St. Matthew begins the gospel story with “the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” The family of Jesus were not all stellar characters, It includes murders and rapists, adulterers and prostitutes, the greedy and the gruesome, the power hungry and the craven. In other words, the family of Jesus was remarkably like every other human family. Perhaps St. Matthew starts off the story of Jesus in this way as an encouragement to us. We know the dysfunction that crops up in our families again and again. Anyone who has done research in their ancestors had doubtless found more than a few skeletons in the closet. But just as God would use the family of Jesus despite their being a collection of losers, so God can use our families as the vehicles which will bring the good news into a hurting world. God does not use the perfect but those who are willing to keep trying.
