DAY 15

GET READY, GET SET…

Genesis 36, 37 & 38 and Matthew 10:21-42

The readings today are again interesting in how they lay out. Genesis 36 is the one chapter devoted to Esau and his descendants. Chapter 38 is a chapter about Judah and Tamar, whom we will hear little if anything about after this chapter. In the middle is Joseph and the beginning of his story which, will occupy the rest of the Genesis, all the way to chapter 50! Yet each of these chapters and the latter half of Matthew make me feel as if I am on a starting line, about to start something exciting, but. The “but” is that these chapters in many ways serve to clean up some loose ends, warn about sinful behavior, and provide some perspective about what it will be like when God says, “GO!”

Genesis 36 chronicles Esau, or Edom, and his family. As Douglas Stuart and Gordon Fee point out in The Bible Book by Book there is a repeating pattern in Genesis where the older son is not ignored, but only has their story summarized. Esau’s people, the Edomites will be on Israel’s border and threaten God’s chosen people and the Promise Land for some time to come. In many ways Chapter 36 seems to clean up this loose end as approach Joseph’s life.

Genesis 38 (I will end with 37) is a rather non-complimentary chapter. After reading the chapter it is with some curiosity that Jesus is referred to as the Lion of Judah (cf. Revelation 5:5). From Judah’s line will come King David, and therefore Jesus. In a few chapters Judah will show repentance, but for now this chapter is remarkably depressing, and unnecessarily detailed. At this point in the Old Testament do you want to ask, “Do these men actually ever look at these women before they have sex with them?” Time and time again in Genesis men seem to succumb to their sexual desires and “in the morning” seemed completely surprised to find out who the women actually are. I need not repeat all that is reported in this chapter. It serves as a warning to me about how people called by God, which includes me and you, seem to behave as if we don’t even know him. It also serves again to show me that God remarkably still uses us in his plan.

Genesis 37 presents us with a dreamer, a teenage dreamer. Picture your teenage younger brother telling you some day you will serve him. I have an older brother and I can tell you the response is predictable. Of course in this situation the response almost cost Joseph his life. In the middle of this passage we see Rueben the oldest trying to intercede and prevent Joseph’s death. The passage ends with Jacob’s heart breaking. The next time we meet Joseph we will meet a different person, someone certainly who is not a braggart.

Matthew 10:21-42 begins with “brother will deliver brother over to death…Jesus is not at all talking about what we just read in Genesis 37, but it is a curious coincidence. Jesus is talking about the cost of following him. He pointedly notes that he has not come to “make it all better”, but he does speak of rewards.

As I come to the close of these readings I feel as if I am poised for something more. Part of this may be that I know what is next; Joseph in Egypt. In Joseph we will come in contact with both an amazing person and we will come into closer contact with our amazing God. Yet before all this, Jesus words ring in my ears, and the details of Genesis 35, 36 & 37 hang in the air…am I ready and set?