BREACH
A breach of contract happens when one party doesn’t keep
their part of the deal. By law, Judah
owed his daughter-in-law a husband and a son.
His failure to find her a husband was a breach.
Her solution (seducing him and conceiving his son) was
another kind of breach. Tamar's act is a breach in patriarchy that silences women.
Scripture is full of those breaches.
It’s true that much of the Old Testament is disturbing
stories of violence and oppression against women and other marginalized
people. The Old Testament reflects the
world in which it was written.
But what I find amazing are the cracks, the breaches in that world that many of the stories reveal.
The story of Tamar outwitting her father-in-law is a breach. Rahab the prostitute that saves herself and
her family is a breach.
Ruth, the story
of two women who find a way to survive in a man’s world is a breach.
The inclusion of these women in the genealogy
of Jesus is a sign that the kingdom of God that Jesus brings is going to rip
that breach even further.
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