Every three years, our Advent lectionary readings focus on the story as it’s told by the author of Matthew. Now, I am fully aware that we are smack dab in the middle of summer, but bear with me for a minute. The Gospel of Matthew begins in a way no other of the gospels do… with a family tree or genealogy. You see, Matthew really wants us to know that Jesus was descended from the house of David, one of a long line of strong (if not questionable at times) leading men. As you go about reading Jesus’ pedigree, with all it’s father’s and brother’s and begats (which means to procreate as the father – not too common in more recent Bible translations), you will notice something odd. Every once and a while, buried in among all the men, are five women’s names: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Wife of Uriah (Bathsheba), and Mary. These women weren’t random choices, particularly given the patriarchal leaning of society at that time. It would have been a wee bit shocking to read these names in the lineage of Jesus – particularly because several of these women have, um, sketchy reputations and stories. The author clearly understood that the people hearing these stories knew of these women – it to the point that he didn’t need to name Bathsheba directly. Some commentators would even go as far as to say that the women were SINFUL. Gasp, not in Jesus’ lineage you don’t. There is power, sex, violence and fear in each of these stories. It is way easier to skip over them, or to gloss over the challenging nature of them, but sometimes we need to dig into the more challenging stories in order for us to hear what God is telling us, teaching us through them. So this summer, as we share worship together here at Westworth, we are going to do a little digging into the stories of these five women. And we are starting today, with Tamar.
Tamar’s story carries the subtle title: “Judah and Tamar” in many bible translations, but better title would read “it’s complicated…” You see, Tamar through no fault of her own, truly a victim of social rules and norms, had to work her way through four brothers before she was able to achieve “[1]her right as a woman of honour: the right to bear children in her husband’s house.” This is what earns her not only the mention of her name in Jesus’ pedigree, but the very first woman named in that list. This makes her the very first woman named in the entire New Testament. It’s as if the author of the gospel figures that we already knew who she was -her story so important that it’s taken for granted that we know it by heart and understand immediately why she is included.
It really should take longer to tell this story than the paragraphs we have in Genesis. The story should take hours to tell because it is shocking and off putting – some of us would need time to process and absorb the “mature-audience details”, trying to gain perspective. Or we jump to conclusions before the story even ends, especially if we are prone to morality issue distractions. Tamar is “the prime example of why we say things like ‘never judge a book by its cover’ or ‘those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ or this particularly fitting new proverb (often found on a t-shirt) “don’t judge my story by the chapter you walked in on.”[2] In order to truly understand and know Tamar you need to take the time to wade through her story – recognizing that most of it isn’t about her but rather is about the sorry men in her life who cannot and will not do the right thing.
Tamar has bad luck with spouses – her first two husbands were in fact slayed by God in disgust. So with these two deaths, Tamar is still not pregnant and she is running out of brothers. The custom at the time was that at the death of the husband the widow would be married to the next brother in the hopes of her becoming pregnant and having a child in the husband’s family line. So Judah, her father-in-law, promises his youngest son to her, but ends up reneging on the promise because he is scared that God will decide to kill this last son of his. The father and the sons have all reneged on their duties with Tamar in some way, driven by his own desire for profit and gain, without any thought as to the impact on the lives of the women they leave behind in their pursuit. Tamar has been cheated out of her rights, and for Tamar her chances of financial security have gone right out the window. Now she knows she is on her own. And instead of seeking revenge, she changes the state of play.
Tamar’s plan is brilliant and lurid, requiring absolute composure and patience on her part. Her plan does what she intends for it to do: she gets pregnant. It’s almost three months later that the rest of the family discovers the pregnancy and they do not hesitate in jumping to conclusions. They lash out at her, her reputation and her sense of dignity, and Tamar, well she remains calm and simply unmasks the father of this child with a few simple and yet distinctive items: a cord, a staff and Judah’s signet ring. “Please take note of whose these are” is all she has to say.
You can almost hear the pieces click together in Judah’s brain as he sees his items show up. Tamar has the grace to let the pieces speak for themselves rather than to give words to Judah’s humiliating tale. This is Judah, “a man who pimped his own brother and sold him down the river, because he was jealous that his father never gave him a look; Judah, who was angry that his father reneged on HIS family obligations, out of love for one son to the neglect of the rest.” And suddenly he understands. He sees the shame, which is his alone, that he did not led his sons on good paths. His daughter-in-law has to go through this complicated and somewhat defiling plan to get justice for herself and her no-good husband (Judah admits that last part). You could say that Tamar has gumption and mettle.
Judah publicly acknowledges Tamar’s courage – “She is more in the right than I,” he says, “since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” It’s not just “She is right” but “she is more in the right”… not quite a full admission but for this family it’s a start. So there is a little resurrection moment at the end of the story. Tamar raises twin sons in the name of her dead husband, even though Zareh and Perez are Judah’s kids. Their birth just like that of their grandfather Jacob and his twin brother, Esau, features a last minute wrestling match to be first born, so history repeats… but with Judah and Tamar a cycle is broken. There will be no more withholding of sons or blessings, no more judging if the whole story isn’t heard. Tamar’s son, Perez, is recorded in the genealogy that leads straight to Jesus – to the Gospel, good news of Jesus – and are we really surprised? Anna Carter Florence says: “ Jesus spent a lot of time with women like Tamar, who had complicated stories. He listened without judging. And he knew, from his own family and his family tree, that a story can take an evening (or a long time) to tell and hear properly. An evening, and a meal, with room for everyone around the table.”[3]
And I love that. But I still struggle with this story and trying to wrap my head around just what we are supposed to take away from it. Not for one minute do I blame Tamar for doing what she did – she isn’t wrong, or sinful. She is a women forced to seek justice and care for herself in a world that was firmly against her, all because of her biological gender. I will admit that I struggle with finding God in the passage. Eventually I got to the point in my thinking about the passage where I wondered if I was trying too hard to shoehorn God into the story, instead of allowing the holy to show their self to me. You see, Tamar was a Canaanite, who likely didn’t worship Israel’s God. She doesn’t mention God or even offer any prayers but does that mean God is absent from the story? She’s in Jesus’ genealogy – she must have some connection with the holy. Once I actually stopped looking, it came to me… God calls us, people of Faith, to seek justice and love kindness. Tamar is doing just that by looking to find justice in an unfair system. She channeled her strength to give a voice to those who are often voiceless. She challenged the status quo -going to extreme measures to advocate for herself. Tamar’s actions give a voice to God’s call to justice seeking. She became God’s voice reminding us of the importance of advocating for those who live on the margins and that we are called to love those very same people…including herself.
Tamar, brave Canaanite woman, echoes God’s conviction that we all have the right to full and blessed lives free from abuse and fear. For those of us that live that life already, Tamar reminds us of our call to be the voice for the silent and silenced, even if it means doing the unimaginable. I give thanks for the story of Tamar and our connect with her through Jesus.
Amen.
[1] Anna Carter Florence, A is for Alabaster: 52 reflections on the stories of scripture, 2023. P. 82
[2] Ibid, p. 83
[3] Ibid, p.85
