Recognize This?

Transcript

So it means to be a peer. I think a lot of it's just like being a friend. Yeah. And I mean, being a roommate, and so it has all the normal challenges of that. But I think because of our relationship and also the rest of the care team, there's a lot more intention. It was just more of like a, this is a place to serve, and who knows what's about to happen. And maybe there was this really sweet girl named Annie who I remember being told, "She is just life of the party," and she is. And that was going to be, we were just going to come alongside and serve with her, and we really didn't know much else. God has been chipping away at my desire for comfort and control for a very long time now. So this was just another part of that, that it's like, I don't know what I'm doing, this feels very uncomfortable, and my only options are either freak out or trust God. Trying to move towards someone and that not always being received, whether it's lack of trust or just misunderstanding, whatever the case may be. Mm-hmm. There's not always a mutual pursuit, and so sometimes that's hard, and you don't always see the fruit, which can be frustrating. But I think what has helped me personally is just also being reminded of how God pursued me, when I may not be pursuing him or willing to be pursued by him. If God would have answered prayers that I prayed, then I wouldn't be getting to live what I'm living right now. Yeah. The goodness of God, to look back and see, he's just better. We took a beach trip last summer, and I will never forget when we went. She wanted to go to the water, but she was afraid to go by herself. Mm-hmm. And so Rachel was on one side, and I was on another, and we just held her hands and walked into the ocean. Mm-hmm. And it was so profound for me because it was like, in another life or another setting, this could have been Rachel or me with a daughter or a son and a husband- Mm-hmm ... holding hands. And yet, the Lord has allowed in this gap- Mm-hmm ... for us to be the ones walking into the ocean. The things that we do that seem radical shouldn't be radical. Mm-hmm. That's normal for a believer. Amy, what's one of your most favorite things about your roommates? Oh, I guess they good to me. They are. Sometimes. Sometimes are they not good to you? Sometimes they good to me. The community of people, the people that survive, want you to talk and be embraced, and that's how I see heaven. It's everybody is one and the same. Kills me every time. I've had to watch it a few times to kind of get my brain wrapped around it and be able to talk afterwards. And I think there are a number of things that I'd want to highlight, but it stands on its own. You can go back and watch it again. But what's going on in Mosaic and all the different expressions of that from cradle to grave, literally, is discipleship and care for just members of the body of Christ and creating pathways into the church for folks who may not have access. You may not know this, but one of the most rapidly growing parts in some of our campuses, the primary driver of growth is Mosaic. And it's people who are dealing with disability within their family in one generation or another and who have heard that this is a place where they can be cared for, and some of them are just looking for care and hope, but in the process, there's real discipleship going on. I want to mention a couple of things to you. We have a member podcast that was just released this past week that has Joe Clary, who is a pastor and our director of Mosaic Ministries, and CeCe Ambrose, who leads that at our Travelers Rest campus. I want you to go listen to that. If you don't know we have a members podcast, you can go find that through our website under Resources. It's easy to get ahold of. But listen to the discussion of what's going on, and on the idea that this is just an expression of our mission of making disciples. This is not patronizing people. This is not just care for people. This is training people in righteousness and how to follow and trust in Jesus, and it's a beautiful thing, and you'll learn a ton. I know I have as I've gotten more involved and working more closely with Front Porch Housing and the role that it plays and then Mosaic and working with Joe Clary. But one of the things that is clear to me is that part of why we have so many people who are coming to our church to be a part of that is because other churches in our area are not equipped. They are sending people, and that is a common story. They are sending people to our church because they believe we are equipped to do that. And so we have coming up a conference in October called Mosaic Equip, and we're going to have over 50 churches that are a part of that. We're bringing national leaders in this area who are published and who are communicating regularly to be here, to make them available to other churches to equip them, and we are offering free help to them. Our folks go to conferences. Our team invites people here. Our team travels to other places where people need help because we want to see and we believe that at the core of the gospel is the strong humbling themselves and trusting and owning the mission of God in the world and those who are more vulnerable being brought into the center of what God is doing. And as you can imagine, all of this is expensive in terms of time, in terms of talent, in terms of financial resources. So when you serve and when you give to our church, you're enabling that and making that possible, and it is one of the most beautiful images that we have within our church that God is actually among us. So I'm thankful for that story, and it actually kind of leads us into, in a counterintuitive way, our text for this weekend. So why don't you go ahead and turn to Genesis, chapter 38? And you might think, "How in the world does that story jive with this very troubling story in Genesis, chapter 38?" If you don't know how troubling this story is, then you're in for a doozy this weekend. So welcome. And we do have a sermon prep plan that'll help you get ready so you don't get whiplash when you show up and we're reading the complicated narrative. So you can go check that out on the back end and listen again if you haven't prepared yourself for it. But to get us into this story, I'm just going to read the whole thing. And I don't know any other way to let the drama of it fall on you, so I'm going to start in Genesis chapter 38, verse one. Now about this time, remember where we left off. We left off with Joseph being sold to Potiphar, the head of the guard, the imperial guard for Pharaoh. And about the time that all that was going on, Judah left home, and he moved to Adullam, where he stayed with a man named Hirah. Now, I'm just going to read in South Carolina redneck pronunciation. So figure that's what most of you are. Any experts, I'm going to read it the way it sounds to us. So he goes to stay with a man named Hirah. Now, the thing is, we don't know a lot about him. We just know that he's not a part of the chosen family. So that's a cue to you. There's this movement away from, Joseph is sold down into Egypt, and Judah is voluntarily moving away from the people of God and into the Canaanite society around him. And there he saw a Canaanite woman, the daughter of Shua, and he married her. He slept with her. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and he named the boy Er. And she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, and she named him Onan. And when she had given birth to a third son, she named him Shelah. Now, at the time of Shelah's birth, they were living in Kezib. Now in the course of time, Judah arranged for his firstborn son, Er, to marry a young woman named Tamar. But Er was a wicked man in the Lord's sight, so the Lord took his life. Then Judah said to Er's brother, Onan, "Go and marry Tamar as the law requires of the brother of a man who has died. You must produce an heir for your brother." But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir legally, so whenever he had intercourse with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother. But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother, so the Lord took Onan's life too. Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, "Go back to your parents' home and remain a widow until my son Shelah is old enough to marry you." But Judah didn't really intend to do this, note the deceit, because he was afraid Shelah would also die like his two brothers. So Tamar went back to live in her father's home. Now some years later, Judah's wife died. After the time of mourning was over, Judah and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah to supervise the shearing of his sheep. And someone told Tamar, "Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep." Now Tamar was aware that Shelah had grown up but no arrangements had been made for her to come and marry him, so she changed out of her widow's clothing and covered herself with a veil to disguise herself. Then she sat beside the road at the entrance to the village of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. Judah noticed her and thought she was a prostitute since she had covered her face. So he stopped and propositioned her. "Let me have sex with you," he said, not realizing that she was his own daughter-in-law. "How much will you pay me to have sex with me?" Tamar asked. "I'll send you a young goat from my flock," Judah promised. "But what will you give me to guarantee that you will send me the goat?" she asked. "What kind of guarantee do you want?" he replied. She answered, "Leave me your identification seal and its cord, and the walking stick you are carrying." Leave me your driver's license and your family signet ring. Think of it that way. So Judah gave them to her. Then after he had intercourse with her and she became pregnant. Afterwards, she went back home, took off her veil, put on her widow's clothing as usual. Now later, Judah asked his friend Hirah the Adullamite to take the young goat to the woman to pick up the things that he had given her as a guarantee, but Hirah couldn't find her. So he asked the men who lived there, "Where can we find a shrine prostitute who was sitting beside the road here?" "We've never had a shrine prostitute here," they replied. So Hirah returned to Judah and told him, "I couldn't find her anywhere, and the men of the village claimed they've never had a shrine prostitute there." "Then let her keep the things I gave her," Judah said. "I sent the young goat as we agreed, but you couldn't find her. We'd be the laughingstock of the village if we went back again to look for her." Now about three months later, Judah was told, "Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute, and now, because of this, she's pregnant." "Bring her out here and let her be burned," Judah demanded. But as they were taking her out to kill her, she sent this message to her father-in-law, "The man who owns these things made me pregnant. Look closely. Whose seal and cord and walking stick are these?" In other words, do you recognize these? Judah recognized them immediately and said, "She is more righteous than I am because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." And Judah never slept with Tamar again. Now when the time for Tamar to give birth, it was discovered that she was carrying twins, and while she was in labor, one of the babies reached out with his hand, and the midwife grabbed it and tied a scarlet string around the child's wrist announcing, "This one came out first." But then he pulled back his hand and out came his brother. "What?" the midwife exclaimed. "How did you break out first?" So she named him Perez, which means a breach or one who breaks out. And then the baby with a scarlet string on his wrist was born, and he was named Zerah. Now, what a story, right? The Odyssey's got nothing on this. I'm just telling you. I mean, Homer, he couldn't imagine such things. What an amazing story. Even more so when you understand that Judah is the progenitor of the founder of the royal line of Israel. So he is the initiator, genetically, of kingship. And this is the foundational story. Now for years when I read this story, not only was it troubling to me because I couldn't understand what was going on, and in fact I don't think I really grasped this story in its context until preparing for it this time. So if it's disorienting for you and troubling for you, you're in good company. And I've preached a bunch of bad sermons on it. I'm going to try to reverse that course this weekend, but you can be the judge of that. But the story itself is just very challenging for our modern ears. But this is what I want to make clear from the very beginning, and this has become even more clear to me, is that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is advancing his promise in this story through bringing the marginalized into the center and bringing the powerful down underneath the truth. This story is about what God is doing to advance his program in the world. And it involves humbling the strong and elevating those who don't have a voice. And in that, he is going to form them into one people whose future rests not on human power or human revolt. Because we tend to believe one of those two things is true. We're either on Team Judah, the guy who makes it happen and gets it done, and he does some things that you'd rather him not do, but at the end of the day, he's trying to get a good thing done. He's trying to preserve the family line. He's trying to fulfill the promise. He's doing it on his own terms. He's got his hands, but he's capable. He gets stuff done. And Tamar, the woman who is marginalized, who is revolting against the system. But the interesting thing is at the end of this story, these two people are together, and the result of what they've done is going to issue forth in the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of God that through this seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And I'll get to that. Now all the other things that trouble you, all the sexual misconduct, all the oppressive patriarchal structures, we're going to address some of those, not the way anybody would fully like, but we're going to have to address some of them. But that's what's happening. This is God's story. And in order for us to do it, we're going to have to recognize there are three real prime movers in this story, Judah, Tamar, and then ultimately, the God of Israel, the I Am. And so Judah is the powerful man who can't really see himself. He doesn't really know what's going on. Tamar is a vulnerable woman who forces the truth out into the open. And Yahweh is the covenant Lord, the one who's entered into a relationship with a people, and he is guaranteeing that his promise gets done. Now I want to walk through Judah first, and so let's just look at it through the lens of Judah. This is Judah's governing disposition, and we all have one. We all have a basic orientation to how we live our life. And Judah is the kind of person who thinks, "I am happening to the world. The world is not happening to me." He's just that kind of dude. And it's a basic orientation. There are men and there are women who are like this. And it'd be a good thing. If you're one of those people and don't know it, then you're probably an oppressor. If you're one of those people and you know it and you're learning how to manage it, then Then you can have a good and productive life and be a blessing to people. But it's an orientation. It's kind of how his sin nature and how his gifts work. In chapter 37, Judah's the one who hatches the plan, and everybody just listens to what he says. "We don't need to kill him. Let's just sell him. We ought to profit, and he's our brother." Everybody gets in line with that. At the beginning of this story, Judah, he leaves his brothers to go be independent. He sees a woman, he takes her. Don't even give us the name of his wife. That's not because the Bible doesn't value women. The Bible really values women, as you're going to see in Tamar. But Judah sees her, he takes her. He establishes a household. He chooses Tamar for Er. He commands Onan, after Er dies because he's so evil, he commands Onan to take his brother's wife. He promises Sheila. He withholds Sheila. He sees what he assumes is a prostitute, and he uses her for his satisfaction. He sends a payment, and he commands Tamar's execution. As you read the story, every time it talks about Judah, Judah is acting, and things are changing. That's the way it is. That's just the kind of person that he is. He's powerful. He has natural abilities. He has natural talents. He doesn't need the prop of his family around him. He is getting it done. He sees and he takes. It's very interesting. And where we see this in the beginning, in its most clear form, is when Er dies, he says to his next son, "Onan, you go take her as your wife, and you raise up an heir for your brother." Now, Er was the firstborn, and this is a really important thing because in that culture, although not in God's plan, which is interesting that God's people keep missing this, but in that culture, the firstborn carries the family blessing and the lion's share of the family name. That's just the way it works. And so it's a real loss for Er to be lost. And he sends Onan to take Tamar as his wife. Now, this is a common thing. You think this is all odd. I don't understand. This is an oppressive structure. It is, but it's also an economic arrangement that protected women. And this is one of the things that I learned. I went and did a ton of research, and in all the cultures that are around there, I looked in all the ancient Near Eastern law codes that were before, around, and just after this. And everybody had a version of this. Everyone had a version of, if there is a woman and her husband dies, she's in a vulnerable position, and you took her from her family of origin, and she has no means in the culture. She didn't have the kind of agency that women have in our culture today. So on the one hand, it was a means of ensuring that she was cared for, and there were penalties attached to that. Ancient Hittite codes, in Egyptian law and contracts, you see all of this stuff that was around there. And so it was a part of just what was going on in the culture, and this is where God is working. And so Judah commands Onan to do two things. One is preserve the family line, and then second of all, he's supposed to make sure that she's cared for because that child will care for Tamar for the rest of her life, and she would have a benefit for having left her family of origin and come into this new family. But Onan is vile. And he gets pleasure from her, but he robs her of an inheritance and a place within his family. And so God kills him. Now, the conclusion that Judah draws, because he thinks he knows what he's doing, the conclusion that he draws is that she must be the problem. She's a curse. She's not a blessing. When in fact, here's the irony, the people of God, were being a curse to her instead of being a blessing. So it's the people who are supposed to be the called-out people of God who are actually being a curse to this woman from outside of the line of blessing. And that's supposed to sit on you, and that's supposed to weigh upon you because that was the first audience that would've been there. He's introducing them to their familial shame. He's saying, "You're not better than the people around you." If Moses composed these documents on the plains of Moab, which there's argument about when this happened, but it doesn't really matter when it happened. But if Moses did, this is a very instructive story for the people of God as they're going into the land, about the humility that they ought to carry themselves with while they are fulfilling God's command to liberate the land from the Canaanites, is that here you have this story about their founding and one of their founders, the founder of what would be the royal line, one of those founders. His family is a curse to a Canaanite while she's trying to be a blessing to them. We're not explicitly told she's a Canaanite, but that's where she was living. And so now Tamar's been widowed twice. She's been used sexually. She's been denied offspring. She's been denied economic security. She's been denied a secure place in the household. And Judah thinks she's a curse, and so he abandons her and sends her away in deceit. He thinks that she is the problem rather than him and his family is the problem. And just so you could see how some of this works out, I want you to see, let's see if I kept it. In Deuteronomy chapter 25:10, there is this narrative, and if you did the sermon prep plan, it'll help you get this idea in your head. This kind of arrangement that we're talking about where a brother has responsibility to marry a woman, give her standing, and to preserve the family line, because remembering the blessing is transmitted from generation to generation. Having children was vital for the blessing of God. Ultimately, it's through the seed of the woman that the earth is going to be blessed, going all the way back to Eve. And so that was a very important part of people's relationship with God. And so there was this law put in place in Genesis 25, you can go read it, and if a man refuses like Onan did, if he says, "I'm not going to take my brother's wife," then ever afterward in Israel, his family will be referred to as a family of the man whose sandal was pulled off. And what that means is there was this ceremony. If a man refused to do his duty, the woman could accuse him publicly, then she would spit in his face, she would take off his shoe, and for the rest of his life, his family would be known as that. And so there was this sense of justice and aggrieved justice that was in the center of all of that. A people of God version of it, not like the Hittites and not like the Egyptians and in these other places, was expressed in this as a part of their legal code. And so when you're reading this story, Tamar is being denied, and Judah is denying her, and it's an intensely shameful thing that his family should be known for that shame for the rest of his life. But Judah tries to send her away. He gives her no justice. He sends her back to her family and doesn't give his son to her. And then he continues in his sin and his blindness. Now, this whole story is just one thing of how this is what happens. We'll get to Tamar, but he ends up having sex with her thinking that she's a prostitute because she's disguised herself and deceived him. And I want to deal with that when we get to Tamar, but this is what I want you to see about Judah, is that the story wants you to see that Judah's going from bad to worse in his desire to accomplish life on his own terms and his self-confidence and his self-reliance and his desire to try to raise up a seed. He's like, "I can't lose Sheila. He's the last one, and I don't have an heir. I can't participate in the promise if I don't have an heir, and so we've got to have an heir, so I got to protect him." He is trying to protect his participation. That's what he's trying to do, and he's making Tamar suffer for it. But in all of that, he's just continuing to see and take what he wants. He has failed to restrain or form his wicked sons. He has failed to recognize the injustice that Tamar has suffered. He's deceived her. He has used her, his own daughter-in-law, unknowingly, just for his pleasure. And then at the end, he's going to condemn her for the sin that he really committed, for evidence of his own misconduct. Now, that's who Judah is in a very real sense. And the shame of one who had his sandal removed is the least of what Judah's problems are. And it's in that light that I want us to think about Tamar for a second. Tamar enters this story as somebody who has been acted upon. She doesn't seem to have any agency. She is a daughter who an agreement is reached between her father and another man, and she is given to a wicked man, a man so wicked that God kills him. That's an uncommon thing even in the scriptures. I mean, it's just God is so patient and forbearing that God would just take Er's life. That's the kind of vile man that he is. And Tamar then suffers indignity at the hands of a man. Imagine the pettiness, how devalued you would feel to be used that way, to be raped where you don't have a voice, and where you are being denied any benefit from what is legally your right claim. And then the man who should intervene and act on your behalf sends you away because he thinks you're the problem. You're wrongly accused. This is Tamar's experience. And I know some of you can identify with that on a bunch of different levels. It was a real temptation for me as I was preparing for this sermon to try to soft pedal this, but that's the reality of what's going on. She is sent away. She humbly waits, and the way we know that she is humble, and she's not just embittered, is going to be because of how she ultimately appeals to Judah. But when she gets fully back in a corner, and she has nowhere to go, and she knows that Judah's not going to do the right thing, she does the only thing that she can think of to do. And that is she goes to the source, which is Judah himself. And knowing who she is, she deceives him into giving her what he by law was obligated to give her. And from the culture that she came from, this is one of the things that I didn't really know, but within the Hittite law codes, which were in the region more a little bit north of here, but there was this idea that in her situation, if the sons were gone, it was the father's responsibility to take her and take responsibility for her, to keep her in his house, and to make sure that she had a descendant. I never knew that. But through modern technology, I'm able to do a kind of research that I was never able to do and dig through all these primary sources, and it's Law 193 in a Hittite law code that talks about this idea of the father's responsibility. Now, that's not written into the law codes of Israel, but those didn't exist yet, and that's not the culture she came from anyway. So Tamar actually believed that Judah owed her this. So it's not some salacious sexual thing. It's not a kind of evil. It's interesting to me how male and female alike, how from a distance when we see someone, and it is one of the things that we have to watch when we are people of privilege. And by people of privilege, I just mean people for whom the dominant culture works. So if you are someone who was born into a world in a favorable situation, where the world just generally works for you, opportunities come to you, people aren't actively, and systems aren't actually opposing you, it is easy for you to look at the sins of people that the world doesn't work for and to ascribe more evil to them. So it's funny how the shame of a woman who's an exotic dancer or a stripper is culturally greater than the men who go spend money on business trips to have that experience. The woman who is making her money in online porn, she gets shamed, but the church leaders who are going to that website and hide it, if they get caught, then they are restored and forgiven and seen as victims of the dominant culture that's around them, where female sexuality has been weaponized against them. I mean, it just happens all the time. That's why feminists hate us in the evangelical world. It's because they can see that. It's just the way the world works. And Judah's on the upper side, Tamar is on the underside, and the hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper for her. But she knows that he has an obligation, and so she goes and she deceives him. And very wisely, shrewdly, she challenges him by saying-- I mean, and you just see who Judah is. He's like, "What do I have to pay you?" She's like, "A goat." He's like, "Good. It's a goat." "But I don't have one." She's like, "I can't just trust you." So she takes the seal of his identity. Look at how easily Judah gives that away in a moment, and look at how Tamar, how wise she is. She's laying claim on him by that. She's staking her claim as a member of his household. And it's difficult to see it culturally because the sexual piece gets so complicated for us, but that is what's happening. So as the story plays out, you see how it plays out. Judah finds out she's pregnant, and she has risked everything. That's what I want you to appreciate, the fact she's risked everything, ironically, to do something that would ultimately be the salvation of Judah's family. The thing Judah's trying to protect, he can't protect. He doesn't have the power to do it, and God's showing him that. And by denying her what was her right, he is sealing his own fate. But she, with her boldness and her willingness to risk death, secures for him what he could not secure for himself. Isn't that amazing? So when he's going to have her dragged out to be burned, which by the way, even in the ancient world, this is harsh. The way that scene goes down, that would've been troubling for people way back then. And they weren't troubled. They weren't little snowflakes like we are. All right? They were well acquainted with the brutalities of life. But even then, that was a rash thing. So right up until this final moment, that's who Judah is. He's confident in his decisions. He commands. People obey. Tamar knows all of that when she's dealing with him. She's actually counting on it. But she doesn't know how he's going to respond, but at the end, this is what I want you to see. When he has her dragged out, she brings out the staff and the cord and the signet that were the markers of his identity that she has valued and preserved for him and for this moment, and she sends them to him. And in the narrative, it wants you to see she did it somewhat privately. She didn't burn the house down. She didn't drag him down into the mud. She actually ennobled Judah. And I think this is one of the most overlooked things in this passage, is this woman who has been so victimized and so marginalized, she is the one who restores to Judah the markers of his identity as he is threatening to burn her to death. And the way in which she does it is not to burn his family to the ground and to shame him, but to create an opportunity for him, a moment for him to see how wrong he's been. For him to understand that what she is carrying within her is actually the salvation of his family line The fruitfulness that he is trying to obtain, she has obtained for him, and she is appealing to him in that moment to recognize that. And it's where we see this really amazing thing, where Judah-- And it's not unlike, it's a parallel to what happened in chapter 37. So in chapter 37, Judah and his brothers deceive the father, and they give him the cloak, the coat of many colors, and they say, "Do you recognize this?" And he recognizes it. She does the same thing here, but not to deceive, but to awaken him to the truth, to help him see the truth for the first time, to help him see where hope and a future lies for his family. And she sends it to him, and Judah recognized them immediately. I think this is key. And when he does this, look at what he says. He says, "She is more righteous than I, because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." And Judah never slept with Tamar again, which is key. She isn't for him. He knows that. That child is not his children. They're not his. They're his sons. Am I right? She doesn't belong to him. He doesn't just see and take what he wants anymore. Tamar, because she wasn't just screaming for justice on her own terms, she wanted blessing in a bigger sense. We don't know what she knew about the God of Israel. We don't know. She's an honorable person in that sense. She wants a position. She wants a place. She wants an identity. Judah, who cast the markers of his identity aside, is awakened to the fact, not that she's perfect in every way, not that everything she did was right. That's not what the text is saying. But the text is saying here, "I created the occasion for all of this. I put her in this position of vulnerability. She is more righteous than I am." And look at how he does. This is why we miss it. He says, "Because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." He's saying, "I didn't fulfill my justice, what was owed for me in justice." And so as a result of that, she should be forgiven for what she's done. She had no other recourse. So in a sense, he condemns himself and he justifies her. Now, there are a bunch of things that are real interesting, and these kind of things are the reasons I believe the Bible is true, and I believe it's inspired by the Spirit of God. It's not because I'm going to make everything fit together. There is nothing else like this in ancient literature. I did a search of everything that's in the public domain. There are like three stories that have elements of this kind of thing, and there are lots of stories that have a piece here or a piece there. But this vision of a marginalized woman being elevated in this way in order to accomplish this, and this kind of humility from a man in a moment to be the founding of a dynasty, it just doesn't exist as far as I could find anywhere. Nobody makes up these kinds of stories. That's why it's so uncomfortable for us today. But the beautiful thing that happens here is that Tamar has awakened Judah to who he is, and he repents. Let me just say a brief word about repentance here. I preached on this in obedience a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about it. So I don't feel like I have to say a ton about it, but this is what I want to say. Repentance is obvious. Nobody's wondering how Judah feels or what he thinks. Nobody's having to have multiple meetings with him to drag the truth out of him. He recognizes the truth about himself when he is confronted, and on a dime, bam. He owns what's his to own, and he frees her, not because she's right about everything, but he frees her, and he says, "Who am I to judge her?" He goes from being somebody who feels like he has authority and righteousness to burn her alive, to being someone who says, "She should be the one who's judging me." That's what he's saying. It's a complete and total reversal. And that's how you know that you've repented, and I want to ask you, have you ever repented in that way in your life? Have you ever released others from what you think they've done wrong to you, and maybe what they have done wrong to you, as a cloak and a cover for you to do what makes you feel good? Have you ever just let it all go and put yourself in God's hand? Judah's been trying to cover, preserve his honor all the way through. That's why he doesn't go chase her down to try to find the cord and the signet. If he had gone and chased her down, he might have found her. But he didn't want to do that. Why? Because he didn't want to be a laughing stock. He hadn't done any of that. He's not doing any of that because he's trying to protect himself. But in this moment, there's not a shred of self-protection. And Tamar is the one instrumentally who makes that happen humanly speaking. Because she doesn't just come for a pound of flesh. She comes for the position that she longs for and the dignity that is rightfully hers. And so when you find yourself in that story, I think you have to think, where are you in it? With whom do you identify the most? And this is what I want you to see, is that while we have these two characters, and they are driving the narrative along, that in back of all this, God is the quiet but decisive factor in all of this. God has an unyielding commitment, as I said last week, to fulfill the promise that he made to Abraham, that through you and your seed, I will create a nation greater than the stars in the sky, the sands on the shore, and through you and your seed, I will bless all the nations of the earth. And he is doing that through the broken institutional structures of the ancient Near East. He is doing that through the sinful orientation of Judah and his impetuous desire for, "I see what I want, I take it, and then I make it mine." It's through his immorality and his impetuous sexual desire that the bloodline of the Messiah is established. That's how you know God's at work in this. If you go to Matthew 1, you can look at the genealogy, and Matthew is the most Jewish of all the gospels. This is the one that wants the Jews to see that the Messiah, this Jesus, born in Nazareth, is your king. And it begins with a genealogy that goes all the way back, and Tamar is specifically called out as being one of the ultimate mothers of the Messiah. Is that not an amazing thing to think about? Only God can do that. And so when you're living your life, one of the key things you have to think about is that God doesn't need us to be right to work. But if we want to participate in the blessing that God has for us, we're going to have to humble ourselves like Judah did. Judah, in that culture, probably could have gotten Tamar killed if he wanted to and could have tried to create a narrative to sweep all this under the rug and make it all go away. And in so doing, he would have destroyed the means by which his line would be saved. But he humbled himself. He condemned himself. He justified Tamar, and the grace of God came to him, even in his sin, as despicable as what he had done, and there's great hope for us in that. And if you're a person like Tamar who feels under it, who feels like things aren't working for you, and you're tempted to be bitter and just feel entitled to take things into my own hands and to despise and to hate and to just burn the house down and want to pound the flesh for everybody who's ever wronged you, what you see here is that it's her willingness to not do that that enables her to earn a position and a standing in the people of God and in the plan of God, so much so that a lot of scholars consider her to be the fifth matriarch of Israel. Her participation in the plan of God was contingent upon her humbling herself, and not just trying to punish Judah, but for her actually longing for justice and knowing that it had to come to her through that family line. And as fragile as all of that seems, there's great hope for us in the idea that that's what God's doing in the world, because we're a people who live in chaos. And I want you to know, whichever end of that story you find yourself on, God is just as present to both of you, if you'll humble yourself and hope in him. But that's where your agency kicks in. And I believe in the sovereignty of God as much as anybody does, but I also believe in the responsibility of human beings and in the agency that he has given to us. And he says, "If you will repent and believe, then life is there for you." And as you understand who God is, if you will put yourself in a position for him to bless you, then you can know that you too will participate in his plan. This story, as difficult as it is for us to maintain our attention and maintain our focus on it, and to live in the tension that it calls us to, this story gives hope to everyone on the planet. Because it says nobody is beyond the reach of God's grace, and that there is room within the family of God for the marginalized and the peripheral and the one who is under the boot of this world, and for those who are in power and who are abusing it, if they will come under his authority, if they will own what is theirs to own, that there's a place of blessing for them. And I hope you find yourself in that. Let me pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We pray that you would apply it to us. We pray that you would help us to not be paralyzed by the shame that other people have put on us, but to hope in you, to believe that there is a future for us. And I pray that you would help us not to trust in ourself and our own strength when we think we know what we're doing, but to humble ourselves to see ourselves as broken and weak and in need of you to preserve us and in need of you to save us and secure a future for us. Make us a humble people like that, and then make us into one people, oppressor and oppressed alike, all together at the foot of the cross, worshiping the one who bled and died for us, the one who was content to wear our shame so that he might call us his brethren. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.So what it means to be a peer, I think a lot of it's just being a friend. Yeah. And being a roommate, and so it has all the normal challenges of that. But I think because of our relationship and also the rest of the care team, there's a lot more intention. It was just more of like a, "This is a place to serve, and who knows what's going to happen?" And maybe there was this really sweet girl named Annie who I remember being told, "She is just life of the party," and she is. And that was going to be, we're just going to come alongside and serve with her, and we really didn't know much else. God has been chipping away at my desire for comfort and control for a very long time now. So this was just another part of that, that it's like, I don't know what I'm doing, this feels very uncomfortable, and my only options are either freak out or trust God. Trying to move towards someone and that not always being received, whether it's lack of trust or just misunderstanding, whatever the case may be. There's not always a mutual pursuit, and so sometimes that's hard, and you don't always see the fruit. It can be frustrating. But I think what has helped me personally is just also being reminded of how God pursues me, when I may not be pursuing him or wanting to be pursued by him. If God would have answered prayers that I prayed, then I wouldn't be getting to live what I'm living right now. Yeah. The goodness of God, to look back and see, he's just better. We took a beach trip last summer, and I will never forget when we went. She wanted to go to the water, but she was afraid to go by herself. Mm-hmm. And so Rachel was on one side, and I was on another, and we just held her hands and walked into the ocean. And it was so profound for me because it was like, in another life or another setting, this could have been Rachel or me with a daughter or a son and a husband- Mm-hmm ... holding hands. And yet, the Lord has allowed in this gap- Mm-hmm ... for us to be the ones walking into the ocean. The things that we do that seem radical shouldn't be radical. Mm-hmm. That's normal for a believer. Amy, what's one of your most favorite things about your roommates? I guess they're good to me. They are. Sometimes. Sometimes are they not good to you? Sometimes they go to movies. The community of people, the people that survive, want you to talk and be embraced, and that's how I see heaven. It's everybody is one and the same. Kills me every time. I've had to watch it a few times to get my brain wrapped around it and be able to talk afterwards. And I think there are a number of things that I'd want to highlight, but it stands on its own. You can go back and watch it again. But what's going on in Mosaic and all the different expressions of that, from cradle to grave, literally, is discipleship and care for just members of the body of Christ, and creating pathways into the church for folks who may not have access. You may not know this, but one of the most rapidly growing parts in some of our campuses, the primary driver of growth is Mosaic. And it's people who are dealing with disability within their family, in one generation or another, and who have heard that this is a place where they can be cared for, and some of them are just looking for care and hope, but in the process, there's real discipleship going on. I want to mention a couple of things to you. We have a member podcast that was just released this past week that has Joe Clary, who is a pastor and our director of Mosaic Ministries, and CeCe Ambrose, who leads that at our Travelers Rest campus. I want you to go listen to that. If you don't know we have a members podcast, you can go find that through our website under Resources. It's easy to get ahold of. But listen to the discussion of what's going on and on the idea that this is just an expression of our mission of making disciples. This is not patronizing people. This is not just care for people. This is training people in righteousness and how to follow and trust in Jesus. And it's a beautiful thing, and you'll learn a ton. I know I have, as I've gotten more involved and working more closely with Front Porch Housing and Roll the Dip Plays, and then Mosaic and working with Joe Clary. But one of the things that is clear to me is that part of why we have so many people who are coming to our church to be a part of that is because other churches in our area are not equipped. They are sending people, and that is a common story. They are sending people to our church because they believe we are equipped to do that. And so we have coming up a conference in October called Mosaic Equip, and we're going to have over 50 churches that are part of that. We're bringing national leaders in this area who are published and who are communicating regularly to be here to make them available to other churches to equip them. And we are offering free help to them. Our folks go to conferences. Our team invites people here. Our team travels to other places where people need help because we want to see and we believe that at the core of the gospel is the strong humbling themselves and trusting and owning the mission of God in the world, and those who are more vulnerable being brought into the center of what God is doing. And as you can imagine, all of this is expensive in terms of time, in terms of talent, in terms of financial resources. So when you serve and when you give to our church, you're enabling that and making that possible. And it is one of the most beautiful images that we have within our church that God is actually among us. So I'm thankful for that story, and it actually leads us into, in a counterintuitive way, our text for this weekend. So why don't you go ahead and turn to Genesis chapter 38. And you might think, how in the world does that story jive with this very troubling story in Genesis chapter 38? If you don't know how troubling this story is, then you're in for a doozy this weekend. So welcome. We do have a sermon prep plan that'll help you get ready so you don't get whiplash when you show up and we're reading a complicated narrative. So you can go check that out on the back end and listen again if you haven't prepared yourself for it. But to get us into this story, I'm just going to read the whole thing. And I don't know any other way to let the drama of it fall on you, so I'm going to start in Genesis chapter 38, verse 1. Now, about this time, remember where we left off. We left off with Joseph being sold to Potiphar, the head of the guard, the imperial guard for Pharaoh. And about the time that all that was going on, Judah left home and he moved to Adullam, where he stayed with a man named Hirah. And I'm just going to read in South Carolina redneck pronunciation. So figure that's what most of you are. Any experts, I'm going to read it the way it sounds to us. So he goes to stay with a man named Hirah. Now, the thing is, we don't know a lot about him. We just know that he's not a part of the chosen family. So that's a cue to you. There's this movement away from, Joseph is sold down into Egypt, and Judah is voluntarily moving away from the people of God and into the Canaanite society around him. And there he saw a Canaanite woman, the daughter of Shua, and he married her. He slept with her. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and he named the boy Er. And she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, and she named him Onan. And when she had given birth to a third son, she named him Shelah. Now, at the time of Shelah's birth, they were living in Kezib. Now, in the course of time, Judah arranged for his firstborn son, Er, to marry a young woman named Tamar. But Er was a wicked man in the Lord's sight, so the Lord took his life. Then Judah said to Er's brother, Onan, "Go and marry Tamar as the law requires of the brother of a man who has died. You must produce an heir for your brother." But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir legally, so whenever he had intercourse with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother. But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother, so the Lord took Onan's life too. Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, "Go back to your parents' home and remain a widow until my son Shelah is old enough to marry you." But Judah didn't really intend to do this, note the deceit, because he was afraid Shelah would also die like his two brothers. So Tamar went back to live in her father's home. Now, some years later, Judah's wife died. After the time of mourning was over, Judah and his friend Hirah, the Adullamite, went up to Timnah to supervise the shearing of his sheep. And someone told Tamar, "Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep." Now, Tamar was aware that Shelah had grown up but no arrangements had been made for her to come and marry him, so she changed out of her widow's clothing and covered herself with a veil to disguise herself. Then she sat beside the road at the entrance to the village of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. Judah noticed her and thought she was a prostitute since she had covered her face. So he stopped and propositioned her. "Let me have sex with you," he said, not realizing that she was his own daughter-in-law. "How much will you pay me to have sex with me?" Tamar asked. "I'll send you a young goat from my flock," Judah promised. "But what will you give me to guarantee that you will send me the goat?" she asked. "What kind of guarantee do you want?" he replied. She answered, "Leave me your identification seal and its cord, and the walking stick you are carrying." Leave me your driver's license and your family signet ring. Think of it that way. So Judah gave them to her. Then after he had intercourse with her and she became pregnant. Afterwards, she went back home, took off her veil, put on her widow's clothing as usual. Now later, Judah asked his friend Hirah, the Adullamite, to take the young goat to the woman to pick up the things that he had given her as a guarantee, but Hirah couldn't find her. So he asked the men who lived there, "Where can we find a shrine prostitute who was sitting beside the road here?" "We've never had a shrine prostitute here," they replied. So Hirah returned to Judah and told him, "I couldn't find her anywhere, and the men of the village claim they've never had a shrine prostitute there." "Then let her keep the things I gave her," Judah said. "I sent the young goat as we agreed, but you couldn't find her. We'd be the laughing stock of the village if we went back again to look for her." Now about three months later, Judah was told, "Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute, and now because of this, she's pregnant." "Bring her out here and let her be burned," Judah demanded. But as they were taking her out to kill her, she sent this message to her father-in-law, "The man who owns these things made me pregnant. Look closely. Whose seal and cord and walking stick are these?" In other words, do you recognize these? Judah recognized them immediately and said, "She is more righteous than I am because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." And Judah never slept with Tamar again. Now when the time for Tamar to give birth, it was discovered that she was carrying twins. And while she was in labor, one of the babies reached out with his hand and the midwife grabbed it and tied a scarlet string around the child's wrist announcing, "This one came out first." But then he pulled back his hand and out came his brother. "What?" the midwife exclaimed. "How did you break out first?" So she named him Perez, which means a breach or one who breaks out. And then the baby with the scarlet string on his wrist was born and he was named Zerah. Now, what a story, right? The Odyssey's got nothing on this. I'm just telling you. I mean, Homer, he couldn't imagine such things. What an amazing story. Even more so when you understand that Judah is the progenitor of the founder of the royal line of Israel. So he is the initiator, genetically, of kingship. And this is the foundational story. Now for years when I read this story, not only was it troubling to me because I couldn't understand what was going on, and in fact I don't think I really grasped this story in its context until preparing for it this time. So if it's disorienting for you and troubling for you, you're in good company. And I've preached a bunch of bad sermons on it. I'm going to try to reverse that course this weekend, but you can be the judge of that. But the story itself is just very challenging for our modern ears. But this is what I want to make clear from the very beginning, and this has become even more clear to me, is that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is advancing his promise in this story through bringing the marginalized into the center and bringing the powerful down underneath the truth. This story is about what God is doing to advance his program in the world. And it involves humbling the strong and elevating those who don't have a voice. And in that, he is going to form them into one people whose future rests not on human power or human revolt. Because we tend to believe one of those two things is true. We're either on Team Judah, the guy who makes it happen and gets it done, and he does some things that you'd rather him not do, but at the end of the day, he's trying to get a good thing done. He's trying to preserve the family line. He's trying to fulfill the promise. He's doing it on his own terms. He's got his hands, but he's capable. He gets stuff done. And Tamar, the woman who is marginalized, who is revolting against the system. But the interesting thing is at the end of this story, these two people are together, and the result of what they've done is going to issue forth in the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of God that through this seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And I'll get to that. Now all the other things that trouble you, all the sexual misconduct, all the oppressive patriarchal structures, we're going to address some of those, not the way anybody would fully like, but we're going to have to address some of them. But that's what's happening. This is God's story. And in order for us to do it, we're going to have to recognize there are three real prime movers in this story, Judah, Tamar, and then ultimately the God of Israel, the I Am. And so Judah is the powerful man who can't really see himself. He doesn't really know what's going on. Tamar is a vulnerable woman who forces the truth out into the open. And Yahweh is the covenant Lord, the one who's entered into a relationship with a people, and he is guaranteeing that his promise gets done. Now I want to walk through Judah first, and so let's just look at it through the lens of Judah. This is Judah's governing disposition, and we all have one. We all have a basic orientation to how we live our life. And Judah is the kind of person who thinks, "I am happening to the world. The world is not happening to me." He's just that kind of dude. And it's a basic orientation. There are men and there are women who are like this. And it'd be a good thing. If you're one of those people and don't know it, then you're probably an oppressor. If you're one of those people and you know it, and you're learning how to manage it, then you can have a good and productive life and be a blessing to people. But it's an orientation. It's kind of how his sin nature and how his gifts work. In chapter 37, Judah's the one who hatches the plan, and everybody just listens to what he says. "We don't need to kill him. Let's just sell him. We ought to profit, and he's our brother." Everybody gets in line with that. At the beginning of this story, Judah, he leaves his brothers to go be independent. He sees a woman, he takes her. Don't even give us the name of his wife. That's not because the Bible doesn't value women. The Bible really values women, as you're going to see in Tamar. But Judah sees her, he takes her. He establishes a household. He chooses Tamar for Er. He commands Onan. After Er dies, because he's so evil, he commands Onan to take his brother's wife. He promises Sheila. He withholds Sheila. He sees what he assumes is a prostitute, and he uses her for his satisfaction. He sends a payment, and he commands Tamar's execution. As you read the story, every time it talks about Judah, Judah is acting and things are changing. That's the way it is. That's just the kind of person that he is. He's powerful. He has natural abilities. He has natural talents. He doesn't need the prop of his family around him. He is getting it done. He sees and he takes. It's very interesting. And where we see this in the beginning, in its most clear form, is when Er dies, he says to his next son, "Onan, you go take her as your wife, and you raise up an heir for your brother." Now, Er was the firstborn, and this is a really important thing because in that culture, although not in God's plan, which is interesting that God's people keep missing this, but in that culture, the firstborn carries the family blessing and the lion's share of the family name. That's just the way it works. And so it's a real loss for Er to be lost, and he sends Onan to take Tamar as his wife. Now, this is a common thing. You think this is all odd. I don't understand. This is an oppressive structure. It is, but it's also an economic arrangement that protected women. And this is one of the things that I learned. I went and did a ton of research. And in all the cultures that are around there, I looked in all the ancient Near Eastern law codes that were before, around, and just after this. And everybody had a version of this. Everyone had a version of, if there is a woman and her husband dies, she's in a vulnerable position, and you took her from her family of origin, and she has no means in the culture. She doesn't have the kind of agency that women have in our culture today. So on the one hand, it was a means of ensuring that she was cared for, and there were penalties attached to that. Ancient Hittite codes, in Egyptian law and contracts, you see all of this stuff that was around there. And so it was a part of just what was going on in the culture, and this is where God is working. And so Judah commands Onan to do two things. One is preserve the family line, and then second of all, he's supposed to make sure that she's cared for because that child will care for Tamar for the rest of her life. And she would have a benefit for having left her family of origin and come into this new family. But Onan is vile. And he gets pleasure from her, but he robs her of an inheritance and a place within his family, and so God kills him. Now, the conclusion that Judah draws, because he thinks he knows what he's doing, the conclusion that he draws is that she must be the problem. She's a curse, she's not a blessing. When in fact, here's the irony, the people of God were being a curse to her instead of being a blessing. So it's the people who are supposed to be the called-out people of God who are actually being a curse to this woman from outside of the line of blessing. And that's supposed to sit on you, and that's supposed to weigh upon you because that was the first audience that would've been there. He's introducing them to their familial shame. He's saying, "You're not better than the people around you." If Moses composed these documents on the plains of Moab, which there's argument about when this happened, but it doesn't really matter when it happened. But if Moses did, this is a very instructive story for the people of God as they're going into the land by the humility that they ought to carry themselves with while they are fulfilling God's command to liberate the land from the Canaanites, is that here you have this story about their founding and one of their founders, the founder of what would be the royal line, one of those founders. His family is a curse to a Canaanite while she's trying to be a blessing to them. We're not explicitly told she's a Canaanite, but that's where she was living. And so now Tamar's been widowed twice. She's been used sexually. She's been denied offspring. She's been denied economic security. She's been denied a secure place in the household. And Judah thinks she's a curse, and so he abandons her and sends her away in deceit. He thinks that she is the problem rather than him and his family is the problem. And just so you could see how some of this works out, I want you to see, let's see if I've kept it. In Deuteronomy chapter 25:10, there is this narrative, and if you did the sermon prep plan, it'll help you get this idea in your head. This kind of arrangement that we're talking about where a brother has responsibility to marry a woman, give her standing, and to preserve the family line because remembering the blessing is transmitted from generation to generation. Having children was vital for the blessing of God. Ultimately, it's through the seed of the woman that the earth is going to be blessed, going all the way back to Eve. And so that was a very important part of people's relationship with God. And so there was this law put in place in Genesis 25, you can go read it. And if a man refuses like Onan did, if he says, "I'm not going to take my brother's wife," then ever afterward in Israel, his family will be referred to as the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off. And what that means is there was this ceremony. If a man refused to do his duty, the woman could accuse him publicly, then she would spit in his face, she would take off his shoe, and for the rest of his life, his family would be known as that. And so there was this sense of justice and aggrieved justice that was in the center of all of that. A people of God version of it, not like the Hittites and not like the Egyptians and in these other places, was expressed in this as a part of their legal code. And so when you're reading this story, Tamar is being denied, and Judah is denying her, and it's an intensely shameful thing that his family should be known for that shame for the rest of his life. But Judah tries to send her away. He gives her no justice. He sends her back to her family and doesn't give his son to her. And then he continues in his sin and his blindness. Now, this whole story is just one thing of how this is what happens. He ends up, we'll get to Tamar, but he ends up having sex with her thinking that she's a prostitute because she's disguised herself and deceived him. And I want to deal with that when we get to Tamar, but this is what I want you to see about Judah, is that the story wants you to see that Judah's going from bad to worse in his desire to accomplish life on his own terms and his self-confidence and his self-reliance and his desire to try to raise up a seed. He's like, "I can't lose Sheila. He's the last one, and I don't have an heir. I can't participate in the promise if I don't have an heir, and so we've got to have an heir, so I got to protect him." He is trying to protect his participation. That's what he's trying to do, and he's making Tamar suffer for it But in all of that, he's just continuing to see and take what he wants. He has failed to restrain or form his wicked sons. He has failed to recognize the injustice that Tamar has suffered. He's deceived her. He has used her, his own daughter-in-law, unknowingly, just for his pleasure, and then at the end, he's going to condemn her for the sin that he really committed, for evidence of his own misconduct. Now, that's who Judah is in a very real sense. And the shame of one who had his sandal removed is the least of what Judah's problems are. And it's in that light that I want us to think about Tamar for a second. Tamar enters this story as somebody who has been acted upon. She doesn't seem to have any agency. She is a daughter who an agreement is reached between her father and another man, and she is given to a wicked man, a man so wicked that God kills him. That's an uncommon thing even in the scriptures. I mean, it's just God is so patient and forbearing that God would just take Er's life. That's the kind of vile man that he is. And Tamar then suffers indignity at the hands of an... And imagine the pettiness, how devalued you would feel to be used that way, to be raped where you don't have a voice, and where you are being denied any benefit from what is legally your right claim. And then the man who should intervene and act on your behalf sends you away because he thinks you're the problem. You're wrongly accused. This is Tamar's experience. And I know some of you can identify with that on a bunch of different levels. It was a real temptation for me, as I was preparing for this sermon, to try to soft pedal this. But that's the reality of what's going on. She is sent away. She humbly waits. And the way we know that she is humble and she's not just embittered is going to be because of how she ultimately appeals to Judah. But when she gets fully back in a corner and she has nowhere to go, and she knows that Judah's not going to do the right thing, she does the only thing that she can think of to do. And that is she goes to the source, which is Judah himself. And knowing who she is, she deceives him into giving her what he by law was obligated to give her. And from the culture that she came from, this is one of the things that I didn't really know, but within the Hittite law codes, which were in the region more a little bit north of here, but there was this idea that in her situation, if the sons were gone, it was the father's responsibility to take her and take responsibility for her, to keep her in his house, and to make sure that she had a descendant. I never knew that. But through modern technology, I'm able to do the kind of research that I was never able to do and dig through all these primary sources, and it's Law 193 in a Hittite law code that talks about this idea of the father's responsibility. Now, that's not written into the law codes of Israel, but those didn't exist yet, and that's not the culture she came from anyway. So Tamar actually believed that Judah owed her this. So it's not some salacious sexual thing. It's not the kind of evil. It's interesting to me how male and female alike, how from a distance when we see someone, and it is one of the things that we have to watch when we are people of privilege. And by people of privilege, I just mean people for whom the dominant culture works. So if you are someone who was born into a world in a favorable situation, where the world just generally works for you, opportunities come to you, people aren't actively, and systems aren't actually opposing you, it is easy for you to look at the sins of people that the world doesn't work for and to ascribe more evil to them. So it's funny how the shame of a woman who's an exotic dancer or a stripper is culturally greater than the men who go spend money on business trips to have that experience. The woman who is making her money in online porn, she gets shamed, but the church leaders who are going to that website and hide it, if they get caught, then they are restored and forgiven and seen as victims of the dominant culture that's around them where female sexuality has been weaponized against them. I mean, it just happens all the time. It's why feminists hate us in the evangelical world. It's because they can see that. It's just the way the world works. And Judah's on the upper side, Tamar is on the underside, and the hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper for her, but she knows that he has an obligation, and so she goes and she deceives him. And very wisely, shrewdly, she challenges him by saying-- I mean, and you just see who Judah is. He's like, "What do I have to pay you?" She's like, "A goat." He's like, "Good. It's a goat. But I don't have one." She's like, "I can't just trust you." So she takes the seal of his identity. Look at how easily Judah gives that away in a moment, and look at how Tamar, how wise she is. She's laying claim on him by that. She's staking her claim as a member of his household. And it's difficult to see it culturally because the sexual piece gets so complicated for us, but that is what's happening. So as the story plays out, you see how it plays out. Judah finds out she's pregnant, and she has risked everything. That's what I want you to appreciate, the fact she's risked everything, ironically, to do something that would ultimately be the salvation of Judah's family. The thing Judah's trying to protect, he can't protect. He doesn't have the power to do it, and God's showing him that. And by denying her what was her right, he is sealing his own fate. But she, with her boldness and her willingness to risk death, secures for him what he could not secure for himself. Isn't that amazing? So when he's going to have her dragged out to be burned, which by the way, even in the ancient world, this is harsh. The way that scene goes down, that would've been troubling for people way back then. And they weren't troubled. They weren't little snowflakes like we are. All right? They were well acquainted with the brutalities of life. But even then, that was a rash thing. So right up until this final moment, that's who Judah is. He's confident in his decisions. He commands. People obey. Tamar knows all of that when she's dealing with him. She's actually counting on it. But she doesn't know how he's going to respond, but at the end, this is what I want you to see. When he has her dragged out, she brings out the staff and the cord and the signet that were the markers of his identity that she has valued and preserved for him and for this moment, and she sends them to him. And in the narrative, it wants you to see she did it somewhat privately. She didn't burn the house down. She didn't drag him down into the mud. She actually ennobled Judah. And I think this is one of the most overlooked things in this passage, is this woman who has been so victimized and so marginalized. She is the one who restores to Judah the markers of his identity as he is threatening to burn her to death. And the way in which she does it is not to burn his family to the ground and to shame him, but to create an opportunity for him, a moment for him to see how wrong he's been. For him to understand that what she is carrying within her is actually the salvation of his family line The fruitfulness that he is trying to obtain, she has obtained for him, and she is appealing to him in that moment to recognize that. And it's where we see this really amazing thing, where Judah-- And it's not unlike, it's a parallel to what happened in chapter 37. So in chapter 37, Judah and his brothers deceive the father, and they give him the cloak, the coat of many colors, and they say, "Do you recognize this?" And he recognizes it. She does the same thing here, but not to deceive, but to awaken him to the truth, to help him see the truth for the first time, to help him see where hope and a future lies for his family. And she sends it to him, and Judah recognized them immediately. I think this is key. And when he does this, look at what he says. He says, "She is more righteous than I, because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah," and Judah never slept with Tamar again, which is key. She ain't for him. He knows that. That child's not-- Those children, they're not his. They're his sons. All right? She doesn't belong to him. He doesn't just see and take what he wants anymore. Tamar, because she wasn't just screaming for justice on her own terms, she wanted blessing in a bigger sense. We don't know what she knew about the God of Israel. We don't know. She's an honorable person in that sense. She wants a position, she wants a place, she wants an identity. Judah, who cast the markers of his identity aside, is awakened to the fact, not that she's perfect in every way, not that everything she did was right. That's not what the text is saying. But the text is saying here, "I created the occasion for all of this. I put her in this position of vulnerability. She is more righteous than I am." And look at how he does. This is why we miss it. He says, "Because I didn't arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." He's saying, "I didn't fulfill my justice, what was owed for me in justice. And so as a result of that, she should be forgiven for what she's done. She had no other recourse." So in a sense, he condemns himself, and he justifies her. Now, there are a bunch of things that are real interesting. And these kind of things are the reasons I believe the Bible is true, and I believe it's inspired by the Spirit of God. It's not because I'm going to make everything fit together. There is nothing else like this in ancient literature. I did a search of everything that's in the public domain. There are like three stories that have elements of this kind of thing, and there are lots of stories that have a piece here or a piece there. But this vision of a marginalized woman being elevated in this way in order to accomplish this, and this kind of humility from a man in a moment to be the founding of a dynasty, it just doesn't exist as far as I could find anywhere. Nobody makes up these kinds of stories. That's why it's so uncomfortable for us today. But the beautiful thing that happens here is that Tamar has awakened Judah to who he is, and he repents. Let me just say a brief word about repentance here. I preached on this in obedience a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about it. So I don't feel like I have to say a ton about it, but this is what I want to say. Repentance is obvious. Nobody's wondering how Judah feels or what he thinks. Nobody's having to have multiple meetings with him to drag the truth out of him. He recognizes the truth about himself when he is confronted, and on a dime, bam. He owns what's his to own, and he frees her, not because she's right about everything, but he frees her, and he says, "Who am I to judge her?" He goes from being somebody who feels like he has authority and righteousness to burn her alive, to being someone who says, "She should be the one who's judging me." That's what he's saying. It's a complete and total reversal. And that's how you know that you've repented, and I want to ask you, have you ever repented in that way in your life? Have you ever released others from what you think they've done wrong to you, and maybe what they have done wrong to you, as a cloak and a cover for you to do what makes you feel good? Have you ever just let it all go and put yourself in God's hand? Judah's been trying to cover, preserve his honor all the way through. That's why he doesn't go chase her down to try to find the cord and the signet. If he had gone and chased her down, he might have found her. But he didn't want to do that. Why? Because he didn't want to be a laughing stock. He hadn't done any of that. He's not doing any of that because he's trying to protect himself. But in this moment, there's not a shred of self-protection. And Tamar is the one instrumentally who makes that happen, humanly speaking. Because she doesn't just come for a pound of flesh. She comes for the position that she longs for and the dignity that is rightfully hers. And so when you find yourself in that story, I think you have to think, where are you in it? With whom do you identify the most? And this is what I want you to see, is that while we have these two characters, and they are driving the narrative along, that in back of all this, God is the quiet but decisive factor in all of this. God has an unyielding commitment, as I said last week, to fulfill the promise that he made to Abraham, that through you and your seed, I will create a nation greater than the stars in the sky, the sands on the shore, and through you and your seed, I will bless all the nations of the earth. And he is doing that through the broken institutional structures of the ancient Near East. He is doing that through the sinful orientation of Judah and his impetuous desire for I see what I want, I take it, and then I make it mine. It's through his immorality and his impetuous sexual desire that the bloodline of the Messiah is established. That's how you know God's at work in this. If you go to Matthew 1, you can look at the genealogy, and Matthew is the most Jewish of all the gospels. This is the one that wants the Jews to see that the Messiah, this Jesus, born in Nazareth, is your king. And it begins with a genealogy that goes all the way back, and Tamar is specifically called out as being one of the ultimate mothers of the Messiah. Is that not an amazing thing to think about? Only God can do that. And so when you're living your life, one of the key things you have to think about is that God doesn't need us to be right to work. But if we want to participate in the blessing that God has for us, we're going to have to humble ourselves like Judah did. Judah, in that culture, probably could have gotten Tamar killed if he wanted to and could have tried to create a narrative to sweep all this under the rug and make it all go away. And in so doing, he would have destroyed the means by which his line would be saved. But he humbled himself. He condemned himself. He justified Tamar, and the grace of God came to him, even in his sin, as despicable as what he had done. And there's great hope for us in that. And if you're a person like Tamar who feels under it, who feels like things aren't working for you, and you're tempted to be bitter and just feel entitled to take things into my own hands and to despise and to hate and to just burn the house down and want a pound of flesh for everybody who's ever wronged you, what you see here is that it's her willingness to not do that that enables her to earn a position and a standing in the people of God and in the plan of God, so much so that a lot of scholars consider her to be the fifth matriarch of Israel. Her participation in the plan of God was contingent upon her humbling herself and not just trying to punish Judah, but for her actually longing for justice and knowing that it had to come to her through that family line. And as fragile as all of that seems, there's great hope for us in the idea that that's what God's doing in the world, because we're a people who live in chaos. And I want you to know, whichever end of that story you find yourself on, God is just as present to both of you, if you'll humble yourself and hope in him. But that's where your agency kicks in. And I believe in the sovereignty of God as much as anybody does, but I also believe in the responsibility of human beings and in the agency that he has given to us. And he says, "If you will repent and believe, then life is there for you." And as you understand who God is, if you will put yourself in a position for him to bless you, then you can know that you too will participate in his plan. This story, as difficult as it is for us to maintain our attention and maintain our focus on it, and to live in the tension that it calls us to, this story gives hope to everyone on the planet. Because it says nobody is beyond the reach of God's grace, and that there is room within the family of God for the marginalized, and the peripheral, and the one who is under the boot of this world, and for those who are in power and who are abusing it, if they will come under his authority, if they will own what is theirs to own, that there's a place of blessing for them. And I hope you find yourself in that. Let me pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. I pray that you would apply it to us. We pray that you would help us to not be paralyzed by the shame that other people have put on us, but to hope in you, to believe that there is a future for us. And I pray that you would help us not to trust in ourself and our own strength when we think we know what we're doing, but to humble ourselves to see ourselves as broken and weak, and in need of you to preserve us, and in need of you to save us and secure a future for us. Make us a humble people like that, and then make us into one people, oppressor and oppressed alike, all together at the foot of the cross, worshiping the one who bled and died for us, the one who was content to wear our shame so that he might call us his brethren. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.