Morning Prayer:
Joshua chapter 2 introduces Rahab, a woman named by her
parents after a powerful chaos demon. She is a prostitute, and this is
certainly a manifestation of chaos, at the very least in the subversion of male
power. But this very subversion makes it also a manifestation of welcome to the
stranger. To those whose very presence, even as unconfirmed rumour, makes the
king fearful—but not Rahab.
Rahab has made a home for herself, and her family,
on the outer side of the city wall, within the wall itself. Her place is on the
edge, the liminal space where her presence is both accommodated and beyond the
pale. Is she seeking the stability that chaos desperately longs for? And does
her presence there, in the very defence the community has built against the
outside world, undermine it; a flaw, like a crimson thread, in the brickwork?
Ultimately, it is
not the wall that saves her, for—not for the first time, but this time
literally—her world will come tumbling down around her (Joshua 6). No, she will be saved by Yahweh, who overthrows Rahab as
in ancient myth; who calms the writhing sea, triumphing over the raging of his
rebellious children by welcoming them home, to an enduring place of belonging,
within a Rock that cannot be shaken.
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