Difficult questions of inclusion in personal and family relationships find analogies in questions of which communities can welcome each other in larger religious, ethnic, and national celebrations. One of the great temptations for religious communities, past and present, is to shape identity by excluding others in a process of oppositional bonding. In past years, images of Christians from different communities in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem attacking each other with brooms while cleaning the church in preparation for Christmas were a stark reminder that preparing for the birth of the Christ Child can spark historic animosities. The Christian celebration of Christmas, the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, and the Mahayana Buddhist celebration of Bodhi Day commemorate historical moments of great joy, but they also remind us of the challenges that confront religious practitioners.
In inviting readers to consider the family ancestors of the Christ Child and the events surrounding his birth, the Gospel of Matthew offers wisdom with a few surprises regarding who is to be included. Matthew opens the New Testament by presenting a genealogy of Jesus Christ as the son of David, himself the son of Abraham (Mt 1:1). While almost all the figures listed are male, four women appear, each with a somewhat scandalous identity that could lead some to think that these women do not belong here.
We are only three verses into the Gospel when we encounter Tamar, who disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law Judah when he did not deal justly with her according to the norms of the time (Gen 38:1-19; Mt 1:3). When confronted, Judah later acknowledged that she was more in the right than he (Gen 38:26), and Matthew names her as an ancestor of the Messiah. If we overcome our shock at this scandal and continue reading, just two verses later we come across Rahab, a woman in Jericho who reportedly worked as a prostitute but who aided the Israelite spies investigating the lay of the land before the invasion (Josh 2; Mt 1:5). The same verse goes on to include Ruth, a Moabite woman whom many ancient Israelites would have excluded from marriage because of her foreign ancestry (Ruth; Mt 1:5). The very next verse tells us that the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who committed adultery with King David, is another ancestor of the Messiah (Mt 1:6).
One scandalous ancestor succeeds another as Matthew seems to be deliberately playing with the prejudices of all who read the Gospel, prodding us to broaden our vision of who the family of the Messiah can include. Another surprise awaits readers in the sequel to the genealogy when we learn that Joseph is not the father of Jesus after all (Mt 1:18). Now, Mary of Nazareth takes her place as yet another woman in a scandalous predicament. She first appears in the New Testament as a woman who has become pregnant before marriage and without having had relations with her fiancé. She who will later be invoked as the Mother of Mercy first appears as one who is subject to harsh penalties and stands in need of mercy herself (Mt 1:19). It is as if the inclusion of the earlier women prepares the reader for the greatest surprise of all.
The situation of Mary has implications for her son. The Gospel of Matthew first presents the Christ Child still in the womb as coming into this world as an illegitimate child, one of a group who have suffered discrimination, prejudice, and name-calling in many cultures across the world. Even before he is born, Jesus is in solidarity with a group who throughout history have suffered for no fault of their own.
The very next chapter presents the Magi who travel from the East to Jerusalem to make inquiries concerning the birth of the king of the Jews (Mt 2:1-2). These foreigners from afar ask the right questions and seek guidance. Far from evoking joy, the travelers provoked anxiety and dread at the court of Herod the Great, as he knew that many Jews did not view his appointment as king of the Jews by a Roman Emperor as legitimate (Mt 2:3). Herod had killed members of his own family because he feared them; the news of the birth of a new king was the last thing he wanted to hear. As the Magi find the Christ Child and present their gifts (Mt 2:11), the Gospel of Matthew introduces a dynamic that will run throughout the ministry of Jesus: outsiders become insiders and those who could be insiders become outsiders.
The murderous wrath of Herod causes the Holy Family to become refugees, fleeing out of fear for the life of their newborn child, a dilemma that all too many families past and present have experienced (Mt 2:13-15). The question of whether they will be welcomed in Egypt resonates in the experience of later refugee families who flee situations of violence and seek a place of refuge.
Early followers of Jesus recognized the value of philoxenia, the virtue of hospitality, which recalls the hospitality of Abraham (Gen 18:1-8) and which runs through the Letter to the Hebrews (13:2). The First Letter of Clement, warning of the dangers of jealousy and division, praises Abraham for receiving a son through “faith and hospitality” (1 Clement 10:7), Lot for being saved by “faith and godliness” (11:1), and Rahab for being saved by “faith and hospitality” (12:1).
Through the centuries, Christians have too often forgotten the lessons of including the excluded and of sharing philoxenia with those who are different. One of the most dramatic moments when the Christian message overcame, at least for a time, hostilities, was the first Christmas during the First World War. Enemy soldiers laid down their arms, sang Christmas carols together, and remembered that the bonds uniting them were more important than the rivalries killing so many.
