Christianity
is often accused of being anti-woman. People see it as a religion
that treats women as second class and subservient. Nothing could be
so wrong. Now, plenty of religious people do, in fact, treat women
this way. Many sincere believers are certain the Bible even teaches
this. But that is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is definitely
not the belief system, or the behavior, of Jesus. And proof of this
begins, well, at the very beginning. In Matthew, chapter one.
Most
folks skim over chapter one. Seriously, who gets that much
entertainment out of a list of “Joe was the father of John who was
the father of Jim who was the father of . . .” Except the actual
names in Matthew are much, much harder to pronounce.
But
four times, we get stopped in the litany. Right in the middle of that
perfect rhythm of dads and sons, we get a seismic jolt, four times.
They are the names of the women.
No
one ever included the women in lists like this. No one remembered
them. No one considered them worth the mention. The fact that Matthew
did blares a message across the ages we take for granted in our
theoretically egalitarian society.
Jesus came, right from the start,
to cut through our ideas of who measures up and who's important with
his message—everyone is immeasurably important.
To
grasp how revolutionary this declaration of Matthew's is, we must
understand how fundamentally not true this was for people of his
time. People had a hierarchy by which to judge other people, and
women were at the bottom. So were the disabled, the foreign, and the
poor. The mere existence of this list in Matthew is a challenge flung
into the teeth of the world. Love and value for everyone is taking
over. We're here, we're ready to play, and we're not going home.
So
he begins with Tamar. Might as well start with Desperate Housewives.
You can read the entire account here, if you wish. Just know,
abridged version, she is not exactly without scandal. Desperate for a
son and thus someone to care for her as a widow alone, she opts for a
less than conventional route to pregnancy. As a result, she also ends
up mentioned in Jesus' genealogy.
Tamar
had been treated unfairly by those in power over her, and she was
afraid. Afraid she would be alone, ashamed, and impoverished later in
life. I think we can relate to those fears. Do you carry shame you're
afraid will be revealed, whether it is actually shameful or imagined
shame? It was considered shameful for Tamar to have had two husbands
and no sons. Her shame tripled when she was denied a third husband
because of her habit of losing husbands. Matthew assures you and me
from chapter one that Jesus came to deal with shame.
Fears
of being alone? You haven't found that “one” to go through life
with? Or you did, but he or she turned out to be not the one? Maybe
the kids are all gone and the quiet closeness of the house seems
unbearable. Or you are the kid whom no one sees or hears. Matthew
promises—Jesus came to deal with alone.
The
fact that Matthew includes Tamar in Jesus bloodline fairly screams,
if we will hear it: Jesus came from a woman who was frightened,
alone, ashamed, and set aside because he came for people who felt the
same way.
He
cries from the cradle and then whispers from the cross—I will be
the eraser of shame and the lover of the lonely. Come. Just come.
No
more let sin and sorrow reign,
nor
thorns infest the ground.
He
comes to make his blessings flow,
far
as the curse is found.
Because
it's Christmas.
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