Uncle Leroy and the Family Tree

And then there was uncle Leroy. He was the family black sheep, the family secret. He would call when he was drunk late in the night, after the alcohol made him feel guilty or homesick or just plain sick. We never talked about uncle Leroy much he was that blot on the family tree. In the gospel of Matthew, we see the blots on Jesus family tree. Normally one skips over the scandalous, and shameful limbs on the family tree, to highlight the noble and famous branches. The gospel of Matthew hangs it all out there for the world to see. Which makes me wonder did Jesus speak of his ancestors? Was he the one who parading them through his teaching for all of his followers to see? And if this is so, why might Jesus have drawn attention to the, less than savory characters in his genealogy?

I can think of a couple of reasons. Who would have greater reason than Jesus to point out how the gospel, before it was even articulated as the gospel, changed the lives of obviously flawed people, like Jacob or Judah or Rahab? Can you imagine sitting on the grass while this important Rabbi tells the story of a woman who fools her father-in-law into thinking she is a prostitute and then has his baby (Tamar in Genesis 38) and then the rabbi says, “I’m a direct descendant of that woman”? He would, of course, have told “the rest of the story” about how she preserved the line of David even when David’s forefather Judah had no interest in preserving his own line.

I can see how Jesus would want to point out how God was already blessing the nations directly through the seed of Abraham by bringing several of them into the Messianic family tree, like Rahab and Ruth. For the snooty and uppity Jesus was very clear about his family and proud of them because they came into the Kingdom, not by entitlement but by faith. I can see how Jesus might want to point out how life with God was lived by faith in the desperate days just as they were called to live by faith in the present day.

It’s not such a bad thing to have an uncle Leroy in the family. It reminds us that we all just as easily be in his place or ours. Perhaps we are the uncle Leroy of the family it is wonderful to know that Jesus opens his arms wide to both those who are way up in the family tree or way out on a limb.