Matthew's Christmas story begins with the names of a bunch of dead people. Ray Bakke calls it a "graveyard tour." While we might find this approach boring, Matthew's Jewish audience would probably not be snoozing through this family tree. In the first century a genealogy established a person's heritage, inheritance, legitimacy and rights and therefore was attention grabbing. But Matthew creates a very unorthodox genealogy for the Messiah, "the son of David, the son of Abraham"!
The big surprise in the first few verses of Matthew's gospel is the presence of five women (Mary plus four). This was not standard procedure for male-oriented Jewish culture.
But Matthew doesn't stop there. He wants to increase the shock value of his genealogy, so some of these women are non-Jews. Rahab and Ruth were definitely Gentiles, and possibly Tamar. (In this light it is interesting to note that Matthew begins and ends his gospel with the nations.)
As if that wasn't enough, Matthew includes women with questionable character. Tamar purposely had sex with her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was from Moab, a people who were shunned and hated by Israel. Bathsheba was part of King David's sin story. (Before you jump to conclusions about Matthew's view of women, check out some of the despicable men in his list.)
This messy genealogy is Matthew's way of saying "the Word became flesh and lived among us." God became part of our dysfunctional world, right down to his Son's scandalous family tree. And if God admits this kind of ambiguity in the story of salvation, maybe there's room for messed up people like me.
