November 8, 2009 - Proper 27, Year B (RCL)
Today in our Old Testament reading
we heard
part of the story
of the book of Ruth.
Let me tell you
the rest of it.
She still couldn't quite believe it.
They had been so excited,
had so many plans
when they first arrived.
They were strangers,
refugees from a country in famine,
forced out to find food
for themselves and their teenage sons.
They had made their way to Moab, following rumors
that there was food to be found there.
You would think that the Moabites
would be sick of hungry Israelites
converging on their towns,
but if they were, they never showed it.
Because there Naomi and Elimelech and the boys
and found not just food
but a welcome.
People shared what they had, offered them a place to stay,
and found them work,
and before they knew it,
they had come to call Moab home.
And the boys grew older, and life
was good.
But then the thing that everyone feared happened.
Naomi’s beloved husband Elimelech
died,
and she was left alone with her sons.
People were kind,
but it was a foreign land,
and she missed the extended family
that would normally have taken helped out
at a time like this.
But the boys were young adults now,
and they put their arms around her
and said that everything
would be
all right.
And they got to work,
earning to support her,
and in their spare time
took to dating local women
so that they could provide that family
that Naomi missed
so much.
And eventually
and each of them
found a wife from among the Moabites,
Orpah for Mahlon
and Ruth for Chilion.
And although the relationship
between mother-in-laws and their sons’ wives
can sometimes be difficult,
Orpah and Ruth
loved Naomi,
and welcomed her
into their lives.
And the sons prospered
and their wives and mothers
cared for the household
and Naomi dreamed of the day
when she would have grandchildren to spoil.
But then came the sickness.
a fever, hot and fast, and a gut wrenching cough,
and no one could do anything
to stop it,
and first Mahlon caught it, and died,
and then Chilion. It was tradition
that if a married man died,
his widow
could marry
the next oldest brother,
who would then take responsibility for her.
But there was no next oldest brother
for Orpah or Ruth;
both the sons
of Elimelech and Naomi
had died,
and all that was left for them
was to go home
to their parents
and hope for another
longer
marriage.
But Naomi,
it was far worse for her.
She had lost them all, husband and sons,
and with no family nearby to support her,
after ten years of living in Moab,
she made the difficult decision
to go back to Israel,
back to Bethlehem,
her husband’s home town,
and throw herself
on his family’s
mercy.
And so Naomi
began to pack,
carrying only
what was most precious to her,
and urging her daughters-in-law
to take what they wanted
and go home to their parents.
But they worried about leaving her
and offered to travel with her
back to Bethlehem.
“No,” she said,
there’s no future there for you.
Stay with your own families.
It will be better
in the end.
And Orpah
headed out the door,
but Ruth
hung back.
“I’ll come with you” Ruth said to Naomi.
“No,” said Naomi. “Stay with your family. I’ll be okay.”
“No,” said Ruth. “Don’t send me away. Wherever you go, I’ll go. Wherever you stay, I’ll stay. Your people
will be my people;
your God
will be my God.
Where you die, I’ll die,
and be buried
beside you.”
And so Naomi gave in,
and headed home for Bethlehem
with Ruth beside her.
And they arrived just in time for the barley harvest,
Naomi still bitter
about the loss of her husband and sons.
Now one of the laws in ancient Israel
was that when you were harvesting your crops,
instead of making sure you picked up every last piece of grain,
you left those straggly plants at the edge of the field and in the ditch
and the grains that fell from the stalks as they were harvested
to be collected
by anyone who was in need.
And so when Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at harvest time,
Naomi asked Ruth to go out into the fields that belonged to a distant relative of her husband Elimelech
to try to pick up
some of that leftover
grain.
And the man who owned the field, Boaz, saw her
and asked around about who she was,
and when he heard her story, how she had followed her mother-in-law
back to Bethlehem,
he quietly made sure
that there was plenty of grain left for her to pick up.
But when harvest ended
Naomi knew
that they needed
some other source of support.
And there was a tradition,
that when a man died,
his closest relative
had the first chance to buy any family property,
but with that property
came the obligation
to marry
the man’s widow
and father heirs.
And as far as Naomi knew,
Boaz
was Elimelech’s closest relative,
and especially since he had been so good to her in the harvest,
Naomi thought it was time
to claim her traditional right.
But she was done with marriage;
she was too old to bear more children,
and since Ruth’s husband Chilion
was Elimelech’s son,
Ruth could claim
that right from Boaz.
So she sent Ruth to him,
to see if he would take up his responsibility.
But what Naomi didn’t know
was that there was a relative
who was closer,
and so Boaz
contacted him
and offered him
the land that had belonged to Elimelech,
and with it,
the hand of Ruth in marriage.
But the other relative
wasn’t interested;
it would have affected his own inheritance,
and so he happily passed on his responsibilities to Boaz.
And Boaz
married Ruth,
and they had a son
Obed,
and Naomi held her grandson in her arms
and wept with joy.
Naomi could not have imagined,
that day in Moab,
as she grieved the deaths of her husband and sons,
and began the journey back to Bethlehem,
she couldn’t have imagined
the joy
of that little grandson.
And Ruth, young widow,
foreigner,
expecting a life
of caring for her mother-in-law
couldn’t have imagined
the happiness she found
with her new husband Boaz,
and with her son Obed.
And neither of them could have imagined
what that little boy would mean, not just for their family
but for the whole world.
Because little Obed grew up,
and became the father
of Jesse,
and Jesse
the father of David,
king of Israel.
And David was the father of Solomon,
and Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
and Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
and so on until Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph,
and Joseph
the father of Jesus.
That’s the story
of the book of Ruth.
It’s one of those stories
that you almost wonder
why it’s in the bible.
Yes, there’s the link to King David, and from him
on to Jesus - it clearly has some sort of historical value -
but for something included in the scriptures
it doesn’t have
much about God.
Naomi gives her daughter in laws a blessing
when she tries to send them off home to their parents;
Ruth says that Naomi’s God will be her God.
Naomi blames God for the death of her husband and sons,
Boaz offers God’s blessing on Ruth.
Finally the people bless Ruth and Boaz
and the women offer thanks to God for the birth of baby Obed.
God is there, but only as a kind of background figure.
We’re more used to hearing
about God actually intervening in human life;
that’s what most of the bible
is about,
or at least God speaking.
But here,
God is very much a background figure.
Yes, it was God who set up the laws
that drew Naomi back to her hometown,
that provided the widows
with food,
that led to Ruth’s marriage
and Obed’s birth.
But there was no direct intervention, as far as we know,
no voice in the night,
no particular Godly guidance.
Just two women
living the best way they knew how,
and in doing that
they became
an irrevocable part of God’s plan
for the salvation
of the world.
And in that way
the story of Ruth
is far more like our experience of God
than most of the other stories
in the Old Testament.
Most of us
don’t get
the direct intervention from God,
the voice in the night,
no particular Godly guidance.
All we have to go on
is the laws God has left us,
laws that were summed up by Jesus
in two great commandments:
love the Lord your God
and love your neighbor
as yourself.
One way to look at what that means is to look at the baptismal covenant.
Loving God
means continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
in the breaking of bread,
and in the prayers - or in other words
gathering to worship each week,
praying,
reading scripture.
It means persevering in resisting evil,
and, whenever we fall into sin, repenting and returning to the Lord,
or in other words
telling God we are sorry when we mess up,
and accepting God’s forgiveness.
Loving our neighbor
means proclaiming by word and example
the Good News of God in Christ,
or in other words
sharing the good news of Christ in what we say
and how we live.
It means seeking and serving Christ in all persons, striving for justice and peace among all people,
and respecting the dignity of every human being.
Or in other words,
caring not just
for our families and friends,
but for everyone we come into contact with,
regardless of race or color or gender or sexuality or class
or any of the other categories
that we humans use
to exclude some people.
Naomi and Ruth
followed God
the best way they knew how,
taking risks,
relying on God’s promises.
And the consequences
were greater than they could ever have imagined.
Love God.
Love one another.
Who knows
what God could do
with us?
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009