A Mother's Day Tale

[0:00] My hearing aids aren't working properly, so if I said the wrong thing, forgive me. One of the things I'm often asked is why I left Australia to come to North America.

[0:13] And the story I'm going to tell you now will probably fill in a little bit of the blank. Not all of it, but a little bit. You see, when I was about 18, I was courted by a beautiful young man.

[0:30] Paul was not just spectacularly good-looking. He was a great athlete and rich. And this is why it probably took me a long time to realise I was being courted.

[0:43] Because Paul was far beyond what I thought was my reach. And at first, I was simply grateful to him. Overnight, I became wildly attractive, or so it seemed.

[1:00] And his interest validated my femininity. And with this as a catalyst, guys who had previously avoided me as a Plymouth Brethren plague now phoned regularly.

[1:12] And as the weeks progressed into months, I stopped analysing, relaxed, and enjoyed it. Paul belonged to a totally different crowd than I did.

[1:26] And I did enjoy a lot of the experiences that we knew immensely. And because of our differences, we made deals. For example, Paul didn't read much, so the quid pro quo was that he bought books, and I bought dresses.

[1:44] And I was just becoming used to the idea of being considered a couple when his mother phoned and asked me to lunch.

[1:55] And I knew it was a big deal. So I dressed with great care and presented myself at her front door at the requested time.

[2:07] And when a maid took my overcoat and gloves, I raised an eyebrow. Many of my friends lived in luxurious houses, but none had uniform maids answering the door.

[2:20] Paul's mum, Mrs. Hill, wore the uniform that society women wore in that time. And it was in the Illustrated London News, so if you remember that far back, you'll know exactly what she had on.

[2:37] A Parisian dress and a single row of pearls. And after some polite chit-chat, she showed me into the day room, and luncheon was served.

[2:47] The meal was simple, elegant, clear soup, followed by a salad, then a mushroom omelet. And once dessert and tea had been brought in, Mrs. Hill dismissed the maid and turned to me.

[3:06] It's nice meeting you, Beverly. At last, she began, the blue veins in her hand protruding as she lifted the silver teapot. And it's reassuring to know that Paul hasn't totally lost his mind of being seduced by a voluptuous body.

[3:27] I swallowed and very carefully put my teacup back on its saucer. Because I suddenly knew that this woman's elegance was a mere facade, and the jungle was her real milieu.

[3:41] Nobody in their right mind would ever have described my body as voluptuous. And I now realised that the cloak of friendliness had been the veneer etiquette.

[3:58] I said nothing, and just waited. And she seemed eager to take the metaphorical gloves off. My husband and I, she told me, have invested heavily in Paul's future.

[4:16] So far, it's been 12 years at Sydney Grammar, holidays abroad, and of course, university. You've never been, have you?

[4:26] I didn't deign to answer, but then she didn't expect me to. You must realise that's a lot of money, she steamrolled it on, outwardly so gentle and yet so relentless.

[4:44] And I'll tell you this, Beverly. It's far too much money for us to stand by and see him waste himself on a bastard like you. We've told him not to see you again.

[4:59] I bit back my reaction, and in a strange metamorphosis became my grandmother. I glanced disdainfully, as disdainfully as I could, at her beautiful dress of rose silk, my eyes fettling on one breast, subtly letting her think that the tuck there was slightly off centre, and that it destroyed the line of the dress she'd paid a couple of thousand dollars for.

[5:28] And then I asked the maid to show me out. I left that house without another word and drove home in a state of shock.

[5:39] Like a rape victim, I needed to wash myself clean in a hot tub and scrub myself for hours on end. Anything, absolutely anything, to wipe off her filth.

[5:55] Thomas O'Bekker, Dean T.S. Eliot's murder in the cathedral, bested barons whose manners matched their fingernails. I flunk away, feeling dirty, and with my confidence in myself, as a woman shattered by a lady whose elocution matched her manicure claws.

[6:17] You see, lineage mattered to Mrs. Hill. And that's why the passage that we're going to have read to us right now is so interesting, absolutely fascinating.

[6:34] So I'm going to ask Deb Sears to read it to you. It's not quite the same as you have in front of you, but here is Matthew 1, verses 1 through 17.

[6:46] The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

[7:00] Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon and after the deportation to Babylon Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel and Shealtiel the father of Zerubabbel and Zerubabbel the father of Abiud and Abiud the father of Eliakim and Eliakim the father of Azor and Azor the father of Zadok and Zadok the father of Achim and Achim the father of Eliud and Eliud the father of Eleazar and Eleazar the father of

[8:44] Mathen and Mathen the father of Jacob and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who is called the Christ. So all the generations of Abraham to David were 14 generations and from David to the deportation to Babylon 14 generations and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ 14 generations.

[9:13] So there we have the family tree of Jesus. This passage is extraordinary for lack of reasons.

[9:26] First up Matthew begins his gospel with the genealogy. Luke and Mark begin theirs with action stories. As a writer I wondered right off the top why would God inspire Matthew to begin such an important story, the story of Jesus with 17 verses that most of us never read. When we start Matthew I guarantee we start verse 18.

[9:55] Genealogies are boring. They're the begats and begottens that are best forgotten. So why is it that Matthew begins his gospel this way?

[10:11] Obviously, we keep Mrs. Hills out of the picture. Genealogies were far more important in Matthew's time than they are in ours.

[10:24] Luke recalls the genealogy as well in chapter 3 verses 23 to 27. And genealogies are found throughout the Bible.

[10:35] Genesis 11 for example. So then, what is sort of special about this genealogy? First off, it's unique.

[10:48] Let's look at verse 3. Judah, the father of Perez and Terah by Tamar. A woman.

[11:00] First time we've got a woman in a genealogy in the Bible. She's not the only one. Let's look at verse 5. Salmon, the father of Boaz by Rahab.

[11:14] And Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth. That gives us a total of three. And in verse 6, we get the fourth woman before Mary.

[11:27] And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Four women. Why? Of all the women that were obviously involved in the production of this family tree, were those four selected.

[11:48] What made them so extraordinary that Matthew put them in? Broke tradition and included women in the genealogy. If I was going to write the family tree of Jesus, and I was going to include four women, I'd go back in history and pick the four most illustrious or prestigious women I could find.

[12:13] For example, when William Philip Arthur Louis Wales, as we know from his marriage, does his family tree, his great, great, great, great grandmother is Queen Victoria.

[12:31] Somebody you'd put in a family tree. woman who ruled the world when the British Empire was at its zenith. His grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, can trace her ancestry back to King Alfred in Anglo-Saxon times.

[12:47] These are people you want in family trees. Tamer, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, however, maybe not. despite their prominence in the family tree of Jesus, and the reason, for example, I was so interested to find out who Tamer was, because I'd never heard of her, the four women have something in common, and that's a shady sexual past.

[13:20] And, your wheels have to be rolling now. The family tree of Jesus includes four women, and the commonality is shady sexual pasts.

[13:32] Tamer's tragic story is found in Genesis 38, and she lived at a time when a woman reached fulfillment by what she gave to the marriage, and what she gave to the marriage were two things, dowry and children.

[13:52] Tamer's first husband was a firstborn son of Judah, who was Abraham's great-grandson, and he died and left her childless.

[14:09] To help her fulfill that destiny of having children, Judah sent his second son to have sex with her, and that son died as well.

[14:22] So Tamer was still without husbands, still without children, but Judah had one small son, a small boy. And so he said to Tamer, go home, when the son reaches puberty, I'll send him to you, so you can fulfill your destiny.

[14:46] Tamer is sent back to a family in disgrace. Probably Judah had to return the dowry, he'd given, probably the family had to send back the dowry, Judah had given them.

[15:00] So maybe 40 sheep or goats went back to their original herd. Whatever. Tamer went back to her family, a disgraced woman.

[15:14] She would have had no privileges. The most menial jobs would have been given her. She would sit at the lowest place at the table. She was absolutely, in their eyes, a wasted human being.

[15:29] For all of that, Tamer knew enough to know that her destiny was to have a child.

[15:43] And one day she heard that Judah, her father-in-law, would be traveling in the area, and she made plans. She knew he would stop at a traveler's shrine to pray for the God's blessing.

[15:57] And so she disguised herself as a shrine prostitute. Judah eagerly offered to send her a young goat if she slept with him. And she said, I want to pledge that that goat will come, give me three items.

[16:13] And they were his, the cord, and a walking stick, and something else. And Judah did it. About three months later, the righteous Judah heard that Tamer, his daughter-in-law, was pregnant.

[16:29] And Genesis 38, 24, reveals his reaction. Bring her out and have her burnt to death. She is immoral. Verse 25, And as she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law.

[16:48] And she said, I am pregnant by the man who owns these. See if you recognize whose steel and cord and staff these are.

[17:00] Judah, of course, recognized his own possessions and knew what had happened. And the resulting children are mentioned in verse 3, Peraz and Zerah.

[17:13] So you might be thinking, what a terrible story. Why would God have such a story in the Bible? But you have to recall as well that God is a promise keeper.

[17:31] And in Genesis 15, 5, he promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Tamar, by forcing herself on Judah, acted righteously because it's through Tamar that that promise to Abraham is kept.

[17:53] And Judah himself acknowledged this in Genesis 38, 26, She is more righteous than I since I did not give her my son, Sheila.

[18:04] So, a rather tawdry story but absolutely crucial to God's plan for us. And it makes us think of tawdry stories with a different light.

[18:20] Rahab's story is found in Joshua, chapters 2 through 6. And the Bible is very explicit about who she was. She was a sex trade worker. A very special one because she sheltered the spies Joshua sent in before they captured Jericho.

[18:41] Her reason for doing so, knowing that it could cost her and her entire family, fathers, wives, children, etc., their lives, her reason was extraordinary.

[18:56] In Joshua 2, 8 through 11, she explained why. I know that the Lord has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen on us and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

[19:14] For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites. When we heard this, our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage fell before the view.

[19:31] For the Lord, your God, is God in heaven above and earth below. Rahab, a humble prostitute, heard what God had done and believed.

[19:47] It's not surprising then that her life was spared when the walls of Jericho fell down. as the writer of Joshua says in 625, when he describes the absolute destruction of Jericho, that Rahab, the prostitute, and her father's household, and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive.

[20:12] And she lived in Israel to this day. And because she lived in Israel to this day, she became part of the family tree of Jesus.

[20:26] The two other women are much better known than Tamar and Rahab. One has an entire book, Ruth. And in the book of Ruth, I've heard innumerable sermons on it, but we see a desperate woman who comes very, very close to bartering sex for security.

[20:51] And that I haven't heard sermons about. But if you look at Ruth 3, 7 to 12, it reads, And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, he went down to lie at the end of the heap of grain.

[21:09] Then Ruth came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight, the man was startled and turned over and behold, a woman lay at his feet.

[21:20] And he said, Who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer. And he said, May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter.

[21:32] You have made this last kindness greater than the first, insomuch as you have not gone after young men, whether rich or poor. Bathsheba, the woman whose name isn't mentioned, but who's in the tail end of first sex, the wife of Uriah, is another woman with tragedy.

[22:02] And her story comes from 2 Samuel 11. And it goes this way. It happened. One afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, he saw from the roof a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful.

[22:23] And David sent and inquired about the woman. One said, Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Ilium, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?

[22:34] So David sent messages and took her. And she came to him and he lay with her. Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived and she sent for David and told him, I am pregnant.

[22:50] As a result, David sends Uriah into the very front lines of the battle. And it's not surprising that he is killed. And if you want to know what repentance looks like, read Psalm 51, The Miserary.

[23:11] Now, stepping back from those four stories, we still have our central problem. Why would Matthew feature these women in their genealogy?

[23:23] Even greater, how do those stories belong in a talk on Mother's Day? They were mothers, obviously. They're in the family tree. But they're women that we ordinarily wouldn't speak about in respectable places, much less St. John's.

[23:43] Surely, they're not the women you want to boast about when you talk about Jesus or your church. And certainly not, if you're the PR type person, imagine if Stephen Harper had these women in his genealogy.

[24:01] Can you just think of the letters to the editor? And I bet you people wouldn't vote for him on the basis of those four women if they were to happen to be in his genealogy.

[24:12] Or he had similar women that people dug out of the family tree. So we have to be very, very clear that Matthew is so sure of who Jesus is that Jesus can withstand any scrutiny, but he confidently includes these women, these mothers, because he knows they only aid to Jesus' luster.

[24:44] And I happen to think there's another reason, and that is that Matthew himself was an unlikely gospel writer. Before he met Jesus, he was a thug called Levi, and one of the most hated men in his city.

[24:59] And if we want to put Matthew into our society today, he's probably one of those heavily muscled goon type men with tattoos all over. That's the kind of person that Matthew would have been.

[25:12] He was a tax collector in a time when tax collection was free enterprise. As long as the government got it cut, it didn't care how much money was extorted or how the tax collectors did it.

[25:29] It was a ready-made job for thugs. Matthew's life and name changed when he met Jesus, and Jesus invited him to become a disciple.

[25:41] And Jesus took heat for the decision because the Pharisee said, why, when you could have the cream of the crop, the young men out of our academies, why are you choosing him?

[26:00] Matthew obviously remembered what it was like to be at the bottom of the barrel. I think that's maybe one reason why he included Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.

[26:14] So that's the first great lesson to be learned from this passage. God changes lives. He changed Matthew's life and he changes our lives.

[26:31] he can take people who have been on the bottom of the heap, the outcasts and changed them into the maternal ancestors of the man who would bring his son up.

[26:46] Because don't forget this is not the genealogy of Jesus because it goes through the fathers. So it's the genealogy of Joseph who brought up Jesus. Think about it for a moment.

[26:59] Jesus was a man without sin and yet his official family tree included these women. It's astounding.

[27:11] The second truth from the passage is the people God uses. God uses unlikely people.

[27:23] He uses people of all kinds to keep his promises to the world. As I said earlier God made a very specific set of promises to Abraham and at a time when Abraham and his wife Sarah were over 90 and childless God promised that their descendants would become a great nation and more importantly he promised that people everywhere would be blessed through them and if I can go off on a little tangent one of the things about being a Jew was that yes you were God's chosen person but you had a responsibility to bless everybody around you and as Christians yes we have salvation but our responsibility is exactly the same to bless those around us and we do that of course by sharing

[28:26] Christ little footnote over with Jacob Tamar's father-in-law I'm sorry Tamar's grandfather-in-law was told to have numerous progeny as a nation and that a community of nations would come into him God specifically told Jacob that some of his descendants would become kings and that's another reason why Tamar's dilemma was so great because of the wickedness of his father-in-law and his sons it looked like God's promises could not be kept the wickedness of Jacob and his sons is spelled out very very vividly in Genesis I have been too discreet to tell you what the Bible has but if you really want to know how the wickedness was there it's all there in chapter 38 and the lengths they went to to make sure that she didn't have children wasn't Tamar's fault she was childless nevertheless it's through her the outsider the disgraced woman that God ensured that so many years after Abraham the promises could be kept and it's through her as I said before that we get this family tree let's talk about David the king one of the kings that was promised to Jacob the Bible tells us that God loved David and there's absolutely no doubt from the

[30:13] Psalms that David loved the Lord yet he succumbed to lust he subdued and manipulated things so that her husband died and again and again I'm drawn to that Psalm he wrote in repentance have mercy upon me O Lord according to your steadfast promises in the summer when words were taken away from me and I couldn't verbalize couldn't read I could do very very little in terms of words that was something I could do pray those words have mercy upon me O God according to your steadfast promises and I sometimes think that when we're absolutely bereft of words or there's very little that we can verbalize in our lives have mercy upon me

[31:13] I am a sinner according to your steadfast promises but with David going back to the story God not only renewed the promises that began with Abraham he enlarged them when he covenanted again with David and while doing so he reviewed how his people had behaved towards him and while he continued to promise a relationship he reminded them that his promises were a contract a covenant and the Jewish people had not only sinned they had delighted in doing so and not surprisingly God reminded them that they would be punished if they kept on doing the same old things all of you here this morning have or want to have a relationship with God and many people you meet will wonder why what's the big deal of a relationship with God your friends will tell you that

[32:19] God is so yesterday our culture has become so unchristian that kids don't understand biblical allusions in literature anymore and teachers have to teach the bible if they don't have their kids understand literature our friends tell us that we live in a post-christian society so why do we stick to the old why do we stick to yesterday what's the big deal about God and I think I'm as good as anybody to put out an answer because as you know from the beginning of the talk I have a skeleton in my closet you see I will never know who my father was he was rich or influential enough to make sure that my birth records are burnt by an act of the New South Wales legislature there is absolutely no way I will ever know who he was and next getting

[33:21] I was applying to resume my Australian citizenship last year and to do so I had to have a birth certificate so I wrote and said I can't get one and they wrote back and said you're being silly send down the hundred dollars and we'll do this I sent the hundred dollars they sent it back and said you were right frustrating I wonder why government doesn't believe it's citizens ever since I can remember I've used a passport to validate my existence it was my norm before I knew it was abnormal and it never really bothered me but it obviously did Paul's mother I will never know my father's half of me I will never know his mother or his father or his family tree or any other children he might have had I just have accepted

[34:24] I will never have a relationship with anyone who shares my paternal ancestry and I've sometimes yearned for that knowledge and all my life I felt there's something missing that I was a little off kilter part of the reason for the big deal about knowing God is completeness God completes me he changes the off kilter so that he is the fulcrum around which I centre my life I had a great marriage it didn't make me complete almost not quite I'd had a couple of great careers same thing and even if through some extraordinary stroke I find my father's identity it won't bring me completeness there's only God during the years before I became a Christian I hungered for something

[35:25] I couldn't name and during those years of craving the unknown while I was still in rebellion against him God loved me in Christian terms of course I was a sinner I couldn't do anything about my sins except enjoy them and I must say that the problem with sinning is that you do enjoy it and I say sins because my sins were many they are many but I had a God who loved me a God who didn't care that I was a bastard and who just wanted to welcome me into his family who was ready to adopt me and make me his heirs a situation arose in my life where the only thing I could think of doing was pray and from that moment God took over and it's really absolutely anything anybody ever has to do reach out and God in a phrase from

[36:30] Exodus will carry you on eagle's wings I can't tell you if Tamar Rahab Ruth or Bathsheba prayed for help and confessed their unworthiness but I bet they did their situations were dire enough surprisingly and this is the weird thing when I prayed for me I joined hundreds of other people doing the exact same thing I may not have had a father but God put it into the hearts of many people to parent me and I found out since I've become a Christian I've been prayed for just about every day of my life some people have died not knowing that God answered their prayers and I can't tell you how incredibly grateful I am for those prayers being a Christian belonging to God is a superlative life there's more joy more fun more love than I ever imagined and I must add less worry and infinitely less guilt for some of you this talk about the ancestors of Jesus may see so weird on Mother's

[37:52] Day you are you have been a good mother and you might be asking why wouldn't Matthew include people like you in his genealogy the real answer is I don't know the answer I'm going to have to stab that is I think it's there to prove a couple of things about perfection number one of course is we're not perfect the second point is that mothers don't have to be perfect and one of today's tragedies is that we put so much pressure on young mums to be exactly that God loves and does use what we in North America call super mums but Jesus came for the imperfect the skeletons in the closets and that's what we have to remember we can never ever reach God by being a super mum we can reach God by being imperfect and asking for mercy and accepting

[39:03] Christ in closing I have one more thing to say now I'm right on the deadline you gave me last time so I'm happy in closing one more thing to those of you who are parents or grandparents or aunts flowers on this day is nice prayer every day is better if you are a father mother mother grandchildren model God's love for your children I speak from personal experience when I say it's very hard to understand a God of love if you've never been shown any if you've never had a father who loves you how do you relate to a father who loves you there's very very difficult so pray pray without ceasing for those

[40:07] God has put on your heart never give up on prayer I am living proof that God answers it in his own time in his own way and certainly when it seems the most impossible I think to some extent I'm a sign sent by God he is working in this world of ours to bring it back into a relationship with him he still works miracles he still answers prayers and best of all the reformed life that comes from knowing him through the power of Jesus' death and resurrection is good beyond all imagination salvation I cannot imagine why people hang on to their disbelief in Christ now I'm on the other side of the divide of course once you have tasted of God's love you can never ever be satisfied with anything less one last thought besides the other last thought just this one just imagine what would happen if every mother taught their children about

[41:31] Jesus imagine the world it would be if every child knew that Jesus loved them so that's it I'll answer questions if you have any but I don't know I'm not an expert on this particular genealogy but I don't think you are either sir Deb will you help me find it just a few things I know for a fact the number of generations is first 1434 I know for a fact that Matthew when he wrote it up he omitted a few generations out of each partitions I don't know if anyone can tell me which one he omitted which apparently some people were omitted in genealogy some people were omitted in the genealogy how do I know this well apparently

[42:45] I don't know I don't know that we know it from the passage anyway another thing is my impression for why the women's art are there we have to think about Mary when she was pregnant I bet there are gossips around why she's pregnant probably they're not good things and I think the reason why man would include them there is so to justify the position of Mary that the other women are in the passage because in a sense to help

[43:47] Mary's cause that she would have been seen as a woman that could be I mean God inspired it I don't know I do know the commonality before the four women between the four women I mean it's fascinating that Abraham was the father of Isaac and we don't get by Sarah so straight off the top we have a famous iconic mother left off the list so it could be as you said the identification with Mary yes two of the women at least are people who are not Israelites yes well

[44:56] I mean that seems to be common in the old testament that they didn't exclusively marry Jews and in Genesis it's rather horrifying that they didn't exclusively worship God that they it's like Judah going off to the shrine that looked after travelers I found that that this iconic man worshipped other gods so there's stuff to be made of it Bill it's impressive that what I find very impressive is Jesus' courtesy to the despised women that is recorded the women at the well the woman taking in adultery is courtesy to these women he says that is

[45:59] Jesus showing courtesy to these women that some were taken in adultery and some you know yes the group of women who married Jesus is fascinating because there were some very high born very wealthy women and yet the courtesy he shows to the woman particularly who pulled the jar of his head yes I would I would have liked to have known Jesus in those days when he was alive but I know him now so happy one of the church fathers as you would know he says I think magnificently the birth of Jesus Christ is the birth of us all because in him we be born so I guess have you made this genealogy your own is that what you're telling me have you made it your own have you made this genealogy your own it goes through fathers

[47:11] I don't know any I don't get the question Harvey are you a daughter of Abraham all the way back to this you asking me on a theological level I thought you were asking on a literal level Harvey it's the only level there is the theological level later yes looking at this genealogy strain most of it is father to son following that line whereas the most current Jewish culture the standard that a child is a Jew is the mother was a Jew so I think it's very interesting that the Jewish history is mostly following the father what it conveys to me is that a paternal lineage line it's not conclusive that there is a true bloodline it can never prove to any common sense whereas a maternal line that's more likely to be accurate so I think what we're really looking at is not a genetic bloodline we're looking at a spiritual genealogy really that's the only thing that's real here not a genetic bloodline we know that

[48:51] Jesus is born to the line of David right and so the only thing I know about Mary's bloodline is that at some stage it has to go through David but Luke has the same paternal bloodline and I suspect it belongs to the day this is the way things were and although we might say yes but Jewishness is passed down through the mother obviously it's remembered through the fathers plus it fulfilled God's promise to Abraham your descendants will be so it's just reflective of that I think yes sir Beverly I think you have brought a point up that is very interesting that when you look at mothers have had more influence on their children than any of the fathers and I think this is part of why

[49:58] Matthew put these mothers in there to show us that mothers influence the children a lot more than the fathers I have absolutely no experience to take you up on that but I do I really don't know I've heard sons say their mothers were more important I've also heard daughters say their father was more important so I don't know and it's kind of good to be able to say hmm don't know I know that my father has consumed hours and hours and hours of my time I was very very annoyed because I'm a very good researcher that I couldn't find it out it's one of the big frustrations of my life but it's

[51:05] I've got nowhere to go so and my mother certainly hmm oh that's another long long story that's a totally different story nope my second cousins and my Christian friends back then were the real people that influenced me it's through them I am who I am and I'm very grateful for the friends and the family I have in this church because it is my real my only family so ten o'clock coffee time thank you oh what I what is what I what is behind oh what what

[52:07] I saw what did you have in the inspired o'clock and the time and the Jennifer you have in your life and the