Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush Report #6 The Faith of Rahab: Climbing Over Our Cultural Walls

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it, we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report 4 – The Faith of Rahab

‘By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe’ 11v31

I’ll get to summarising the story of Rahab in a minute. But I feel I need to issue a health warning. I’m going to relate this report to the horror of the Hamas/Israel conflict, to the suffering of Gaza and Israel. Or try to.

Of course, you may well have at the back of your mind that the two territories in question, Gaza and Israel, are not a million miles away from the older conflict referred to in these Old Testament verses that occurred when the Israeli army encircled Jericho, now situated on the West Bank.

You can read the account of Rahab hiding Joshua’s spies in Joshua chapter 2.

Israel, by that time, amounting to maybe 2 million on the move, had amassed a reputation as an overwhelming invading force, having seen off two kings just the other side of the Jordan and the river, their last line of defence, had dried up allowing them to pass on and confront the city of Jericho; their reputation had preceded them.

‘As soon as we heard these things our hearts melted, neither did there remain any courage in anyone…because of the Lord your God’ 2v11

‘Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out and none came in’ 6v11

Even in these two simple verses, we see a crucial difference. Rahab, a prostitute, didn’t see Israel as an overwhelming human tsunami coming their way, her focus was on the spiritual reality behind their astonishing victories, and the River Jordan drying up, stating to the spies that this was ‘because of the Lord your God’.

That led to a radically different response to the leaders of the city. Instead of trying to preserve her identity, her culture, her way of life, her familiar surroundings, and her livelihood, she climbed over the mental and cultural wall the city leaders had imposed on the inhabitants of Jericho by closing the gates, securely.

She implored the spies,

‘Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord…you will…spare my father, mother, my brother, my sister, all that I have and deliver our lives from death’ 2 v12,13

If you know how the story unfolds, you’ll know that Rahab and her family were saved and Jericho with all its inhabitants perished.

‘By faith, Rahab…’

Along with the rest of Jericho’s masses Rahab had reacted initially with fear, but when the spies arrived and told her their story of all that God had done for Israel, she ‘heard’ the word which created ‘faith’ in her and so her world changed…at first invisibly on the inside and then, extraordinarily, in her actions, her rescue, and her legacy of faith.

She had climbed over the wall of her own people’s limited thinking bound up with fear. How things would have fared is only they had believed and acted differently. Faith is life or death.

Gaza. And Israel. Then us.

Whatever the legitimacy of the claims of injustice at the hands of Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and territories in Palestine previously held by Palestinians before 1948 the word of God cannot be clearer,

‘I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you’ Gen 12v3

The choice that the leadership of Hamas and similar groups have made are quite different to the leaders in Jericho. Rather than be imprisoned by fear, they are engaged in opposing Israel by foul means or fair. Well, foul, not fair, in fact.

Incredibly, though, despite all that has happened and continues to happen in Gaza there are those, like Rahab, who view the events in the world quite differently and whose hearts are ready to bless, not curse.

Equally true in Israel. There are those who are able to climb over the walls of fear and hatred and are ready to bless not curse.

As with everything to do with God and His world, what we believe is vital. Jesus said much the same thing ‘bless those who persecute you’. The victory over hate and fear occurs deep within the heart. Whether it’s action or attitude that comes first, these are only symptoms of the deeper work…of faith…of what we believe.

How easy it is to comment on macropolitics. How much harder when it comes to our own cultural boundaries, safe spaces, comfort zones, and traditions that serve to separate us from those God calls our neighbours.

I look back on times when I have been more like Lot’s wife, a pillar of salt, or ‘petrified’ and paralysed by fear instead of having faith in God and confronting elephants in the room. And I can look upon other times when the word of God created faith in my heart, enabling me to risk vulnerability, unlike Jericho, remaining all locked up and seemingly safe. It’s a false safety.

We have a lot to learn from the ‘harlot Rahab’.

p.s. For those interested, Rahab’s legacy was not simply to be recorded in the Old and New Testaments, but to be included in the royal line of King David. She was David’s great-great-grandmother.