God writes straight with crooked lines. We know that expression, though we rarely apply it to sacred history or the birth of Jesus. Fr. Rolheiser writes that we should. Matthew, in a text we like to ignore, traces the lineage of Jesus from Abraham to Mary. What Matthew reveals in his list of people begetting other people is, as Fr. Raymond Brown highlights, quite a checkered story. Jesus’ family tree contains as many sinners as saints, and his origins take their roots too in the crooked lines written by liars, betrayers, adulterers, and murderers. Jesus was pure, but his origins were not. Matthew begins his story of the origins of Jesus with Abraham, who fathers Isaac and then sends his other son, Ishmael, and his mother packing off into the desert to be rid of them. Then Jacob steals his older brother’s blessing from Isaac. Matthew lists the names of fourteen kings who are part of the genetic origins of Jesus. Of those fourteen, only two, Hezekiah and Josiah, were considered faithful to God as judged by the Book of Kings. The rest, in Brown’s words, were “adulterers, murderers, incompetents, power-seekers, and harem-wastrels.” Then there is the question of which women are named as significant in Jesus’ lineage. Instead of naming Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, Matthew names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba before finally naming Mary as Jesus’ mother. Each of these women had marital issues that contained elements of irregularity or scandal, and yet each was able to be an instrument in God’s birth on this planet. Matthew highlights their names to set the stage for Mary, whose pregnancy is also irregular since Jesus had no human father. The God who wrote the beginning with crooked lines also writes the sequence with crooked lines; some of those lines are our own lives and witness. Grace is pure, but we who mediate it often aren’t. Still, God’s love and God’s plan aren’t derailed by our infidelities, sin, and scheming. God’s designs for grace still somehow work. One wonders, too, how many people find this story comforting rather than discomforting, given a strong ecclesial ethos today wherein many of us nurse the fear that we are handing out grace and mercy too cheaply. But grace and mercy are never given out cheaply since love is never merited.