“Rahab the prostitute?”: wait a minute, did I hear that correctly? If we didn’t know the story, we might wonder whether our second reading is “burying the Lede.” That’s when the most important fact in a story is buried in a host of other details, so that it won’t be noticed. We get to the end of the sentence and we say, “You mean she was a prostitute?”
You remember the story, from the Old Testament: the People of Israel have escaped from Egypt, wandered in the desert for forty years, and now are about to enter the promised land of Canaan. Moses has died and now Joshua is their leader. He sends messengers into the land in order to spy out what’s ahead. Joshua has the city of Jericho in view: he wants to know the city’s vulnerabilities. “Be strong and courageous,” God tells Joshua, “for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them” (Jos. 1:6).
Here’s where Rahab comes in. The spies enter the city, and find lodging with Rahab, but the king is expecting them and asks her to turn them over. Rahab hides the spies, and tells the king they have already left to return home. Then she makes a deal with them. If they promise not to destroy her family when they take the city, she will continue to conceal them and make sure they return safely. “Our life for yours!,” the men say, “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” (Jos. 2:14). It’s quite a story.
In our reading, Rahab is held up as an example of hospitality, for the welcome she extends to Joshua’s spies. She takes action, to preserve her family, and her faithful work makes her (along with Abraham) an example of righteousness. For the apostle James, Rahab’s action stands as a proof that God justifies, not by faith alone, but by faithful works. “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith” (Jas. 2:18), as James says earlier in the letter.
Rahab also gets a second mention in the Letter to the Hebrews, but for a different reason. “By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace” (Heb. 11:31). For the writer of Hebrews, Rahab is an example not of works but of faith itself: the other side of the coin from our reading today! Once again, Rahab is celebrated for having hidden the spies, but here it shows her exemplary faith. In Hebrews, she has a prominent place among many other examples of faith, including Moses and Abraham himself. Like them, she put her trust in God, by trusting the spies to deliver on their promise.
The contrasting emphases show that when it comes to faith and works, it is faithful action that matters. Not just good works for their own sake, but faithful action that is rooted in our confidence in God. Rahab caught the imagination of the early Christians because she prepared the way for God to act, in bringing the People into the promised land. Our faithful action is always the precursor for God to act, to show that he is mighty to save. We don’t deliver ourselves by our works, but God delivers us, because he is the source of our hope in Christ Jesus.
Now it’s funny that we should mention Jesus at this point (if we can say that Jesus’ appearance in a sermon can be funny!), because he’s the reason that Rahab gets her third and last mention in the New Testament. If you search out Jesus’ genealogy at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, you’ll find Rahab mentioned as one of Jesus’ ancestors. Here’s where we dig up the Lede: because having a gentile prostitute as a forebear is an extraordinary claim for the early Christians to make on behalf of Jesus the Messiah.
St. Paul wrote in First Corinthians that “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are” (1 Cor. 1:28). He “chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27). God’s choice of Rahab to be the ancestor of the Messiah is in keeping with this pattern, of choosing the humble and despised to be the instruments of salvation. And it’s in keeping with Jesus’ own cross and its shame, which became the instrument of new life and resurrection.
The blessed Virgin Mary is Rahab’s true successor. Here, as in the story of Rahab, Jesus’ birth comes about as a witness to Mary and Joseph’s willingness to trust in God, to expect the unexpected; to act faithfully while waiting for God to act. “Be it unto me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38) is a testament to Mary’s willingness to trust in God, and take an enormous risk, even as she acted faithfully. Rahab was Mary’s spiritual sister, and Jesus’ forebear in the faith. Even Jesus’ own name, a Greek form of Joshua (remember him?), reflects the Rahab story.
Daughters of the King: you too stand in this spiritual lineage! You too are called to faithful works, especially the faithful work of prayer. You are witnessing to the power of God, and to the mighty works that God will do. When it comes to our vocation as Christians, Rahab is our spiritual sister, reminding us of what God can do, and how we can prepare the way.
