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Of course Mary is an ancestor of Jesus. In mammals, live birth makes maternal parentage easy to establish. Matthew 1:16 proclaims:

and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. [NRSV]

After a genealogy that has four women with social stigma attached, Mary would finally be free of trouble, right?

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. [Matthew 1:18-19, NRSV]

OK, maybe not.

Perhaps these women - Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, "the wife of Uriah" (Bathsheba), Mary - are named because they are named in the stories of the men in the genealogy. If that is so, why not mention Abraham's wife Sarah, or Isaac's wife Rebekah, both of whom are prominently mentioned?

Maybe it's because these are women who make bold choices, but the same applies to Sarah and Rebekah as well. Even today, most Christians know the names of these women, and they're mentioned in stories in Sunday School.

To be honest, I don't know why Matthew, which is likely written for a Jewish community outside Palestine, chooses these women for a mention.

I do note that they would all be considered tainted by sexual sin. Accepting payment from your father-in-law for sex (Tamar), actively being a sex worker (Tamar), being part of a tribe begun by father-daughter incest (Ruth), being raped (the wife of Uriah, named Bathsheba), and being pregnant by someone other than your husband (Mary) are all generally reasons to be considered unclean and unworthy. Of course, most of these events carried less stigma for the men involved.

Whatever the reason for their inclusion, these women have an honored place in Matthew. Maybe we can also find an honored place for other women who have been called names like whore, slut, or bitch. Maybe we can look past the accusations about behavior and instead see the potential in all women.

And maybe those of us who have been told that we are less-than can look at the genealogy in Matthew and find women with whom we can identify, women of honor.

In the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel according to Matthew, Bathsheba is in the line of Jesus. Well, almost certainly Bathsheba, though the gospel says "the wife of Uriah".

In II Samuel 11 is the story of King David's rape of Bathsheba. He sees her bathing, has her brought to him, rapes her. She becomes pregnant so, to cover up his sin, David sends for her husband Uriah. He tries various things to get Uriah to go home to Bathsheba (in hopes he will have sex with her and think the child is his), but Uriah is more concerned with the troops he commands. Plan B is David sending Uriah into more dangerous battle in which he will certainly be killed. (He is.) David takes Bathsheba as a wife, and their firstborn son dies.

After David's death, Bathsheba arranges for her son Solomon to be king.

David is a celebrated king, but also a rapist and murderer. The victim of his rape is one of the five women mentioned as an ancestor of Jesus. Why is that?

Naomi had two sons, who married women from Moab. Naomi's husband and sons died, and she told her daughters-in-law, Orpah (after whom Oprah is named) and Ruth to go back to their people. Ruth, however, pledged to stay with Naomi and her people and god, and eventually married Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi's.

What the genealogy of Jesus and the book of Ruth do not tell us is where the people of Moab come from, and why they're shunned. For that, we have to look to Genesis 19:30-38 (The following is from the New Revised Standard version):

Now Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. ³¹And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. ³²Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father." ³³So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. ³⁴On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, "Look, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father." ³⁵So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. ³⁶Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. ³⁷The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.

Jesus' genealogy includes Moab, whose dad and maternal grandfather are the same man: Lot. The story above, by the way, happens immediately after the flight from Sodom.

Along with the list of men in Jesus' genealogy, why is Ruth among the five notable women?

According to Joshua chapter 2, Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho. She sheltered two spies from the people of Israel, then bargained for a promise that she and her family be saved when the town was taken by the Israelites.

Like Tamar, this story is over a woman who ordinarily might not have been well regarded by her people, nor by the Israelites. She is also a woman who makes bold choices. It is interesting to ponder why she is one of the five women in Jesus named in the genealogy of Jesus.

Luke's genealogy of Jesus mentions only men; it does not even mention Mary (3.23-38). There are five women listed in the Matthew's genealogy of Jesus (1.2-16)

• Tamar
• Rahab
• Ruth
• "the wife of Uriah"
• Mary

In Genesis 38.6, we read that Judah "took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar." After Er dies, Er's brother Onan is told by Judah to "go into" Tamar so that she may bear a child to continue Er's line. But Onan practices withdrawal so that Tamar does not become pregnant, and Onan dies because of this sin. ("Onanism" has become a term for masturbation.) Judah tells Tamar to go back to her father's house to live as a widow until his third son Shelah grows up, because he's afraid that son will die too.

When, after Judah mourns the death of his own wife, he comes near where Tamar is staying, she takes off her widow's garments, puts on a veil, and sits by the road. She sees that Shelah has grown up, but Judah did not marry her to him as was the law. Judah doesn't recognize her and takes her for a prostitute. As promise of payment, she takes his signet, cord, and staff.

When Judah sends the payment (a kid goat) via his friend, the friend can't find the prostitute, because Tamar has again put on the clothing of a widow. About three months later, Judah is to,d that his daughter-in-law "played the whore" and is pregnant. Judah says "Bring her out, and let her be burned." Tamar produces Judah's signet, cord, and staff, showing who it was who had sex with her. Judah admits withholding his son from her and rescinds his call for her death. She gives birth to Perez (an ancestor of Jesus) and Zerah.

So why is this woman mentioned? What persuaded Matthew to include her in the genealogy?

Next, we'll look at Rahab.

December 28 is one of the liturgical dates for the feast day of the innocents (others are December 27 and 29). This marks the story of Herod killing infants in order to end the threat of "the newborn king" (Jesus) as told in the second chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew:

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men,^* he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.^{* 17}Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸ 'A voice was heard in Ramah,
   wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
   she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.' (NRSV)

Jesus escapes this slaughter because his parents had been warned:

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.' ¹⁴Then Joseph^* got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, (NRSV)

But this makes me wonder: if the point of Jesus' birth is substitutionary atonement, that is:

• God dies as an infinite payment for the sins of finite humans against an infinite God, or
  
• A perfect human (Jesus) dies as payment for the sins of a perfect human (Adam), or
• Jesus dies to trick Satan into taking a blameless person, who he can't keep, and thereby rescuing all who Satan has taken, or
• any number of other schemes in which Jesus dies for our sins

then why would a perfect infant, or God in infant form, be an insufficient substitute for humanity?

Can it be only to fulfill the prophecy?

¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I have called my son.'

Isn't prophecy merely to tell of the times (or sometimes the future), rather than for events to make prophecy true? Surely this could have been omitted from prophecy and Jesus killed with the rest of the children.

Don't get me wrong, I have no love for the idea of killing an infant Jesus nor any other infants who may end up as collateral damage in Herod's insecurity. But if the point of Jesus is the crucifixion, we have no need for the life of Jesus, and especially not the ministry of Jesus.

The story of the massacre of the innocents tells us that Jesus had something to do instead of, or in addition to, dying. When we focus merely on the death, or even the death and resurrection, of Jesus, we miss the point of Jesus' life.

And if there is a point to Jesus surviving to adulthood, and to His healing the sick, and his preaching justice for the poor and oppressed, then there is probably a point to our living to adulthood as well. We may not see it - sometimes we may despair that there is such a point - but I believe there is a reason why we're here.

On this day, I will mourn those who die as infants - in first century Palestine and in the entire world in the twenty first century - due to senseless violence, hunger, and neglect. I will be grateful that I have been spared, and seek out what my ministry - my reason for surviving to adulthood - may be. I will look at the example of Jesus, who was not merely faithful in dying, but was faithful in living as well. I will examine who I serve, and make corrections as best I can.