we all come from somewhere

November 30, 2025 • First Sunday in Advent
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 1:1-16 (NRSV)
Rev. K Karpen

[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://youtu.be/bvmckTEwXOs]

When I was ten years old or so, I decided I would read the Bible, beginning to end. And that went alright for a while, through Genesis and into the first part of Exodus, but I bogged down in the detailed description of the dimensions and design of the Tabernacle. 

I mentioned that to my mom, and she said, ‘Well, why don’t you start with the New Testament, all those stories about Jesus, and get back to the Old Testament later.”

That sounded good, so I started at Matthew Chapter 1, verse 1, and ran into the ‘Begats’.  So and so begat so and so, and so on. And my Bible project ground to a halt.

Why on earth does Matthew start the gospel in that way?  And why would I be preaching about that today?

I think there are three points to consider about the begats.

1. Everyone comes from somewhere.

2. This recited lineage, the ancestry of Jesus is really a spiritual ancestry.

3. The very mixed multitude of heroically flawed and complex people who make up that ancestry can help us understand that whoever and wherever we come from shapes, but does not determine, who we are becoming. We determine that, along with our God. 

First, Matthew knows that everyone comes from somewhere. And everyone comes from someone. From many someones.  And it’s important to Matthew, and maybe to us, to know that Jesus doesn’t just crystalize out of the ether.

Matthew wants to set Jesus in his Jewish context, and as the result of a long line of people who tried in various ways to be faithful to the God of their ancestors. 

I think you can’t know who I am without knowing that my dad used to tell me Bible stories at night to get me to go to sleep, and that my mom had a job singing every Friday night at a synagogue, and a job singing Sunday mornings at a church, and we grew up knowing both the Jewish blessing over the wine and the Lord’s Prayer by heart.

Who we are has so much to do with who we come from.

For years, my dad also told me stories about his parents and grandparents and great grandparents.

One story in particular I was taken with.  Dad’s great grandmother was from Elgin, Scotland.  Dad used to tell us that she was a ‘lady of Scotland’, which, he said, gave her permission to walk the city walls, parasol in hand.

I liked the idea of being somehow distantly related to minor royalty. 

And so, a number of years ago when we were in Scotland, we went to Elgin and found, to my delight, that there was a whole genealogy center there. Set up, I guess, for people like me

The director was super-helpful, and when I told him the details of my vaguely royal ancestor he went right to the files and found a record of her.

And the records told us she was born ‘naturally’, a polite Scottish way of saying ‘out of wedlock’, in a tiny, obscure village in the Scottish countryside. The only other record they had said that after marrying, her husband died, the family went bankrupt and she went on the dole.

I guess I looked a little crestfallen at my sudden loss of royal lineage, because the director then told me, in his Scottish accent, that I’ll try to reproduce: ‘Dinnae ye worry, me ain Pa I nimmer did ken, me Ma ha’ a wee quickie wi’ some’at.  An’ didna ye ken, I turnt out jes fine?’ 

We all come from someone, Matthew wants us to know. Lots of someones, but we are not those someones. We are who we are. You are who you are. And who you are is this: A beloved, deeply beloved, child of God.

Second, Matthew knows, and tells us, that, according to his theology, the lineage of Jesus is not a literal lineage, but a spiritual lineage. Not a biological line, but a spiritual line, a spiritual ancestry.

Matthew knows and wants us to know that Joseph is not the literal father of Jesus. But still Matthew traces the lineage of Jesus through Joseph.

Why is that? We might suspect that it is in deference to patriarchy that the lineage of Jesus gets traced though Joseph and not through Mary, Jesus’ biological mother.  

But Matthew messes that theory up by doing what? Including women like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, in the begats.

The main reason to trace the lineage of Jesus through Joseph is that Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is the descendent of King David, the messianic ruler who will return to liberate the people of Israel from the oppression of the Roman Empire. Therefore, Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, the City of David.

But beyond that, Matthew knows that lots of people are part of our spiritual ancestry. And lots of people shaped, and still shape, our spiritual lives.

I think of so many quirky clergy and patient lay people who at one point or another, in my youth, seemed to decide that I was worth spending their time on.

When I go downstairs to the Chapel of the Blessed Community, I am greeted by Rev. Paul Abels, who was my counselor one year at summer camp and made a deep and positive impression on me. Along with may others.

Today, I have colleagues and teachers like some of you here, who still think I’m worth spending your time on.

So, like Jesus, our true lineage is a spiritual lineage. The people who shaped and still shape who we are each becoming.

And Third, Matthew wants us to see that God uses all sorts of people in the project of salvation, the great project of saving the world, of saving us even from ourselves.

Even a quick glance tells you that, Abraham was a liar who tries to pass off his spouse Sarah as his sister to save his skin.

Jacob was a swindler from the moment of his birth.

Judah seduces his daughter in law, thinking she’s a prostitute, because sometime we learn from our forebears how not to be.

King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines,

And let’s not even get started on King David.

And so one subtext of this endless recitation of imperfect people, is that God has a great way of using flawed humanity to do something significant for the world God loves.

And that for some reason, God thinks we are worth saving, even from ourselves. 

Which people in your story make up the genesis of you?  Who do you come from, what giants of faith have imparted the hope that lives in you? Who have shaped, but not determined, who you are, and who you are becoming?

What curiously complicated ancestors tell you that you don’t need to be perfect to be authentically human, and in fact humans don’t really come in perfect?

In a moment I’ll invite you to consider some simple questions:

  Who do you come from?
How much does that determine who you are?
How have you ended up here (whatever 'here' means to you)?

But remember, none of that determines who you are because who you are ultimately and in essence and in essentials, is this: a beloved child of God.

No matter what people say, say or think about me,
I am a child, I am a child of God.

No matter what people say, say or think about you,
You are a child, you are a child of God. Amen!

Copyright (c) 2025 - Rev. K Karpen
All rights reserved.