ANCESTRY SEARCH REVEALS CROOKED FAMILY TREE
“Every family has a story. Find yours.”[i]
My family narrative in America began with my great-grandfather, John von Wilhelm Schrader, who emigrated from Germany in the latter part of the 1800s. He settled in Westfield, New York, and worked long, hard hours on a farm providing grapes for Dr. Welch – a local dentist who developed grape juice as an alternative for the communion wine served at his Methodist church. By all accounts, John was a prime example of the Protestant Work Ethic. My grandfather, George Andreas Heinrich Schrader, arrived on the scene in 1891. Raised on the grape farm, he took over the operation when his father could no longer run the business. Though my grandfather worked dutifully at the family enterprise, he lost it during The Great Depression. Not skipping a beat, he transitioned into the sheet metal business and never stopped providing for his family.
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Great-Grandpa John Schrader
Grandpa George Schrader
My dad, William Arthur Schrader, grew strong from those roots, learning to be thankful for the opportunities that had been provided to him in and by America. Not surprisingly, after he graduated from high school, he was soon on a troop train headed for California. In 1944, Dad was doing his duty aboard the U.S.S. Los Angeles as it was commissioned for service towards the end of World War II. He sailed through the Panama Canal and into Hong Kong, China, and Japan as part of the Pacific Fleet.
Father William Schrader
Unfortunately, this is where the family tree starts getting a bit barren. When I was born, my maternal grandfather nicknamed me “Troubles.” That being the case, I don’t think I can be blamed fully for my actions. Even at a young age, my tongue regularly got me in hot water in the classroom. I thought I was just being inquisitive. My teachers insisted that I was “smart-alecky” – which translated on report cards as “trouble paying attention.” (Personally, I think I was just born too early for an ADD diagnosis.) By the time I graduated from Ridgecrest Jr. High School, I think everyone believed my life was on the upswing, as I received the Best English/Social Studies Student award. My freshman year at Rolling Hills High School continued seamlessly along this path: I had a 4.0 in the classroom and was the undefeated, top freshman runner on the cross-country team.
Within four years, however, you would have been hard pressed to believe I came from the same tree as John, George, and William – it was unfruitful where I was concerned. I loved fast cars, and mine topped out at 133 miles per hour. I was a regular visitor to Torrance Municipal Courthouse, located at 825 Maple Ave. (Yes, I still remember the address over 40 years later.) My senior year of high school, my GPA plummeted to 2.3 and my school attendance maxed out at three days per week. I preferred working at the Texaco gas station and grabbing the cold beer we’d learned to stash in the soda machine. I started drinking heavily at age 14 (not quitting until I went cold turkey at 21). By the time I was 19, I’d been arrested four times in three different states.
So what turned my life around? Part of the credit is due to the list of names below, as I learned some of their stories. If God could love these people, some of whom made my life look pretty tame in comparison, I needed to investigate this Jesus guy people kept singing that song about – “Jesus loves me, this I know.”
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.[i]
Jesus’ genealogy continues past this, listing almost thirty more people. But let’s be honest, did you even read through the verses above – besides the names in italics? I mean, who bothers reading a list of names unless they know their name or the name of someone they love is on it? What’s the point?
The Gospels contain the story of Jesus Christ. “Christ” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Meshiach” (Messiah), meaning Anointed One. He was to be the King and Spiritual Ruler from the line of David, the greatest king in the history of Israel. So what were some of Jesus’ ancestors like? Probably not quite what you expected.
“Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.”[ii] At first glance, nothing looks unusual here, does it? Judah is listed, followed by his sons, Perez and Zerah. Normal enough. But it gets more than a little sticky when we find out their mother is Tamar. In Genesis 38, we read the story of Tamar and her father-in-law, Judah. When Tamar’s husband (Judah’s son) died, it was the responsibility of her oldest brother-in-law to marry her in order to continue on the name of her husband.[iii] Onan, Tamar’s oldest brother-in-law, refused to fulfill his duty – and he died as a result of his failure to obey. After this episode, it became obvious to Tamar that her father-in-law did not intend to risk his only remaining son. Tamar decided to take matters into her own hands. She disguised herself as a prostitute, and Judah unknowingly slept with her. Believe it or not, this is the same Judah of whom it is written, “Your brothers will praise you…The scepter [the kingly line] will never depart from you.”[iv] So what was he doing scouring the streets for a prostitute?
And Judah’s reprehensible behavior didn’t stop there. When he found out that Tamar was pregnant through prostitution, he ordered that she be burned to death. He only rescinded this command when Tamar provided proof that Judah was the father. From these acts of deception and perverse sexual liaison came the birth of Perez and Zerah. Two of Jesus’ ancestors were born out of wedlock to a woman who pretended to be a prostitute and a man who sought out the services of a ‘lady of the night,’ both attempting to circumvent God’s will and ways. Christ permanently linked himself to such people and their sinful behaviors in order to purify them, an offer he extends to us all: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”[v]
Video: Jesus Forgives
[i] Matthew 1:1-6 (italics added)
[ii] Matthew 1:3
[iii] Deuteronomy 25:5-6
[iv] Genesis 49:8, 10
[v] 1 John 1:9
What about Rahab and Ruth, the next two women listed? We read in Joshua 2 that Rahab was a prostitute and a non-Jew – two major strikes against her. But we must remember that she was much more than her ethnicity and her profession. When the nation of Israel sent spies into the Promised Land, it was Rahab who risked her own life to give two of these men safe haven: “Was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?”[i] She lied on their behalf to protect them from her own people, demonstrating her allegiance to Israel, and by extension, Israel’s God.[ii] The result? “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed when Israel destroyed Jericho.”[iii] Her actions showed she had taken up a new “profession,” faith in the one true God.
Speaking of non-Jews, how did Ruth get on this list? She was from Moab, a nation born of incestuous relations between Lot and his daughters when they got him drunk and lay with him.[iv] Are we seeing a pattern here? Furthermore, Moabites were so detested that “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation [a Jewish way of saying ‘forever’].” [v] Most, if not all of us, would keep these types of skeletons locked in the closet – but not Jesus. He came to “seek and to save the lost.”[vi] By her actions, Ruth, like Rahab, renounced the gods of her people and chose the one true God, saying these words to her Jewish mother-in-law: “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”[vii]
Let’s be honest. There’s no one whose family tree isn’t twisted and gnarled, no matter how much the spectacular foliage tries to hide the defects. But how many of us have royalty in our background? Surely that helped tilt the scales?
No, not so much. King David, the “man after God’s own heart,” certainly didn’t live up to that moniker when it came to Solomon’s mom. The one who had been Uriah’s wife did not come to be David’s wife of her own accord. David was hanging out on top of the palace roof (rather than leading his troops, who were in battle at the time) and spotted a woman in the next house taking a bath. From that furtive glance, sexual assault ensued that led to an unwanted pregnancy and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband by David’s command.[viii]
But God does not rely upon human accomplishments to determine who he uses to build his kingdom. Nor does he allow failure to keep a person from being part of the process. Even for David there was mercy, and that mercy is available to everyone – which is why the offer of adoption into the royal family is open to all.[ix] Jesus could have been from a pure and unstained background, free from any whispers, any backyard-fence gossip, any hint of scandal. But he chose not to be. Jesus gave up everything, including people’s idea of reputation, in order that anyone might have forgiveness and life everlasting – men, women, and children from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
All of Jesus’ descendants were sinners in need of a Savior. Even the best of them had checkered points along the path: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”[x] Membership in the family of God is not dictated by outward appearances such as age, achievements, or accolades: “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”[xi] Being adopted into the family of God is grounded on faith: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’”[xii]
“…Jesus is presented as the one who will ignore human labels of legitimacy and illegitimacy to offer his gospel of salvation to all, including the most despised and outcast of society. A question for the church to ask itself in any age is how well it is visibly representing this commitment to reach out to the oppressed and marginalized of society with the good news of Christ? At the same time, Matthew inherently honors the five women of his genealogy [Mary, the mother of Jesus, is also listed] simply by his inclusion of them. So it is not enough merely to minister to the oppressed, we must find ways of exalting them and affirming their immense value in God’s eyes.”[xiii]
Music: Does Anybody Hear Her?
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[i] James 2:25
[ii] Joshua 2:1-21
[iii] Hebrews 11:31
[iv] Genesis 19:30-38
[v] Deuteronomy 23:3
[vi] Luke 19:10
[vii] Ruth 1:16
[viii] 2 Samuel 11
[ix] 2 Peter 3:9
[x]Romans 3:23-24
[xi] 1 Samuel 16:7
[xii] Romans 10:9-11
[xiii] Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1992), 56.
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