St. Matthew begins his gospel with “the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” You learn a lot from genealogies. Henry Louis Gates has a show “Finding Your Roots” where he introduces celebrities to their ancestors. Like the genealogy of Jesus their roots are populated by saints and sinners, by shirkers and workers. For Matthew the genealogy of Jesus demonstrates that God uses ordinary people, with all the faults and limitations that we have, to work out the divine plan in history. Another thing about genealogies — they show that actions have consequences. A trauma in one part of the family tree ripples through the generations. The current call for reparations is a reminder that the crimes of the past need to be paid for today.
