You have already noticed that I hesitated having this chapter read publicly - lest those who watch our service on TV would be offended.

Stories about sex often offend us. I could even disagree with C.S. Lewis on this subject. who wrote, “If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong.” We need only to remember former President Clinton or same sex marriages, to recall the furor that was raised over those issues.

This issue touches lives unexpectantly. Recently, I was visiting with a gentleman in the waiting room of the hospital. The conversation began as conversation often do about the weather. He had driven to Port Huron during what I considered really bad weather. He continued the conversation about the reason for his trip - he was taking his two year old grandson home. To my surprise, he said his granddaughter, 17, had given birth to the child out of wedlock and his distress was apparent.

As any good minister, I sought to bring a modem of comfort and said to him, “I’m an illegitimate child and I made out quite well.” He agreed.

I can only imagine the disgrace my mother experienced some 84 years ago. She lived most of her life in a small town in Wisconsin and was such a factor for good in that community that the paper ran the story of her life (excluding my birth, of course) and paid tribute to the contributions she had made. We could label that “Grace in a mother’s life.”

I grew up in a church that put a premium on good moral character as probably all of you did also. I remember being on an outing with the youth group and accompanied by my aunt. We wandered away from the group and discovered some WPA workers. We stayed and I played ping-pong with them. The next morning, I was called on the carpet by the pastor for “unbecoming behavior.” Moral issues also included drinking and smoking. Individuals who did those things were second class citizens in the church if citizens at all. On one occasion a mother spoke to me about Mary Kent. a dear friend of mine, who smoked and threatened to leave the church because of her habit. With some difficulty, I persuaded her about all the good Mary did in that congregation. Today, Mary Kent, is the one who prays for me every Sunday morning. Her son, Jim, is the pastor of growing church. That’s grace.

Christians tend to be unforgiving about moral issues. Jesus was different. He had a conversation with a Samaritan woman who had five husbands and one with whom she lived was not her husband. You know the rest of the story. Through her testimony many in her town believed.

On another occasion the religious leaders brought a woman taken in adultery to Jesus. We well remember His words, “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.”

OUR SCRIPTURE

We wonder today about the author of Genesis, who in the midst of the story of Joseph’s life, inserts our scripture. J. Ellsworth Kalas explains it better than I can.

This chapter-long story may be one of the most important incidents in the Old Testament. Chapter 37 ends with the sentence, “Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him (Joseph) in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard,” and the thirty-ninth chapter begins, “Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, and an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who ahd brought him down there.”

It is just possible the author knows more about his plot line than we do. It is clear the writer intends the story to be just as it is, because he introduces this new incident with the line, “It happened at that time ....” He then tells a story that covers a period of at lest twenty years.

If you remember the story of Joseph, you may recall that it was Judah who suggested to the brothers that they sell Joseph to the Ismaelites.”

What is interesting that this is the first time Judah has a speaking part in the Genesis account. He was a fourth son born to Jacob and in a world where the primary favors of inheritance went ot he first born. the fourth son had no obvious standing.

And chapter 38 is about Judah. He marries a Canaanite woman who bears three sons. In time, Judah arranges for the first son, Er, to marry a woman named Tamar. Something about Er evokes the judgment of God, and he dies. By the law of the time, Judah’s second son, Onan, must now marry Tamar, with the first son born to this union to be known as Er’s son, since he died without issue. Onan didn’t like the arrangement and conspired against it, whereupon he too came under the judgment of God.

Tamar had legal rights to the third son, but Judah sees his daughter-in-law as very bad news, so he doesn’t want to endanger this last of his heirs. So he sends Tamar home to her father -- a humiliating act, in the culture of the times -- explaining that she should remain a widow there until the third son grows up.”

In time, Judah’s wife dies, leaving him a lonely widower. At about the same time, Tamar recognizes that the third son is now old enough to marry but that Judah is doing nothing about it.

Then the story get sticky. Tamar has been terribly wronged. So knowing of her father-in-law's habits, “she puts off her widow’s garments, puts on a veil and disguises herself as a prostate. Judah solicited her services, not knowing who she was. He promised to send a kid from the flock in payment, but Tamar insisted on a pledge, Judah’s signet, cord, and staff. This was a kind of ancient equivalent ot holding a person’s credit card as security.

It wasn’t long before Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant and as the scripture notes had ”played the whore,” and he declared that she should pay for her sins by the penalty of death. Tamar sends the pledge items to Judah with the message that her pregnancy was with the owner of the signet, the cord, and that staff. Judah had a jolt of conscience, “She is more in the right than I.

Twins were born to Tamar - Perez and Zerah.

If that is as far as we read, we, of course, wonder why this interrupted the life story of Joseph. Since Joseph is being sold into slavery, evil is apparently triumphing over goodness, the writer of Genesis wants us to know something is going on behind the scenes.

Ancient rabbis, writing in the Midrash, saw more significance in the event. Rabbi Samuel ben Nahman, in commenting on the phrase, “It happened at that time,” wrote, “The Tribal ancestors were engaged in selling Joseph. Jacob was taken up with his sackcloth and fasting, and Judah was busy taking a wife, while the One, blessed by God, was creating the light of the Messiah: thus IT CAME TO PASS AT THAT TIME ... Messiah is figuratively born.”

And of all things, it is happening in the temporary dwelling of a temporary harlot.

The ancient rabbis who saw the Tamar story as part of the messianic plan knew they had a sequel in the book of Ruth. Most readers conclude the book of Ruth with the seventh verse of the fourth chapter: “The women of the neighborhood gave him (Ruth and Boaz’s son) a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.”

But the big news is in the tedious little genealogy that follows: “Now these are the descendants of Perez: Perez became the father of Hezron. Hezron of Ram, Ram of Amminadab. Amminadab of Jesse, and Jesse of David.

But that is not all the book of Ruth has to say about Tamar. When the women of Bethlehem rejoice that Naomi’s daughter=in-law, Ruth is about to marry an aged bachelor or widower, Boaz, they offer her what might seem to be a strange blessing: ‘and through the children that the Lord will give you by this young woman, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah -- a blessing so extraordinary that village women feel it is the loveliest word they can speak to their old friend. Somehow the incestuous relationship of Tamar and Judah has becomes a heritage of beauty. Why? Because eventually from this line comes Israel’s beloved King David.

We readers of the New Testament pick up the plot in the Gospel of Matthew, as that writer gives us the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah. Jacob is “the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. So it is that the messianic line unfolds.

And the interruption will happen in the temporary tent of a temporary harlot. Don’t try to fence in grace. To do so would diminish its wonder.

SO DO WE RECOGNIZE GRACE IN OUR LIVES

It’s amazing to me that I stand before you as a pastor. The Lord led me screaming and fighting into the pulpit ministry. We had just moved to Vermont and I needed a job - I was overqualified for everything it seemed. At the same time, the church in Lincoln needed a pastor and the state executive suggested to them that I was available. Their reply was, “We just had a woman and she didn't’ work out. We don’t want another one.” He persuaded them by saying, “Well, you could have her come for a couple of weeks.” and they did.

Ministering in that congregation was one of the many joys of my life. Just this week, I received an e-mail from the present pastor of that church. He wrote, Kate Harvey, at our General Board “Denominational Inclusiveness Committee’ meeting in November suggested we pull stories together about women in ministry along with ethnic diversity stories and others. I told the committee what you did in Lincoln, Terry, and they asked me to write one up. Fair warning! Actually, it has been fun recollecting memories of 26 years ago. ... I have the impressions of the church here but I would love to get your impressions of being a woman in ministry in the mid 70’s and in particularly what your thoughts were coming to Lincoln.”

That’s just one instance of grace in my life.

BACK TO C.S LEWIS

The title of his article is “The Least Bad of All Sins”.

If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. They is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostate. But, of course, it is better to be neither. AMEN

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