4th Sunday of Advent
Texts: Matthew 1:18-25;
Isa 7:10-16; Rom 1:1-7
YouTube: https://youtu.be/f0zleCTCSwA
Sermon Take-Home Notes
HOW GENEALOGIES CAN FRAME STORIES OF PEACE
Many people are fascinated these days by their genealogies. Perhaps you’re one of them. The fascination is bolstered now, too, by the science of genetics. Companies like ancestry.com and 23andme.com offer both genetic testing and a vast database for researching one’s family tree. They’re running holiday specials for testing kits right now.
Here’s why genealogy can be so captivating and helpful: it helps us to frame the stories of our lives. In the ads for ancestry.com or 23andme.com, for example, they most often feature someone who discovered a person in their family tree who they especially identify with. One featured on ancestry.com is “Heidi’s Story: Born for Adventure.” Heidi describes herself as the “oddball” in her family. Most everyone else is “reserved,” but she is adventurous. She especially relates, therefore, with her great grandfather who emigrated from Poland, who was adventurous like her. She frames her own story by finding the person in her family tree that she takes after.
Even casually, we can be aware of trends in our family trees that help us frame our stories, right? I haven’t done a great deal of research myself, but I am more aware of my family’s story on my father’s side. The Nuechterleins were one of the families in a large group of immigrants from Bavaria in the 1840’s which split into two groups when they arrived in America — one group to the St. Louis, Missouri area and the other to Frankenmuth, Michigan. Together these groups founded the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod — St. Lorenz Lutheran Church in Frankenmuth, MI being one of the several founding churches. My Nuechterlein ancestor was one of the first Principals at the St. Lorenz Lutheran School. As I learned about my Nuechterlein family tree growing up, I became aware of the many Nuechterleins who were school teachers and pastors in the Missouri Synod. My Great Grandpa was a pastor in Frankenlust, MI for forty years. Of his sons, two became prominent Lutheran teachers and two pastors. I’ve told you about my grandfather, who was first a pastor in Bowler, WI, and then the organist-choir director at the large Missouri Synod church in downtown Detroit. My dad was an electrical engineer, and so is my brother Dave. You know which vocation I chose from my family tree. My genealogy has definitely shaped the way that I frame my own story. How about you?
One of the best books, most impactful books, I’ve read in recent years is Fortune, by Lisa Sharon Harper. “Fortune” is not a word to describe her economic status; it is one of the dominant surnames in her family tree on her mother’s side. Being African American, the book is similar to Arthur Hailey’s famed Roots, first the book and then the historic TV mini-series of the 1970’s, which one could argue played a very important role in shaping our self-understanding as a country. Rather than trying to erase that part of our history, like some are trying to do now, watching Roots together led millions of Americans to come to terms with that brutal, deadly chattel slavery is an integral part of our history.
In the book Fortune, theologically trained Lisa Sharon Harper beautifully tells the story of her family, going all the way back to being one of the first enslaved peoples brought to these shores from Africa in the 1600’s. It’s a story of suffering and oppression but also one of the hope of redemption for this nation we love, a story of growing freedom with the potential for a more true freedom if we can frame our story truthfully, warts and all.
I believe that the Gospel-writer Matthew aims to tell just such a story for his nation of Israel. It’s one of redemption from their sins. The very name Jesus, we are told, is because “he will save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). Jesus will help his people to find true freedom by helping them to correctly understand their story. And how does Matthew help them tell their story? Unlike Mark, who simply launches into the story of Jesus at his baptism as an adult, Matthew begins at the beginning, with the story of Jesus’s birth that we have in this morning’s Gospel Reading. But you may have noticed that that is chapter 1, verse 18. The first 17 verses are . . . wait for it . . . Jesus’s genealogy. Matthew begins by framing the story of Jesus’ birth and life with a genealogy very much worth looking at. I’ve given you a large portion of it in today’s Sermon Notes.
We won’t read it out-loud but instead glean some insights from an overview. First, notice the structure Matthew summarizes in verse 17. The genealogy is given in three sets of fourteen generations, forty-two in all, from Abraham to Jesus. Those three sets of fourteen are demarcated by significant events in Israel’s history. The first stopping point is King David, the height of national success, when Israel was an imperial power over much of the Middle East. But over the next fourteen generations the nation slowly falls apart until they are conquered by the Babylonian Empire and taken into exile. The next fourteen generations experience much suffering and oppression under the boot of several powerful empires — the Roman Empire being the latest and most powerful. As we’ve highlighted this past year, it is crucial to understand that Jesus is an indigenous man in the Roman Empire. And, according to Matthew, for fourteen generations leading up to Jesus the people of Israel were an indigenous people in other peoples’ empires — in exile, so to speak. Matthew frames the story of Jesus as one of coming into true freedom after years of suffering and oppression. From what perspective do we learn the truth? That of an indigenous person, not that of the empire.
But there is also a curiosity marked by the names I’ve bolded in the Notes. In a genealogy list of 42 generations marked by the names of 42 men, Matthew strangely includes the names of five women. Mary’s name, the last of the five, we know well. Matthew’s about to tell her story as the mother of Jesus. But the other four? I’ve given you a synopsis of their stories in the Notes. Once again, we won’t read that out-loud but simply highlight two notable aspects. One is that all four women give birth to sons in difficult circumstances created by a male-dominated society. Tamar’s life is tied to that of her deceased husband. She will suffer great poverty as a widow — except she does something out-of-the-ordinary to turn around those circumstances — which happens to be deceiving her father-in-law through his sexual need for a prostitute. All the other women have similar stories of courageous women doing what they needed to do to persevere in a man’s world — with all five women becoming part of the story of God saving God’s people from their sins.
This includes Mary herself, of course, for Matthew makes sure we know the circumstances: Mary becomes pregnant before laying with Joseph so that he plans to divorce her quietly. An angel in a dream helps Joseph to understand that it is OK to marry Mary, even though the circumstances will likely make them at least somewhat of outcasts. The lowest of the low. The genealogy of women giving birth to sons in circumstances that marginalizes them frames the story of a Messiah who lets himself be made an outcast on the cross in order to save us from what? Our age-old sin of marginalizing others.
The second thing to notice is that two of the women aren’t even Jewish. Rahab is a Canaanite, and Ruth is a Moabite. Matthew highlights the fact that the story of Jesus the Messiah is not about the Jewish Messiah being purely Jewish. This isn’t about a pure bloodline as one sees in nationalistic societies. In fact, in the next infancy story, the story of the Magi who come bearing gifts to the baby Jesus, Matthew will frame the story as one of fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah that the Messiah will be a light to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. Jesus the Messiah will not be about Jewish nationalism, about putting their nation of Israel first to rule over all others. Jesus enters into a time when Jewish nationalism is about to clash with Roman nationalism in a way that leads eventually to the Roman-Jewish War and to the destruction of Jerusalem. The utter destruction of the Jewish world as they have known it. The end of their world.
Thirty years before that happened, the Jewish Messiah put himself in the middle of that clash, suffering that destruction in advance on the cross, but then being raised on the third day, in order to show the futility of the sins of nationalism. In order to show us the true way to peace. His mission fulfills the promise to Abraham and Sarah that their descendants will be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Not by ruling over them in an imperialist fashion, but by unifying them. By leveling the playing field for mutual flourishing. By showing us our true nature as one human family, as all created equal. Jesus the Messiah will be about true freedom for his people by saving them from their sins of nationalism in order to take up their true purpose once again, the unification of the whole human family under God’s way of justice and peace. A way that actually favors the marginalized over those in power. This is how Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus frames his whole story, not only of a crucified Messiah, but also one who taught like Moses to do things like turn the other cheek, love our enemies, and to take care of the least in the human family. All of this is the opposite of nationalism. The opposite.
Siblings in Christ, I believe that as we prepare for this Christmas, we are uniquely under the threat of White Supremacist groups who are part of the coalition of the current Christian Nationalist movement threatening to take over our country. How does our story of Christmas, the birth of the Savior of the world, the Prince of Peace — how does that genealogy and birth frame our story? Our story as a nation? Our personal stories as both followers of the Jewish Messiah and citizens in a nation which, two thousand years later, still needs saving from the age-old sins of nationalism? Amen.
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethania Lutheran Church,
Racine, WI, December 21, 2025
YouTube: https://youtu.be/f0zleCTCSwA
Sermon Take-Home Notes
