I Pledge Ultimate Allegiance

Most of us are quite familiar with the long-standing ritual of standing with our hands over our hearts, our eyes on our country's flag, and our mouths reciting the pledge of allegiance, right? The pledge is often still practiced daily in schools, and though of late, there has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding it, we are at least all familiar with the ritual.

What exactly does it mean? That's a question that I think can vary from person to person. Those who have spent time in the military may recite it and mean it differently from someone who pledges the flag before a baseball or a football game, for instance. Life experience has an enormous impact on our thoughts and beliefs, and this is one prime example of how that plays out. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I struggled for a while to come up with what I really meant when I placed my hand over my heart, turned to face the flag, and spoke the pledge. I struggled with the idea of placing patriotism for my country above anything else, most importantly, my faith in God. Over time (and lots of prayer), I've found peace with the practice, though. To me, pledging the flag means: I respect this place I call home and the people who have made it what it is. I am a temporary citizen of this place, and while I am here, I will be a model citizen.

Not a brainwashed citizen. Not an unthinking citizen. Rather, I will be an observant citizen who will -- hopefully -- assign respect where respect is due.

On to Joshua 2, where we meet two Israelite spies and a prostitute named Rahab and we get to talk about another set of allegiances.

Here's the setting: The Israelite army is camping on the east side of the Jordan River in a place called Shittim (pronounced shuTEEM; I know, I looked it up. I'm glad I did, since I read my blog posts aloud to my kids, and they would howling with laughter if we'd gone with my first efforts at pronunciation). Anyway, the Israelite army is preparing to cross the Jordan and take the land, but before that happens, they have to do some preparation and reconnaissance. So Joshua sends out two spies to head to Jericho, the first major city on the west side of the Jordan. 

Accordingly, the spies go, and when they get to Jericho, they "enter the house of a prostitute named Rahab" (Joshua 2:1b).

Somehow the king of Jericho gets word of this, and he sends word to Rahab: "Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land."

And Rahab sends back a message, essentially saying: "Yeah, they came, but they left already. Shucks, you just missed 'em. If you hurry, you might still catch them" (paraphrase my own). ;)

As it turns out, Rahab isn't exactly being transparent with the king to whom she is supposed to be allegiant. She watches the king's messengers leave, and then she heads up to her roof where she kept bundles of flax to dry. "Psst! You can come out now," she says, and the two spies appear among the bundles.

Now, at this point in the story, I have quite a few questions:

Why did the two spies go to a prostitute's home to spend the night? The nearest answer I can find is that Rahab was also an innkeeper, but Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 underline Rahab's occupation as harlot -- a harlot who displayed some incredible faith (Hebrews 11:31), and a harlot who was a sinner saved by grace (James 2:25).

What an impact this woman left on history! Wow. 

Anyway, a few other questions: Why did the spies open up to Rahab? What was it about her that allowed them to trust her enough to tell her their story? How did the king find out about these two men? What was it about them that drew attention of Jericho "watchers"? 

I don't know if we'll ever know for sure any answers, but I've read novelized forms of this story, and there are some pretty interesting ideas that have been presented. In a few of those novelizations, at least one of the spies is named Salmon (see Matthew 1:5: "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab...") 

Please note, there is no Biblical basis for a love story between Rahab and one of the spies -- but it's an interesting idea. The truly interesting thing here is that Rahab -- a harlot -- is listed in the genealogy in Matthew 1... as an ancestor of Jesus Christ. 

A sinner, saved by grace: The best story wrapped up in a dusty listing of ancestry. It doesn't get any better than that. :)

Back to Joshua 2. After Rahab sent the king's men on their way to see if they could beat the spies before they reached the fords of the Jordan River, she heads up to her rooftop and gives this testimony to the two spies:

"I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt (this would be over forty years later in a day where there is no media or internet -- so this story isn't just run-of-the-mill news fodder; the parting of the Red Sea and the dramatic escape from Egypt has major long-lasting impact), and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below"(Joshua 2:9-11).

Keep in mind that Rahab is a woman of Jericho -- a Canaanite woman who has not been privileged to be one of the "chosen people," the Israelites. And yet, she has already turned her heart toward the Lord.

Look at her speech from the bottom up.

She acknowledges God as supreme: "The Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below."

She applies this supremacy to her people where her allegiance is supposed to lie: "[After Sihon and Og were defeated] Our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed..."

She notes the immediate effect on her people: "We have heard how the Lord..."

She iterates the effect of these "chosen people" coming to her land: "A great fear has fallen on us... all who live in this country are melting in fear..."

And she makes it personal. She brings it back to herself: "I know that the Lord has given this land to you."

In essence, Rahab is explaining her part as a citizen of her country, how that citizenry looks, why she and everyone else is afraid, and then explains why her allegiance belongs to God above country. She begins and ends her speech between two important announcements:

"I know that the Lord has given this land to you," and "The Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below."

Her allegiance to her country, in that moment and in that situation, becomes less important to her than her allegiance to the Lord, and she makes a choice. Instead of handing over the spies to the king of Jericho, where they would almost certainly have been killed and sent back to Joshua as examples of what happens to spies of their great city -- she extracts a promise from them that they will spare her and her family when they conquer the city.

She already knows that God has given her city over to the Israelites. She already knows who her King is. Not the guy who sent messengers to look for spies. The God Who is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

The spies agree to her request to spare herself and her family members if she keeps them secret, and she lowers them out of her window over the wall by a red cord. 

Here's something interesting: the red cord would be a sign of her faithful commitment to her end of the bargain. She would not give them away. She would leave the red cord hanging in the window of her house as a sign that the Israelites would keep her house and anyone in it from destruction.

Does this sound familiar? 

Exodus 12:13, 22-23 gives us Moses' instructions to the Israelites to escape the angel of death who would pass over Egypt. They were to paint their doorframes with the scarlet blood of an innocent lamb -- and the angel would pass over the houses with the sign of red on their entryway. In much the same way, the Israelites would pass over Rahab's house and keep her and anyone in her house from death.

To note: the Israelites themselves did very little passing over anything. In upcoming chapters, we see how completely and absolutely the Lord fought this battle, and how the Israelites needed only to faithfully follow instructions. But the Lord honored the red cord and the faith of the woman who left it in the window, and Rahab and her family were spared.

I hope we can honestly inspect our allegiances like Rahab did. We can respect a lot of things around us, but when it comes to the Lord -- our allegiance goes to Him and Him alone, whatever our backgrounds or situations, our family, our faith history, or anything else.

We can be like the king of Jericho and seek to destroy those sent from the Lord... or we can be like Rahab, who recognized where her ultimate allegiance was supposed to lie. She made her decision and followed through.

It couldn't have been easy. I wonder if she struggled with fear or guilt, thinking about how she was betraying her "home"? I wonder how long it took her to feel at home among the Israelites? Despite the fact that she felt she was doing right, she had to have some tenterhooks that pricked her for her decision.

Rahab was honored for her faithfulness, because despite this "betrayal" of her country and homeland, despite her profession, she said: "I know that the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below." She pledged allegiance to the highest One...

And she literally became a part of the family of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

I love it. No one, no one, is beyond redemption or hope.