Genesis 38: an interesting diversion?

Just in the middle of Joseph's saga, when everyone is waiting to see what becomes of him after being sold into slavery, we take a diversion to explore the family of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.  Why interrupt the exciting story?  Well, look at any genealogy such as in Matthew 1 to see that the people of this unfortunate story are some of the many complicated and less-than-respectable families that make up the line of David, and of Jesus.  Is through this story - and many others like it littered throughout the Old Testament (Rahab, Bathsheba, Ruth to name a few) - that God builds the line of people that gradually lead to the coming of his son.

It is certainly a story where its characters do not come through well.  Judah himself may be the first to blame by going to live among the Canaanites - taking himself away from the practices and witness of his family's faith.  His first son, Er, was wicked and met an early death.  According to the custom of the time the second son Onan was charged with taking care of Tamar and also continuing his brother's legacy and bloodline.  He treats this responsibility with distain and, too, meets an early death.   Their father, however, does not focus on his sons' misconduct as the problem, but fixes the blame on the woman - in a misogynistic superstition found throughout history, from Adam ("this woman you put here with me" - Genesis 3:12) to all subsequent witch hunts - literal or metaphorical.  Concerned that youngest son Shelah may die too, Judah sends Tamar back to her father's household.  He promises her his youngest son when he grows up, but as verse 26 testifies, he never intended to keep that promise.  

In human terms, it seems like Tamar is the hero of the story!  Not content to wait around for a promise that will never come, she takes matters into her own hands and tricks Judah into both disgracing himself and providing her with offspring as was his duty.  Reading the story one cannot but feel that Tamar is taking a huge risk, and when they take her out to stone her one's heart is in one's mouth.  Nevertheless, God is with her in her resourcefulness and audacity.

It is this self-centred man and this sinned-against woman who form part of the adoptive genealogy of Jesus.  So, therefore, take heart.   God did not choose the neat and conventional, and in creating this genealogy as recorded through the Old Testament and summarised in Matthew 1, he writes in bold letters - I am coming into the broken world, among the broken people - and they shall be my people, and I shall be their God.  

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