Author and Inspired Writer

The next woman in the genealogy of Jesus is not called by name, but rather referred to as “the wife of Uriah.” This is very strange because she was (eventually) the wife of David and the mother of Solomon. Why then is she called the wife of Uriah? Perhaps the answer to that will become clear if we give her her proper name…And that would be…?

Bathsheba! A name that will go down in infamy!

The gospel writer refers to her as the wife of Uriah so that every time the genealogy of Jesus was read out in the early churches, the people would remember the scandalous way the wife of Uriah ended up the wife of David.

One of the most startling things about the pain and tragedy in the story of David and Bathsheba is how easily it could have been avoided. The story opens with the lines: “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him… But David remained at Jerusalem.” The story starts out by telling us that David shouldn’t have been there in the first place. He should have been leading his soldiers into battle. But he decided to send everybody else – Joab, his officers, and ALL the men of Israel – while he stayed behind in the comfort and security of his palace in Jerusalem. Maybe David was getting a little soft. Maybe the battles didn’t hold the adventure for him they once did. Maybe he just couldn’t be bothered. Been there, done that. Let someone else do the dirty work for a change. So right from the outset, David is somewhere he shouldn’t ought to be.

One evening, David decides to take a walk on the roof of his palace. People of the Middle East at this time would often go up to their roofs in the evening to take advantage of the cool breezes after the heat of the day.

So, he looks down from his vantage point and what does he see? A beautiful woman taking a bath. (who, it turns out, has the ironic name of Bathsheba.) Now Bathsheba was doing nothing wrong. Observant Jewish women were required by Law to take a bath of purification once a month, and she would have been bathing in an enclosed courtyard which would have afforded her privacy from any direction…except from above. But she wasn’t concerned about that, because all the men in Israel had gone off to war. All but one, and he had the penthouse suite directly above her.

David had a choice. He could have looked away. He could have glanced admiringly in her direction and gone back inside. But no. He asks someone who the woman is and he’s told “This is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Uriah was one of David’s most loyal and valiant warriors, and right then, he was off fighting David’s battles while David was at home ogling his wife. When David heard that she was married, that should have been the end of it. Even the king wasn’t above the Law. But maybe David thought he was, or maybe he thought “Uriah isn’t a Jew. He’s a foreigner. The Law doesn’t apply.”

Whatever he told himself, he sent messengers to get Bathsheba and bring her back to the palace.

I can’t imagine what Bathsheba thought when she arrived at the palace and David explained to her what she was there for, if he bothered to explain anything at all. This was the king, God’s representative on earth, hand-picked by God. David was even called the man after God’s own heart, and here he was suggesting…

Could she have refused? For all we know, she did. There was never an issue of her consent. David didn’t care if Bathsheba consented. She wasn’t being seduced. She wasn’t being courted. She was being used, or a better word would be abused. And David thought he could get away with that because he was king.

Let’s be clear – David didn’t want a relationship with Bathsheba, he didn’t want an affair. He wanted a one night stand, and that’s what he got. And then he sent her home.
And again, that should have been that – a mere dalliance, quickly over, no harm, no foul.

Bathsheba has no voice in this part of her story except right here, at this point, when she sends David a little three word message – I am pregnant. That’s it. Very simply stated. And how David’s heart must have frozen to read it. Oh what to do, what to do??

David didn’t want the baby. He had lots of sons already. And David didn’t want Bathsheba either. He had lots of wives too. But David also didn’t want his indiscretion to become public. If Bathsheba’s pregnancy was discovered, she would be stoned an adulteress. And if she named David as the father, he also should be stoned to death under the Law. Weeeelllll…. I have no doubt Bathsheba would have been executed, but David, the king? Nah. I don’t see that happening. In our first story, about Tamar and Judah, Tamar is being dragged out to be burned because she’s been found out to be pregnant and unwed. But once they discover Judah was the father, he should have been dragged out to be burned right along with her. Did they lay hands on Judah? They did not! When a powerful man is in the picture, loopholes appear as if by magic. In the New Testament, they bring the woman to Jesus who had been caught “in the very act of adultery,” (which I’ve always thought was spectacularly good timing on someone’s part!) Where was the man? Under the Law, both the man and the woman were to be brought to judgement. But there is no man. I’m not an expert on Jewish Law, but I do know you cannot commit adultery by yourself.

However, even if David wasn’t executed, the scandal this would cause would be enormous, that he was suspected of fathering a child by the wife of one of his soldiers? How tawdry! “No,” he figured, “best this not be found out,” and he devises a cover up. He recalls Uriah from the front, and when he arrives at the palace, probably a little bewildered as to what he’s doing there, David asks him, “So, how ya doin’? How’s Joab (the commander on the front lines)? How goes the war?” They have a little chat and then David says, “Why don’t you go home, relax a little?” But Uriah sleeps in the palace in the servants’ quarters. He doesn’t go home. The next morning the king asks him why. And Uriah, the foreigner, says “Your soldiers, my comrades, are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house and enjoy myself? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will do no such thing!” What loyalty! What integrity! What a man.

David wasn’t counting on Uriah’s decency. So he figures if Uriah doesn’t go visit Bathsheba, everyone will know the baby isn’t Uriah’s. And it looks like Uriah will never go visit Bathsheba sober, so he’ll get him drunk. You see how David is sinking lower and lower? He invites Uriah to supper, and he does gets good and drunk, because when the king says he wants to get boozy with you are you going to say no? But once more, Uriah sleeps in the servants’ quarters and doesn’t go down to his house.

The next morning, David thinks, “OK, Plan B didn’t work. Time for Plan C.” And Plan C is fiendish. David gives Uriah a message to give to Joab. He puts a scroll into Uriah’s hand, and Uriah has no idea he’s holding his own death warrant. And David knew he could trust Uriah not to read the scroll. On it, David has written this – “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.” When Uriah returns to the battle, he gives the message to Joab, who carries it out without question.
And what did Uriah think when, in the midst of a pitched battle with the enemy, suddenly his comrades pull back, but he has received no order to retreat? He stands and fights on by himself until he is struck down. And Joab sends a message back to David that the deed was done, and David says to the messenger, “Tell Joab, don’t let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one, now the other.” No big deal.

Someone tells Bathsheba her husband is dead and Scripture says she made lamentation for him. She mourned for him. Could it be – she loved him? Did she know David was planning to kill him? Why would David tell her that? Why would David tell her anything?

Scripture says, “When the mourning was over, David sent and brought Bathsheba to his house (again), and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord” … and then the Lord sent Nathan to David.

Nathan was the prophet David consulted about building the temple. He was respected and feared as the voice of God. He comes to David, unexpectedly, (always a bad sign) and says he wants to tell him a story.

“Very well prophet, proceed.”

And Nathan says, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children, shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms.

Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep to prepare a meal for the traveler. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the traveller.” End of story.

Who is the lamb in this story?

Well, the lamb is killed, so it must be Uriah. But no, Nathan is very specific that the lamb was a ewe lamb, a female. The lamb is Bathsheba, taken by a powerful man from a weaker but much worthier man, and sacrificed to the powerful man’s appetites, his lust. So, if I’m reading the story correctly, Nathan is saying that David’s sin against Bathsheba was, in the eyes of God, as reprehensible a sin as murder. David is guilty of two murders – Uriah and Bathsheba.

I heard a Franciscan monk preach on this passage, and he brought home a point I hadn’t considered. He said that Nathan knew full well how this story of a baby lamb being stolen and sacrificed would affect David’s shepherd’s heart. Because remember, before David became king, he was a shepherd. And sure enough, David bolts to his feet and cries, “That man deserves to die!” We might think that’s going too far – death for stealing and killing a lamb? But Nathan says, “No, you’re right. That man does deserve to die. And furthermore, you are the man! You took everything away from Bathsheba – you had her taken from her home, you had her husband killed, and you violated her body. And God counts it as serious as murder.”

David hears this and is shocked back into his right mind. He doesn’t deny or try to justify his actions. He says quite simply, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Well, not just against the Lord, but David is not at the place where he could admit that. Then Nathan replies, “The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.” And a few days later, the child dies.

Did God kill the baby? Is that the way God acts, killing babies for the sins of their parents? To teach them a lesson? Get some sort of revenge on them? The sin was David’s. Why take it out on an innocent child, or on Bathsheba who has already been through hell. She will have to bear the loss of this child too. Does that sound like God?

Personally, I think what happened is that the baby died, and the Scripture writer interpreted that much as we would when something bad happens to someone we don’t like, as God’s righteous judgement on the sinner, in this case, David. The problem with that interpretation is that it doesn’t account for all those people who never seem to suffer any consequences for their sins. “The wicked do prosper,” as Scripture says. No, the baby died, but not as a consequence of David’s sin.

So why did the gospel writer see fit to mention Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah in the genealogy of Jesus? Why bring back Nathan’s story – of an innocent lamb, who was slain, at the whim of power? Now, who does that remind you of? And isn’t that what we call Jesus – the Lamb of God?

Bathsheba was powerless to stand against the will of David. She had no choice; she had no voice. When evil fell upon her, she was made to pay a price she didn’t owe – the loss of her husband, the loss of her baby, the wounding of her body. Bathsheba walked through hell, but she found new life on the other side.

Jesus had the power of God – “Do you not think I could ask my Father and he would send me 12 legions of angels?” – but when evil fell upon him, he refused to use that power, and chose instead to identify himself with the innocent who suffer. He bore the violation of his body, his friends’ betrayal and abandonment, and the popular opinion of others that he was cursed by God. But he too found his way to Easter and new life.

For Bathsheba, new life came in the form of another son whom they named Solomon and who succeeded David on the throne. Solomon had no business succeeding David. He was not first born. In fact, there were half a dozen sons ahead of him. But David had promised Bathsheba that her son would be king. Why did he do that? Maybe he thought “I can’t make up for what I did to her, what I took from her, but this much I can do – Solomon will be king. And when Solomon’s right to the throne is challenged, Bathsheba finds her voice and demands David make good on his promise to her, and he does. Solomon becomes king. Bathsheba refuses to be defined by the past, and walks through deep darkness to transformation and power, from victim to mother of the king. This is the same transformation and power offered to us by Jesus Christ, Son of God, and descendant of Bathsheba, the sacrificial Lamb, Bathsheba, the Transformed.

Let’s bow in prayer…

The Book of Ruth comes after the violent and bloody Book of Judges in the Old Testament, and I think it is well placed. After all the stories of battles and atrocities, some described quite graphically, it’s a relief to lose yourself in a little romance, and that’s what the Book of Ruth is – a Harlequin Romance of 964 BC.

But the Book of Ruth more than just a romance. There is an underlying message in Ruth that was so strange and so shocking to the Jewish listeners of the day, it must have rattled their teeth!

As the story opens, there is a famine in Bethlehem, and Naomi and her husband Elimelech, and their two sons pull up stakes, and move to Moab where there was enough food to support the family. Starvation was an ever-present danger in ancient Israel, and people would sometimes go to great lengths to survive, even selling themselves into slavery. But the family finds stability and prosperity in Moab, and settles down there.

Unfortunately, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi and their two sons who have married Moabite women, one named Orpah, and the other Ruth. Scripture doesn’t say whether Naomi approved of these marriages, but traditionally these mixed marriages were looked on with suspicion. These were women of another culture, that was one thing, and the Israelites wanted to keep their race pure. The danger was that the Moabite women would entice their husbands to worship their false gods instead of Jehovah, and if that became common practise, it would mean the death of Jewish society. But here they were, both sons married to Moabites, but no children were born to either couple. Still, they continued to live in Moab for the next ten years, at which time both of Naomi’s sons died, and her family became a household of widows.

Life for widows in ancient Palestine was precarious at best, a struggle just to survive. What Naomi and her daughters-in-law needed was a man around the house. It was customary among the Israelites, that if a husband died leaving no sons, then a near relative of the man would marry the widow and their first born son would be considered the deceased man’s offspring and heir. The man who stepped in to marry the widow and assume control over the property was called a redeemer. Gosh! Where have we heard that term before? But there were no relatives of Naomi or Elimelech in Moab, so there was no future for Naomi or her daughters-in-law there. Right then she hears that the famine in Judah has ended and immediately resolves to return there with Orpah and Ruth.

Then on the road, she changes her mind.

“Go back,” she tells them, “each of you to your mother’s house.” But they say, “Nuh-uh. We’re going with you.” And Naomi replies, “I have no sons to give you. I have no security to give you. I have no future to give you. Go back.” And this time Orpah listens to her, kisses her goodbye and returns to her home. And Naomi says to Ruth, “Your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Time for you to go too.”

And this is where Ruth utters one of the most beautiful speeches in the Bible. It’s often read today at weddings, but originally these words were a young woman’s pledge of undying faithfulness and loyalty to the older woman she loved:
Whither thou goest, I will go;
Wither thou lodgest, I will lodge;
Thy people will be my people;
And thy God my God.

One of the things I most like about this passage, is where God comes on the list – dead last. Ruth could have put God at the beginning, where we might think would be the proper place. But it was in Ruth’s loving care of Naomi that she would demonstrate her fidelity to God. Ruth’s devotion went deeper than pretty words – she would prove it with her actions. Christ himself was to say, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these my little ones, you do unto me.” How we treat one another is how we treat God, and Ruth was treating God with great love. So Ruth accompanies Naomi back to Bethlehem, and they arrive there right at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Now Ruth, once they were settled, wanted to go to work right away. If she didn’t, they would starve. Simple as that. In Jewish law, widows and foreigners were permitted to go into a field that was being harvested, and pick up the leavings, whatever was left behind. Farmers were forbidden to glean their fields twice so something would be left behind for those in need, and that could be the difference between life and death for them. So Ruth presents herself in a nearby field and asks permission to glean behind the reapers. She doesn’t have to ask for permission, but perhaps does so to avoid giving offense, as she is a foreigner, and she wants to make a good impression.

Unbeknownst to Ruth our heroine, the field she’s working in belongs to Boaz, who just happens to come on the scene right at this moment, and Boaz is a relative of Naomi. Now the story of Ruth would have been circulated as an oral tradition long before it was written down, you know, passed around the campfire sort of thing. And at this point in the story, the audience would have started to buzz – “He’s a relative! He could be her redeemer! He could marry Ruth and everything would be all right!” And the narrator would say, “Hey! Who’s telling the story here? Don’t get ahead of me.”

Boaz seems quite taken with this new arrival and asks one of his workers who she is, and who does she belong to. He’s asking, “Is she married? Got a boyfriend?” The worker does not call Ruth by name, but identifies her as a foreigner. “She is the Moabite.” She’s not one of us. She’s an outsider. But she came back with Naomi from Moab, asked permission to glean here, and has been working hard since early this morning.”

Clearly, the worker is impressed with her.

This tells Boaz a few things – first, that Ruth is a strong, courageous woman who left her homeland and everything familiar to her to live in a land of strangers for the sake of her mother-in-law. It showed that she was willing to do anything to provide for Naomi’s survival and comfort. And it also told him that she wasn’t married! Aha!

So Boaz ambles on over to Ruth and says, “My daughter, do not glean in another field or leave this one. You just stay right here. Stay close to my women workers, and I’ve told the men not to bother you.” Uh-huh. He has to order his men not to bother her? That’s a telling statement. And a whole other sermon, so I’m just going to continue with what I’ve got going here. In any event, Boaz is assuring Ruth that she would be safe in his field. And when she was thirsty, she was to go and get a drink from the vessels provided. And instead of saying “Thank you! I really appreciate it!” Ruth throws herself herself face down on the ground and his feet. Boaz takes a step back and says, “Whoa! Now that doesn’t happen every day. Must be a Moabite thing. You OK down there, sweetheart?”

“Yeah. I’m just really, really grateful for everything you’ve done for me!”

“Oh well, listen, after everything you’ve done for Naomi, it’s the least I can do.”

Then at lunchtime, he invites her over. “Come sit over here by me.” And he gives her bread and wine to dip it in – very Eucharistic when you think about it. But the people listening to the story would have thought, “Oh my! He’s feeding her, giving her food! That’s what a husband does! Could that be foreshadowing?”

Why yes, yes it could.

Then Boaz instructs his reapers to let Ruth glean among the standing stalks, the good stuff, and he tell them further to deliberately drop handfuls of barley from the bundles where she can find them, and be discreet about it. That is so sweet. Clearly Boaz is smitten!

That night, Ruth brings home everything she had gleaned plus what she had left over from lunch. Naomi takes one look at the huge pile of food on the table and says, “Holey moley girl! Where did you work today?”

And Ruth says, I worked in the field of a very kind man by the name of … oh what was it now? Oh yeah, Boaz!”

And Naomi lets out another yelp, “Praise be the Lord God! Boaz is a kinsman of ours…and a close one too!” And the audience would have started buzzing again, “Oh, he could be the redeemer! He’s the redeemer, for sure! Here comes the happy ending!”

Not so fast! There’s a problem coming down the road.

But Ruth does work for Boaz through both the barley and the wheat harvests, and then Naomi finally says, “Ruthie, it’s time I did right by you, secure your future. So here’s what you do – go take a bath, put on some perfume, and get yourself all dolled up. Boaz will be winnowing barley at the threshing floor. Get yourself down there, but don’t reveal yourself until Boaz is finished eating and drinking. Then go uncover a place at his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.” He will tell her what to do?!! Nothing at all disconcerting about that! But Ruth did what Naomi told her.

By the time Boaz was ready to turn in for the night, Scripture says he was in “a contented mood,” having eaten well, and had a glass or two or ten of wine, which Naomi knew he would. It was all part of her plan. So Ruth sneaks up to him on tiptoe, carefully uncovers a place at his feet and lies down.

Interesting sidebar. I hesitated to share this with you because it’s a little, well, you know, but then I remembered in my first sermon I actually used the words “Jesus in a strip club,” and nobody threw anything at me. I’m taking that as a good sign. So, interesting sidebar. Here’s what I learned in theological college – in the Old Testament, the word “feet” is sometimes used as a euphemism…for something else. Meaning? Meaning something got uncovered on the threshing room floor…but it wasn’t feet. You mean Boaz and Ruth…? Weeeelll, the Scripture writer seems to be hinting that maybe they did. At least, that’s what they taught me in holy school. I’ll leave it to you to decide.

At midnight Boaz was startled (as well he would be) when he turned over, and there was a woman!

He says, “Who are you?!

And she responds, “I’m Ruth. Marry me!”

And Boaz says, “What?”

“I’m Ruth. You’re my next of kin. So, you know, spread your cloak over me, or jump the broom, or whatever it is you Israelites do, and marry me. Let’s get married…right now!”

Naomi had said that Boaz would tell Ruth what to do, but it’s the complete other way around.

Anyway, Boaz is quite touched by Ruth’s proposal. “Aw Ruthie,” he says, “I would love to marry you. I would. In a heartbeat. But here’s the thing.”

And the audience would start to murmur, “What thing? What is he talking about? There’s no thing!”

“Oh yeah, there’s this thing. You see, I am your kinsman. But there’s someone closer to you than me. And by law, he has first dibs. If he wants to redeem Naomi’s land, and if he’d willing to marry you, that’s how it will be. But if not, I will, I promise.”

I can’t imagine what Ruth must have felt. She will be getting married again, either to the man she is clearly attracted to, or to a stranger she hasn’t met. For all Naomi’s matchmaking and manipulations, and for all Ruth’s forthrightness and enthusiasm, the situation has been taken out of her hands. It will be decided by two men. She will have no say in the matter.

She must have been desperately disappointed. Boaz says to her, “Tell you what, stay the night.” And she did. Scripture says she stayed with him (specifically, laid at his feet) until morning, but got up before dawn. And like all lovers before and since, Boaz wants to give Ruth a present, a token of his love, something to ease her bitter disappointment. But it’s a threshing room for crying out loud – what could he possibly find there to give her? And then he hits on it – barley! Well, what woman doesn’t love barley? So he pours six measures of barley into her cloak.

How much was that? The Scripture isn’t clear – six measures is kind of vague, but some commentators estimate it was around 50 pounds! Now Boaz was smitten and all, but even so, I think 50 pounds is stretching it a bit. But say it was half that – 25 pounds of barley is still quite a bit of barley. What must have been her reaction? “Wow Boaz. A woman never really knows what to say when her boyfriend gives her twenty-five pounds of barley. Thanks?”

And when she gets home, and Naomi sees another huge mountain of barely on the kitchen table, she must have thought her plan worked. But then Ruth explains about the other relative, and Naomi tries to comfort her:

“Don’t worry,” she says. “Boaz won’t leave this hanging. You’ll know one way or the other by this afternoon.” And Ruth might have been thinking, “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

But Boaz was not a stupid man, really rather wily in his way. He assembles the town elders and tells the other redeemer that Naomi wants to sell off her husband’s land and that he has first claim on it, if he wants it. And the man replies, “Oh, I want it!” And the audience have said, “Oh, that’s it! It’s over! What a dreadful story this turned out to be!” But the narrator would have continued – “Then Boaz said, ‘The day you acquire the field, you are also acquiring Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead man, to maintain the dead man’s name and his inheritance.”’

The audience held its collective breath.

And the next of kin said, “I cannot redeem it without damaging my own inheritance. I give you my right of redemption. Redeem it yourself. Have a nice marriage.”

And the audience would have cheered! Love conquers all!

So what’s the big scandal about this story? It’s just a little romance isn’t it?

At the very end of the story is a little genealogy, all male names this time, but it shows that the great grandmother of King David was not Jewish, but a foreigner.

And then this foreigner’s name turns up in the genealogy of Christ. What’s it doing there?

Well, Jesus comes along and does provocative things like talk to a Samaritan woman about theology. And his disciples say, “Why are you talking with her? She’s a woman. She’s a foreigner. And she has a shady past.”

“Yes, I know,” Jesus replies, “and that’s the point. That’s exactly why I’m talking to her.”

Jesus heals ten lepers. Only one comes back to say thank you, and he is a Samaritan.

A Canaanite woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter. They go back and forth about dogs and crumbs, and then finally Jesus says, “OK, you’ve convinced me. Boom! She’s healed.”

The disciples come to Jesus and say, “We saw a man casting out demons in your name, but we told him to stop because he isn’t one of us.”

And Jesus said, “Then you can march right back there and apologize.”

“Why?!”

“Because there is no such thing as ‘not one of us.’ Don’t you get it, Chosen People? You’re not the only chosen ones! And the bloodline you were so concerned about keeping pure was never pure from the start! King David’s great granny was a Moabite who may have had a dalliance on the threshing room floor; great-great-granny was a Canaanite, and a prostitute; and great-great-great-great-granny may have been a Jew but she slept with her father-in-law! Oy! There’s an inconvenient truth for you! And here’s another one – from now on, I’m choosing everybody! Everybody gets a seat at my table – foreigners, Gentiles, women, the sick, the sinners, outcasts, untouchables, outsiders. And make room for the prostitutes ‘cuz they’re coming in too. And the kids. All the kids. Love the kids!

“The God you love and adore wants you to sit at my table…right beside the people you hate, the people you don’t love and adore, and who don’t love and adore you. But that’s my kingdom. Find a way to make it work!”

You see, the Kingdom of God isn’t something that’s given to us when we die. It’s not someplace we go to if we’ve lived a good life. The Kingdom of God is something Jesus commands us to create right here, right now, every single day of our lives. And how do we do that? Every time we forgive, every time we let go of our prejudice, every time we overcome our fear and reach out in love to someone we consider totally unlovable, the Kingdom of God is made manifest among us. And we get to take that with us straight into eternity. So who’s in the Kingdom of God?

Everybody.

Because in the mind and heart of Jesus, there is no such thing as not one of us.

This is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and descendant of Ruth, the Outsider, Ruth, the Chosen.

Let’s bow in prayer…

I find I don’t much care for the way God is portrayed in the Old Testament – violent, wrathful, demanding unquestioning obedience, he certainly doesn’t seem much like a loving father, but he does bear a strong and disturbing resemblance to the Hebrew warriors that worshipped him, so much so, sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

This God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, which is an iconic moment in the Bible, the Exodus, the Great Liberation, and he promises to settle them in a land flowing with milk and honey. Sounds great, except for one tiny detail – there were already people living in that Promised Land. “Easy fix,” God says. “Kill them. All of them. Wipe them out – every man, woman and child…and their animals. Obliterate them. And then the land is yours.”

That this happened, I have no doubt. That this is what God wanted? I have grave reservations. A god who says in one breath, “Thou shalt not kill,” and in the next says, “Go commit genocide,” seems a bit conflicted to me. Is that really what God commanded? I don’t know, but I will say this: until this modern technological age of ours, history wasn’t written as it happened. It was written years afterward, sometimes many years afterward, when historians, particularly religious historians, could give the events some interpretation. If a battle was won, then God must have been with the victors. And if God gave the army victory, then God must have wanted them to go to war in the first place. And if the losers were wiped out, obliterated, then that must have been what God wanted too…because that’s the way it happened. And if all that was God’s will, then surely he must have told someone that this was his will, some military leader or prophet. And that’s how it gets written down, that God said ‘This is my will. Go do it.’

At least, that’s my theory. And that’s why I’m very cautious when I read the Old Testament. I will not obey and I will always question a god who says, “I love you, but I hate them. So you go and kill them and take everything they have.” That doesn’t sound like God to me, but it does have a very human ring about it.

In our lesson today, we hear about Joshua who was the successor to Moses, and whom God had chosen to lead the people into the Promised Land. He was also the general who was to lead his warriors against all the peoples who stood between him and that Promised Land. Like any good commander, he planned his strategy preparatory to leading the invasion forces into the land of the Canaanites. He sent ahead two spies to scout out the land and gather information, especially about the city of Jericho. Without a doubt, these two spies have got to be the worst spies ever! Joshua says, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And the very next verse reads, “So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there.” An interesting interpretation of their orders.

Now let’s consider for a moment, the possibility that all these men did was take a room for the night. These men were on a mission. They weren’t supposed to take a room anywhere. Joshua said, “View the land,” not “Check in somewhere for the night.” And let’s just remember where this room was located. There’s a fair degree of consensus about Bible scholars that the home of Rahab the prostitute was not just her place of residence, but her place of business, in other words, a brothel. Plus, the expression “spent the night” literally translates as “they laid down there.” I mean, come on!

Sometimes, when Biblical heroes are portrayed behaving badly, like here, commentators will try to put the best possible spin on it. Some have said that if you were on a mission to scout out the land you were preparing to invade, one of the best places you could go would be a brothel. And why? Well, they said, you could ask questions there; you could listen in on conversations, gather intel. Uh-huh. Did these spies ask any questions? No. Did they listen in on any conversations? No. What did they do? They laid down there. I think they were like two kids let out of school, just giddy with freedom. “Wow, we must be pretty special if Joshua chose us for this mission. He could have picked anyone but he chose us for our military expertise and superior intelligence-gathering skills. Oh yeah, we are ‘special ops!’ We’ll sneak into the enemy’s encampment and learn their plans and numbers. We might even bring back a prisoner or two and make them talk. Our mothers will be so proud. We’ll be heroes! They’re going to write songs about us! There’s going to a parade and…oh look! A brothel! You knoooow, we could do all that stuff tomorrow. Why yes, yes we could. And I’m feeling kinda tired. How ‘bout you? Oh I could lie down there, you betcha!”

Bad enough they went “off mission” but almost immediately the king knew that two Hebrew spies were in his country, where they were, and what they were doing. Turns out a brothel is a good place to gather information…if you’re the enemy! These two spies had no idea they were being spied on.

Three verses – verse 1 – Joshua says go scout out the land; verse 2 – the spies scout out a brothel; and verse 3 – the king of that land is sending soldiers to said brothel to capture said spies.

Worst. Spies. EVER!

(And I know what you’re going to do when you go home today. You’re going to go straight to your bibles thinking “Oh, she’s gotta be wrong about this…oh my Lord! There it is! Verse 1, 2, and 3! She wasn’t making it up this time!”)

No, not this time.

Luckily for these guys, the brothel was run by an intelligent, compassionate and courageous madam named Rahab. She goes to the spies and says, “You know, you guys are the best spies ever! Oh yeah. We hope the rest of your army is as smart as you two. But here’s the thing – there are soldiers on the way here to arrest you. I know, right! How did that happen? Now I know you have a plan for this contingency, master spies that you are, but I’m going to suggest that you hide on my roof under the flax stalks until they’re gone…you know, just for fun. What do you think?”

Well, they thought was a dandy plan, and hid out on the roof while Rahab sent the soldiers off in the opposite direction. Then she sounds the all-clear and says to the spies, “The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.” An astonishing proclamation of faith. Was Rahab a believer? Some commentators think she was, but I have some serious doubts. Who would have evangelized her? Who would have taught her about the one true God of the Israelites? I don’t it’s likely she was a believer at all. Then why is she speaking like this? How does she know to say all the right things? Because she’s a prostitute! It’s part of the job description to say what men want to hear. “Oh, you big strong Israelites you! You’re so good! No wonder God loves you! And my people are so wicked. No wonder God wants you to wipe us off the face of the earth. But before you start your God-sanctioned rampage, I’d like to remind you that I did just save your lives and it would awfully nice if you would return the favour.” She says, “Deal kindly with my family…spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them.” And they agree, whereupon she helps them escape back to their camp. Now what do you think the spies would have done to this woman, after they spent the night with her in her brothel, after she helped them evade capture, twice – what would they have done to her if she hadn’t elicited this promise? In spite of all she did for them, they’d have slaughtered her. They would have had to. That’s what God wanted. Evidently.

So she gathered all her relatives into the brothel with her and waited while outside the Israelites “devoted to destruction by the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.” We call this ethnic cleansing today. Extermination. Holocaust.

Once they were done the slaughter, the spies brought out Rahab and her kin, and what did she think when she beheld the devastation of her city and the butchered bodies of her friends and neighbours? And if that wasn’t enough, the Israelites then burned down her city and everything in it – except for the gold and silver. That went into the “treasury of the Lord.” What’s the Lord going to do with it? God doesn’t need money. Divine credit is good. And who manages this treasury of the Lord? I’m betting it’s not an archangel.

Scripture says that Rahab and her family lived among the Israelites from then on. Did she convert? Don’t know. A far more interesting question I think is, did she give up the business? We might like to think she did, but again I have doubts. Her life after the massacre of her people would not have been easy, living among the killers of her race. She would have been a constant and shameful reminder to the Israelites of why they were not able to carry out a complete ethnic cleanse – because a couple of their guys listened to their glands and “laid down” at her brothel, where they had no business being, and ended up needing her help to escape. So they had to let her live, and live with them. If she opened up a bakery or something, I don’t think she’d get a lot of customers. I don’t know what she had to do to survive, but it couldn’t have been easy.

One of the commentators suggested that perhaps she married one of the Hebrew spies. Give me a break! She was a prostitute. She wasn’t stupid.

The next we hear of Rahab (and I just love this!) is in the genealogy of Jesus. Yep, the second woman named as an illustrious ancestor of the most holy Son of God is Rahab, the prostitute. You just can’t make this stuff up! It’s too wonderful! She is the great-great-grandmother of King David. How did that happen?! And just what is her name doing in Christ’s bloodline? After all, we have a name for people who do the kinds of things she did. We have a name for people like her – we call them saviours!

When Rahab saved the lives of the two Hebrew spies, she did so at the risk of her own. If she had been discovered, she would have been executed as a traitor. Then she interceded for and won the lives of her family. People who put the lives of others ahead of their own, who would give everything and anything that others might have life, and life in abundance, even eternal life, they are saviours. At the end of the Second World War, some of the Jews who were saved by Oskar Schindler, gave him a gold ring with the inscription “Whoever saves a single life, saves the world entire.” Rahab saved the world. And that’s what she’s doing on that list, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and descendant of Rahab the prostitute, Rahab, the saviour.

Let’s bow in prayer…

For the next five Sundays I’m going to be preaching on the genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew’s gospel. Now I know what you’re thinking – “Could she get any more boring? Five weeks on the begats and begottens? I got out of bed for this?!” I know that’s what you’re thinking, because that’s for sure what I’d be thinking!

And why even bother? The genealogy traces the line down to Joseph, the husband of Mary, and according to Scripture, and our faith, Joseph was not the father of Jesus, God was. That’s a valid point. Ancient Hebrew society was patriarchal, that is male dominated, as well as patrilineal, meaning they traced their bloodline through the fathers. But these were Mary’s ancestors too, her fathers, her blood, and she passed that on to Jesus. So there is value in studying the generations of the tribe Jesus was born into.

But I won’t be talking about the genealogy per se, but the five women who are mentioned in it. Why? What’s so important about those five women? They’re not supposed to be there! As I mentioned, Hebrew society was patrilineal, so the presence of any women’s names is astonishing, unless they were the matriarchs. For instance, Abraham had three wives, Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah, all of whom bore him sons, but only one was to be the great forefather of the nation of Israel, and that was Isaac, whose mother was Sarah. So, the genealogy of Abraham would mention Abraham’s wives but only to point out which one was the matriarch – Sarah – and which son was all important.

So are the women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus matriarchs – like Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel? Not exactly, no.

Were these women saints, women of great virtue? I know a little bit about women saints. I wrote a book about women saints. And I’m here to tell you, these women ain’t saints. Not by any definition I know. And maybe we need a new definition of “saint.” That could be. But these women’s names are associated with some of the most scandalous of sins – incest, prostitution, fornication, adultery, and accessory to murder. And this is the genealogy of Jesus?! That’s not a genealogy, that’s a soap opera!

And it isn’t easy to preach on this kind of stuff. At least, not for me. Part of me is a woman of very delicate sensibilities, although I know that comes as a surprise to some of you. But the other part, as you well know, is a furious feminist. And when the two come together in conflict over something, like this, Furious Feminist wins every time. I have to know what’s going on here. I have to know why these women were included. Because every time the genealogy of Christ was read out in the early churches, the people would have heard these women’s names, instantly remembered their stories…and been horrified! Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary of Nazareth – scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal! By the end of the genealogy, those poor church people would have been apoplectic! These women have no business in the lineage of the most holy Son of God. So what are they doing there? Short answer – nobody knows.

But I have a theory. And it’s not just my theory. Other people think the same way.

I believe it’s no accident that these women are mentioned in Christ’s lineage. The gospel writer is sending us a specific message, a coded message, about these women’s relationship to Christ, and that’s what we’re going to decipher in the next few weeks.

Let’s begin with Tamar the Trickster.

The first woman’s name to appear in the line of Jesus is Tamar, and her story is bound up with that of Judah who was one of the sons of the great patriarch Jacob. It was Judah who had the bright idea of selling his brother Joseph as a slave to the Midianites, so jealous was he and his brothers of Joseph’s preferential place in the affections of their father Jacob, and so irked was he by Joseph’s dreams of dominance over his brothers.

In the meantime though, while all that other stuff was going on, Judah got married to a nice Canaanite girl, and had three sons of his own, the eldest of which he married off to Tamar. But this son, Er, did something to displease God, and God killed him. That’s what the Scripture says – God killed him. My first question is – what did he do? Because I’d really like to avoid that sin if I could! But Scripture doesn’t say. My second question is – did God kill him? The Scripture writer certainly thought so. Personally, I think he died alright, but God zapping him out of existence because he did something wrong? Is that the way God acts? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.

In any event, Judah marries Tamar off to his second son, but this son also does something that displeases God and God kills him too. And by now Judah is thinking, “Oy! Two sons down and only one son to go.”

In ancient Hebrew theology, there was no concept of heaven as a place where you went after you died. So with no idea of resurrection or eternal life after death, children became all important – they were your legacy; they were your immortality. So you can understand Judah’s reluctance to marry off his last son, Shelah, to Tamar, who appears to be under some sort of curse that leaves her alive but kills off all her husbands. In fact, Judah had no intention of risking his only son, so he tells Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son grows up. Then you can marry him.” And that’s what she did.

When Tamar returns to her father’s house, she literally enters a No Man’s Land. The most significant duty of a father towards his daughter in those days was to arrange a good marriage for her, and Tamar’s father did that. She should have her own home now, and a husband, and most importantly, children. But she’s back, alone, dependant on her father’s compassion, and possibly under a curse. Lovely! On top of all that, was the Hebrew custom (law) that as long as a close relative of the deceased husband still lived, in this case a younger brother, Tamar could not marry outside the family. She was stuck. She had to wait until her father-in-law arranged the marriage to his youngest son, which, as I said, was something he had no intention of doing.

So she waited, an outcast in a home here she didn’t belong and was not wanted, unable to fulfill what was considered a woman’s purpose in life – to have children.

This went on for quite a while, until it finally sank in that Judah was never going to give his last son to her as husband. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. She played a trick on her father-in-law – a rather good one. And by good, I mean bad…very bad.

Someone told her Judah was in Timnah for the annual shearing of the sheep, so she takes off her widow’s attire, dresses in her regular clothes, drops a veil over her face and sits down at the side of the road. Ole Judah comes along and thinks she’s a prostitute. And they negotiate a contract in which he will pay her with one of the goats from his flock. But that’s not good enough for Tamar – she wants a pledge from Judah, some collateral, until he made good on the payment. He says, “OK, what do you want?” And she says, “Give me your signet, your cord, and your staff.” Now these things were individual to each man. They were like his identity card. There was no mistaking who was the owner.

She takes the signet, the cord, and the staff, they do the deed, and Tamar goes home dressed as a widow once more.

Later on, Judah tells his friend Hirah, “I am a man of my word. Go take one of the goats to the prostitute,” but when Hirah asks after the prostitute who sat at the side of the road, the people tell him, “There was never a prostitute at the side of the road. We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He returns and tells this to Judah who says, “Aw, let her keep the stuff. If we keep looking for her, we’ll end up a laughing stock.”

OK then. Everything’s back to normal, right? Well, not quite.

Tamar is pregnant. Well of course she’s pregnant! There wouldn’t be any story if she wasn’t pregnant! And the news gets back to Judah – “Your daughter-in-law Tamar, is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah’s reaction is swift and chilling – “Bring her out and burn her to death.” No hesitation. No discussion. No inquiry as to whether the charges are true, what the facts are, or who the father might be. He dispatches his servants to carry out the grizzly task, and again he must have thought that was the end of the story.

But Tamar has a trump card – she gets one of the servants who have arrived to burn her, to take Judah’s signet, cord and staff back to her father-in-law with the message, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.” And I love how your pew bible puts it – “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

Meanwhile, in my mind’s eye, I can see Judah sitting in his kitchen with his friend Hirah, just rejoicing! “Hirah, I’m finally rid of that woman! There’ll be no marriage now. I get to keep my son and marry him off to a normal woman who won’t kill him. There’ll be no guilt since it’s not my fault she went out and got herself pregnant. (!) This couldn’t have worked out any better!” And just then the servant comes in and Judah says, “Hey! My stuff! Where’d you find it?”

And the servant replies, “Funny, funny story about that. Tamar had it.”

“Tamar had it?”

“Um hm.”

“Tamar who?”

“Oh you know, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, who we were just getting ready to burn alive. And by the way, do you still want us to go through with that, because we’re all set up, and it would be a shame to waste the wood.”

And I can see his friend Hirah, piping up: “Better not there, Judah. Because if they burn her, they’ll have to burn you too…daddy.”

Then Judah says something extraordinary – “Tamar is more righteous than I.”

Excuse me? How is Tamar more righteous than anyone? She slept with her father-in-law, for crying out loud! And she’s righteous? This is a righteousness that looks like sin…and who does that remind you of? What holy man would break religious laws every time he turned around, causing all kinds of scandal and outrage, associating with the dregs of society – sinners, outcasts, tax collectors, and yes, prostitutes? I’ve said it before, and I know it offends people, but I’m going to say it again – I believe if Jesus were to come into our world today, we wouldn’t find him in a church or temple or synagogue. No no, we would be far more likely to find him in a bar, or, God forgive me, a strip club. Oh Lord, Penny-Anne, why would Jesus go into a place like that? Because that’s where his friends would be! Jesus would be a friend to the dancers, and a friend to the patrons, and an absolute scandal to everyone else, particularly church people…like us. Wouldn’t he? The revulsion we’re feeling at the idea of Jesus going into a strip club is the very same revulsion the Pharisees felt watching him hang around with sinners and hookers. He must have been such a worry to his mother! This is what we find so hard to accept – the company Jesus kept, the people he preferred. We would be as scandalized by Jesus today as they were 2000 years ago – him and his righteousness that looks like sin.

This is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and descendant of Tamar, the Trickster, Tamar, the Righteous.

Let’s bow in prayer…