14, 14 & 14

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. (Matthew 1:17, KJV)

Before retelling the story of the birth of Christ, Matthew’s gospel establishes the lineage of Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, thereby setting up for the nit-pickers the opportunity for a question: why Joseph’s lineage and not Mary’s? And the answer is: because it was a patriarchal (inheritance through the males) culture and (it’s been suggested) that Joseph and Mary shared a common lineage anyway.

Working in a developing interpretive centre here in Rosthern, I field many questions by people hoping to discover clues to their lineage going back as far as possible. We generally seek to track down our heritage patrilinealy with the primary research method involving surnames. This has meant that tracing back as far as Matthew does (42 generations) is impossible without access to very old, deliberately kept records updated regularly. It’s the surname-block, for one; before the end of the Middle Ages, surnames were erratic, inconsistent or non-existent. Still are a mixed bag, come to think of it.

More recently, DNA testing is advertised as a means for determining genetic origins by country, no less, unhelpful as regards genealogy and little more than one of those “interesting even if useless” commercial enterprises.

That the writer of chapters 1:1-17 of Matthew was able to write a genealogy connecting Joseph to King David and then further back to Abraham without the help of surnames (or computers and the internet, for that matter) is amazing. Obviously this had little to do with proving that Abraham and David contributed to the genetic makeup of Jesus; Gregor Mendel, pioneer geneticist, wouldn’t be born for another eighteen hundred years. What seems to have been significant was the patrilineal legitimacy of Jesus as heir both to the covenant with Abraham and the crown of David.

Matthew 1 adds further proof of Jesus legitimacy by applying numerological superstition to the mix. Abraham + 14 (2X7) generations to David, David +14 (2X7) generations to the Babylonian Captivity, Babylonian enslavement + 14 (2X7) generations to Jesus. (The choice of the Babylonian Captivity as a genealogical milestone is puzzling—it doesn’t really fit into the tracing of lineage except that it’s a handy fit into the numerology.)

We know by now that our genetic heritage says precious little about our legitimacy as . . . well, as anything at all. Furthermore, touting lineage in our genes, in our cultural position, in our place in the human “pecking order” is taking the measurement of worth down dead-end paths.

Matthew’s gospel sets out to legitimize Jesus as the Messiah his Jewish culture had been expecting, an expectation sharpened by the hardships of slavery in Egypt, then in Babylon and—in Jesus time—the Roman Empire. The Messianic hope was that a mighty king would arise and “make Israel great again.” He would be a legitimate heir to King David, a covenantal heir to Abraham and his right to the throne would be verified numerologically, if needed.

There’s a thin line between faith and superstition. If at Christmas we attempt to incorporate both, we’ve probably missed the mark as do those Christians who conflate the present day state of Israel with the Children of Israel in the Old Testament, the birth of Christ with the messianic hope of ancient Jewry.

In our Adult Study Group this morning, we’ll wrap up the vision of early Anabaptist faith that picked up the “follow me” theme in Christ’s witness and concluded that “Christ is the centre of our faith, community is the centre of our life, reconciliation is the centre of our work.” We may determine along with Henry David Thoreau that it’s generally best to “simplify, simplify.”

For that, elaborate genealogies and numerological proofs aren’t helpful.