Crescent Hill Baptist Church

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky

All Saints Day / Pentecost 23
November 4, 2007
W. Gregory Pope

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Matthew 1:1-17

When we began our Centennial Celebration a couple of months ago I said that our story did not begin in 1908 but at the dawn of creation because the biblical story is our story. The same is true of our spiritual family.

We just heard from Matthew’s Gospel the family story of Jesus. And as brothers and sisters of Jesus, it is our family story too.

If families have anything they have stories. Stories that tell us who we are.

In the television movie “Kansas,” a seven year-old girl runs away from home thinking she needs to live her life apart from her family. And while she is on the run someone says to her, “You can’t know yourself until you know your family.”

Many people think you have to get away from your family in order to find yourself and know yourself. And there is some healthy self-differentiation that often needs to take place. But the truth is: you can never fully know yourself until you know your family.

Families, however you define them - biological, spiritual, partnership - as ragged and rugged and dysfunctional as they can be sometimes, our families will always be a part of who we are. And we will never be able to know ourselves apart from knowing our families and the stories of our families.

Matthew begins his story of Jesus by compiling his family tree. He skips generations as he goes. (Do not all families which to skip a generation every once in a while?) Except Matthew includes those we might skip or exclude. More about that later.

He arranges the generations into three groups of fourteen, representing the three eras of Hebrew history: The first from Abraham to David, then from David to the Babylonian exile, and then from the exile to the birth of Jesus.


And what is woven into the names and between the generations are stories - the promises made to Abraham of blessing to all people, the giving of the land, the slavery in Egypt, the wanderings in the wilderness, entering the Promised Land, the glory years of David and his downfall, the exile and the destruction of the Temple, all that was holy to them - we find the stories among these names.

And God was with them through it all. But never more so than in the birth of a baby whose life and teachings, death and resurrection would bring God near to us in ways unimaginable. The baby’s name would be Immanuel, God with us.

God’s greatest promise came true in Jesus, the Messiah for whom Israel had waited, the one who came to heal and liberate God’s people and to teach us justice and mercy, to be the hesed, the steadfast love and grace of God to us. God with us.

And God has been with us in our days of glory and our days of disgrace. When all that is holy seemed to crumble around us, God has been our saving help. And God has promised to be our hope for years to come. The salvation story of God goes on.

When we take a closer look at the family tree of Jesus, we find amazing grace and hope for us all. The Bible and history teach us that God can accomplish God’s purposes through persons, great and small, known and anonymous, Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner (And there’s a lot of both in us all. We usually become known as one or the other, saint or sinner, based on what becomes public.) But we are all of us saint and sinner. And there’s plenty of both in our family tree.

There is Abraham with courageous faith strong enough to leave everything and follow God wherever God would lead. But he was also at times cowardly, lying about Sarah being his wife, putting her at risk in order to save his own skin.

And Jacob, who deceived his father and stole from his brother birthright and blessing, but was transformed by a divine encounter in the river Jabbok, struggling for his soul, departing with a limp and a new name, Israel.

There is Tamar posing as a prostitute and tricking her father-in-law into fathering twins to assure that the family line of Judah would go on. And God called her righteous.

And there is Rahab, a real live prostitute, madame of the brothel of Jericho, hiding Joshua’s spies in her brothel and prophesying that victory would come to the Hebrew people. And she was right.

And then the wife of Uriah. She is not even named. But we know who she is. Used by King David as an object of lust and conquest. David would have her husband killed and then marry her. But Uriah’s name would not be erased from God’s salvation history. And Bathsheeba would become the mother of Solomon, the wisest of Israel’s kings and builder of the great Jerusalem Temple.


And there was Manasseh, the one described in scripture as the most evil of Israelite kings, erecting altars to Baal, consulting mediums and wizards, shedding so much innocent blood. Yet still included in the family tree of Jesus. There’s even room for cruel and foolish kings, presidents, and dictators.

Yes Frank Tupper, God’s providence is indeed scandalous. Jesus himself born amid the whispers of sexual scandal. Jesus is like us in ways we could not even imagine. Even he had family members he would rather others not know about!

Or . . . or is the greater scandal the truth that he gladly claims us all?

Scandal belongs to the life of family, doesn’t it? Even if kept from the public eye, scandal is known to most families: alcoholism, adultery, imprisonment, abuse, incest, betrayal. But no matter the scandal and the damage it does, the family tree of Jesus says it will not destroy the salvation work of God. God’s grace and promises are greater than any scandal.

The scandalous story however is not over. For you and I are here today sitting in this room to give witness that the family tree of Jesus has grown and grown and grown to encompass the whole world. The family of Jesus who died a childless man at 33 has now grown to include anyone and everyone who has risen to follow.

Jesus begat Martha and Mary and Lazarus and Magdalene and Peter and Judas and Paul.

And Paul begat Timothy.

And Timothy begat Monica, a fourth century convert to Christ living in North Africa.

(I’m skipping generations here, but so does Matthew.)

And Monica become the mother of a man named Augustine.

And Augustine begat Francis of Assissi, who left his family and his wealth to become a friend of the poor and a friend of Jesus.

And Francis begat Joan of Arc, who heard voices and would not recant her testimony even in the flames.

And Joan begat Martin Luther.

And Luther begat two baptizers named Smyth and Helwys, and a methodical Anglican named Wesley.

And they begat Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, two of those first Baptists who fought so hard for religious freedom and the freedom of conscience.


And Roger and Anne begat John Newton, who renounced slave trading and wrote Amazing Grace.

And Newton begat Sojourner Truth, a black woman who became a gospel preacher and a freedom fighter.

And Sojourner Truth begat Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary to Burma.

And Judson begat a family of Karen Christians. Karen Christians who have become a part of the Crescent Hill Baptist Christian family.

A family whose family tree includes N. C. Shouse in whose home the first gathering of what would become Crescent Hill Baptist Church took place.

And N. C. Shouse begat John Day who begat Rollin Burhans who begat John Claypool who begat Betty Cook who begat Grady Nutt who begat Carolyn Posey who begat Greg Robertson who begat Nate Creech who begat Hope Blossom, the first Karen-American citizen born in Louisville just a few days ago.

Help me out here - call out other names in this place and throughout history who are a part of the family tree of Jesus. (The congregation calls out names)

All of these people, their history lives with us. Many of whom left their mark on these walls and in our hearts and in the lives of those who knew them. And they are with us still. They are the great cloud of witnesses cheering us on.

And they’re all here today - Abraham and Sarah, Paul and Lydia, and all the saints of ages past - posted in the corners of this sanctuary and gathered around this table for a Holy Communion.

Can you feel their presence among us? They have helped make us who we are. And they are calling out to us to be courageous and compassionate, to do whatever it takes to give flesh and blood to the love and grace of God in the world.

Everything we do in worship is larger than we are, greater than the act itself. Living rituals with a story and a power to make the ordinary filled with God’s extraordinary grace.

So come and taste a meal almost 2000 years old. Some of the guests are almost 4000 years old. All of us saints and sinners in God’s family.

It is a table where no one is turned away, because the host of the meal is Jesus the Christ whose arms are always open to welcome home any and all who would come.

Family of God, dinner is served. The portions might seem small. But if your heart is open you might just find on your tongue and deep in your soul the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation.



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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425

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