Hagar

Well I told you last week that this text was going to be hard and I wasn’t lying. But before we dive head first into the inequalities of this text I thought I would pick on my own calling and our church for a moment. At the 45th and 50th celebration of the ordination of women there were studies conducted to see how we as a church are doing with gender and racial equality when it comes to our clergy. Unfortunately overall, the church isn’t doing it’s best when it comes to these statistics. In the 2020 study it showed that the average first call female pastor earns 7% less than the average male pastor which is sadly up from the 4% it was at in the 2015 study, while the average compensation for women beyond first call stays at a steady 9% less than their male counterparts.

We also see that women tend to be overrepresented in areas of Social Service agencies as associate pastors. Female clergy do make up about 46% of our bishops across the church which is above the average because they only make up 40% of all clergy. Women, however, are under-represented in these areas: college, university, or seminary professors at 34%, solo pastors at 38%, and senior pastors at 22%. Women who do serve as a congregation pastor are for more likely to serve in small congregations for those who are solo pastors. However, not all is bad news because even though women as senior pastors is only at 22% it is up from 16% in 2015, women as bishops rose from 15% in 2015 to the 46% I just mentioned and there are increases in other areas as well but these are the most significant in my opinion. The report covers much more including race as I mentioned, wait time for calls, etc. but I wanted us to focus in on the inequalities we see in female clergy in our own church despite the fact that it has been over 50 years since they have been serving the church in the role of a minister of word and sacrament.

I’m sorry if all those numbers were hard to crunch, but when we look at the inequalities of our own church and how it is still a patriarchal society and church, then I think it helps us to better grapple with the inequalities that are happening in our text today. I’m going to draw some of those inequalities out for us because they may not be apparent when we read it. The first and probably the one that plays into everything else we’ll talk about is this idea of Levirate marriage. We are probably most aware of this from the Sadducees that come up and talk to Jesus about the woman who marries all seven brothers because each one dies. This was the practice. A woman marries the eldest son and if the son dies and the younger son or sons are not married they are to take the woman as their wife. And not just that but the children born will be the children not of the biological father but of the firstborn son so that the promise and family can be carried on through that eldest child. Part of the idea behind this also is to be fruitful and multiply like God commanded.

So that is what is happening to Tamar by marrying Er and then Onan and then being promised to Shelah when he is old enough. Neither brother has produced a firstborn heir for Er and so Shelah should be the next in line to carry out this Levirate marriage practice. The problem is that Judah doesn’t fulfill this practice by giving her to Shelah when he is old enough, and continues to essentially keep Tamar in exile. Tamar is unable to live a real life. She is forced to live in her father’s house and be a professional widow. She is supposed to bear a child for her deceased husband Er, but she can’t. She is supposed to be fruitful and multiply but she can’t. Why? Because Judah will not fulfill is duty as father and patriarch.

In order for Tamar to fulfill her societal and familial obligation to her new family she takes some drastic steps. She not only shows just how wrong Judah was in what he was doing, but by conceiving twins through him she has done what she was expected to do, and she did it by herself. The patriarchal society that was in place and that was meant to uphold and live by these standards had failed her. These standards were also meant to protect her so that she had a husband to provide for her. Judah didn’t allow for this to happen either. As far as he was concerned she was going to live the rest of her days a widow with no future living in her father’s house. Tamar alone made sure that she had children for Er and that she fulfilled the covenant to be fruitful and multiply.

Then when Judah finds out she’s pregnant he even goes outside what should be practiced. The punishment for adultery was death and was typically done by stoning, so Judah demanding that she be burned out of anger for what she did is also an extreme reaction. Admittedly, she dies either way, but the idea of burning, according to an article by Shaul Bar and the Word Biblical Commentary, was an extreme measure. The only case for burning in the Bible was that of a priests daughter who was promiscuous and Shaul concludes his article by saying that burning was meant to completely remove the person from both existence and memory so that nothing would remain. Despite Judah effectively already removing her from memory and refusing to fulfill his duties, he cannot put up with her behavior as a female widow, while also outright ignoring his own behavior regardless of the fact that at this point he has no idea it was her all along.

It is not until Judah sees his seal, cord, and staff that he realizes that he was completely in the wrong. He has been caught in his own hypocrisy, he has been caught in his failure as a father-in-law, he has failed to live up to his societal obligations and his covenantal promises with God and people. It is by Tamar’s cunning and drastic measures that she is not shamed, but in fact called righteous by Judah. Think of other people called righteous in the Bible, like Noah. It is her dedication to her family and the covenant promise that saves her from a patriarchal society that has failed her. It is through that dedication that she is not only not put to death, but she is called righteous.

And to close us out today with the story of the woman of faith: Tamar, I would like to give us some perspective as to how important Tamar’s unconventional tactics are. I mentioned Tamar conceived and bore twins for Judah. They replace the two sons he lost, but they are so much more than just replacements for Judah’s lost sons. The younger son, Peres becomes the head of the Judahite clan in Israel which is the clan from which Boaz came. In a few weeks we’ll take a look at the story of another woman of faith, Ruth, who marries Boaz. Ruth 4:12 says,“And may your household be like the household of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah—through the children that the Lord will give you from this young woman.”” So not only are they upheld in Ruth and Boaz’s marriage, but Boaz was the ancestor of King David who was the forefather of the one we call Jesus the Christ.

Had Tamar not fought against the ways the men in her life had unfairly used their patriarchal privilege against her and against what was meant to protect her, the line that led to David and Jesus would not have begun. Yet, in the mess of it all, God worked through Tamar to bring about and secure the future of both Israel and the whole world, by sending us Jesus God’s one and only son to be the savior of the world. So today we give thanks for this strong woman of faith and her tenacity to bring about justice in her life and thus for all generations to come after her. Amen.