From a dramatic standpoint, the opening of the Gospel of Matthew leaves much to be desired. It is basically just a list of names—fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the Babylonian Exile, and then fourteen more from the Babylonian Exile to Jesus.

Unless genealogies send your heart all aflutter, most people skip the first seventeen verses of Matthew and move straight to the story of Joseph and the birth of the Christ child. Even the Common Lectionary never calls for preachers to explore this long, tedious list of tongue-twisting names.

But in recent years, scholars have begun asking whether Matthew might have been doing something far more profound than simply diagramming Jesus’ family tree. Some have suggested that this genealogy actually illustrates one of the dominant themes of the gospel—namely, that God works in mysterious ways.

For example, most genealogies list the father, followed by the firstborn son. But this one doesn’t. We are told that Abraham begat Isaac; but there is no mention of Ishmael, who was, in fact, Abraham’s firstborn. Then Isaac begat Jacob; but of course, Esau was the eldest, not Jacob. Then Jacob begat Judah; but again, Judah is not the firstborn (that would be Reuben).

Stranger still are the women that Matthew includes in this genealogy. Nothing is said about Sarah, or Rebekah, or Rachel—the upstanding patriarchal wives of Israel. Instead we get Tamar, a Canaanite, who disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her own father-in-law. And Rahab, another Canaanite and a real prostitute this time. And Ruth, the Moabite, yet another outsider. And Bathsheba, who is named only as the wife of Uriah, whom King David had killed so that he could marry her himself.

In other words, the circumstances of each of these women are somewhat scandalous—including the fifth and final woman named in this genealogy: Mary, the mother of Jesus, with her unconventional pregnancy.

And then we have a series of names that are a total mystery to us. Who was Azor, or Achim? Who was Eliud, or Eliezar? What did they do? What kind of men were they? Your guess is as good as mine, because other than this genealogy, their names do not appear anywhere else in Scripture.

So what does all of this say about God? Well, if God can work through scoundrels as well as saints … through children of the covenant as well as complete outsiders … and through so many other obscure and undistinguished people … then it is a pretty safe bet that God can use even us, with all of our individual flaws and gifts.

The bottom line is that the genealogy of Jesus is more than just a list of historical names. It is an illustration of the mysterious and miraculous way that God works. And of course, you could continue the list, because eventually Jesus called Paul … and Paul called Timothy … and Timothy called someone else … and someone called you … which means you now need to reach out and call someone else!