Wednesday December 17th: All in the family

…”and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, who bore Jesus, who is called the Messiah.”

Matthew 1:1-17 

I recently met a friend, who said that her grandmother was a Trinidadian. I said so was mine. “No!” she exclaimed, “a native Amerindian, an Arawak, a first people. My Grandmother is native to Trinidad.” She was proud and I was fascinated and proud with her. I said why not write this story, a genealogy.

To trace one’s history through 14 times 3 generations is no easy task. It’s amazing. Matthew begins by showing the humanity of Jesus. His list places “Jesus in the mainstream of human life and his people, and includes all sorts of persons, holy and not so holy, public sinners, outcasts.” But these are the people that God invites us to associate with and with whom Jesus associated – the outcasts, the marginalised, people with whom we may not want to associate.

As we prepare to receive Jesus again, we reach out our minds, hearts, and touch to the homeless, the unemployed, the underemployed, those who commit crimes, those shunned in our society – LGBTQAI+, sex workers, migrants. Lord, turn our hearts of stone into your heart.