Sermon Feb 13th 2011 – Ruth Pt. 1
Ruth 1:1-17
I heard a nice story this week about a couple on their 50th wedding anniversary
They were reflecting on their 50 years together when the wife said…
“Things have changed as we’ve got older. You used to sit really close to me. But you haven’t done that for a while.” “Well, I can fix that.” said the man as he got up and moved nearer to his wife.
“You also used to hold me tight.” said the wife. So the man wrapped his arms around his wife and asked, “How’s that?”
But she went on, “Remember how you used to nuzzle my neck and nibble on my ear lobes?” At that the man jumped up from the couch and ran out of the room. When he came back she asked him where he had been, to which he replied – “oh, I had to go find my teeth.”
Gail has already introduced our topic this morning, as we begin the first of three sermons on the Book of Ruth.
Ruth is a beautiful and grace-filled book. It’s quite different to much of the rest of the OT, and for many people it is their favourite book of the Bible. For Ruth is a book about love. The joke I just told is an example of romantic love which is beautiful and powerful in its own right, however, the dominant love in Ruth is a different kind of love.
Generally I try not to get into the original languages of the Bible in a sermon – even now that I’ve just introduced the topic I can sense eye-lids getting heavy and people preparing to yawn! But, every now and then there is a word that doesn’t translate well into English and which it’s helpful to get a handle on. The book of Ruth has one of these Hebrew words, and that word is (c)hesed.
Hesed is often translated into English as “loving-kindness” and many Jews regard it as the primary virtue in life.
To demonstrate its beauty and depth of meaning, I found this quote that’s trying to translate it into English…
“…there is no great translation into English for the word hesed, so when you see it in the scriptures, it’s worth remembering what all the word intends. Hesed is loving-kindness, favor, faithfulness, loyalty, grace.
It connotes caring for another who’s in need, especially within the context of certain relationships – within a family, for instance, or a community or a covenant…
It is magnanimous and sacrificial, never obvious or obligatory. It is good will becoming good deed. It connotes someone’s willingness to “be there” for another. It is often used of God to describe God’s care for human beings.[1]”
So, there you have it! Hesed = loving-kindness, favour, faithfulness, loyalty, grace, caring, self-sacrifice, good will becoming good deed, generosity, being there for another. A beautiful word, and a beautiful concept.
There are three main characters in the Book of Ruth. Naomi, her daughter in law Ruth, and Boaz, a distant relative of Naomi’s - the man who redeems them.
The story is set during the time of the Judges. In fact, the book immediately before Ruth in the Bible is the Book of Judges that tells of this 300 year period of history. This is a bleak time: a time of sin, of idolatry, of violence, and of chaos. The beginning of Ruth too starts with a sense of that bleakness. There is a famine in Israel and so Naomi with her husband and sons leave the Promised Land and go to the land of their enemies, the Moabites. We need to remember that famines in the OT are always regarded as a sign of God’s punishment on Israel for some kind of sin.
So, this isn’t a good beginning. Instead of staying and trying to help Israel repent and sort their act out, Naomi’s family run away! Run away to their enemies, run away to a land of foreign gods.
They seem to have made a good life for themselves in Moab though, and they marry both their sons off to Moabite women, one of them being Ruth. However, tragedy strikes and all three men of the family die, leaving the women without a living and without protection. Naomi is full of bitterness, and although she doesn’t see any hope for herself, her heart turns back to the God of Israel, and she heads back to her home in Bethlehem.
Despite her depression however, she still thinks of her daughters in law. She sees no hope for them in Bethlehem either, and knows they will be despised and treated like outcasts because they are Moabites. So, she urges them to return to their families and to try and start again.
This is where we first meet the word hesed in Ruth – in parting Naomi says to them…
“May the Lord deal kindly (hesed) with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.”
Basically she’s saying, “may the Lord show hesed to you, as you have shown hesed to my family”
So, one daughter in law leaves, but Ruth does not! She clings to Naomi and says these famous words…
16 “…Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
Now, one of the really nice things about Ruth is that all of the main characters are good people; all of them are models of hesed in the ways that they treat each other - this faithful, self-sacrificing, good will becoming good deed type of loving-kindness. Generally the OT just records people the way they were, sin and all, and very few come out looking spotless. So, it’s nice to meet some compassionate and upright people for a change! And these words by Ruth are really the best expression of this loving-kindness in action.
Where you go I will go; where you stay I will stay; your people will be my people; your God my God; where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. These sound a lot like wedding vows…
Because Ruth is making a promise to Naomi in her time of loss and despair. Out of love and loyalty she will leave her family and her people and her gods, and become a foreigner among the Israelites – a people that often didn’t like foreigners, especially Moabites. She is willing to walk the hard road, she is willing to live sacrificially, she is willing to stick with Naomi through thick and thin now that Naomi finds herself in a place of helplessness as a widow with no children.
This week I’ve been thinking - how many people in our society yearn for that kind of promise? That kind of loving-kindness? That kind of loyal friendship?
We live in a transient world full of broken relationships. How many people do we know or work with who don’t have significant others committed to being faithful to them and walking through life with them? Who don’t have friends who will be there in the tough times? Most people are nice on a superficial level, but how many Kiwis will go sacrificially out of their way for others?
I was in a conversation recently where an 8 year old girl was telling us how she had been appointed her own lawyer to represent her interests in her parent’s messy divorce. I thought “how stink” - but she was really excited! Finally someone to be loyal and take her side, to look out for her interests, be kind to her, protect her, and walk the journey of this divorce settlement through to the end with her.
A tragedy she had to pay someone to do that…
So, our world can always use a little bit more hesed, and in Christ we find hesed in abundance!
In Jesus Christ, God walked the hard road of good will becoming good deed, becoming human and modelling a life of righteousness and truth despite opposition.
In dying on the cross, Jesus was God’s act of kindness and loyalty to us and this world.
In Jesus we see that God means well for us, has our interests at heart, and will never forsake us.
Come what may, God walks the journey of life with us to the end – through life, through death, and into the life that is to come.
As Christians, as disciples of this crucified Jesus Christ, we too are called to be people who embody the virtue of hesed. We are called to imitate Ruth, Naomi and Boaz in the way they treated those around them in need.
And this is basically what church life is about…
- The meals in times of sickness.
- The commitment to stand by each other, and keep each other company.
- The openness to strangers and visitors.
- The willingness to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.
- Each person’s openness to share what he or she has – time and talents and money – so that all of us may profit.
- Our readiness to do more than is asked out of love, out of faithfulness, in courage and care for each other.
All these are essential marks of Christian community.[2]
All these serve to embody the life and death of Jesus in the world today.
We are about to commemorate Christ’s loving sacrifice as we celebrate Holy Communion. We are about to re-enact in bread and wine God’s ultimate act of hesed to us. But before we do so, let’s sit and meditate on today’s sermon.
Sermon Feb 20th 2011 – Ruth pt. 2
Eph 2:11-14 Ruth 1:22 - 2:23
Today is our second of three sermons on the Book of Ruth, so I’ll start with a re-cap for those of you who weren’t here last week.
This book is set during the time of the Judges in Israel’s history – a 300 year period when Israel had no king and everyone did what they wanted. It was a time of chaos, of violence, of idolatry and of sin. During this time we are told that the Lord God sends a famine in judgement on the land, and so, along with her husband and two sons, the character Naomi flees into the land of Moab. The land of a people who were traditionally enemies of the Jews.
Initially they prosper there, and the two sons are married off to Moabite women, one of whom is Ruth. However, over time the three men all die, leaving the women without protection or financial support. Naomi decides to return home to Bethlehem, but urges her daughters-in-law to go back to their families and not to follow her. She believes that she has no hope, and that the situation of Ruth and Orpah will also be hopeless if they stay with her.
Orpah heeds her advice and leaves, but Ruth clings on to Naomi saying these words…
16 “…Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
So, the story begins in a time of bleakness, but a bleakness that begins to disperse with these powerful words as Ruth makes a promise of loyalty and loving-kindness to Naomi in her time of need. And a bleakness that lifts even more with the two opening verses we read today.
First we heard these words…
“So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.”
In Hebrew the name Bethlehem means “house of bread” and they arrive right at the beginning of the barley harvest, the first harvest of the year. A time of plenty.
The next verse said…
“Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.”
Although they are very boring to read, the OT laws in the first 5 books of the Bible are incredibly compassionate to those in vulnerable situations. We see that at play several times in this chapter, firstly with the introduction of Boaz. With his appearance comes a concept we need to be aware of – that of the kinsman-redeemer.
Kinsman Redeemers were males who were supposed to protect and redeem the members of their extended family. They were supposed to protect family property; to buy relatives back if they were sold into slavery; and to fight for justice and seek compensation for wrongs when family members were involved.
However, in the time of Ruth, it seems that the role of a kinsman-redeemer had been extended to include what might seem to us a very strange law in Deuteronomy 25…
5 When brothers are living together and one of them dies without having had a son, the widow of the dead brother shall not marry a stranger from outside the family; her husband’s brother is to come to her and marry her and do the brother-in-law’s duty by her.
6 The first son that she bears shall be named after her dead husband so his name won’t die out in Israel.
7 But if the brother doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the leaders at the city gate and say, "My brother-in-law refuses to keep his brother’s name alive in Israel; he won’t agree to do the brother-in-law’s duty by me."
8 Then the leaders will call for the brother and confront him. If he stands there defiant and says, "I don’t want her," 9 his sister-in-law is to pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and say, "This is what happens to the man who refuses to build up the family of his brother”
10 That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandalled.
So, as we see from that, marrying your brother’s son-less widow and ensuring she had a male child to carry on his family name was not an obligation, it was a choice. However, in decent, god-fearing times to choose not to do so would have brought great shame on your family.
The Book of Ruth is not set in decent, god-fearing times, but fortuitously, Boaz is a decent and god-fearing man as is shown by the words he uses to greet his workers – “the Lord be with you.”
Fortune does indeed shine on Ruth!
Despite returning home, Naomi is still in despair, so Ruth takes it onto herself to provide for them. She decides that she will set out and try to glean some leftover barley behind paid workers as they harvest the crop.
Again, in concern for the poor and vulnerable, the OT commands that landowners not harvest the edges of their fields, and that they not send their workers back to pick what they missed the first time round. These unharvested portions are called the gleanings, and were to be left for refugees, orphans and widows.
However! Will this law be upheld in these chaotic times? Will Ruth be allowed to glean or will she be driven off - or worse? These were after all dangerous times to go out into the fields alone.
But, by chance, the field Ruth picks is owned by her kinsman-redeemer Boaz; by chance he just happens to arrive that day and see her; by chance he also happens to be a godly man who upholds the law and shows compassion to the poor; and by chance he has heard about Ruth and what she has done for Naomi.
This is all presented to us as happening by a fluke, but basically the story is screaming out to us that the hand of God is at work here. The Lord is fulfilling the blessing Naomi spoke over Ruth in chapter 1 which we looked at last week, when she said…
“May the Lord deal kindly (hesed) with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.”
God has arranged things so that through the generosity of Boaz he can show favour to Ruth. And Boaz is generous indeed! So much so that Ruth falls on her face before him and says “Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
When Ruth returns home to Naomi with copious amounts of grain and her story of meeting Boaz, the light re-kindles in Naomi’s heart! Hope of redemption is reborn within her, and she starts dreaming dreams of marriage and babies… but that comes in the next chapter.
To bring this to a conclusion…
For Christians it is easy to spiritualise this story – to see ourselves in the position of Ruth and to see Jesus in the position of Boaz the kinsman-redeemer.
After all, the passage from Ephesians 2 which we read earlier tells us that once we too were aliens from the people of Israel, without God, without Christ and without hope in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace;
For, as Boaz showed grace and mercy to Ruth, Christ has shown grace and mercy to us. Boaz redeemed Ruth by giving her food and protection, and then marrying her and giving her a son (which we’ll come to next week). In contrast, Jesus redeemed us through his life, his death and his resurrection.
Now, understanding this story in that light is fine, but, the Book of Ruth is a very down to earth, this-worldly book. So, instead of spiritualising it and placing ourselves in the position of Ruth, maybe it is more appropriate to keep it rooted in our daily experience, and to place ourselves in the position of Boaz?
For, how did God redeem Ruth and Naomi? Was there some kind of miraculous supernatural intervention?
No. God did intervene, but God did it subtly! God did it by arranging chance so that Ruth and Boaz would meet.
But still, if Boaz had not been a godly man; if Boaz had not had a heart for the poor and needy, then the story would have ended very differently. In an age of chaos, idolatry and sin, God’s plan for redeeming Ruth required the loving-kindness of Boaz.
We today live in an era of change. We live in a time where there is no king, where there is no agreed truth that everyone lives by. Everyone is an expert, and everyone pretty much believes what they want. Some thrive in this environment and think it’s exciting, while others find it chaotic and overwhelming, like the time of the Judges in Israel’s history.
But, regardless of the time – whether we live in an era of stability or chaos – as followers of Christ we are called to live with our hearts and hands open to those around us who are vulnerable or in need.
Of course we can’t help everyone, but this week let’s remember the example of Boaz and his loving-kindness.
Has God arranged chance so that we might meet someone in their time of need? Because God is the kind of God who does these things!
God can redeem people without us, but usually God uses ordinary people like you and me to redeem others, to be agents of healing and grace in the world.
Are we open to that? In fact, is there such a person in our lives at the moment?
Sermon Feb 27 2011 – Ruth pt. 3
Ruth 4:1-6, 13-17
Over the last two weeks we’ve been looking at the Book of Ruth in our services here.
There are three main characters in this book. On the first Sunday we looked at Ruth; last week we looked at her redeemer Boaz; and this means that today we are due to look at Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law. We will still do this, though of course, today we look at this story in the shadow of the tragedy down in Christchurch.
Surprisingly, Naomi is actually the main character of Ruth. The story begins with her and ends with her. Yet we still call this the book of Ruth and not the book of Naomi. This is probably because Ruth is the most gracious and inspiring character in the story. So much so that she breaks down many walls, with Ruth being the only book in the OT that is named after a non-Jew.
Naomi is a good character too, but, like many of us, she has a blind spot which we’ll come to soon.
For now, I’ll start with a recap of her story so far…
In chapter one she moves from Israel to the country of Moab where she and her husband prosper and find foreign wives for their two sons. Tragically though, over a period of 10 years both her husband and her sons die, leaving her empty, alone and vulnerable; with only two Moabite daughters-in-law.
In the face of this, she urges her daughters-in-law to return to their parents, while returning herself to her ancestral home in Bethlehem. Ruth however insists on coming too, and stays with her.
When Naomi finally gets back to Bethlehem, these are her words to the women of that town…
20 "Don’t call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Bitter, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
Naomi’s journey in this story is pretty simple – it’s basically a journey from emptiness back to fullness.
Yes, Ruth has shown immense loving-kindness to her, and has committed to being loyal and supporting her - even to the point of becoming a foreigner among the Israelites… but this remarkable act by Ruth hasn’t filled Naomi at all, it hasn’t alleviated her grief one bit. “Call me bitter” she says. “I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty.”
Something I find really interesting about this book that many of you might just find really boring or that you probably knew anyway, is that we can be very confidant that it actually did happen.
It seems that it was written when David was king of Israel, since it emphasises that these people were David’s ancestors (and in being David’s ancestors, of course they go on to be Jesus’ earthly ancestors as well). But it is potentially a bit of a scandal! Why on earth would you record a history that emphasises how the great King David had a Moabite for a great-grandmother.
In the thinking of the Israelites of that day, this would not have been something to be proud of! Quite the opposite.
We know from the Bible that King David had opposition to his rule, and this has lead many scholars to believe that people were trying to undermine his authority by poring scorn on his foreign ancestry. So, the events of Ruth were probably written down to acknowledge that yes, Ruth the great-grandmother of David was a Moabite, but what a godly, gracious, and loyal Moabite she was!
Far more godly in fact than most Israelites who lived at the same time, during the idolatrous days of the Judges.
So, this means that the woman Ruth really did live on this earth. She really did come from the land of Moab, and she really did show extraordinary loving-kindness to her mother-in-law – staying loyal to her to the extent that she became a foreigner in a strange land. She really did meet and marry Boaz, and she really did have a son called Obed.
This therefore means that Naomi too was real. That she also really did have a husband and sons, and that she really did lose them to an early grave.
Some of you too will have lost a spouse or a child to an early grave (or even lost the hope of a spouse or a child) at some point in your lives. I have not and cannot imagine what that would be like.
Of course, as we gather this morning there will be many, many families in Christchurch and further afield mourning just such a loss after this week's earthquake.
The book of Ruth tries to convey something of the emotions Naomi felt more than 3,000 years ago at her loss. It uses images like bitterness, emptiness, a despairing of life, a desire to die, a sense of abandonment by God, and an overwhelming hopelessness.
3,000 years later death still seems to affect us in much the same ways. Some of you I’m sure will be able to relate to that list.
Thankfully though, Naomi had Ruth to come alongside her.
Ruth had also lost a husband and had then lost her homeland: but she retained hope, energy and a passion for life. She walked the road of grief with Naomi, and provided for her in her distress. Let’s pray that the Christians of Christchurch will be able to imitate the example of Ruth and show a similar loving-kindness to those in their neighbourhoods who are in similar distress.
In fact, may we also be open to doing the same.
The Book of Ruth is remarkably realistic though. As I’ve already said, the loving-kindness of Ruth does not fill Naomi or even alleviate her grief at all. In fact, her grief affects her so deeply that she hardly seems to appreciate Ruth at all – she is blind to the role Ruth is playing in her life.
After Boaz is born the women of Bethlehem appear once again and say this…
14 The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
Naomi has lost two sons, and her focus has been on wanting what she has lost restored back to her. She wants sons again, and once Obed is born this deep desire is finally answered, and her emptiness is replaced by fullness.
This is great! But into this fullness, the women of Bethlehem seem to be speaking a rebuke to her. In her grief her focus was so much on sons, that she failed to notice or appreciate Ruth – Ruth who was more valuable to her than seven sons would have been.
At the end of a tragic week, I take two lessons out of the story of Naomi.
1) The first is that God loves us and desires that we might be filled.
No, God does not stop bad things from happening to us: God did not stop those people entering the CTV building on Tuesday morning, and God did not stop Naomi from moving to Moab, a move that resulted in the death of her sons.
Rather, God gives us the freedom to make our own choices, but if our choices have painful consequences, then in Jesus God suffers with us through that pain.
God does not abandon us in the darkness! God continues to work in our lives, arranging chance, bringing people to us who can walk the difficult roads with us. As with Naomi, God yearns for us to be healed and to return to a place of fullness.
So, let’s stop taking life for granted! Let’s stop yearning for what we don’t have, or what we can’t have. Let’s actually slow down and look at our lives, let’s spend time appreciating what we do have. Those things and those people that God has graciously brought into our lives already.
After all, if anything, the earthquake in Christchurch has shown us how quickly our possessions and loved ones can be taken away from us.
2) The second point is based on the fact that although Naomi is the main character in this book, it’s still named after Ruth. This is because Ruth, although a foreigner, is the most noble character in the story, and the person most worth us seeking to imitate.
Ruth opened her heart to someone close to her who was in need, walking the hard road of grief with Naomi, and staying loyal to her until her emptiness had once again been turned into fullness.
She stuck with this path despite the fact that Naomi was so consumed by her grief that it seems she did not appreciate her or value what she was doing. This was an act of selfless loving-kindness, Ruth did not do this for praise or reward.
May we too open our lives to those in our nation who are grieving – open our hearts to them in prayer, and maybe even open our homes or our wallets if there is a need and if we are able.
We are not going to have a conclusion to this service today.
Instead I’d like you to spend a bit of time to sit and reflect on your lives. Are we too preoccupied with the things we’ve lost, the things we don’t have? Is there something or someone that God has brought into your life, the beauty of which you have been blind to?
Of course, let’s also keep in our prayers the people of Christchurch.
You have paper and pencils in your pews. While we reflect, it can be a powerful act to express what is in your heart either by writing a word, a prayer, or just drawing a picture – and you are welcome to do that.
[1] http://ginterparkpc.org/worship/documents/Sermon2009-11-8Ruth.pdf accessed Feb 8 2011
[2] http://ginterparkpc.org/worship/documents/Sermon2009-11-8Ruth.pdf