Chautauqua Reflection III: Red Thread

While at Chautauqua, I heard Barbara Lundblad preach some very inspiring sermons.  The one that stuck with me, and with most people there that week, was her sermon on Rahab the Prostitute.

You can read Rahab's story in the Old Testament - in Joshua 2:1-24.  As the Israelites prepare to enter the promised land, Jericho is a city in the way.  As Dr. Lundblad noted, it's always a bit unsettling to arrive in the promised land only to discover that someone else is already there.  So spies are sent on a scouting mission to Jericho, and while there are protected by Rahab, hiding out on the roof of the brothel in the city wall.  In exchange for her protection of them, they work out a deal in which she will hang a crimson cord - a red thread - out of her window, and her home and family within will be spared.  While the rest of Jericho is pillaged, the red thread saves Rahab.

There are many puzzling things about this story.  Why was Rahab protecting outsiders who were about to destroy her city?  Why do the men agree to protect a prostitute?  For that matter, why is the protagonist of a biblical story a prostitute?  And most puzzling to me is the point Dr. Lundblad made in her sermon: who is the outsider?  It depends on where you stand, doesn't it?  For Rahab and the people of Jericho, the men are the outsiders.  But for the Israelite sympathizer, the outsiders are these folks who stand in the way of the promised land.

More than anything, Lundblad said, this story is a reminder that we ought not overlook the red thread.  We ought to pay attention to those caught up in the city wall, a position right on the line between "us" and "them."  The red thread reminds us to see the face of neighbor and enemy in the midst of holy conquest.

Lundblad framed this in the context of 9/11.  As we approach the 10th anniversary of that tragic day, it's time, she said, to organize a red thread campaign.  The red thread can be a sign that we mourn the attack on one of our cities. It can be a sign that insider vs. outsider is a much more complicated debate than we want to believe.  And it can be a sign that in the midst of a struggle that continues, we fix our eyes on those in the margins of the conflict, on Rahab and those lives valued and saved in the midst of violent conflict.

It's time for the Red Thread Campaign.  It's not time to more fervently delineate the lines between us and them, or to celebrate war, or to declare God's blessing on our holy conquest over the holy conquest of another.  It's time to hang a Red Thread in the window, as a reminder to ourselves and others that we mourn lost life and seek God's protection for all human life caught up in the midst of conflict.