Sunday, November 30, 2025

Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17

Sermon Title: A Generational Mess

My grandparents went to Scotland maybe 10 years or so ago. This was a Bucket List trip for them. My grandma had always wanted to go to Scotland because she knew part of her family heritage was Scottish. I have not gone to Scotland yet, but it’s definitely on my list. And one of the things that is popular in Scotland is to find your family crest and tartan blanket. Her maiden name was Gordon, so she brought Jesse and I back a Gordon Tartan blanket.

Family genealogies, DNA ancestry testing, and even trips to your ancestral homeland have become very popular in recent years. According to YouGov “One in five Americans (21%) has taken a DNA test; those 65 and older (28%) are slightly more likely than younger adults to have done so.” Have any of you done any Ancestry DNA testing? Some of you have. Jesse and I haven’t yet, but we’ve certainly thought about it.

Celebrity Ancestry television shows are so popular that there are now not only one but two of them on two different networks. “Who Do you Think You Are?” on NBC and “Finding Your Roots” on PBS.

And when people dive deeply into their family histories, there are usually always people who did good things, and people who did not so good things. We all want to boast about the people in our family history who did wonderful things, and we want to keep secret if we find out someone was any sort of criminal.

In the time of scripture, there were no Ancestry DNA tests, we simply had to rely on genealogies. The Old Testament is filled with genealogies. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles are pretty much two books full of genealogies.

Now I don’t know about you, but I confess, often when I’m reading scripture, I just skim the genealogies or honestly skip them over entirely. Anyone else do this? Right, let’s get to the good stuff.  

While genealogies are popular in the Old Testament, it seems odd that the Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy. But there is a reason and purpose behind this. For the author of the Gospel of Matthew, it is believed he was writing to a Jewish audience. Jews who had become Christians. And he is writing to show that Jesus is both King and Messiah, the promised descendant of David who would reign forever.

We too might be tempted to skip over the genealogy of Jesus like we have skipped over many genealogies in the Old Testament. We might be tempted to skip to verse 18 and get to the part about the Angel appearing to Joseph in a dream.

But today, we’re not skipping to the good stuff. Today, we’re digging into the genealogy of Jesus. But don’t worry, I promise next week we will get to Joseph and the angel.

Today is the First Sunday of Advent. This is the Season in the Church that prepares us for Christmas. Advent comes from the Latin word “Adventus” which means “coming” or “arrival.” We are waiting for Jesus to come. The truth is, just like we often want to skip over genealogies, we often want to skip to Christmas as well. We want to skip to the good stuff. But during Advent, we wait, we hope, we long with expectation for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Our Advent Sermon Series this year is called, “Messy Advent,” reminding us that even in the messes of life, God is at work, and God shows up. We’ll see this messiness even more as we dig into the genealogy of Jesus this morning.

At first glance, when we look at the genealogy, we see some pretty familiar men from scripture. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and King David.

These are the people when we learn our family’s history, we love to brag about. Especially if you find out you’re distantly related to royalty, that’s a fact you want to share with everyone. King David would get you major bonus points in your genealogy.

One of the most amazing things about this genealogy of Jesus is the inclusion of women. I think it might be the only genealogy in all of scripture that includes women. And it would make sense to include Mary, the mother of Jesus. But this genealogy includes so many more women than just Mary. Five women in total are included in this genealogy.

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah’s Wife (who we know as Bathsheba), and lastly, of course, Mary.

Not only are these 5 women included, if you dig into their stories, but all (except for Mary) were also Gentiles. There is some disagreement on Bathsheba, but definitely Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth were Gentiles. And, if you dig into their stories some more, there was scandal involved. Just ask our Women’s Sunday School class to tell you what they learned about Tamar last week.

Now why include women at all in the genealogy of Jesus? And why include Gentile women, and why include women with a somewhat scandalous past?

First, by including women in general, we see that we have a God who loves and values women. Sadly, not all Christian Denominations have done a good job at showing that women are loved and valued equally by God. If you have grown up in a denomination where you as a women felt less than in the Kingdom of God, I’m so sorry that was your experience. And I hope here at Tomoka UMC you feel loved and valued not just by all of us, but especially by God.

Second, by including Gentile women, we see that Jesus came from both Jews and Gentiles, and he came for both Jews and Gentiles. Jesus did not come to be just the Savior of the Jewish People, but the Savior of all people.

In the Early Church, there were arguments about Gentiles being apart of this new Christian Community. And here we see clearly in the genealogy, Jesus came from both Gentiles and Jews. And he came for both Gentiles and Jews.

Now why include women with such scandalous, messy pasts?

To remind us that God can use imperfect, messy people for the Glory of God. However messy you think your past is, however messy you think your family tree is, God can still use you. Your messiness, your family’s messiness does not exclude you from being used in the Kingdom of God.

A few years back, I was part of a sermon series planning retreat here in the Florida Conference called “The Pulpit Project.” It was a great Two-Day Workshop, brainstorming with other pastors around the Florida Conference ideas about various sermon series. And in one of the small groups I was in, we talked about this genealogy. And I’ll never forget the words of a colleague Rev. Juana Jordan. We were talking about this idea, and she said, “From a Mess Came the Messiah.” I can’t take credit for that statement; I have to give it to Rev. Juana Jordan. “From a Mess, Came the Messiah.”

Isn’t that beautiful? If God could take the messiness of Jesus’s Family Tree, and bring us the Messiah, how might God want to use your mess?

I love this note in my Study Bible, “Human failures or sins cannot limit or block God’s work in history. He works through both remarkable and ordinary people. Just as God chose all kinds of people to be part of the lineage of Jesus, he uses all kinds today to accomplish his will, in the present and for the future. And God wants to use you.”

God wants to use you. You and your mess. You and your messy family history. God wants to use you.

I love this note as well, “Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus lists the good, the bad, and the ugly, and it intentionally does not leave out people who seem questionable. The point Matthew is trying to make is that God sent his Son as the Savior of all people – Jews, Gentiles, men, and women. No matter who people are or where they come from, God’s plan of salvation is offered to all people.”

The good, the bad, the ugly, No matter you who are, or what you have done, or where you have come from, Jesus has come to offer his love, grace, and mercy to you.

At this time of year, Christmas Movies are popular. We all have our favorites. Some of the older ones are “It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and White Christmas.” Some of my personal favorites are “A Christmas Story, The Santa Clause, and Elf.” My girls also like “Home Alone and The Grinch.”

And one of the common threads in these Christmas Movies are they often involve messy people and messy families. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey’s life is such a mess that he wishes he was never born. In “A Christmas Story” Ralphie just wants a Red Rider BB gun, but so many things seem to be going wrong. In the Santa Clause, Tim Allen’s character is turning into Santa, and his ex-wife and her husband think he is losing his mind. In “Home Alone,” the parents are so wonderful that they forget their son at home and fly to Paris without him.

It’s not one of my favorites, but one of Jesse’s favorites is “Christmas Vacation” with Chevy Chase. And of all the Christmas Movies, I don’t know if there is a family with more mess than the Griswold’s. Clark Griswold just wants a perfect Christmas, and everything goes wrong. From the lights, to the tree, to the in-laws, to the super dry turkey, everything is going wrong.

During Christmas, so many of us want perfection; we want to give and receive the perfect gift;we want the perfect decorations, the perfect Family Christmas Photos, the Perfect Matching Family Pajamas, the Perfect Christmas Cookies, and Perfect Christmas Dinner. But these Christmas Movies, most of them comedies, remind us how far from perfect many of us are, how messy many of us and our families are.

And the thing is, the genealogy of Jesus shows us his family was messy too. His family was far from perfect. And yet, “From a Mess Came The Messiah.” We have a God who can do so much with the messy parts of our lives, and with our messy family histories.

In my own life, I come from a far from perfect family. My parents are divorced, all my grandparents are divorced, I even had great grandparents who were divorced. And so, there were certainly moments during my life where I thought, “You really want to use me Lord? You want me to be a pastor?”

But the thing about our God is, God uses imperfect, messy people, with imperfect messy families and imperfect messy stories and through the power of God, our messiness can be redeemed for God’s glory. So don’t be afraid to tell your story, no matter how messy or imperfect, so that others might relate and experience the healing and redemption of God in their lives as well.

This morning, Cheri and Mazie Clearwater lit the first Candle on the Advent Wreath. They lit the candle of Hope. And Advent truly is all about hope. Hope is this idea that the way things are now will not always be the case. Hope is this idea of things getting better. Right now, in our world of political division, I think many of us are hungry for hope. In a world where people are struggling with rising grocery costs and healthcare costs, people are hungry for hope. Where in your life are you hungry for hope?

The hope that I want us to cling to is that “From a Mess Came the Messiah.” Life can be messy sometimes. Life can be challenging and difficult. But even in the messiness of our world, hope broke into our world in the form of a little baby named Jesus. This morning, I invite you to pray and share your mess with God. What mess are you struggling with right now? Share that with the Lord. Name your hopes and desires to God. And pray “May you bring healing to this mess I am going through right now, may you use my mess, and may redemption come out of this.”

This Advent, no matter how messy our lives may feel, may we know the hope that our Messiah is up to something good, creating beauty out of the mess.

Amen