Mike Hardie looks at why Matthew refuses to edit out the shame and the outsiders in the opening genealogy, what it means for grace to tell the truth without excusing harm, and how real change looks like making things right.
This sermon discusses sexual abuse.
We all edit our lives. A photo of a fishing on a beautiful lake in Queenstown doesn’t show that nobody caught a single fish! And nobody films the argument in the car on the way to church.
A lot of that editing is ordinary and even appropriate. It turns serious when it decides whose story gets told. Australia’s Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse made the country listen to people who had been telling the truth for a long time, and it showed that when stories get edited, the victims and the least powerful are usually cut first.
As our series in Matthew continues, we ask how we can tell the whole truth about where we come from and still find grace, healing and justice.
A drum roll of names: The New Testament begins with a list of names rather than a miracle or a parable. In Matthew’s world, opening with a family tree was a bold move. Calling Jesus “son of David” made a political claim about kingship, and “son of Abraham” pointed to blessing for every nation. Even Matthew’s word for genealogy echoes the opening of Genesis, signalling a new beginning.
The names that shouldn’t be there: Women rarely appeared in genealogies, yet Matthew includes four. Tamar, abandoned by her father-in-law Judah and nearly executed on his orders, until he admits, “She is more righteous than I.” Rahab, an outsider in Jericho whom Scripture celebrates for her faith. Ruth, a widow from Moab. And “the wife of Uriah”, whose story involves King David using his power to take her, then arranging her husband’s death to cover it up. The book of Chronicles leaves that episode out. Matthew keeps it in.
Grace that tells the truth: Matthew neither hides this mess nor excuses it. Jesus is fierce about people who harm the vulnerable. Yet this family line also shows people changing. Judah, who once sold his brother, later offers himself as a slave to save his youngest brother. Zacchaeus, met first with grace, pays back four times what he took, the restitution David could never make. Grace doesn’t cancel consequences, and real change looks like making things right.
The question for us: If you’ve been hurt, you don’t owe anyone forgiveness on their timetable. If you’ve done the damage, don’t ask others to carry your healing. If you hold power, will you tell the full truth rather than the version that protects you? And if you’re carrying an old wound, what might change if you began, by faith, to pray for God’s blessing on the person who caused it, the kind of blessing that confronts and transforms?
