What about Rahab and Ruth?

Rahab and Ruth are the next two women Matthew mentions by name.  They come into the Old Testament story at different points.

Rahab enters the story when Joshua and his spies enter her house.....a house with a red light in the front window. That's right, she was a full-time, professional prostitute in the big, bad city of Jericho.  Israel was planning on invading Jericho and Joshua and his spies were there to figure out the lay of the land.  Somehow, the king of Jericho got wind of their presence.*

Send out the spies! he demands of Rahab.  She had strategically hidden them and even after hunting, the King's men couldn't find them.  She only asked one thing of Joshua in return:  when they invaded she and her whole family would be given safe passage, protected from both sides.  That's exactly what happened, and as a result, the lineage of Joseph continued through Boaz her son.

A  prostitute!  From Jericho!  In the lineage of King David and through him to Joseph to Jesus!

But that's not all.  Then there is Ruth.  Ruth married the Israelite son of Naomi.  Naomi had emigrated to Moab with her husband and 2 sons where tragedy befell them:  all the men died.  Naomi had to return to her own people for protection and sustenance.  She released her daughters-in-law to return to their families and perhaps find a second husband.  Ruth refused.

                     “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go,
                     and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God 
                     my God."  Ruth 1.16

Of course, this meant Ruth, a woman from Moab, one of the most hated of Israel's neighbors, was going to be dependent on Israelite hospitality.  The chances of finding a second husband seemed all too slim.  Yet she and Naomi find a bit of security with a distant relative named Boaz who has fallen for Ruth in spite of her ethnic origins.  In the end, Ruth seduces Boaz and Boaz marries Ruth and together they add to the lineage of Joseph, and through him, Jesus.

A prostitute and a hated foreigner.  Both are a part of God's divine plan and God's divine love.  They are not to be rejected because of their 'impurity' but have been incorporated into God's household.  Perhaps Matthew is trying to prepare us for Jesus' radical re-interpretation of the Torah, where all are to be included in God's invitation to the feast.  Even the sexually suspect, or the dirty foreigner, or tax collectors or lepers or women or children or Pharisees or Romans.

By highlighting these women who failed to meet all the pietistic requirements in the history of Israel, Matthew opens the possibility that you and I might be included as well.  Sexually suspect, indeed.

* see Joshua 2.  Ruth's story can be found in the book of  Ruth