to God himself!
ALICE:
Oh dear,  he's going to give us a sermon.   Something for sure about Jesus as God's son.   You know it's all nonsense anyway.   They say we actually come from some prehistoric woman in Africa,  the one they call the African Eve.
ANNABEL:
Really?   I didn't know that.
ALICE:
Yes they reckon they can trace us right back to prehistoric Africa through our genes.
ANNABEL:
Our what?
ALICE:
Our genes.   And so there really aren't any different human races at all;  we're all descendants of one family of human beings.
ANNABEL:
Africans?   Just fancy that.   But tell me,  what were you doing while I was on Norfolk Island?
ALICE:
Do you really want to know?   Well my holiday wasn't half as interesting as yours.   I mean,  I never get to really interesting places.   I'm just a stay–at–home,  really.   But I did fly up to Wellington to check on my brother and sister–in–law.   He's been ill,  you know;  and I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with them before he went back into hospital.   We had a perfectly marvellous time together,  just talking and reading and dozing off and doing as little as possible.   It was too hot to do anything else.
ANNABEL:
Come on,  what did you talk about?   Anything juicy?
ALICE:
Not really,  but we did get to yakking away about the rellies.   You know,  somehow we'd never talked about Catherine's family,  and when I asked about them she got really excited and went off and found some old newspaper clippings and a big family tree  (done by some other member of her family who was interested in that kind of thing).   She said this family historian reckoned their lot went back to Robert the Bruce.
ANNABEL:
Robert the Bruce?   The King who got hidden in a cave by a spider?   I vaguely remember some teacher or other telling us that story.
ALICE:
Yes,  Robert the Bruce.   Our family came from Scotland,  you see,  about four generations back.   I said how wonderful,  if it was true.   It's always exciting to think you come from someone important,  don't you think?
PREACHER:
'Now Abraham was the father of Isaac,  Isaac was the father of Jacob,  Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers,  and Judah and Tamar were the parents of Perez and Zerah.'
ANNABEL:
That stupid minister,  rabbiting on.   Someone ought to tell him it's time he was retired.   Modern people don't want to know all that old stuff.   —  But Tamar,  wasn't she the one who kept losing husbands until she got desperate and disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her own father–in–law,  and when they found out that she was pregnant and the ignorant old man was going to have her burned to death she produced proof that her child was his  —  and then she had twins!
ALICE:
How on earth did you know all that?
ANNABEL:
Didn't you read all the dirty bits in the Bible?   The stories they didn't teach you in Sunday School?
PREACHER:
"Now Perez was the father of Hezron,  Hezron was the father of Ram,  Ram was the father of Amminadab,  Amminadab was the father of   —  — '
ALICE:
Father of this,  father of that!   That's all you hear about in the Bible.   They leave out all the women.   I don't care if men ran the place in those days.   I reckon women put as many genes into the gene pool that produced Jesus as those men did.   Interesting,  when you think about it.   Jesus's character and personality being shaped by all those people in his past,  and we don't know anything at all about half of them.
PREACHER:
'Amminadab was the father of Nahshon,  Nahshon was the father of Salmon,  and Salmon and Rahab were the parents of Boaz.   Boaz and Ruth were the parents of Obed.   Obed was the father of Jesse,  and Jesse was the father of David the King.
      David and Uriah's wife were the parents of Solomon   —   — '
ALICE:
Well I'm sure my family history isn't as grubby as that one.   Wasn't Rahab the Jericho prostitute who hid the spies Joshua sent into the city?   And Ruth,  she was the foreign woman who lost her first husband before she could have any children,  then went back with her mother–in–law Naomi to Judah.   And Naomi put her up to practically seducing Boaz into marrying her.   It would be like having some Philipino or Indian girl getting mixed up with your own family.   And my gosh,  David's wife was Bathsheba,  Uriah's wife  —  yes I remember that story now  —  and David had Uriah murdered so he could get into bed with Bathsheba,  after he saw her taking a bath.   What a lecherous bunch they were!   And all those shenanigans on the way to Jesus!
PREACHER:
'Now Solomon was the father of Rehoboam,  Rehoboam was the father of Abijah,  Abijah was the father of Asaph  — '
ANNABEL:
This is getting to be deadly boring!   I don't care if it was Tweedledum and Tweedledee.   I mean who was Asaph?   He might have been the Sheik of Araby for all I care.  —  Isn't that the name of a street in Christchurch?
ALICE:
Yes.      Now do you want to hear something really funny about Catherine's family tree?   You know,  they had a great–great–grandfather who was a Highlander and a Catholic and became a High Sherriff  (whatever that was).   According to Catherine,  the death notice in the Glasgow Herald praised him because  'he supported the dignity of the bench and the credit of the law and came to be known as the poor man's lawyer'   Didn't they talk lovely in those days!
      But the paper also said 'he was a great aquatic,  and often astonished sea–going people by swimming on his back and playing the flute.'   Just imagine,  this lawyer and High Sherriff swimming on his back and playing the flute!   Makes you wonder what they were like,  the people behind those names.   Maybe Ram was a man who blew on the ram's horn      . . .      while a ram was still attached to it.   Maybe   . . .   maybe Abijah floated on his back in the Dead Sea and astonished everyone by blowing his own trumpet!
ANNABEL:
And Jehoshophat made a fortune out of camel farming,  and Perez was a sky diver,  and Ahaz never let on that he wrote poetry,  and Nahshon  —  Nahshon lived till he was 102 and reckoned it was plenty of sex and fried locusts that kept him alive so long.
ALICE:
Yes,  perhaps they all had something to remember about them,  if we only knew their stories.   And to think of Jesus coming along after all those generations and generations,  all those messy stories,  all those good people and bad people.   And not one of them knowing they were helping to make someone as special as Jesus.
ANNABEL:
And in the end poor old Joseph doesn't even get to pass on the genetic inheritance.   But I think he really did,  don't you?
PREACHER:
And Zadok was the father of Achim,  Achim was the father of Eliud,  Eliud was the father of Eleazar,  Eleazar was the father of Matthan,  Matthan was the father of Jacob.
PREACHER,  ALICE and ANNABEL:
And Jacob was the father of Joseph,  the husband of Mary,  who was the mother of Jesus.   And Jesus is known as the Anointed One.

 

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