Sermon: The Walls Came Tumbling Down

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The Walls Came Tumbling Down

By Charles Rush

October 9, 2005

a moment, we are about to view a wonderful little play our children have been working on regarding the battle of Jericho. It is an epic story, which is why we teach it in Sunday School, since our objective is to familiarize our children with the great stories of the Bible. We give them the uncomplicated G-rated version of the tale that contains a simple, important, indeed profound moral lesson.

It is interesting that in the corpus of Scripture, we hardly ever get simple, unambiguous moral lessons and that is because humans are simply not like that, are they? It is also our job as teachers and parents to eventually deal with some of these issues with our children when they start to shade moral questions with more finesse as they get older. What do I mean?

It has often been noted that the author of the book of Joshua appears to be a non-commissioned officer in the Israeli army. Why? There is the presumption that God is on our side in a narrow nationalistic sense; then there is the presumption that we have to face off every so often with our enemies and tens of thousands have to die. Finally, there is the presumption that we should be commended for treating the prostitutes well. If there is a book for the grunts of the world, those actually in service and those who simply wish for this simplicity, this is the book.

As has also often been noted, this view of God stands in clearest juxtaposition to the teachings of Jesus, and this is what must ultimately be wrestled with.

Just a word about the prostitutes as an example. The profundity of our story lies in the confusion with which it begins. The people of Israel have been delivered from slavery, wandered through the desert, and are now about to enter the Promised Land. The original leader Moses dies and they have to appoint a new generation of leadership. That is always anxiety producing, particularly since the challenge appears so great.

Moses has stated boldly that all they have to do is enter the Promised Land and they will possess it because that is God's promise and God's word is sure. But, the big moral question, one that is still with us I might add, is what rights the people have who already live in the land?

This next generation of leadership doesn't exactly raise that question themselves. They are more driven by fear. Instead of boldly crossing the Jordan river, they send out a set of spies. The spies report back that the people who live in the land are giants and that they live in well fortified cities and have well organized, huge armies… and… you know, we could never defeat them!!!!

So often men huddle in a back room and fear, unleashed in their midst, takes on a life of it's own, and these big burly guys become little boys.

They come to the fortified city of Jericho and again, they send out spies, and the spies enter the city and try to make friends with someone and mysteriously the one person they find that, so to speak, befriends them, is the madam of the local whorehouse, a woman named Rahab.

There is a story here, left untold in scripture. We are not told exactly how much money was spent at the whorehouse, whether this money was listed under "important trip expenses" or whether it came out personal discretionary funds. How little has changed. Cut a bunch of young men loose in a foreign land and they end up somehow at the massage parlor, reporting back how nice those girls are.

Rahab helps them escape after authorities come looking for them. Because of this hospitality, she gets them to promise that they will spare her family, should a battle take place and they agree. I might add that there is probably a poignancy in that plea as you can imagine that Rahab's family probably had given her little but strife and agita over the years and she is looking out for them any way. But that is another sermon.

In the version we give to the children, Rahab's occupational profession is not described only because it is not age appropriate. I might note for you that if you look at the beginning of the gospel of Matthew, you get a long list of the ancestors of Jesus and if you look through that list you will notice 4 women mentioned. And if you look up these four women, they are all of dubious moral standing and one of them is Rahab. The author of Matthew, like Jesus, goes out of his way to include those that are traditionally shunned and to suggest that our notions of sin have been way too tame in the past…

So why do we teach this story? As I said it is epic in scope. It is paradigmatic because there are times in our lives when we stand before such odds that we are simply overwhelmed and frightened at the prospect.

At the moment, I've been exchanging e-mail with a group of guys from freshman year at college. We have reconnected because one of us has a brain tumor that is threatening his life and he has just been through this operation where they had to lift his face off and do surgery. A bunch of us have been to visit him, one is a doctor, another lawyer, another the CEO of a major international corporation… All of us have been thinking the same thing. We are too young to have our friends actually die from these kinds of things. It is not likely that our friend will pull through this. And all of these guys have said that they have started praying at night because they are having trouble sleeping. Some of them are realizing existentially how unprepared they are spiritually for the fundamental challenges of life.

We get to these big moments in life where the enemy before us, whether it is disease, natural disaster, or even moral evil, is relatively unambiguous. There is a Star-Wars clarity to our story where the bad guys are just bad and the good guys are just good and while that may be rare in real life, we do occasionally experience it that way.

And there are also those rare, but life changing moments, when we come through the shadow of the valley of death, and it feels just like the Walls came tumbling down miraculously. I think of a mother who got that awful call in the middle of the night that one of her children had overdosed on drugs and was at the hospital and it didn't look good, that frantic fear driving to the ER, pacing the floor, the doctor walking toward her with grim determination and fatigue in the early hours of the morning, finally getting out the words, "he's going to make it." That huge spiritual weight suddenly is lifted, tears are released, and that sudden sense that the walls come falling down.

Finally, there is some important sense too that if God is in it, nothing can stop it, not well organized armies, not walled cities. I deeply believe this. And so do you. I think of Rosa Parks on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama in the 50's refusing to give up her seat to a white man. At her funeral, someone remarked, 'when Rosa Parks sat down, the whole world stood up.' Who can say why that happened just at that time? And who would have put smart money down on her day one that a whole society would eventually amend their laws and their way of thinking because of this one woman galvanized a protest that simply grew and couldn't be stopped.

It is important for our children to know that if God is in it, nothing can stop it. Hopefully, some of them will stand by their convictions in the future when it is quite unpopular and they will witness the miracle of odds being overcome.

Finally, there is also the simple joy that comes from watching the little guy win occasionally. I think of the guys at Bucknell University, where 100% of their basketball players actually graduate from college. In the NCAA tournament last year, they were practically alone in being able to say that. In January, they are taking their D3 team down to mighty Cameron stadium to play the invincible Duke University. Against incredible odds, in the presence of intimidating fans, with a tenth of the scholarship money, wouldn't it be great to see the Chemistry major drop a three pointer at the buzzer to bring down those showoffs at Duke? Go Bisons! Amen.