“Traveling with Ruth: Celebration” Ruth 4: 1-17

Ruth is an odd book in the Bible. It was probably included in the cannon of books in the Bible because it stood in such stark contrast to other books like Ezra and Nehemiah, that taught that the Israelites should only marry insiders - folks like them. Yet, here is Ruth, who not only interacted with insiders, but married one and is now preparing to marry another with Boaz. 

We are now in our final week of our sermon series about traveling with Ruth. We have walked with her through grief, hostility and fidelity. We have seen how God has been present in the midst of all circumstances. Now, now, we are entering with Ruth into a period of celebration.

Boaz and Ruth have fallen in love. But there is one thing that stands in the way - Boaz is not next in line to marry Ruth. While Ruth herself cannot hold any property because she is a woman, whoever marries her will inherit what was her late husband’s. So Boaz needs to be diplomatic in reaching out to those next in line to see if they want to marry Ruth.

So Boaz went to where deals were stuck in ancient society - the city gate. He gives the man the opportunity to claim what is his - a parcel of land belonging to Elmilech and his sons, however there is a catch - if he claims the land he also gets Ruth’s hand in marriage. 

The kinsman couldn’t have that. He couldn’t risk being affiliated with an outsider, a Moabite, so he passed on his chance on the land. He passed over his opportunity and handed it on to Boaz, who gladly claimed the land and Ruth’s hand in marriage. And then the men at the city gate, men who knew all about Ruth being an outsider, did a funny thing - they blessed Ruth, telling Boaz that they wished that she be like Rachel and Leah, the mothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, who built up their people.

And that is exactly what happened! Ruth gave birth to a son named Obed - servant of God. The women of the city rejoiced with Naomi that though she was once without a male heir, now had kin to call her own because of this blessing. And Obed became the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of King David, placing Ruth directly in the lineage of Jesus.

There is a Hebrew word that describes the love that Boaz had for Ruth. It didn’t start out as a romantic love, but instead as hessed - loving kindness, loyalty, love in action. Friends, we need more hessed in our world today. While it is wonderful to have love that is passion or emotion, we need more folks showing love in the world. Folks who are living out the love of their faith in the world.

For Boaz, hessed seemed to go against the priestly way of keeping insiders and outsiders separate. But because he was willing to take a God given and God blessed risk, we see that God had a different vision for the people of God then what they thought. This hessed , this risk, allowed for the lineage of Jesus, friends. Let that sink in. There is no place that God is not at work, even when other’s discount it, even when other’s turn down opportunities, the question for us is where does God want us to live into hessed, putting the love of Christ into action, taking a risk for the Gospel.

Its perhaps easiest to show love, kindness, and loyalty to those we like. So how can we shine the love of God in our family? How can we be kind to one another, purposefully? Now I am not nieve. It is not always easy to love our family and we all have hiccups along the way. But if we can’t love our families, the gift and blessing that God gave us, then how can we love strangers? Perhaps another way to ask this question would be how can we appreciate the family we have and not take them for grant it?

I’ve been at far too my funerals, brothers and sisters, littered with “if only”. If only I would have told him that when he was alive. If only I would have made more time for her before now. Now is the time, dear friends, to show love and kindness to our families. 

Then let’s take it out a bit further. How can we show loving kindness to our church family? How can we use the gifts we have been given to bless others in the body of Christ. There was a woman at my first appointment who had the gift of words of encouragement. Whenever there was a stumbling block or hiccup in ministry, should would pull me aside with a word from scripture to lift up my spirits as well as others. I knew another man who had the gift of prayer - when he said that he would pray for you, you knew that he meant it. Another person would do things for others - he would often show up to help them chop wood or do other odd jobs. We each are blessed with ways to help one another. Are we using our gifts to build one another up with loving kindness, or not?

And what about our neighbors and strangers that do not yet know Jesus? How can we show loving kindness to them? During Lent my parents and I went to go see Jonah at Sight and Sound and one of the things that struck me the most was while Jonah certainly had a message from the Lord, he didn’t have the heart of the Lord while delivering it - he wanted people to suffer. He wanted to think himself better than then. That is not loving kindness, friends. When we talk with folks that don’t know Jesus are we speaking in love or hate? Are we seeking the best for them and their future or are we trying to make ourselves feel superior to them?

Right before Easter, we had a funeral for a dear colleague that lost her battle with cancer. During the time of witness one person stood up and said she knew me both before and after I accepted Christ and she loved me either way. Will that be our testimony as well, brothers and sisters? That we loved people both who did and did not know the Lord? That we let the light of Christ shine through us in all circumstances?

The book of Ruth is a book of questions. Questions that help us to examine ourselves and what we believe about God. Questions like - what does loving kindness look like for us? When have we experienced such love and how did it reflect Jesus Christ to us? Where is God in the midst of the unknown? How do we know that God is never absent in our lives? How can we remember that God is at work in the world every day? In what ways are God’s plan full of surprises?

Here’ the thing - if someone who have told that Ruth would become the great grandmother of King David, they probably would have laughed and said there’s no way, she isn’t an Israelite. She is an outsider. But God took that outsider and made her an insider, not just for the sake of Israel, but for the sake of the plan of salvation that will come through Jesus Christ. 

We don’t get to choose who God uses or in what ways. Therefore, we should treat everyone with loving kindness, for they may just be part of God’s great plans for drawing the world closer to the Kingdom of God. Amen.

“Traveling with Ruth: New Beginnings” Ruth 2: 1-23

What would it feel like to arrive in a place where you know next to no one, had no way to provide for yourself, and no food for your next meal? What would you do? How would you react? For many of us, this situation is hard to fathom. We may have found ourself in a new place before or without a job, but perhaps have never been quite this shaken in that which we hold dear. But that is exactly where Ruth finds herself in this mornings scripture lesson.

Last week we began our three week journey have traveling through the scriptures with Ruth. Ruth, widowed, made a vow to her mother in law, also widowed, to go where ever she goes, make her people and her God important to Ruth, and to die wherever Naomi dies. A beautiful oath in its wording, but I have to wonder how Ruth felt now that those words became actions, as she and Naomi made the harrowing journey back to Bethlehem in hopes of finding Naomi’s kinsmen to take care of them.

Ruth, hit the ground running. She knew that she and Naomi needed food to eat. There was an ancient custom called gleaning, where God commands folks working the fields and vineyards to not collect produce to the very edges. Instead, they are to leave some of what they have grown for the widow, the foreigner, the marginalized in society that had no other way of be provided for. So God made a way for them.

Ruth may not have known the exact scripture where God made this provision, but surely she had learned about the God of compassion, mercy, and justice from her years in her husband’s family. So she picked the field a kinsman, Boaz.

Boaz noticed her right away and asked who Ruth belonged to, to which he was told Naomi. Like most families, word in ancient families traveled fast. Especially of Naomi, now calling herself Mara, or bitter life. They were also probably whispering about Ruth, the foreigner, that Moabite. The one who didn’t belong, but who clung to and cared for their kinsman better then they were at the moment.

Boaz, struck with compassion, told Ruth not to glean anywhere else. To only come here to collect her grain. To glean. Here the men are told to leave more for her. Here the men are ordered away from harassing here. Boaz made a way. 

This was a strange act of loving kindness indeed! While Boaz knew and was living into Leviticus 22: "'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God.’" - he was by no means obligated to leave her some of the best barley and wheat. In fact, Boaz goes on to tell his men to let her glean amongst the standing sheaves. In other words not whats left behind, but that which was meant to be harvested by the reapers. 

Whenever I think of the story of Ruth, one of images that comes from my mind is from Sight and Sounds production of Ruth - a musical portrayal of this amazing story. When Boaz speaks of allowing Ruth to glean on these terms, others were shocked as well, yet Boaz clearly stated why he was doing what he was doing -because he had heard the good things that Ruth had done for Naomi. 

Here is Ruth, her life shattered, trying to make meaning out of what had happened to her. How many of us, when faced with tragedy are people who get so caught up in the whys that we get stuck there? Ruth didn’t have time to get stuck. She was trying to protect and provide for Naomi above all. 

Ruth was a person of hospitality. Often when we think of the word hospitality we think of what we have to offer. Getting out good food and setting the table nice for guests. Friends, Ruth couldn’t offer this type of hospitality because she didn’t have anything to offer beyond her pledge to be there for Naomi no matter what.

Hospitality has become a buzz word for some churches. But I think Ruth calls us to examine what is behind our hospitality. Think back to last week. When Elimelich and his family left Bethlehem to enter into a foreign country, Moab, they are dependent upon strangers hospitality from the very beginning of the story. They were dependent upon other people to offer them food, shelter, and jobs. They were dependent upon other people befriending them.

For that is what is truly at the root of all hospitality, befriending. Hospitality isn’t just inviting someone to your home once so you can check it off of a list of good deeds or offering a place to meet after church where we only catch up on the lives of those we know. No. Hospitality is pouring our very lives into strangers in hopes that they will become friends. And not just those like us, but those who are not like us at first glance. 

Naomi also shows hospitality in this portion of the story. At the end of the chapter, as Ruth is sharing about the kindness of Boaz, she offers advice for her daughter in law’s safety. She is just as concerned about Ruth as Ruth is for her. 

Ruth also makes us our own assumptions of fidelity. Who are the people that we stick with through all circumstances and why? Boaz recognized in Ruth a fierce fidelity to Naomi. Not because she had to, but because she chose to. In Naomi’s grief she didn’t just offer to come over once in a while. She cared for Naomi with all she was and all she had.

Recently a friend was sharing a story with me about some of her church members. One church member  who was single became ill and needed surgery. Following that time of intense illness, another church member moved in for months to care for her. She cooked, cleaned, and tended to her. That is fidelity, brothers and sisters.

I also think of a friend from high school. She and her husband moved to Ohio where they are part of a loving church. As she prepared to give birth to both of her children, folks from church stocked her freezer with pre-made meals. That is fidelity. 

What does fidelity look like in our church? It may not look anything like these two examples, and that is okay. But we need to ask ourselves how we are a church that embodies and lives into being there for one another, especially during difficult times.

Lastly, the story of Ruth reminds us that God sticks with us. Once again, in this chapter, God isn’t mentioned by name, but God can be witnessed at work. At work through Ruth seeking out the fields of a kinsman. At work in Boaz going above and beyond for Ruth. God works in unlikely ways and even through unlikely people, if only we open our eyes and hearts to sense God’s presence.

Friends, I would invite us to pray this week about three things: one, who has God put on our hearts to offer hospitality to? Not just kindness, but befriending for the sake of the Gospel? Two, how can be stick by one another? Recently while visiting a shut in, we prayed that as a world we learn how to encourage one another more. How can we show encouragement to one another during tough times? Lastly, let us pray that God opens us up to the presence of God. Let us pray. Amen. 

Traveling with Ruth: Moving Ruth 1: 1-18

When I was in seminary, one of my professors wanted to try something new. She invited a small group of us to be part of a Bible Study we called Wisdom’s Table - a different way of doing Bible Study that invited not only a deep study of the text, but the incorporation of poetry, paintings, and plays to help us see how the text has been used throughout a period of time. Then we would end with a discussion of what the text was speaking to us about today.

One of the first texts we looked at during this Bible Study was Ruth. Ruth is a different type of text inside of Hebrew Scriptures because the heroine is so unexpected. She was a female, foreigner, and widow. Moab was considered to be an enemy of Israel in may ways, yet it is exactly out of this place that Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David, was raised up.

The story of Ruth does not begin in a positive way. In fact, the first chapter of the book of Ruth seems to be filled with tragedy after tragedy. It is set in the time of the rule of the Judges. I’m not sure if you ever took time to read the book of Judges in the Bible, but if you have not, I would invite you to sometime during the month of September as we explore the book of Ruth. The time of judges was also not a happy time. There is a refrain that keeps coming up again and again: “All the people did what was right in their own eyes” and as a result, there was often chaos, until the end of the book, where there is a transition from killing people deemed to be enemies of Israel, to where the tribes start having war amongst each other. 

In this time of over-arching political chaos, the family of Elimelech was having their own struggles. Bethlehem, the place where they lived, was known as the House of Bread and yet there was nothing to eat due to a famine. So his family packed up and headed to Moab, because it was rumored there was food there. Once there, they settled down. They chose to live in a foreign place for the sake of their family.

While there the two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, took Moab wives, Orpah and Ruth. Prior to their marriage their father had passed away, and a short ten years after their marriages, the sons had died also, leaving all three women, Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth, as widows.

Being a widow or widower in any time and place is devastating. It involves re-aligning your life and grieving the loss of someone so precious to you. But in the time of the book of Ruth it was downright dangerous. Women could not hold property. In fact, the did not own anything, as possessions and property were passed down from male to male in a family lineage. So here are three women, with absolutely nothing, trying to figure out what to make of their lives now.

Naomi had heard a rumor that Bethlehem no longer was under a time of famine. She had decided that she was going to head back that direction and hope that some family member took pity upon her. Her daughter in laws started to follow her to the land of Judah, but before long Naomi turned to them and told them to go back. To turn around and go back to Moab. 

Why in the world would Namoi tell her daughter in laws to leave her and go back? Maybe because she wanted an excuse to leave them because their presence was a painful reminder of what had happened? Maybe because she was fearful of what her kin in Bethlehem would say about her bringing foreigners with her? Or maybe because she realized how dangerous the journey truly was and she didn’t have enough to eat, let enough food to feed these women as well?

Whatever the reason may have been the women protested. They wept. But Naomi was insistent. Eventually, Orpah honored what her mother in law was saying. Sometimes Orpah get’s a bad rap for not being as loyal as Ruth, but really Orpah was obedient, doing what Naomi requested of her.

However, Ruth launched into a speech about how she would never leaver Naomi. First, she asked Naomi not to press her to go back or to turn away from her. Ruth was declaring her loyalty to her mother in law. She is absolutely determined to be with her. Even though her life would change, and she would face barrier after barrier - since the people she was going to weren’t here people, it wasn’t her culture, and they didn’t worship her God, Ruth was willing to face all of that in order to be there for Naomi. 

She declared that where Naomi stayed or lodged, Ruth would be right there. Her people would become Ruth’s people. Ruth would worship Naomi’s God. And where Naomi would one day die, Ruth would be buried right next to her. Here’s the thing: people did not voluntarily leave their people and their gods. It was sort of unheard of. Moving like Emiliech did at the beginning of the chapter for the sake of food was one thing, but moving to a whole new place to be with someone who could make no promises of provision - that was another. 

Yet, Ruth so deeply loved her mother in law that she was willing to go wherever Namoi went and offer her care and support, as best as she could. She was willing to risk her entire life for the sake of another person, even moving into the unknown.

What about us, brothers and sisters? Who are the people in our lives that we so deeply love that we would move heaven and earth in order to love them? In order to care for them? What I love about the story of Ruth is that Ruth didn’t try to talk her mother in law into staying where Ruth was most comfortable. Even though Ruth was working through her own sense of loss and grief, she went with Naomi. She was present to Naomi.

What can the church learn from Ruth, friends? How often do we expect hurting people to come to us, to meet us where we are comfortable, inside of our doors instead of meeting people where they are at? Are we so determined to be present to folks who do not yet know the love of Jesus that we are willing to risk our comforts for their sake?

The thing about the story of Ruth is that God’s name isn’t used very often, but the Spirit of God seems to have fingerprints everywhere. God is the one guiding Ruth and Naomi. God is the one walking right beside them on the dangerous journey back to Jerusalem. God is acting in a mighty way, giving the women the gift of each other along this journey.

A few months ago I went to workshop that totally changed my understanding of being the church. I have used and will continue to use the very pertain and distressing statistic that eighty percent of folks in our area do not regularly attend church. But this workshop reminded me that not everyone in those eighty percent of folks have the same situation or can be approached in the same way. Some of those folks are just waiting for someone to invite them to come. Others already consider themselves to be active, even if they haven’t been in church for a long time. But others, others are hesitant to enter into the church building because of past hurts or because they don’t know what it could add to their lives. These last two groups - we need to be willing to be on the move and go to them. Be like Ruth, meeting them in their time of need. 

Are we willing to be Ruth’s brothers and sisters? Are we willing to go where we may be uncomfortable all for the sake of another person? Are we willing to be with and go to people for the sake of the Gospel? Amen.