Your Family

The Rev. Joseph Winston

December 23, 2007

Sermon

Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.1
What does a name say about a person? Does it really tell us something about
their future? These are but a few of the many questions answered in the widely
successful nonfictional publication commonly called Freakonomics. The book,
written in 2005 by Steven D. Levitt who teaches economics at the University of
Chicago and New York Times’ journalist Stephen J. Dubner, uses the tools of
cause and effect to see what the data really tells us about a specific subject.
The issue of the influence of a person’s name comes up in the final chapter of
Freakonomics. Here the authors recount the tail of two brothers named “Winner”
and “Looser.”2 In 1958, a father living in New York City decided to name one
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3
2
The details found in the following paragraph are from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner,
A Roshanda by Any Other Name: How do babies with super-black names fare? (http://www.
slate.com/id/2116449/, April 2005).

1
of his son’s Winner because he felt like this child had a true future before him.
Three years later, the family was blessed with another son. For whatever reason,
his father named this child Looser. Did these descriptive names of “Winner” and
“Looser” given by the same father really tell us about the future of these two
children born from the same mother? In a word no. The younger child was not a
“looser” in any sense of the word. He went on scholarship to a private high school,
graduated from college, and became a sergeant in the New York City. His older
brother never lived up to his name unless you consider a criminal record with over
thirty arrests an indication of winning something.
The story about the two men named Winner and Looser does not provide us
with enough information to truly answer the question on how much a name tells
us about an individual’s future. This lack of hard data caused Steven Levitt to join
forces with a Harvard scholar named Roland G. Fryer, Jr.3 These two researchers
turned their attention to a California database that holds the birth records of all
children born in the state since 1961. This gold mine of data along with other
publicly available records showed the authors the real factors that affect a child’s
future. The name of a person, no matter how crazy it might be, does not provide
us with any information about what lies ahead for an individual. The only reliable
way to see a person’s prospects is to look at the child’s family.
It is nice to see that countless hours of time put in by a large number of re-
searchers along with an untold amount of funding from various sources comes
3
The details found in the following paragraph are from Levitt and Dubner, ‘A Roshanda by
Any Other Name’.

2
to the exact same conclusion found in today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew. Your
family matters. Your background that is composed of your parents, your grandpar-
ents, your great-grandparents, and their parents before them has placed an indeli-
ble mark on you. That is why the author of Matthew included what we commonly
call a genealogy at the start of the Gospel. The function of this list of men and
women who shaped both Joseph and Jesus would be better understood if we used
the Greek name “genesis” that appears in the text because this family formed that
background for Christ’s life.4
There are famous individuals in this list that makes up the people of Israel:
Abraham the father of the faith, his famous children Isaac and Jacob, and two
kings named David and Solomon. There are also less desirable people present
also: Jacob who lied and cheated both his brother and father, Judah who sug-
gested that his brother Joseph be sold into slavery, the same Judah who refused to
follow the law and give Tamar a new husband after two of his sons died while they
were Tamar’s husbands, Tamar who then prostituted herself with her father-in-law
Judah, the foreigner Ruth, and King David who murdered a man so that he could
have the dead man’s wife.
As told to us by the research funded by Harvard and the University of Chicago,
a person’s family is an extremely important indicator of the child’s future because
the family literally sets the context in which the child is raised. For all of us this
means that we have to deal with the good and the evil found in our families. In
4
The RSV states “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abra-
ham.” while the Greek reads, “Βίβλος γενέσεως ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, υἱοῦ Δαυῒδ υἱοῦ ᾿Αβραάμ.”
Library (book) of genesis of Jesus Chrst, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

3
some way or another, everyone’s past is tainted. You might not have a relative like
King David that sanctioned state supported murder, but more than likely, someone
in your past stepped a bit outside of the law. The other side of the coin also applies
to everyone. Maybe none of your ancestors were great people of faith like Abra-
ham but that never stopped your parents. They loved you, they took care of you,
and they brought you to worship. It was not any different for Jesus. He could be
extremely proud of the faith of Abraham while being embarrassed of the actions
of others. His parents also ensured that He was raised in the faith but Mary and
Joseph had their doubts just like the rest of us.
Freakonomics tells us another important fact about children and their parents.
Your family only sets your starting point in life. You are free to move up and down.
We saw this clearly in the story about Winner and Looser. They both began in the
same family with minimal differences between the two boys. After this similarity,
they quickly moved onto two radically different paths. Winner decided that the
quickest way to success was through a life of violence. This life only brought
him failure. Looser felt that hard work would reward him. He studied hard and
found success both in school and in the workplace. Jesus’ life follows these same
patterns. At any time, He could have decided that deception, sexual intrigue, and
murder would have been better ways to advance God’s kingdom. After all, this is
his family’s stock and trade. But that is not what Jesus decided to do. Instead, He
lived all of His life in accordance with His names given to Him by the angel of the
Lord and by Scriptures.
At the end of today’s lesson, the narrator informs us, “he named him Jesus”

4
(Matthew 1:25b). By this simple action, Joseph adopted the Messiah into his fam-
ily. This welcoming of the Christ into Joseph’s family was not easy for either
party. It is very clear from this text, which we heard today, that Joseph realized
he was not the father of the Child. Legally, Joseph could have walked away from
his engagement without any repercussions. Joseph decided not to leave Mary and
for the rest of his life he bore the full financial and emotional costs of raising Je-
sus.5 The other person involved in this transaction is God. While price paid by
Joseph was huge, the sacrifice undertaken by Jesus when He entered this family
is enormous. The creator of the universe who called worlds into motion by His
Word now has to obey His parents (Romans 15:8; Philippians 2:8). The One who
gave the entire world its riches found both in the beauty of nature and in its physi-
cal resources now has to deal with the reality of living inside of a fixed budget (II
Corinthians 8:9). Most surprising of all, when Jesus became a member of Joseph’s
family, He took every accusation levied against not only Joseph’s family but also
all of humanity and paid them fully (Galatians 3:13).
Unfortunately, most of the Christian world did not hear the importance of fam-
ily today. The editors of the Revised Common Lectionary decided to leave out the
entire genesis of Jesus. In doing so, they deny the human situation that Jesus freely
took for our salvation.
The editors of our Lectionary that we read every Sunday are not the only ones
who continue to reject Jesus as a brother. People like you and I do this all the
5
Apparently, others knew the same story because they torment Jesus about His Father (John
8:41b).

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time. We cannot believe that Jesus lived with the same conditions that we find
ourselves in. But He did. Jesus had to live with family members that did not listen
to Him. So, do we. Christ’s family had good and bad attributes. So, do ours. Joseph
sacrificed for His Son. We also give up many things for our children.
In the final chapter of Freakonomics where the authors discuss the questions
regarding names, they continually remind the readers that our names just indicate
our starting point in life. Where we finally end up is a matter of what we do with
what has been given us.
Christians would agree on both points. In baptism, Jesus has given each of
us a new life by making us children of God. This gift from God puts us on a
new ground and it is from here that we live our lives. What makes us Lutherans
extremely nervous in this analogy of comparing our life in Christ with the work
from Freakonomics is the idea of changing our final station in life. To completely
remove this concern, two facts need to be stated. First, a child never decides to be
born. God selected us to be included into the family. At the most, we can try to run
away but no matter how far we go we will always carry the cross of Christ on our
foreheads. Secondly, as family members our inheritance is always assured. God
has already accepted us and has made a place for us in His house. Our work here
on earth is not meant in any way as a payment for that room instead our efforts
are to help others live comfortably.
Freakonomics is right. What a name says about a person really depends on
your family history. Your name that you have been given in baptism is special
because it tells others both your history and your future. As children of the risen

6
Lord, you are called Christian and you will live with your heavenly Father along
with people of every tribe and race forever.
The Good News does not end here. The account that we heard our in lesson
for the day continues even today because Christ continually does what his father
did for Him. He invites us into the family. Welcome home!
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”6

References

Levitt, Steven D. and Dubner, Stephen J., A Roshanda by Any Other Name: How
do babies with super-black names fare? (http://www.slate.com/
id/2116449/, April 2005).

6
Philippians 4:7.