The eleventh chapter of Hebrews reads like a kind of roll-call of faithful servants of Israel. There’s Noah, singled out by God as the one righteous man in a decadent world. And Enoch, who was so holy, he didn’t die; he was simply taken one day into God’s presence. And Abraham, who picked up lock, stock and barrel and moved because God told him to. There’s Moses, the greatest figure in the Old Testament, and Joshua, who led the people across the Jordan and into the Promised Land. And there’s Jacob, and David, and Samuel, and the prophets.

And tucked between the accounts of all these notables are the following verses: “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given friendly welcome to the spies.” The author of Hebrews recites a long list of faithful servants and, without missing a beat, includes “Rahab the harlot.”

We might ask -- what is she doing on this list; what is she, a practitioner of a most unsaintly profession, doing on this roll call of saints? Abel, Abraham, Noah, Sarah, Moses – they certainly belong on the list. But Rahab?

Let’s look more closely at Rahab’s story. We find it in the second chapter of Joshua, which contains all the elements of a Hollywood movie – spies, espionage, deception, suspense, even a chase scene. And there is also the most unlikely of heroines; long before Julia Roberts played a prostitute in “Pretty Woman,” there was Rahab.

The story actually begins with Moses. As Moses led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage, Joshua was his assistant. And when Moses died just short of entering the Promised Land, God called Joshua to take over command.

As Chapter Two of the book of Joshua begins, the Israelites are camped several miles from Jericho, across the Jordan River. Although God has given Israel the land of Canaan, it still has to be taken by force, and the city of Jericho is the first target for the Israelite’s invasion. Joshua begins the warfare the way any good commander would -- by gathering intelligence data -- and he sends two spies to scout out the city and bring back a report. The spies establish their base of operations in the house of Rahab the prostitute. And this choice makes sense. Because out-of-towners and other strangers are frequently seen coming and going from her house, it is a place where the spies can maintain anonymity while gathering military intelligence.

Jericho was surrounded by those famous walls; they were actually double walls, separated by twelve feet. The poor of the city, including Rahab, lived in simple houses built between these walls. Their location on the outskirts of the city underscores Rahab’s life on the edge of Canaanite culture. She has probably turned to prostitution out of economic necessity, and like prostitutes in all cultures, she is marginalized by society.

From her location, Rahab can see the Hebrews across the Jordan, and she is alarmed at their presence. She knows that her city of Jericho is dangerously weak and will fall to the Israelites. Moreover, she has heard from travelers the stories of Joshua’s God, how that God miraculously delivered the Israelites from Egypt, how the Red Sea parted and how God took them through the wilderness. And she has heard the more recent news about how the Israelites wiped out the armies of the Amorites kings and leveled their cities.

Rahab says, in verse 11, that in light of all that God has done for Israel, the hearts of the Canaanites have melted in fear. But she also confesses her belief in the God of Israel – not out of fear, but out of her growing awareness and understanding of God’s presence and working in all of these events.

Although Rahab is a pagan and a Gentile, outside the realm of God’s chosen people, her heart is open to God’s truth. Rahab believes that divine forces have been with the Hebrew people, and she voices her own affirmation of faith in the God of Israel, using not the Canaanite name for God, but term Yahweh, the covenant name that the Hebrew people use for their personal God. “. . . Yahweh your God,” she says, “is he who is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.”

Jericho's king hears of the presence of Israelite spies and sends soldiers to Rahab's house, demanding that she produce the intruders. But she has hidden the spies on her roof, and she deceptively sends the king’s men on a wild goose chase, pointing them toward the Jordan River.

After the king’s men have gone, Rahab begs the Israelite spies for a promise of safety for her and for her family in repayment for having hidden them from the authorities. The men agree, and tell her to hang a red cord of rope across her window so the Israelite army will know to spare her house.

The image of this red cord reminds us of the tabernacle, the movable temple in which God dwelled while Israel moved throughout the desert on their forty-year journey to the promised land. According to the precise instructions in the 26th chapter of Exodus, the curtains of the tabernacle were interwoven with scarlet thread. For the Israelites, this thread, or cord, was symbolic of their covenant agreement with God as God’s very own people.

The image of a red cord hanging over her window also echoes the story of Passover, when the Hebrews were directed to smear their door posts with the lamb’s blood so that the angel of death would pass over those houses and spare those within. And that red cord of faith suggests the blood of Christ, our Passover lamb.

Rahab’s hanging of that cord in her window is not only a signal to the Hebrew army, but also a public statement of her trust in the God of Israel. In hanging that cord, Rahab stands alone against the entire culture that surrounds her.

Over and over again, throughout history, God chooses to work through unlikely people such as Rahab. First, she is a hated Canaanite. Rahab is also female in a culture which considers women second-class citizens, little more than child bearers and sex objects. And her third disadvantage is that she is a prostitute. Most likely Rahab and her family lived in poverty, and perhaps she unwillingly turned to prostitution to support her family. But Rahab’s great strength was that she becomes a woman of faith. She puts her faith in the God of Israel and acts courageously to identify herself no longer with her Canaanite background but rather with God’s people.

Once again, God turn things upside down by choosing this unlikely woman to do God’s work in the world.

And how does Rahab’s story turn out?

As promised, she and her family are spared. And after the conquest of Canaan, she marries an Israelite man by the name of Salmon and bears him children, including a son named Boaz. Boaz has a son named Obed. Obed has a son named Jesse. And Jesse has a son named David. Rahab becomes the great great grandmother of King David. And from the lineage of David comes Jesus. Rahab the prostitute is an ancestor of Jesus. Can you think of a more unlikely forebear for our Messiah?

Rahab’s amazing story both comforts and confronts us. It is a comfort because we can see how God can work through the least among us. God’s grace takes us right where we are in whatever condition it finds us. God does not tell us to get our life straightened out before we are acceptable. God doesn’t say “clean up your act, and then I will love you.” God comes into our lives where we are, as we are, and brings us to wholeness.

Rahab’s story also confronts us, for as recipients of God’s unmerited love, we are now called to share that love with others. We are called to be God’s instruments, meeting people not where we think they should be, but where they are, and inviting them into fellowship with God and God’s people.

And Rahab’s story presents us with a spiritual challenge. Rahab is in the Hall of Fame of saints. But the measurement for her – and for all of us – is not what we’ve accomplished, or how deserving we are, but how strong our faith is. Rahab put her faith in the God of Israel, and her cord of faith stretches all the way through the generations to David, and to Jesus, and to each of us.

As her spiritual descendants, may we follow her example and carry that cord, in faith and in courage. Amen.

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