Lionesses of Judah

Lectionary readings for Holy Communion today: Genesis 49:2, 8-10 and Matthew 1:1-17.

The Old Testament reading is an extract from the patriarch Jacob blessing his sons, or reflecting on their character, so as to train them. He compares Judah to a lion and like a lioness. If you’ve ever watched a natural history documentary, you’ll know that big cat mothers are determined, fierce, and resourceful when it comes to the survival of their young.

Matthew begins his Gospel with a family tree, to show that what God has done in and through Jesus is the culmination of a plan that has been in patient motion since the call of Abraham; but also, that, as God has given real freedom to humans and lions and all creation, this determined plan has often genuinely hung in the balance. And in his list of fathers and sons, Matthew includes a pride of lionesses, each facing an obstacle.

The first obstacle is the failure, and indeed refusal, of Judah’s own sons to carry on the family line. It was the custom for brothers-in-law to take responsibility for widows, but Tamar is left hanging until she takes the matter in hand—not only for her own future, but that of the family line, and the plan it carries—posing as a prostitute the now-himself-widowed Judah goes to for comfort, and so securing an heir.

The second obstacle is an army outpost, the Jericho garrison, blocking the way of the descendants of Jacob into the land of Canaan. And here we meet our second lioness, Rahab, the civilian barkeeper who welcomes spies, hides them from the guards who come looking for them, and chooses God’s people over her own, to the extent that she not only secures the survival of her own household but a place in our family line.

The third obstacle is an environmental crisis, a time (not for the first time) of extended harvest failure. Our family finds themselves economic migrants, refugees in a neighbouring land. And there, disaster on disaster, the men die. When things improve back home and widowed Naomi sets out to return, her foreign daughter-in-law Ruth goes with her. She will carry the family line on through Boaz, having put herself in that position by her resourcefulness and cunning: when the harvest is gathered in, and Boaz, having celebrated hard, falls into a drunken sleep in the field, she uncovers him so that when the cold awakens him, he finds himself naked in a field, lying there with a beautiful woman, and wondering about his options. A comedy worthy of Shakespeare.

The fourth obstacle is the unfaithfulness of the king in Judah, David. At a time of war, he does not lead his armies out, but stays at home, where he decides to force himself on his best friend’s wife. Bathsheba isn’t named, other than as ‘the wife of Uriah,’ emphasising that her husband was not the father of her son. When she falls pregnant, David attempts to cover his tracks, first summoning Uriah home from battle for one night, then sending him back to be murdered on the front line. Everyone will assume he is the father of his wife’s child. But when that child also dies, Bathsheba refuses to allow David to wash his hands of her. She will not be discarded, but claims her place as a royal wife. They have another son, and the line carries on.

And so we come to a fifth obstacle in this our family tree, and here the Lectionary brings the account to an end one verse too soon. For once again God’s plan hangs in the balance, as Joseph is about to find out that his wife is pregnant and he is not the father. What will Mary do, lioness to protect her son? And how will Joseph respond?

Tune in next time...