Reading Matthew First Post

So, already -- are you reading Matthew's Gospel?
 I'm guessing that at least a few of you may have been discouraged by the opening verses of chapter one. I can hear you now, "Give me a break! '…Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, …and …and …and…'. Shades of Ancestry.com!
 Slow down a bit a look at the names. [Yeah, yeah, you say, there you go again. "What were their names?"] Matthew is telling us something very special in this first part. The genealogy of Jesus shows why he has a claim to the human side of the Messiahship. Through Joseph who marries Mary, his mother, Jesus is related back through 14 generations to King David and 14 more generations to Abraham. And further more, that at key points in the list of ancestors, mostly father to son, there are occasional entries that add: "by Tamar," "by Ruth," "by the wife of Uriah," and so on. When God was working through the people of Israel, surprising people were called by God to carry it forward.
 The surprising story of Tamar in Genesis 38:11-30 or the great story of Ruth, the Moabite woman in the short book of Ruth ["Where you go, I will go…"], who became the Great-grandmother of King David and is important to remember because she was an immigrant. And there is the story of "the wife of Uriah, the Hittite" in 2 Samuel 11:1 through 2 Samuel 12:24 -- it's the David and Bathsheba story. Do you wonder why Matthew refers to her as the wife of Uriah? This is one of the first places that the people that Matthew is writing to are familiar with the Hebrew Bible. I am not even bringing up the surprising story of the Babylonian exile.
 Matthew is calling us to look for surprising people to do surprising things. How are you being called to do surprising things for God?