The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 20: Judah and Tamar (2023)

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

Fr. Mike talks about how God can bring great triumph from great brokenness as he reads the messy story of Judah and Tamar. The readings for today are Genesis 38, Job 29-30, and Proverbs 3:28-32. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, I'm Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. This is day 20, so let's keep on going forward. On day 20, we're going to be reading from Genesis chapter 38, just one chapter today from Genesis, two chapters from Job. That's Job 29 and 30, and then Proverbs chapter 3, verses 28

through 32. As always, I'm reading from the Revised Standard Version, the Catholic edition, and I'm using actually the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to follow along in your own Bible, whether it's the Great Adventure Bible or whatever Bible you have around, you can download your Bible in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. Again, that's ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. You can also hit subscribe and get these updates every single day. And you can also sign up for our email list by texting the word Catholic Bible to 33777. This is probably something you already have memorized, but I want to say it again because it's important to be reminded. You can text Catholic Bible to 33777. As I said, today is Genesis chapter 38 to

start. Genesis chapter 38. bore a son, and she called his name Onan. Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. She was in Chizib when she bore him, and Judah took a wife for Ur his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Ur, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord slew him. Then Judah said to Onan, Go into your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother. But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So when he went into his brother's wife, he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.

Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in your father's house till Shelah, my son, grows up, for he feared that he would die like his brothers. So Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house. In the course of time, the wife of Judah, she was daughter, died. And when Judah was comforted, he went up from Timnah to his sheep shearers, he and his friend Hira, the Adulamite. And when Tamar was told your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep, she put off her widow's garments and put on a veil,

wrapping herself up and sat at the entrance to En-Aim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up and she had not been given to him in marriage. When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot, for she had covered her face. He went over to her at the roadside and said, Come, let me come into you, for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, What will you give me that you may come into me?

He answered, I will send you a kid from the flock. And she said, Will you give me a pledge till you send it? He said, What pledge shall I give you? She replied, Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand. So he gave them to her and went into her, and she conceived by him. Then she arose and went away. And taking off her veil, she put on the garments of her widowhood. When Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adulamite to receive the pledge from the woman's hand, he could not find her. And when he asked the men of the place, where is the harlot who was at Anam by the wayside? They said, no harlot has been here. So he returned to Judah and said, I have not found her. And also the men of that place said, no harlot has been here. And Judah replied, let her keep the things as her own, lest we be laughed

at. You see, I sent this kid and you could not find her. About three months later, Judah was told, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the harlot, and moreover, she is with child by harlotry. And Judah said, Bring her out, and let her be burned. As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, By the man to whom these belong, I am with child. And she said, Mark, I beg you, whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff. Then Judah acknowledged them and said, she is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah. And he did not lie with her again. When the time of her delivery came, there were twins in her womb. And when she was in labor,

one put out a hand, and the midwife took and bound on his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first. But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. And she said, What a breach you have made for yourself. Therefore his name was called Perez. Afterward his brother came out with a scarlet thread upon his hand. His name was called Zerah. Job chapter 29 and 30. Job recalls past happiness. And Job again took up his discourse and said, Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in my autumn days, when the friendship of God was upon me, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me, when my steps were

washed with milk and the rock poured out for me streams of oil, when I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square, the young man saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood. The princes refrained from talking and laid their hands on their mouths. The voices of the noble were hushed, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved, because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless who had none to help him. The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe in a turban. I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and I searched

out the cause of him whom I did not know. I broke the fangs of the unrighteous and made him drop his prey from his teeth. Then I thought I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand, my roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches, my glory fresh with me, and my bow ever new in my hand. Men listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel. After I spoke, they did not speak again and my word dropped upon them. They waited for me as for the rain and they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.

I smiled on them when they had no confidence and the light of my countenance they did not cast down. I chose their way and sat as chief, and I dwelt like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners. But now they make sport of me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone? The want and hard hunger, they gnaw at the dry and desolate ground. They pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of the broom. They are driven out from among men. They shout after them as after the thief. In the gullies of the torrents, they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks. Among the bushes they bray. Under the nettles they huddle together. A senseless, disreputable brood. They have been

whipped out of the land. And now I have become their song. I am a byword to them. They abhor me. They keep aloof from me. They do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me because God has loosed my cord and humbled me. They have cast off restraint in my presence. On my right hand, the rabble rise. They drive me forth. They cast up against me their ways of destruction. They break up my path. They promote my calamity. No one restrains them. As though a wide breach, come, amid the crash they roll on me. Terrors are turned upon me, my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud. And now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me, the night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest. With violence it seizes my garment, it binds me

about like the collar of my tunic. God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust in ashes. I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand, and you do not heed me. You have turned cruel to me. With the might of your hand, you persecute me. You lift me up on the wind, you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm. Yes, I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all the living. Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand

and in his disaster cry for help? Did I not weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? But when I looked for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came. My heart is in turmoil and is never still. Days of affliction come to meet me. I go out blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches. My skin turns black and falls from me and my bones burn with heat. My lyre is turned to mourning and my pipe to the voice of those who weep. Proverbs chapter 3 verses 28 through 32. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again,

tomorrow I will give it, when you have it with you. Do not plan evil against your neighbor who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm. Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways for the perverse man is an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for your word. Thank you for revealing your heart to us and revealing your will to us. We ask that you please meet us this morning, this afternoon, this evening. Meet us at this moment, because in this moment is where we find you, and in this moment is

where you find us. Help us to be found by you, and help us to know your presence in this moment, in this circumstance, in this season of our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So, once again, in the book of Genesis, we have another story where, keyword, brokenness, keyword, messiness, where you have Judah. Remember, Judah is the fourth of the sons of Israel. Judah's name means praise. And so so one of the great things about Judah is

not only that when Israel would go into battle, they'd say, let the tribe of Judah go up first, because Judah means praise. And so that sense of like, when we face our day, this is kind of a little, I think I learned from, again, our friend Jeff Cavins, when we face our day to let Judah go up first, when we face the battles of life to let Judah go up first, which is to say, let praise go up first. We're going to get to that more as we continue to read through this sacred scripture. Today, of course, we heard a very disheartening story, such a broken story from Judah. And what happens is Judah has a couple of sons. The first son marries this woman named Tamar and he dies and she's childless. So the second son is supposed to raise up a child for his brother through his brother's

widow. And he does not, this is Onan. And this is one of the places in which we see a scriptural account for the connection between the sexual act and reproduction. Basically, here is Onan, and he essentially separates the sexual act from the openness to life, where he, as scripture says, spills his seed on the ground. And so it's the sin of Onanism, essentially, would be the sin. Whenever we separate the unitive aspect of the sexual act from the procreative aspect of the sexual act, this is one of the places in scripture that shows the connection between these. Because Onan did this, he did something evil in the sight of the Lord by separating the unitive act from the procreative act. He also did something evil in the sight of the Lord since he was supposed to raise up a son for his deceased brother and his brother's widow.

He doesn't. So Tamar, knowing that Judah is not going to follow through on his promise or his responsibility by giving the youngest son to Tamar to be her husband and raise up a child for her. Knowing that he's not doing this, Tamar takes matters into her own hands and dresses up like a harlot. Here's Judah who stops by and essentially has sexual relations with his son's widow. Again, brokenness, brokenness and brokenness, brokenness upon brokenness. Now, Judah does honor his pledge essentially because Tamar is able to prove that, yep, you did. You thought it was a harlot and it

was your daughter-in-law. Again, key words, brokenness, messiness. And yet, when we read the Gospel of Matthew, when we read the genealogy of Jesus, one of the things that strikes us is that there are four women who are mentioned in the genealogy of our Lord and Savior Jesus. One woman is Bathsheba, who was the wife of Uriah, but David had taken her as his own, so brokenness. One is Ruth, who is a foreigner. She was a Moabite, and yet she's part of the genealogy of Jesus. One is a woman named Rahab, who actually was a prostitute, a harlot. And the first one, the first woman mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus is this woman, Tamar, who is the mother of Perez and Zerah. One of the things that this highlights is

the fact that here is Jesus's own family tree that is marked by brokenness. Tamar, who played the prostitute, and Judah, who was using, at least in his mind, a prostitute, but instead his own daughter-in-law. Rahab, who was a harlot. Ruth, who was not even a child of Israel. And Bathsheba, who was taken from her husband by King David in his sin.

All of this sin in the line, in the family of Jesus, highlights one of the themes that we've been following for the last number of days, and that is that God can write straight with crooked lines, that God can do incredible things when he is the Lord of our lives, that God can actually bring about a phenomenally greater good, even when we choose evil.

What a gift for us to know this. It's not a good thing. It's not a beautiful thing, but God can make something beautiful out of what's broken. That's an encouraging word for us today, and that's an encouraging word for us every single day, particularly when we recognize our brokenness. God can take something broken and make it something beautiful,

because nothing given to God is ever wasted. My friends, my name is Father Mike, and I am so grateful to be able to travel with you through the sacred scripture, through our Lord's words revealed to us. The words of God in the words of men of scripture, as the Second Vatican Council described the holy scriptures. Please pray for each other. We are not on this journey alone. We're not broken alone.

We're not being made beautiful alone, but we are broken together. We are being made beautiful together and we need each other. So please continue to lift each other up in prayer as I lift you up in prayer. And I'm hoping that you're lifting me up in prayer. This is the Bible in a year podcast, and I cannot wait to see you again tomorrow. God bless.