Joshua 2 (NRSV) Moses has led the Israelites out of Egypt and they've wandered the desert for 40 years. Moses has died and Joshua, son of Nun, is charged with bringing the people into the "Promised Land." So all of this tribe of how ever many thousand is across the river ready to attack the city. That's how it's done, by the way- the Israelites take the land God promised them through violence- I know it's not the best image to start a sermon, especially in a time when conquering is sot of frowned upon by politically correct folk who remember the genocide of Native Americans and the like and get queasy thinking about how horrible our ancestors were to kill all those people. But honestly- that's how claiming land for oneself is done. Anyway, this is Joshua's first assignment as the leader, and like any good leader, he wants to know the situation hes walking into before he gets there. They have sent word to the inhabitants of the city giving the people the option to evacuate, surrender, or be killed. So Joshua wants to see how this news is being received within the walls of the city. That's where our scripture picks up, and where we first get to meet, Rahab- or as she willl be later known, Rahab, the Harlot!
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. And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.” She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.
Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roofand 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. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea[a] before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, 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 faiththat you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” 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.” Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. She said to them, “Go toward the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterward you may go your way.” The men said to her, “We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you 18 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. 19 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. 20 But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.” 21 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. 22 They departed and went into the hill country and stayed there three days, until the pursuers returned. The pursuers had searched all along the way and found nothing. 23 Then the two men came down again from the hill country. They crossed over, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that had happened to them. 24 They said to Joshua, “Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.”
I know, It's a long story. Rahab is remembered as a hero- Rahab the Harlot. There isn't much else in scripture about Rahab that we can point to, we only have what is told through oral tradition, or midrash- interpretations and stories by the rabbis handed down in the Jewish tradition. It is said that Rahab was beautiful- actually one of four women named by midrash as the most beautiful in history- so beautiful that all a man had to do was to say her name twice, "Rahab, Rahab," and they would immediately have a seminal emission. (I got nothin...)
However, one of the rabbis write-R. Judah says: “She had four disgraceful names. She was called Rahab the harlot… for she would whore with the men from inside the city and with the brigands from outside, as it says (Josh 2:15), “for her home was in the city wall, and she dwelt upon the wall.” Tradition holds that Rahab when meeting the spies, she had been a prostitute for 40 years. She was 50 years old. That means someone had gotten her involved in sex work at 10 years old. 10!
Aside from being a horrible thing, why is it worth mentioning? Because at 10, whether someone told her, convinced her, manipulated her, or forced her, at 0 she learned that this was what she was the way she would get by in the world- whoring, or prostitution, would define her for at least the next 40 years, and into eternity.
So It makes me wonder, what messages have we learned early on that we have been carrying around with us- messages about ourselves given to us by others, or perhaps others convinced us of, or manipulated us by, or forced us into...
I spoke to a friend yesterday who told me that after years of therapy, she uncovered an incident in the third grade where a boy came up to her and told her she was fat. She went home and cried and did all the normal things a little girl does when her self image doesn't meet what the world tells her. She said, "I believe it was then that I began to believe that I was unworthy of love, and I've carried that all of my life. I'm not sure how to let it go."
And It's not just insults that we can carry, is it? We learn all sorts of 'truths' about ourselves that tell us who we are, what we're good at, what we 'can't' do, and what we deserve, or our place, because of them.
Rahab had spent a lifetime living out those truths. She had learned, not just that "sex worker" or "whore" would be who she was, but she lived out everything that came with that identity. The text says she lived not near the city wall, but actually in it. So not metaphorically marginalized, she truly lived on the boundary of society. Notice too, that what defined her didn't stop her from having a family- her mother, father, brothers, sisters, all named as being safe through Rehab's deal with the spies... how did that work? We don't know how her family felt about her prostitution, but we know from modern families that sometimes our family of origin can serve to affirm rather than contradict what the world tells us we are. Sometimes are family of origin is the place where we receive faulty identity messages, isn't it?
And I spend time on this today because many times what we carry with us about who we are can hinder our journey toward who God calls us to be. And then when God calls us to do anything, even accept who we are in Christ, we quickly default to those identities that the world has given us- and so our answer begins with a "but." I would but... I'm fat, I'm clumsy, I'm stupid, indecisive, sinful, just a woman, black, gay, trans, poor, rich, responsible, self-sufficient, old, flighty, the list goes on and on... and notice, by the worlds standards, some of the things on that list are thought of as positives- so it doesn't always have to be a negative truth we learn about ourselves that we let define us. But all of those things can keep us from living out who we are in Christ.
But here's the thing- underneath those truths we've carried all these years, that we cling to or run to or hide behind, is an even bigger truth- Rahab, despite what she had been told, or forced into, despite what she had been living out for 40 years, heard that truth and listened, and acted. This is the truth that said that the God in her was stronger than any truth she had lived into. That despite her identity both to herself and to the community, God was working through her to bring about something spectacular- and if she believed, she could, despite how she saw herself or how the world saw her, participate in that movement.
So she did- she risked her own life and the lives of her family for that belief, and she hung the crimson cord out the window as sign of faith in what was to come. She took a bold courageous step toward becoming who God said she was- and as a result, we hear of her next in the genealogy of the line of Jesus. Do you think it's an coincidence? Or does God truly see past who we think we are, the behaviors we qualify as dismissing us from being used by God, or not worthy and use even those parts of us to bring about something spectacular!