Scripture: Ruth 4
There’s nothing harder than trying to look past your current circumstances and feeling as though there might be hope somewhere in your future.
I feel a certain empathy for Naomi in the Book of Ruth. When the book opened up, we heard about how rough life was for Naomi. Her husband and two sons both died – leaving her a widow with no means to support herself. There was apparently also a famine in the land, because she decided to go back to her ancestral home because she had heard there was food in Israel.
So great was her sorrow, she even changed her name to “Mara,” meaning “bitter.”
A bitter, angry woman due to tragic circumstances in her life. Personally – I can’t imagine that kind of loss all at once. So I really don’t blame the woman for turning bitter and angry. Nothing in life so far is telling her that things will eventually get better. In fact, anyone who said that to her probably got their head bit off because it seemed like such a shallow statement, an empty platitude that is said when people don’t know what else to say.
Because when you’re in the midst of angst, darkness and tragedy – it’s hard to see that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, that life is ever going to be something different than where you’re currently at. On some level you might know it – but on another, all you see in front of you sometimes is the pitch black tunnel you’re careening through.
Naomi wanted to do what so many of us do in such a situation. To shove away the people that are close to us – to not trouble them with our problems, our disasters. Our depression, our angst, and our struggles.
But on the other side there was Ruth, Naomi’s daughter in law, who refused to leave Naomi’s side. Who refused to let Naomi send her away. Who refused to stay safe in her homeland, with her family – and instead, traveled with Naomi back to the land of Israel where she would be treated as an outsider, a disease, and be hated because she was a dreaded Moabite.
Things of course have turned around by chapter four, today’s scripture. Last week, Ruth made a very bold move in going to Boaz, hoping he would be a “kinsman redeemer” – someone who had the responsibility to act on behalf of a family member who was in need. In our story for today, Boaz becomes that kinsman redeemer and marries Ruth, restoring not just Ruth, but also Naomi’s name and circumstances. Naomi’s joy returns at Ruth and Boaz’s child, who will eventually become the grandfather of King David – which of course will then lead eventually to the birth of the Messiah.
But that is information that I doubt Naomi, Ruth or Boaz were at all privy to. They were simply in the midst of their own lives, their own struggles. It’s a story of perseverance even when the deck seems stacked against you in life. When one thing after another seems to fall apart.
And I have to wonder how many of us in our lives have found our way through darkness and despair because there was a Ruth to help us through it. A Ruth who shows up and refuses, no matter how much you try and push them away, to stand by you and love you despite the tragic nature of your circumstances.
The story of Ruth is odd in that it’s one of the books where God does not show up in a direct, overt way. No burning bush, no booming voice, no fiery chariots. And yet – God is still very present in the midst of this story. Present – and active – in a way that may seem a little more familiar to most of us.
You’ve probably seen this picture hanging in our café area. I’m sure most could guess it is the hand of Christ reaching into the deep, dark waters of chaos and confusion, and grasping hold of a drowning person, stopping them from sinking into the depths of personal turmoil and struggle as the dark waters threaten to engulf them.
Marked with the scars of the crucifixion, we recognize easily the hand of Jesus reaching out to lift us up.
But here’s the thing… Jesus rarely comes to us in that visible and direct of a way. Instead, he comes to us in the form of the people around us who are Christ to us during our most difficult and darkest times. When you feel you are sinking into an abyss that has no light, has no hope, has no future – only chaos and pain.
One feels the hands of their friends, their family, their co-workers, their congregation – reaching into those depths and clinging to that drowning person. Not letting that person sink into that place of utter despair and darkness. Not letting them rename themselves “Mara.”
This is what Ruth does for Naomi. She clings to her mother in law – refusing to let Naomi become lost in her sea of “bitterness” and despair.
Ruth becomes her own form of redeemer, simply by her loyalty and friendship to her mother-in-law.
Ruth… is Christ to Naomi – even though it will be another millennia at least before Christ is born.
This story is all about redemption.
It truly is a remarkable story – especially given when it was written. The writer of Ruth claims this all happened during the time of the Judges. The time of the Judges was a very tumultuous and difficult time in the history of Israel. We are told that, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” The people then proceeded to abandon the Lord, they followed the gods of the other nations and did “evil” in the sight of the Lord, then other nations would come and subjugate them, they’d cry out to God, and God would send a judge to free them – Deborah, Gideon, Samson…
The Israelites would then be freed, worship God for a time – and the cycle would start all over again. The book of Judges descends into a civil anarchy within Israel, which ends with the tribe of Benjamin almost being wiped out completely by the other tribes of Israel.
That’s the context into which the story of Ruth emerges. In the middle of this chaos and descent of Israel into disorder and apostasy, we find this woman – an outsider – a hated enemy of the Israelites – being shown in a story of redemption and hope.
She is the counter-story to Israel’s faithlessness. It is a little story, that had it not been for the fact that Ruth becomes the great grandmother of King David, would have probably been lost to the world. A tiny footnote of every day love and grace of a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law.
And yet here it stands – a reminder to us that God’s love and grace comes to us in the most unexpected and unusual forms – and sometimes in the simplest, most ordinary of ways. Through a Moabite woman, who simply wouldn’t allow her mother-in-law to suffer alone, she becomes the ancestor of God’s greatest redemptive work in the world.
Sorrow has been turned to joy. Death – into life. Darkness into light.
There’s nothing harder than trying to look past your current circumstances and feeling as though there might be hope somewhere in your future.
I feel a certain empathy for Naomi in the Book of Ruth. When the book opened up, we heard about how rough life was for Naomi. Her husband and two sons both died – leaving her a widow with no means to support herself. There was apparently also a famine in the land, because she decided to go back to her ancestral home because she had heard there was food in Israel.
So great was her sorrow, she even changed her name to “Mara,” meaning “bitter.”
A bitter, angry woman due to tragic circumstances in her life. Personally – I can’t imagine that kind of loss all at once. So I really don’t blame the woman for turning bitter and angry. Nothing in life so far is telling her that things will eventually get better. In fact, anyone who said that to her probably got their head bit off because it seemed like such a shallow statement, an empty platitude that is said when people don’t know what else to say.
Because when you’re in the midst of angst, darkness and tragedy – it’s hard to see that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, that life is ever going to be something different than where you’re currently at. On some level you might know it – but on another, all you see in front of you sometimes is the pitch black tunnel you’re careening through.
Naomi wanted to do what so many of us do in such a situation. To shove away the people that are close to us – to not trouble them with our problems, our disasters. Our depression, our angst, and our struggles.
But on the other side there was Ruth, Naomi’s daughter in law, who refused to leave Naomi’s side. Who refused to let Naomi send her away. Who refused to stay safe in her homeland, with her family – and instead, traveled with Naomi back to the land of Israel where she would be treated as an outsider, a disease, and be hated because she was a dreaded Moabite.
Things of course have turned around by chapter four, today’s scripture. Last week, Ruth made a very bold move in going to Boaz, hoping he would be a “kinsman redeemer” – someone who had the responsibility to act on behalf of a family member who was in need. In our story for today, Boaz becomes that kinsman redeemer and marries Ruth, restoring not just Ruth, but also Naomi’s name and circumstances. Naomi’s joy returns at Ruth and Boaz’s child, who will eventually become the grandfather of King David – which of course will then lead eventually to the birth of the Messiah.
But that is information that I doubt Naomi, Ruth or Boaz were at all privy to. They were simply in the midst of their own lives, their own struggles. It’s a story of perseverance even when the deck seems stacked against you in life. When one thing after another seems to fall apart.
And I have to wonder how many of us in our lives have found our way through darkness and despair because there was a Ruth to help us through it. A Ruth who shows up and refuses, no matter how much you try and push them away, to stand by you and love you despite the tragic nature of your circumstances.
The story of Ruth is odd in that it’s one of the books where God does not show up in a direct, overt way. No burning bush, no booming voice, no fiery chariots. And yet – God is still very present in the midst of this story. Present – and active – in a way that may seem a little more familiar to most of us.
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| "Saving Grace" by Rebecca Craig |
Marked with the scars of the crucifixion, we recognize easily the hand of Jesus reaching out to lift us up.
But here’s the thing… Jesus rarely comes to us in that visible and direct of a way. Instead, he comes to us in the form of the people around us who are Christ to us during our most difficult and darkest times. When you feel you are sinking into an abyss that has no light, has no hope, has no future – only chaos and pain.
One feels the hands of their friends, their family, their co-workers, their congregation – reaching into those depths and clinging to that drowning person. Not letting that person sink into that place of utter despair and darkness. Not letting them rename themselves “Mara.”
This is what Ruth does for Naomi. She clings to her mother in law – refusing to let Naomi become lost in her sea of “bitterness” and despair.
Ruth becomes her own form of redeemer, simply by her loyalty and friendship to her mother-in-law.
Ruth… is Christ to Naomi – even though it will be another millennia at least before Christ is born.
This story is all about redemption.
It truly is a remarkable story – especially given when it was written. The writer of Ruth claims this all happened during the time of the Judges. The time of the Judges was a very tumultuous and difficult time in the history of Israel. We are told that, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” The people then proceeded to abandon the Lord, they followed the gods of the other nations and did “evil” in the sight of the Lord, then other nations would come and subjugate them, they’d cry out to God, and God would send a judge to free them – Deborah, Gideon, Samson…
The Israelites would then be freed, worship God for a time – and the cycle would start all over again. The book of Judges descends into a civil anarchy within Israel, which ends with the tribe of Benjamin almost being wiped out completely by the other tribes of Israel.
That’s the context into which the story of Ruth emerges. In the middle of this chaos and descent of Israel into disorder and apostasy, we find this woman – an outsider – a hated enemy of the Israelites – being shown in a story of redemption and hope.
She is the counter-story to Israel’s faithlessness. It is a little story, that had it not been for the fact that Ruth becomes the great grandmother of King David, would have probably been lost to the world. A tiny footnote of every day love and grace of a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law.
And yet here it stands – a reminder to us that God’s love and grace comes to us in the most unexpected and unusual forms – and sometimes in the simplest, most ordinary of ways. Through a Moabite woman, who simply wouldn’t allow her mother-in-law to suffer alone, she becomes the ancestor of God’s greatest redemptive work in the world.
Sorrow has been turned to joy. Death – into life. Darkness into light.
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