I once heard of someone who, when going through a door in public, would glance behind themself.  If someone were near, they would pause to hold the door open.  This is a good practice.  The issue arose, however, of people for whom the door was held not acknowledging that the door had been held open for them.  If no word of thanks or any other acknowledgement was given, this person would say something like “I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘Thank-you.’”

I’m not advocating this.  It does speak, however, to something within us that seems to know that it is right and good to acknowledge an act of kindness or an act of mercy, if you like, no matter how seemingly small.  We get this.  If you drive, you know we like to get the “wave of thanks” when we let someone merge.  We like to give the wave of thanks or the hazard light flash of thanks when someone lets us merge.

This morning’s story is about the first contact with people in the land of promise on the part of the Israelites.  In our story, we hear a proclamation of who God is and a demonstration of mercy.  Throughout these weeks of late summer and fall, we’re looking at the story in Joshua of the people of Israel entering the land of promise.  We’re asking that question: “What does it look like to live in the land of promise?”  Last week, we talked about trust in God looking like something.  We talked about this new stage in redemptive history where the people of God are going from wilderness wandering - knowing God’s presence and protection and provision – to settling in land that had been promised.  We’re going to look at the crossing of the Jordan River next week, and I know we often use the image of crossing the Jordan to signify coming to the end of our earthly journey, don’t we?  Particularly in song.  In the Biblical story, settling in this land carried with it whole-life ethical implications – to live dependent on and responsive to God’s grace. 

In describing the story of Rahab, Jerome Creach has the following to say – “Joshua 2 is one of the richest and most intricately woven narratives in the book.  It employs humor and folkloric qualities to create an irresistible plot in which a prostitute outsmarts two groups of men in order to preserve herself and her family during the Israelite attack on Jericho.  The narrative has suspense… and an underdog who triumphs – everything a modern audience expects in a great story!”  It’s true, isn’t it?  It’s a story featuring spycraft, a manhunt, a cover-up, escape and evasion, and a secret signal.  Will the spies make it?  Will Rahab and her family make it?  Joshua sends two spies to Jericho.  They go to a house of ill-repute.  Good for anonymity and hopefully good for intelligence gathering.  A place of temptation for sure.  The mission has been compromised.  The king of Jericho sends men to Rahab’s with orders to give the spies up.    Rahab, seemingly turning traitor, conceals the Israelite spies, lies to cover for these two men, and sends the king’s men on a wild goose chase. Why the Jericho domestic anti-intelligence service wouldn’t search the house or keep watchers on it, we don’t know.  Rahab then enters into an agreement with the spies to spare her and her family.  They arrange a signal – a crimson cord to be hung out of her window when the invasion comes.  The spies go out on the final part of their mission, escape and evasion, before they cross the Jordan again and meet up with Joshua. 

And it is to Rahab that I want to devote most of our attention this morning.  Note that she is the only person named in this story.  What does this account tell us about the nature of God and how those of us who want to claim God’s promises are called to live in the land of promise?

Rahab is perhaps not the kind of person we were expecting to encounter in the land of Canaan.  In Deuteronomy 7: 5, this command is given about the people of Canaan and their worship of gods like Baal and Asherah - “break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire.”   In Rahab, however, we see a person who acknowledges God’s sovereignty.  Look at her statement of faith contained in vv. 9-10 – “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 waters of the Red Sea 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.”  Rahab is proclaiming the mighty saving acts of God.  Then this statement of faith from Rahab in v. 11 — “The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.”  Not only is she acknowledging the God of Israel as sovereign, but she’s using the same language that is used in Deuteronomy 4: 39: “So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.”  Rahab is acknowledging God’s presence with His people and telling of how God has made his presence known through their deliverance from Egypt and how God is continuing to make his presence known through the fulfillment of the promise of land.

This is a bit of an unexpected turn.  While common prostitution was not outlawed in ancient Israel, there were certainly negative connotations associated with it.  Prostitution and adultery are used metaphorically throughout the OT to signify turning away from God.  These two spies have gone out from Shittim, which was a place where it’s reported in Numbers 25 that the men of Israel began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab – with a fairly disastrous result.  It might have seemed that an unfavourable result was in store for these two spies.  And yet it is in the house of Rahab that they hear Yahweh’s sovereignty and power being declared.  God is at work in the land of promise before the Israelites ever arrive!

Hesed

And what comes about from this proclamation of Yahweh that Rahab makes?  A demonstration of what Yahweh is all about.  A demonstration of hesed.  You may have heard me talk about hesed before.  It’s a Hebrew word we often translate as loving kindness, steadfast love, or mercy in the Bible.  We heard it in our call to worship this morning – “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”  We hear it in songs like Psalm 63:3 – “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”   It’s a word that’s repeated twice in God’s self-description as he passes before Moses in Exodus 34:6-7 and declares, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation.”  Rahab reminds the Israelites, and by extension us, that proclamations of who God is are to be accompanied by demonstrations of who God is.  In this case, God’s hesed, God’s steadfast love.  She provides hospitality to these two men.  She shelters them.  She hides them.  She saves their lives.  She acts unconditionally.  She doesn’t know what they will do to her.  She tells them, “Since then, I have dealt kindly with you; swear to me that you, in turn, will deal kindly with my family.  Give me a sign of good faith, that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.”  In other words, extend to others the same hesed – the same steadfast love, the same mercy – that has been extended to you!  The spies agree –“If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us this land.”

She lowers the two by rope out the window.  Her place was in the city wall.  They tell her to hang a crimson cord through the same window when the invasion comes.  This is the sign of good faith that Rahab asked for.  After hiding out in the hill country for three days, the two spies cross back over the Jordan, making the same confession of faith now that Rahab made – “Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.”  God is being faithful to his promises, in other words.

The Promise

So what does this story have to say to us, and what does it mean to live in the land of promise?  We often pass over genealogies in the Bible, lists of names with a lot of begets in between.  We shouldn’t, though.  Look at the genealogy contained in Matthew 1:4 – “and Aram the father of Aminadab and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.”   We know where that ends up, don’t we?  Two women mentioned in these verses by name – neither of them belonging to the nation of Israel – playing a role in God’s redemption plan that culminates in the birth of Christ, the birth of God with us.  “Give me a sign of good faith,” Rahab had asked.  A sign of faithfulness.  A crimson cord.  There is no doubt that the original hearer of this story would have thought of the sign of faith as reminiscent of the sign that went on the doorposts of the people that first Passover night.  The blood of a lamb.  How can we read this story about the crimson cord and not think of the sign of faith, the sign of the covenant that we have in Christ’s blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins?  The sign of God’s hesed…

In Rahab, we see God’s mercy enacted in an unexpected place.  Jesus would tell a story about an act of hesed, an act of steadfast love and mercy coming from an unfamiliar place as well.  From a Samaritan – a sworn enemy of the Jewish people.  Jesus would tell a story about how we encounter him in unexpected people.  He would tell a story about people being separated into two groups, like sheep and goats.  He would tell how they would come before a throne where the king would welcome the sheep and say, “…I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, I was naked, and you gave me clothing, I was sick, and you took care of me, I was in prison, and you visited me.”  (Matt 25:5-36)  The sheep will be surprised!  “When did we do this?” they will ask, and the answer will come back, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  God is at work in unexpected places.  May God give us eyes to see where He is at work, and may he give us the wisdom and courage to join him there, wherever that may be.  

There are two things that I think this story reminds us of this morning.  God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s hesed can be encountered in unexpected places.  We see in the person of Rahab that a display of hesed is not restricted to the chosen people.  It crosses national, ethnic, and even religious lines.  God’s hesed is at work all around us.  God is at work all around us.  When Christ sends us out as his ambassadors - as living letters testifying to who he is – we’re not cold calling.  God is at work in unexpected places.  God was at work in the land of promise before the Israelites put one foot across the Jordan.

The second thing is, when it comes to acts of hesed – acts of steadfast love and mercy, we are to commit them with abandon.  Remember Rahab’s act of hesed was without condition.  We can’t fathom the depth of God’s own hesed – as he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.”  Let us be as extravagant in our acts of hesed as God is extravagant.  One writer describes Rahab this way – “…Rahab herself becomes a living and persistent reminder to Israel that the best response to YHWH’s wondrous deeds on behalf of Israel is acknowledgement paired with the exercise of hesed, and that this is the response that leads to life.”

This is the fitting and proper response when we are confronted with God’s grace.  This is the response that leads to life, that leads to wholeness, to shalom, to peace.  Rahab becomes a reminder for us as well.  The writer to the Hebrews lists her in the “Faith Hall of Fame” of Hebrews 11: “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.”  Who is God calling us to receive in peace – either as individuals or as a community of faith?

Living in the land of promise means reflecting God’s ways.  This morning we’ve been reminded of God’s way of hesed, and how we can find it reflected in what seem to be unlikely places.  Maybe the most unlikely place to you is within ourselves.  We know ourselves very well, after all, don’t we?  May God continue to work his steadfast love in us as we seek to acknowledge him in all that we do and say.

Amen