Encourage Me: Holy and Merciful

He wiped out Jericho, and He saved a harlot. What kind of God was this? He seemed at once impossibly holy and ridiculously merciful. How could you tie those two incongruities together, Rahab.” (Tessa Afshar)

NOTE: This is a fictional retelling of a Bible story. See the footnote at the bottom of the narrative for the scripture passage that inspired this modern version of the biblical account.

There stood a grand, melon-green Victorian mansion on the outskirts of Emerald City that everyone knew about, but never talked about it. Respectable women ignored what happen inside its doors. Men who wanted their sexual fantasies fulfilled knew a visit to Madam Rina’s brothel could satisfy their male urges.

Madam Rina was a fiftyish-year old widow who moved to this town from Scarlet Cord, AL, after her abusive husband passed away three years ago. Her children and grandchildren live close by in Lacy, OH. Madam Rina’s line of work has given her a new lease on life and her self-esteem. This home was an inheritance from her late loveable grandparents.

There are several things Madam Rina dislikes about her line of work and this house. First, she can never have her family over for dinners, or have sleepovers here with her granddaughters as her grandparents did with her. Madam Rina wondered why her family had never asked about her home. Maybe they already knew what she did for a living.

Second, her small yard backs up against a cement sound barrier wall that is supposed to block out the noises of Interstate 90. In addition to the Venus water fountain and wooden bench placed in the postage-stamp size backyard, a local muralist tried to disguise the ugly cement wall by painting a lovely country garden. None of it convinces Madam Rina that she does not have a spacious backyard.

Madam Rina’s girls vary in age from 25-40, body shape, are single, and free of sexually transmitted disease upon employment. They are some of the most beautiful women anywhere in Bryant County.

Madam Rina knows she may lose one of her five girls in the near future. Lady Galleria (Gail Sturgeon) used to be an ex-street prostitute. The brothel is a step up from the dangerous job she had before. As the black sheep of her family, her Lutheran family does not approve of her choice of career.

Lately a nice single male detective named “Haas” has been courting Lady Galleria every weekend for the last month at the going rate. He never spends the night, and always treats Gail like a real lady unlike some of their other male customers that see her as an object.

This Friday, Haas told Lady Galleria that he loved her and wanted to make her his wife. Haas didn’t seem to care about Gail’s battered, scarred past. She was important to him. He seems to want a bright future with children in it with her. That’s why she accepted a ring, and agreed to be his fiancée, and no longer on the staff at the brothel.

Things went downhill Saturday morning at around 7:30 am. Madame Rina was reading Unashamed: Rahab by Francine Rivers. She could relate to the life of this biblical prostitute. Things went downhill Saturday morning at around 7:30 am when she placed her bookmark in her book.

Through her front window, Madam Rina could see in the distance two police cars headed towards her home. Madam Rina wondered which local church woman had gotten upset with her brothel his time. The police had tried to bust this place before, but with no success. Madam Rina quickly hit the emergency red button in the kitchen.

The two male bodyguards appeared out of nowhere, and quickly moved the half- dressed, out-of-town private investigators to the roof while the girls quickly arranged themselves and their rooms to look presentable for the police. The roof was an herb and plant garden with a humungous white tarp to cover the plants in the midst of bad weather. The investigators quickly put the big white tarp over themselves just before the police stepped on the roof.

“Matthew lists Rahab as one of the ancestresses of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5), and that may be one reason why there was something about free-wheeling ladies with warm and generous hearts that he was never quite able to resist.” (Frederick Buechner)[i]