So in response to my welcome into the RevGalBlogPals, and particularly as an XY chromosome member, I thought I might share one of the sermons from my series on the neglected women of scripture...So I give you...Rahab...

Matthew 1:1-6a
Joshua 2: 1-21

When I was growing up, one of my favorite things to listen to on the radio…and ultimately some of my favorite books to read were Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story.” You know how it worked…Paul would introduce some famous or infamous person, but usually not give their name and then give clues about something surprising or different about that person…and when we learned that, it would be “the rest of the story.”
Today it’s impossible to wait for you to find out “the rest of the story” because L___ already read it just a few minutes ago when she read the beginning of the genealogy of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew…the very first words of the New Testament…and you heard the name of the only three women…other than Mary, mentioned by name in the genealogy…Tamar….Rahab….and Ruth.
These three women are among the most rhetorically abused women in our tradition. And it’s not hard to see why….for to talk about these three women and to really talk about their stories…we have to talk about things that make us uncomfortable….It makes us uncomfortable to talk about Tamar….the daughter in law of Judah—one of the 12 sons of Jacob—who tricks him into sleeping with her and getting her pregnant by masquerading as a temple prostitute, thereby preserving the tribe of Judah, that last tribe to fall to Babylon…
It makes us uncomfortable to talk about Ruth…at least when we tell the whole story…Oh we’re fine with the parts where she shows her devotion to Naomi and travels with her back to the Promised Land, taking care of her…but when we get to Naomi’s instructions for Ruth to seduce Boaz on the threshing floor, and Ruth’s following those instructions….we get truly unsettled.
And then there is Rahab, she of the Jericho brothel…She is Ruth’s mother in law, and King David’s great, great grandmother…and she is a Madam and Prostitute, a liar, a traitor, and a shrewd bargainer…and she makes us uncomfortable…and there is one other tidbit that over the years has made folks uncomfortable…Her name is the name traditionally used in Isaiah and the other prophets to describe Egypt—meaning that she is probably black.
Did you know that of these three great old testament women listed in the genealogy of Jesus, Rahab is mentioned the most in the New Testament…She is actually mentioned the same number of times as Sarah and more than Eve by the writers of the New Testament.
But we are uncomfortable talking about our outlaw grandmother Rahab because she doesn’t look like a Biblical hero…Like Ruth and Tamar, to talk about her honestly means we have to at least peripherally see her as fully human…and a sexual human at that…Since the days of St. Augustine we’ve grown uncomfortable with any sex talk in the Bible…and tried to strap a chastity belt on all our Biblical heroes.
Like the Southern biddies running the wounded soldiers’ hospital in Gone With the Wind, we’d rather not accept the contribution of the notorious Belle Watling…that kind of woman…not seeing the good that can come from Belle’s money and Rahab’s story…
And in so doing we’ve lost a great chronicle …for hers is one of the greatest stories of faith in all of scripture…
As a prostitute, even in that culture, she is on the fringes of society…literally at the outer edge of the city…Likely shunned by her family and making her way alone…As a citizen of Jericho, she is a follower of their city gods…her attendance at the temples built by the king is required…her tithes are in many ways just another tax..and yet she has heard about these Hebrews…the nomads that are city-kingdom by city-kingdom conquering the land that is now present day Israel…. She has heard the stories and she has experienced the dawning of belief…
And then on that fateful day the two spies sent by Joshua take a walk on the wild side and slip into her place in the heart of the red-light district…perhaps they thought is was a good place to hear secrets…perhaps they sought to overhear bragging soldiers or politicians trying to impress one of Rahab’s companions-for-hire…or perhaps they were just seeking companionship for themselves…we don’t know…What we do know is that everybody in town saw them…their cover is blown and when he hears, the King wants to eliminate these spies….it’s practically a 1940’s potboiler movie….
But then Rahab acts…and she makes important choices rising out of her new faith…her new belief in this strange God who has delivered the Hebrews…She chooses to preserve life over honesty---cleverly misleading the king’s soldiers and hiding the spies on the roof…She chooses to protect and preserve her family…even though it is likely that that same family has distanced itself from her due to her chosen profession…She chooses loyalty to God over loyalty to the powers that be…becoming a traitor to her people and her king… She chooses to risk her own safety…indeed her own life…to protect these strangers…and to assist them in changing the world as she knows it…
Rahab will be saved and so will all her family…Joshua will keep his word…and the red cord will be what saves her….just like the red blood the Hebrews placed on their doorways way back in Egypt in the final plague….
The outlaw grandmother will become the symbol of faith that the New Testament writers will turn to time and again to speak of faith in action….
The blood of Rahab flows through us today…just as King David and Jesus were her children…so we are too….Her inheritance for us is not only faith…it is her choices….
We see those choices echoed in her grandchild Christ…who acts to preserve life even if it means defying what all understand is the truth about life and death…who chooses loyalty to God over loyalty to the powers that be…in the temple or in the seats of political power….who risks his own safety…and indeed his very existence, to protect a world of strangers and to give them…us…life….
Rahab’s faith caused her to make choices…choices that meant a radical hospitality…a radical testimony to the delivering and saving power of God…a radical subversive commitment to preserving life….
We say we are people of faith…and indeed we are…but how are we challenged today….how does Rahab’s story break down barriers for us….about who God calls to faith….about what our faith means in the choices we make….
Our gracious loving Lord awaits our response….and our gracious outlaw grandmother Rahab stands at the window holding the red cord in her hand…and she reminds us…Our Joshua…our Jesus will keep his word and protect us….So what will our choices be…that will be the rest of our story.