A FRESH AND PROVOCATIVE LOOK AT MANY OF THE WOMEN WHO SERVED AS
“A wonderful, creative work with extraordinary sensitivity to women and their contributions to the development of faith. A must-read for Advent and Christmas. Powerful, convincing, scholarly, and lovingly crafted.” —Kay Crawford Hillsborough United Church of Christ, Hillsborough, North Carolina
OF THESE REMARKABLE AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD WOMEN.
DRAWING
NAMES FROM THE GENEALOGIES FOR
JESUS OFFERED BY MATTHEW AND LUKE, MOTHERS AROUND THE MANGER OFFERS INTRIGUING AND CHALLENGING CHAPTERS ON TAMAR, RAHAB,
RUTH, BATHSHEBA, ELIZABETH, MARY, AND ANNA.
ISBN 1-57312-186-X
Allen
J. Timothy Allen is a United Church of Christ minister living in Burlington, North Carolina, and is also an author, writer, and musician. His works have been published in magazines, journals, and newspapers. He is the author of Seasons in the Year: Poems, Prayers, Praise, and Prose and When the Season Is Dry: A Promise and a Wilderness, both published by Smyth & Helwys.
JESUS’ “GREAT-GRANDMOTHERS.” ALLEN’S WARM WRITING STYLE BOTH INFORMS AND INSPIRES TODAY’S CHRISTIANS TO LEARN FROM THE LIVES
Mothers around the Manger
Bible Study
"A wonderful,creative work with extraordinary sensitivity to women and their contributions to the development of faith" — Kay Crawford
Rahab Matthew 1:5; Joshua 2; 6:15-25; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25
he story of Tamar is not the usual kind of tale one tells around the dinner table at Christmas time. Of course, there is always one person in the family, a bubbly uncle or a crotchety granny, who takes delight in the more risqué side of things, and we normally excuse this family member’s impropriety as part of his or her general disposition. After all, it is Christmas, isn’t it? Thus, we might overlook the seedier side of Tamar as we get to know Jesus’ mothers a little better. But the conversation around the dinner table will not become holy just yet. The story of Rahab is just a step removed from that of Tamar. But within the story is much to learn, especially about forgiveness and grace, two of the more pleasant gifts we experience every Christmas season. Think of the many presents we break down and give to people who, frankly, we could live without if we were given a preference. Not to mention that we often attend parties and family gatherings full of people we normally would not take the time to greet any other time of the year. And it didn’t hurt us at all, did it? This is grace and forgiveness practiced at its most base level. Rahab, the second mother around the manger, was a prostitute. Her story is racy and full of intrigue, dangerous and life-threatening. At the same time, it shows what can happen when a person chooses to help others instead of
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serving one’s self, which is a traditional Christmas theme we hear every year in television specials and books and plays. As the wandering Israelites near the end of their fortyyear trek through the wilderness, they encamp on the eastern border of the Promised Land. Joshua sends out two spies to reconnoiter the area. Much like characters in modern-day movies and television shows, the twosome goes to the seedier side of town and find the home of Rahab, a prostitute, in order to pick up information. Her tavern, or inn, is situated in the thick casemate walls surrounding the small city of Jericho. In the day of the Israelites, the walls that fortified a city were often doubled so that homes could be made or rubble stored in between the walls. Social outcasts were often allowed to live in the spaces between the walls. During an attack, the walls would be breached, causing them to cave in. Thus, they were dangerous places to live, places only the less fortunate would inhabit. Things have not changed much in three millennia. Studies today prove that cities still place their marginal people in the worst and most dangerous parts of town. While the ploy by the Israelite soldiers seems a bit selfserving, this was a typical military tactic in ancient times. Since the action is not condemned in our story, it was no doubt deemed acceptable in Joshua’s day. The local prostitute would have entertained many different folks, including strangers and travelers, and these fellows often revealed many secrets to her after a night of drinking and the ensuing frivolities. Thus, much information could be obtained by simply occasioning the local harlot’s house. The problem of prostitutes involved in intelligence activities was so acute in the ancient world that it had to be addressed by law. The ancient Law Code of Hammurabi
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stipulated that if an ale wife, otherwise known as a prostitute, did not turn over any known felons, then she would be put to death. This piece of information also reveals to us that Rahab’s harboring of these foreign troops put her in grave danger. The king of Jericho, no doubt aware that the mighty nation of Israel is approaching, has his sources planted about the town. They soon discover the intrusion of the spies. Jericho is not a large city, perhaps covering eight acres and serving up to a thousand citizens, so there are few places to hide. The logical place to start, of course, is Rahab’s tavern. The king sends messengers to inquire at Rahab’s place as to their whereabouts. Rahab daringly disobeys the king’s order to send him the men and instead hides them on her roof and then lies to her king that the men have run back to the safety of the Jordan River. We might ask: Does Rahab lie to save the men from certain death? Is she afraid to lose their business and thus resorts to any tactic to keep her clients in house, including putting them in jeopardy and disobeying her king? We are left to ponder the implications and morals. But there may be another motive. Jericho is in decline, its population falling steadily, perhaps because it is not on a major trade route. Jericho’s water is contaminated. Some scholars believe that disease, possibly venereal disease, was one of the city’s problems. If this is the case, Rahab’s vocation gave her ample reason to leave the area. Was she looking for a safe way out and placing her hopes in these foreign spies? Again, we just don’t know for sure. Having saved the men’s lives, Rahab relates to them what she has heard about the oncoming Israelites. They are mighty, and God is indeed on their side. Surely they will take Jericho with little trouble. Then she cuts a deal with
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the spies. “Because I have saved you, now you can save me and my family.” The men agree, and a plan is conceived. After this, she lets them down through the window that looks out the city wall. When Joshua and the army of Israel return to take Jericho, the covenant made between the spies and Rahab is remembered, and her family is saved from the destruction that follows. While filled with innuendo and tension, not to mention questions of moral intent, the story of Rahab contains much more grist for the faith mill than it initially reveals. If we let our imagination play within the story, we can see many ways to interpret it, both moral and immoral. But this is Christmas, so we also want to see what this episode in Israel’s history has to do with the birth of our Savior. So, let us focus in that direction. Rahab’s name means “broad, wide,” and given her reputation the temptation is great to use that meaning in the modern-day slang for a woman, as for example, Sgt. Carter of “Gomer Pyle” fame, who often called women “broads.” This is not what the Hebrew writers had in mind here, but the meaning of “broad, wide” in this story is not very clear. Wide in what sense? Broad in what kind of way? Does it suggest that her life was lived broadly, as in having covered the gamut from hooker to revered woman? Does it mean well-traveled, well-rounded? Was she broad, as in a large woman? There is much about this woman that we simply do not know. And perhaps that is better. Sometimes the past is better left in the dark when grace has given us a new light to walk in. Besides, it allows for more mystery to come into play as we encounter Rahab’s story. Others have pondered Rahab’s story, and their conclusions may be informative. Despite her past and her dubious character, later rabbinic tradition was quite enamored of
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Rahab. It describes her as one of the four most beautiful women in the world (my source did not tell me who the other three were). The ancient Jewish rabbis also wrote that Rahab was an ancestress of Huldah the prophetess, who advised the royal court during the time of King Josiah (2 Kgs 22:14-20). She was also considered an ancestress of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet who prophesied after Josiah’s reign. Some even tried to link her in a similar way to Ezekiel whose ministry coincided with Jeremiah. But her fame does not stop here. In Matthew 1:5, we read that Rahab, who married Salmon, was the mother of Boaz, husband of Ruth, who were both included in the lineage of King David. In fact, in Ruth 4:18-20, we read that Salmon is from the line of Perez, son of Tamar and Judah, whom we read about in the previous chapter. It’s a small world, isn’t it? Interestingly, however, some Jewish traditions and early Christian writers believed that Rahab married Joshua, not Salmon. Were these two men one in the same? There is no proof of this, but the confusion certainly shows how creative the ancient interpreters were with their stories and how diligently they tried to tie Rahab to Israel’s history. What is certain, however, is that Rahab was deemed worthy of much admiration by the early Christian writers. In Hebrews 11, which is often called the “Great Roll Call of Faith,” guess who is the only woman to make this otherwise all-male list (Heb 11:31)? Turn over to the next book in the New Testament and read James 2:25. Here we are informed that the deeds of Rahab are a model of faith at work in everyday life. All of this praise and honor raises the question: How did Rahab the prostitute (notice that nearly every time you read “Rahab,” the phrase “the prostitute” follows) become such
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an exemplar of righteousness in both Jewish and Christian tradition? Rahab, like Tamar, was an “other,” an outsider, but her marginality encompassed much more negative territory than did Tamar. She was a woman, and that was bad enough in the days of Joshua. This put her just below boys and cattle in the pecking order of the men’s world. She was a prostitute, not a temple prostitute as in our story of Tamar, but a working prostitute, which moved her further down the line of respectability. In Old Testament days, prostitutes often ran inns or taverns, which provided ample opportunities for them to ply their crafts while catering to a less-than-proper crowd. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing shortly after the time of Jesus, seemed aware of this connection because he called Rahab “an innkeeper.” Thus, despite many positive Jewish and Christian interpretations, we can assume that her reputation was tainted even in Jesus’ time. As if these were not enough marks against her, since she was a Canaanite, this made her both a foreigner and the enemy, in other words, someone to be used, abused, and destroyed. Rahab had a very bad reputation to overcome. Like great-grandmother, like great-grandson. This troubling reputation of Rahab carried right through the genealogical line to the life and ministry of Jesus. Throughout his short life Jesus reached out to women, especially those society preferred to ignore, castigate, or even condemn. Matthew was well aware that Jesus was often accused of preferring the company of drunkards and gluttons rather than the scholarly religious people (Matt 19; Luke 15:2). Nonbiblical tradition labels Mary Magdalene as a prostitute. It seems that Jesus, following in Rahab’s footsteps, simply carried on the family tradition of befriending and living among real people.
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The knowledge of his familial heritage coupled with these experiences no doubt influenced Jesus to teach a more inclusive version of God’s kingdom than what was accepted in his day. Nearly all of his teachings were directed to the poor, the outcast, the sick, in other words, the dregs of society. Along with this, Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies. Perhaps Jesus knew instinctively from his genes that he was to reach out to all kinds of people, lest he be guilty of leaving his own great-grandmother Rahab out of the Kingdom. And maybe these ties between Jesus and Rahab are why Matthew included Rahab the harlot in the lineage of Jesus. We can risk a trip out on a limb of the Christmas tree and mention something else about Rahab. She was a traitor to her own people. She betrayed her own race in order to achieve salvation for herself and her household. This piece of information offers two entirely different presents to explore. Recall Peter and his betrayal of Jesus. Rather than risk his neck and stand beside Jesus in that long dark night when he was tried first by the Jews and then by Pilate, Peter denied any knowledge of him at all three different times. Then, of course, there is Judas, who most likely handed Jesus over to the authorities in order to keep the peace in the Jewish city of Jerusalem. Judas betrayed a friend rather than risk trial himself. These two episodes tell us that Jesus knew the sting of betrayal very well, yet, given his great-grandmother’s reputation, he also knew the stigma of being labeled a betrayer. We don’t know how Jesus felt about Judas, although two modern-day interpreters have suggested that Jesus understood very well why Judas did what he did. Indeed, one has suggested that Jesus needed Judas to hand him over in order
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to complete God’s task on earth. Another interpreter suggests that Jesus’ teaching would be null and void of any meaning if Jesus hated Judas. Judas’ tragic death (which shows just how deeply his act affected him) keeps us from finding out how Jesus would have approached him after the resurrection. But we do know that Jesus never wavered in his faith in Peter. Jesus continued to press Peter after the resurrection until Peter realized that he was to continue the Lord’s work despite his betrayal (John 21). Is this yet another reason why Matthew included Rahab, the traitor in the genealogy of our Lord? Is this Gospel writer telling us that all are welcome, including those who betray God, under the tree of Christ at Christmas? There is another sense of betrayal in the story of Rahab, however, that Jesus could identify with: the betrayal of human desires in order to do the greater will of God. If we read the story of Rahab with any realistic lenses, then we must confront the fact that she was a prostitute and probably could have cared less what happened to the two spies who bunked down in her tavern. Some scholars have noted that certain words in the Hebrew tale have less-thaninnocent sexual overtones, thus implying that before Rahab made the deal with the spies, she had other plans in store for them. Did the interrogation by the king’s messenger interrupt the evening’s proceedings? Did she realize that the tide was turning and that, rather than think only of money, she had best begin thinking about saving her neck? What turned the tide and led to Rahab’s siding with the Israelite spies? Frankly, the initial motive may have been simply selfish: to save her family and herself from certain annihilation by the approaching Israelite nation. Her patrons told her the stories about this band of wandering
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shepherds who had warred and won many battles. Surely God was on their side. Better switch sides while there is still time. While this kind of reasoning does not strike us as very holy, it is the very stuff of Hebrew storytelling that makes for great tales. Imagine Rahab (a foreign woman and a harlot to boot!) tricking her own Canaanite people into certain death and saving her own hide in the same move. The Hebrew men would be laughing their heads off around the campfire as they reflected on this story. We have already seen similar motives in the story of Tamar, where one woman’s cunning saved the plan of God from certain detour and hints of a more divine purpose. Why is this cunning, outcast woman prostitute venerated this way? Our society today often demeans women’s intuition. But, is a woman’s intuition somehow connected to the Spirit of God? A mystical and biblical answer to this conundrum may be found if we take the time to explore the imagery used in Proverbs 1–9. Here the young male student is taught to get Wisdom, who is personified as a lovely woman. She is far better than Woman Folly, who is equally as beautiful as Woman Wisdom if not a bit more seductive. In the first nine chapters of Proverbs, the student is instructed to seek and find this woman at all costs. According to Proverbs 8:22-31, Woman Wisdom was created (the word can also mean acquired, as in a man acquires a wife) by God at the very beginning of creation in order to assist with the creation process. Is the writer of Proverbs using this lesson to teach the students that wisdom is the intuitive side of God? Is there a reason, other than a linguistic one, that Wisdom is characterized as feminine?
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It seems there is a link between wisdom and the feminine. Perhaps we are seeing this idea embodied in these stories of Jesus’ great-grandmothers who had to use every wit about them to defeat the accumulated powers of the dominantly masculine world in order to promote what would eventually be discerned as God’s Will. This may be a long stretch in logic to make this Christmas, but if that seems too farfetched, we can always go back and try to make sense of the virgin birth. Christmas is about looking beyond the possible, the explainable, the rational in order to finally embrace the impossible, the unexplainable, the irrational—which is the very realm of God. We will see throughout this book that many mysteries and conundrums arise in these stories about the women around Jesus’ manger, and they can’t be tossed away carelessly by labeling them as feminine whimsy. Surely there is something more going on here than just a bunch of questionable women conniving their way into Matthew’s story of Jesus. This brings us back to our initial question: What led Rahab to do this, to betray her nation in order to save her soul and eventually promote the salvation of our world? It was the betrayal of her human desires, forsaking sexual pleasure as a way to make an income. It was the strength to end her desire to listen to peers and work for the greater good of all people. It was overcoming her exploitation of men and utilizing her intuition that something more was at stake than just a couple of guys out to have a good time while serving their country. Centuries later Rahab’s great-grandson knew these same feelings, this betrayal of human desires, as he wondered why he was chosen to save humankind from sin. When tempted by Satan after he was baptized by John in the Jordan River, Jesus suddenly confronted the aching
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human desire he would have to conquer to do God’s will (Matt 4:1-11). Later in his ministry, when he prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane, we see Jesus at the very crossroads of betraying his natural human inclination to save himself rather than serve God. When the passersby hollered out to Jesus to save himself from the agonizing death on a cross, certainly he wanted to muster all of his masculine rage and take on the devil himself with the host of angels at his command. But the way of humiliation, often demeaned as the way of a sissy, was the way he chose to live. This way was not the easiest, but indeed the most difficult, and, ironically, the most divine. Bearing the name of traitor to the human race, not to mention his very masculinity, Jesus embodied a feminine mystique and became Savior of all the world. Denial of self, betrayal to all that is human, is the major step toward God’s will, as Mother Teresa so ably taught us. The many pious traditions surrounding Rahab and her inclusion in the Christian scriptures certainly confirm her example for us. Another important point rises when we further examine the story of Rahab. She was the mode of salvation for not only her family but also for the spies, the nation of Israel, and eventually, through Jesus’ birth, the whole world. Rahab took a great risk to ensure this salvation. This may explain why some traditions tried to link her to Joshua, whose name means “salvation,” and why her lineage eventually led to Jesus, whose name likewise means “salvation.” There is another link between the story of Rahab and Jesus. As we have seen already, the spies made a deal with Rahab after she saved them from certain death. According to the law, however, they were not supposed to make such a deal.
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In the biblical story line, Joshua comes immediately after Deuteronomy. In this book, Moses outlines Israel’s history in a long sermon that admonishes the Israelites never to forget what God has done for them. In preparation for taking the Promised Land, Moses reviewed the laws given by God. These laws were to be obeyed, or else the Israelites would be in danger of losing the land they were about to conquer. The guidelines concerning war as enumerated in Deuteronomy stipulated that all people in the land were to be destroyed. No covenants, no marriages, no deals were to be made with these people who lived within the boundaries of the promised Land (Deut 7:1-7; 20:15-18). According to the strict interpretation of the law, the spies were to make no deals with any of the inhabitants of the Promised Land. An astute reader of the Bible would have caught this discrepancy, having just read Deuteronomy before encountering our story of Rahab in the first chapters of Joshua. The spies, however, took matters into their own hands and instead interpreted the law on an individual basis. The law was made because the Canaanites and the other tribes of peoples who inhabited the land would lead Israel astray with their peculiar religious and social customs. Thus, in the eyes of the ancient biblical writers, it was better to annihilate them altogether than to risk religious contamination and the resulting wrath of God. Surely the spies noticed something about Rahab that convinced them to take a risk and allow her life to be spared in defiance of the strict interpretation of the law (and keep in mind they also owed her their lives). Was she sincere? Was she desperate? As we look at the life of Jesus, we see him following the example of this story. He, too, compassionately interpreted the law on an individual basis instead of strictly adhering to
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it. In Matthew 5, Jesus teaches, “You have heard it was said,” and then he relates a particular law. Then he reinterprets the law to meet the particular social and religious predicaments of his own day. In other episodes throughout the Gospels, Jesus is confronted with the law and asked to interpret it. Time and again he provides a compassionate and careful summation and reapplication of the law to meet the particular situation before him. We have to wonder if Jesus learned this compassion from his family’s past history. What would have happened if the spies had dispassionately held to the letter of the law and killed Rahab and her family? Many in our world today stick to the legal letter of the law rather than use compassion to interpret the law. Jesus reinterpreted the law with compassion and discernment. Wouldn’t this Christmas be a wonderful time to change our legalistic ways and treat others as Jesus did? There is yet one more part of Rahab’s story we should consider, and this may be the piece that shows Rahab’s turn from a self-serving prostitute to one who trusts totally in God in a grand display of blind faith. The spies advise Rahab to hang a scarlet cord from her window so that the soldiers will know which room is hers. Some scholars have found in this part of her story a similarity to the Passover that took place in Egypt before the Israelites left for the wilderness (Exod 11–12). In that story, the Israelites were to prepare to leave Egypt immediately, so they were instructed to prepare and eat a simple meal on the night before the exodus. The death angel would come in the night and kill the firstborn of all people who had not marked their door posts with blood from the lamb that was slain to be eaten that night.
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The Israelites put their trust in this fairly peculiar ritual without any guarantee that it would work. They received the ritual from a man who said he received it from God. It takes a lot of faith and trust to perform such a ritual passed on from a God one has never seen to a man who is barely known. Similarly, Rahab is told to put a scarlet cord in her window in order to escape death from the soldiers. She has no real reason to believe that the soldiers will remember their deal (after all, they are saving their own necks from death). If the men are bawdy enough to frequent a prostitute’s house while on a reconnaissance mission, then who is to say that they will even bother to think about Rahab? She puts a lot of blind faith in the words of these two men. And her reward for her faith is her new life. Jesus knew about blind faith. He taught people to believe in a kingdom that could not be seen. He trusted in God’s promise of new life after death. He lived a life of faith and trust in order to teach us to live in faith and trust in God. There is much to learn from and admire about Rahab the (former) prostitute. She rose from the ranks of an outsider to one very much in the center of Israel’s life. She began as a prostitute, a liar, and a betrayer, and yet displayed a remarkable strength in faith. She was saved by people who should have killed her according to the law. Her story is dishonorable, yet her life is honored along with the most noteworthy of the righteous. Her salvation exemplified her faith and demonstrated God’s grace mediated through others. She did indeed have a very broad life, and for that we should be grateful. From this it is easy to see why Matthew included her in Jesus’ lineage. It is also why we should include Rahab in our
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Christmas dinners and parties. In fact, we should be open to welcoming all who are, and were, like her. We wouldn’t want to be guilty of leaving out someone like Jesus’ greatgrandmother in our holiday celebrations just because of her colorful past, now, would we?
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A FRESH AND PROVOCATIVE LOOK AT MANY OF THE WOMEN WHO SERVED AS
“A wonderful, creative work with extraordinary sensitivity to women and their contributions to the development of faith. A must-read for Advent and Christmas. Powerful, convincing, scholarly, and lovingly crafted.” —Kay Crawford Hillsborough United Church of Christ, Hillsborough, North Carolina
OF THESE REMARKABLE AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD WOMEN.
DRAWING
NAMES FROM THE GENEALOGIES FOR
JESUS OFFERED BY MATTHEW AND LUKE, MOTHERS AROUND THE MANGER OFFERS INTRIGUING AND CHALLENGING CHAPTERS ON TAMAR, RAHAB,
RUTH, BATHSHEBA, ELIZABETH, MARY, AND ANNA.
ISBN 1-57312-186-X
Allen
J. Timothy Allen is a United Church of Christ minister living in Burlington, North Carolina, and is also an author, writer, and musician. His works have been published in magazines, journals, and newspapers. He is the author of Seasons in the Year: Poems, Prayers, Praise, and Prose and When the Season Is Dry: A Promise and a Wilderness, both published by Smyth & Helwys.
JESUS’ “GREAT-GRANDMOTHERS.” ALLEN’S WARM WRITING STYLE BOTH INFORMS AND INSPIRES TODAY’S CHRISTIANS TO LEARN FROM THE LIVES
Mothers around the Manger
Bible Study
"A wonderful,creative work with extraordinary sensitivity to women and their contributions to the development of faith" — Kay Crawford