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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, September 3, 2017

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. 

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