Address given at Borrisokane on Sunday 4th November 2018, the Fourth before Advent
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable
in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
I have a confession to make - I’m a sucker for romantic stories, and the
Book of Ruth is just such a story!
It follows a trajectory from sorrow to joy, from
emptiness to fullness - what a delightful
romantic movie it would make.
Today’s 1st reading (Ruth 1:1-18) sets the
scene. It introduces two women as the main characters – Naomi, a refugee from
famine in Judah settled in the land of Moab, and her daughter-in-law Ruth, a
Moabite with no children. Disaster has befallen them. First Naomi’s husband
dies, and ten years later both her sons die, including Ruth’s husband. They are
both left as widows without the security of family, filled with sorrow and
emptiness.
Naomi, in despair, decides to return home to Bethlehem
in Judah. Her two daughters-in-law start out to follow her, but Naomi tells
them to go back to their own people, where they might marry again and find
security. One of them does so, but the other, Ruth, insists on staying with
Naomi. Ruth says:
‘Where you go, I will go; where you
lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people, and your
God my God.
Where you die, I will die — there will I
be buried.’
In these beautiful words, Ruth makes a vow never to
leave Naomi. By using the Jewish name for God, YHWH, she renounces allegiance
to Moab and Chemosh, the God of the Moabites, and aligns herself with Naomi’s people
and her God, the God of Israel. Ruth launches herself out into an unknown
future as a refugee, trusting in Naomi’s God that all will turn out well. How
much Ruth must have loved Naomi! We shall return to their story later.
But first let’s look at the 2nd reading from Mark’s Gospel (12:28-34).
A scribe asks Jesus, ‘Which is the greatest
commandment?’, and Jesus gives a two-part answer. Matthew’s Gospel (22:37-39) records
the same question and Jesus’s answer in slightly different words, which we all
recognise from the prayers of penitence during Holy Communion.
‘The
first’, says Jesus, ‘is “Hear, O
Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with
all your strength.”’
These words come from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. They are
known in Hebrew as the Shema - even to this day they are the first words of
every service in a synagogue. They are also written down inside a little
cylindrical box called a Mezuzah fixed to the door of every Jewish house, to
remind Jewish families of their covenant with God every time they go out or
come in. I am sure every devout Jew would agree with Jesus that this is the
greatest commandment.
‘The
second is this’, says Jesus, ‘“You
shall love your neighbour as yourself.”’
These words come from Leviticus 19:18. In effect they
summarise the commandments in the Law of Moses concerning how to treat fellow Jews.
No Jew could see them as being controversial. But for Jesus these words would
not mean quite the same as for the Jews who heard him. They would see only
fellow Jews as their neighbours, but Jesus believes that gentiles are to be
treated as neighbours as well as Jews.
We can see this clearly in Luke’s Gospel (10:25-37). When
a lawyer asks Jesus, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’,
Jesus leads him to answer his own question – he must love God and love his neighbour
as himself. The lawyer then asks, ‘And who is my neighbour?’. In response Jesus
tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were gentiles despised
and disliked by Jews, but Jesus leads the lawyer to admit that the Samaritan is
a better neighbour to the man who is robbed and beaten on the road than the
Jews who passed by on the other side.
Jesus tells him – and us too – that every person, without exception, is a
neighbour to be loved as we love ourselves.
Let us get back to Ruth and Naomi – how does their story continue?
It was harvest time when Naomi and Ruth got to
Bethlehem. It was a Jewish tradition to leave the corn in the corners of the
fields to be harvested by the poor – this was called gleaning. Ruth went out
into the fields to glean to support both of them. There she met Boaz, the owner
of a field, who was a relative of Naomi’s late husband – that’s important as we
shall see. Boaz had heard about all that Ruth was doing to support Naomi, and
praised her for it. And because he was a kind man, he made sure that Ruth was
able to glean enough for two of them without being harassed by the young lads
doing the harvesting.
The Jews had a tradition that if a married man died
without leaving children, his next of kin - his brother or another close
relative - could choose to marry his widow, and this was seen as a good and
righteous thing to do. It kept the property in the family. It ensured the
future of the widow. And any children of the marriage would be treated as
children of the dead husband.
No doubt Naomi could see how Boaz was attracted to
Ruth. So she sends Ruth to ask Boaz if he will marry her in this way, to
provide her with security. Ruth does as Naomi suggests. She visits Boaz on the threshing
floor when he is sleeping, uncovers his feet and lies down beside him, and when
he wakes she says to him, ‘Spread your coat over your servant, for you are next of
kin’. Boaz wants to marry her, but he tells Ruth that there is
another, closer relative who legally should have the first refusal - if that
man does not wish to marry her, he, Boaz, will. And Boaz is as good as his
word. The next day he goes to talk to the closer relative in front of the
elders. He establishes that the closer relative does not want to marry Ruth –
in fact he persuades him that he shouldn’t! And then Boaz says to the elders, ‘Today you are
witnesses that I have acquired … Ruth the Moabite … to be my wife, to maintain
the dead man’s name on his inheritance’.
In this way Ruth becomes Boaz’s wife, and with Naomi
they live happily ever after. Naomi and Ruth’s sorrow is transformed into joy. The
emptiness of their lives is filled by the son Ruth bears to Boaz, whom Naomi
nurses. This boy will grow up to be the grandfather of King David, and an
ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ, through his earthly father Joseph. It really
is a romantic story, isn’t it!
Ruth’s story illustrates how God works in individual human lives.
Naomi and Ruth had suffered terrible blows. It would be
so easy for them to become bitter and angry, but they don’t – instead they make
the best of their situation, showing their love for each other. And then good
things start to happen. They meet a good man, Boaz, who is attracted by the
love Ruth shows to Naomi. New life and hope come into their lives. They are offered
a second chance of happiness. And they take it.
This surely is how God works in our lives, if - God
forbid - dreadful things happen to us. If we hold on to what
is good and true and beautiful, even when it seems we have been abandoned, even
when we find ourselves in the depths of depression, then suddenly we will
notice good things starting to happen. Our spirits will rise and we will start
to discern new life and happiness. This at least has been my own experience.
Jesus calls us to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves,
whoever they may be.
And we can see love of God and love of neighbour in
Ruth’s story.
Naomi doesn’t desert her Jewish God, even as a refugee
in Moab, and her example brings Ruth to take Naomi’s God for her own. Boaz in
the story is a good man who constantly speaks of his God, YHWH. All three of
them love God to the best of their ability and strive to do the right thing –
to be righteous, in other words.
Both the Moabites and the Jews in the story show their
love for neighbours who are outsiders and foreigners. Naomi and her family arrive
in Moab as refugees from famine. The Moabites take them in and generously include
them in their community as neighbours, so that both Naomi’s sons marry Moabite
women. Ruth herself is a foreign economic migrant when she arrives in Bethlehem
with Naomi, but Boaz and his people generously include Ruth as a neighbour in their
harvest, and Boaz is glad to marry her.
There is a lesson in this for us today, when more
people than ever are leaving their homes as refugees or migrants, driven by
natural disasters, wars, and poverty. Will we include these people in our
communities? Will we allow them to work and build new lives with us? Will we be
glad when our children fall in love and choose to marry them? Will we love them as ourselves, as
Jesus calls us to do?
Let me finish in prayer with a Collect of the Word
O God, whom to follow is to risk our
whole lives:
as Ruth and Naomi loved and held to one
another,
abandoning the ways of the past,
so may we also not be divided,
but travel together into that strange
land
where you lead us,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
