Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 27, 2022
First Sunday in Advent
Scripture Reading: Genesis 38:1-30
(Note: this Advent, we are exploring the stories from Jesus’s family tree recounted in Matthew 1:1-17 – specifically the stories of the 5 women who are named there. Each week, one woman is going to visit us, share her story, and offer a blessing to the newborn child.)
At one point, long before my story was over, it felt like it was over.
My name is Tamar. Your book doesn’t record anything about my life before I was married to Er, but please believe me when I say that it was a happy one. I was the firstborn child of my mother, but I don’t remember a time when I was her only child. I spent my time helping her with my younger brothers and sisters. She used to tell me that I needed to get lots of practice now, because some day I would have my own children to look after!
I used to bring them with me when I went to fetch water from the well. I used to tell them stories about El, the God of our people. Sometimes I had to chase a snake away from them, but sometimes we would watch the birds as they hopped from tree to tree.
Then the day came when my parents told me that I was old enough – it was time for me to be married and have a family of my own. They had arranged for me to be married to Er, the son of Judah and the grandson of Jacob.
There was much celebration that day. I had been the first-born child of my parents, and now I was the first child to leave their tents. I remember feasting and music and dancing, and palm wine. I remember meeting my new husband and feeling shy, and a bit afraid, and yet full of dreams for what our future might hold. The family I had grown up in had been a happy one, and I knew that ours would be too.
But it wasn’t to be. We had only been married for a couple of months when Er died. People said that he must have done something wrong, for God to have taken him so suddenly, but I don’t think that this could be true. He was a good man, and he was always kind to me. But we had barely had a chance to get to know each other, so while I went through the motions of mourning, I didn’t really feel deep sadness at his loss.
Our people believe in caring for widows, and so according to our practice, when the period of mourning was over, rather than being thrown from the tents of my in-laws, I was married to Er’s brother Onan. There was less celebration this time – this marriage was a duty. Onan was to keep me safe, and in exchange I was to provide children so that their family could continue.
But again, it wasn’t to be. No children were to be had, and before a year had passed, Onan died too. I was now a double-widow. People started to whisper that I was bad luck, having lost two husbands. I saw Judah and his wife, Bat Shu’a, start to look at me a little bit sideways. People were afraid to talk to me.
When my second period of mourning was over, rather than marrying me to their third son, Shelah, Judah and Bat Shu’a told me that he was too young to be married, and they sent me back to my parents’ tent to wait.
And I waited. Being in my parents’ tent wasn’t the same as it had been before I was married. My help wasn’t needed with the children any more, as they were all old enough to watch themselves. My sisters who were closest to me in age had been married and were looking after families of their own. I had nothing to fill my days but to sit in my widow’s clothes, and wait, and feel the disappointment of my family wrapped around me.
And I waited. Bat Shu’a died, but still Judah didn’t send for me to marry Shelah. I waited, and eventually I realized that he was never going to send for me. Shelah was grown up and old enough to be married, but Judah was so afraid of losing him, the way he had lost Er and Onan, that he was never going to send for me.
I was still young, but it felt like my life was over. I was going to have to spend the rest of my years wrapped in my widow’s clothes sitting in my parents’ tent. No husband. No family of my own. This was to be the end of my story.
But then one day, I remembered the stories of El, the God of our people, that I used to tell to my siblings. I remembered the story of the rainbow which promised Noah that the end was never the end. I remembered the story of Sarah who had born a child decades after it should have been possible. And I remembered that with El, the ending is never really the ending.
And so I did what I needed to do. I exchanged my widow’s robes for coloured robes with a veil over my face. I sat by the road where I knew Judah was going to pass, but I didn’t tell him who I was. He thought that I was selling my body, and I didn’t dissuade him. I let him lie with me, and when I returned to my parents’ tent, I discovered that at last I carried a child within my body.
When Judah heard that his widowed daughter-in-law was pregnant, he was scandalized. He said that I must be stoned to death, as is the punishment for adulterers. He didn’t want me to marry his son, but now it seemed that he didn’t want me to marry anyone.
But I am craftier than he is. You see, when he lay with me, he had given me his ring; and when I was called before him, I was able to show him his own ring, and then he knew that this was his child. And then he realized that he had done me wrong.
When it was time for my baby to be born, I learned that there were two of them within me, twins, and I named them Perez and Zerah; and they grew up and had families of their own, and then I was a grandmother. And the generations passed, until you were born, sweet baby, a descendent of Perez, and a child who carries my blood in you.
And I offer you the blessing of hope, sweet one. As you go through your life, know that the ending is never the ending. Even when it seems as though death and despair are all that you will ever know, I give you the blessing of hope so that you can know that new life awaits you on the other side. May the hope that helped me in my life, guide your heart through yours. May El, the God of our people, make it so. Amen.
dispelling the gloom.
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