The Introduction to our story

What do we learn from looking at Genealogy? The passage from Matthew in the Roman Catholic Lectionary today is the Genealogy of Jesus Christ. Matthew’s list is an introduction to the Jewish audience for whom he was writing. The pattern of the genealogy is important. The conclusions that Matthew hoped his readers would draw are important. The individuals included (and excluded) from the list are significant. So often we are richer in reading texts when we can add to our understanding some background about the motives and cultural environment of the author. This ‘background’ that illuminates texts can also shine light on our relationships with each other. We ‘read’, ‘understand’ and ‘serve’ each other. In an enlightened way