4*
Wednesday 4 December
‘The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.’
By Jenny Harris
Joshua 2.1-4, 8-9, 11-12, 14, 17 -21
Rahab, woman of Jericho. Unmarried. A sex worker, possibly an innkeeper. Rahab, who sees the writing on the wall and does what is necessary to save her family from the fate of civilians in the way of an unstoppable war machine. Rahab, who represents all kinds of threats to the purity of God’s people: a sex worker, a foreigner, an idolater. Rahab, who hears miraculous stories, and apprehends, all at once, the real truth of the God of the Universe. Rahab, who calls God by name. Rahab, who negotiates a deal.
In the earliest Christian writings, Rahab appears. She is co-opted on both sides into that ongoing debate as to whether ‘faith’ or ‘works’ is more important for followers of Jesus. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says ‘By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.’ (11.13) The epistle of James, also written for a primarily Jewish-Christian audience, has ‘Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road?’ (2.25)
Rahab’s statement of faith is remarkable. Twice she refers to God by name, invoking the Tetragrammaton. Rahab recognises that to know the God of Israel to be the God of the Universe is necessarily going to require recalibration of her priorities. Faith and works. Words and actions. Recognition and response.
A version of this story exists where Rahab, a sex worker, living on the margins of the city, has a unique insight into the corruption and evil of all its institutions, the systems of harm and oppression that keep it going, and chooses to blow a whistle in a truly extreme way. Sometimes change can only come from the outside in. Sometimes trusting in God and letting go of everything else is the only option.
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Joshua 2.1-4, 8-9, 11-12, 14, 17 -21
Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, ‘Go, view the land, especially Jericho.’ So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there.
The king of Jericho was told, ‘Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.’
Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, ‘Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come only to search out the whole land.’
But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, ‘True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from.
Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. As soon as we heard it, our hearts failed, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith’.
The men said to her, ‘Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.’
The men said to her, ‘We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down, and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family. If any of you go out of the doors of your house into the street, they shall be responsible for their own death, and we shall be innocent; but if a hand is laid upon any who are with you in the house, we shall bear the responsibility for their death. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.’
She said, ‘According to your words, so be it.’ She sent them away and they departed. Then she tied the crimson cord in the window.