Wherever You Go

The Book of Ruth is one of my favorite books in the Bible, but it certainly starts out darkly; famine, forced immigration and unfortunate deaths.  By verse 5, Naomi and Ruth have already become widows; Naomi losing her husband and her 2 sons.  Then Ruth and Naomi find themselves traveling back to Bethlehem.  The Book of Ruth is a story about fierce inclusivity and boundless hope in the face of disaster for these women, and their new hope expands throughout the story into new hope for the nation Israel.  The book was likely written during the time of the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah, whose main message was eliminating foreign women and maintaining racial purity in Israel.  But the Book of Ruth teaches exactly the opposite; it embraces the wide diversity of humanity and the importance of diverse community, even daring to imagine that the others among us may lead to our redemption. 

Will you pray with me?  “Inclusive God of the other, lover of all of us, teach us to love those among us who are different, honoring their humanity and kindred belonging to your Realm. Teach us to redeem one another. Amen.”

After the nation Israel returned from the Exile in Babylon, the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah taught that foreign wives must be expulsed from the land to maintain the ethnic purity of the Jewish race.  Taking a completely different tactic, the Book of Ruth follows the story of two women, one Jewish and the other Moabite.  The story ends with the Moabite woman Ruth having a child that is essential in Jewish history, a child in the line of both David and Jesus.  So in one of the very few books of the Bible with prominent women characters, this book is actually about a woman who is not Jewish, but instead a feared Moabite, one of the most despised of Israel’s enemies.  The fact that this book is even in the Hebrew Bible alongside Ezra and Nehemiah is amazing, since it teaches a very opposite worldview from Ezra and Nehemiah.  Jewish scriptural tradition allows conflict, here even encouraging it by expressing widely differing views in Ruth, Ezra and Nehemiah!

In our first chapter here, we are quickly given enough background information to set the scene, and then we find the widows Naomi and Ruth on their way back to Israel to find some food.  This return journey makes perfect sense for Jewish Naomi, but it really makes no sense for Moabite Ruth.  The other daughter-in-law here in the story, dear Orpah, decided to stay in Moab—and the narrator does not condemn her for doing so.  But Ruth decides to leave her home country to go to Bethlehem with Naomi.

In many ways, Naomi and Ruth’s friendship is understandable.  These two widows are bound together in grief of common loss, and they found a community of caring with each another.  I try to imagine Moabite Ruth leaving her family, her culture and her nation to be with Jewish Naomi.  They return to Bethlehem as widows to a very uncertain future. Ruth will be  a hated undocumented immigrantwidow in Israel.  But she is undeterred.

Most of us have heard these vows of friendship that Ruth professes to Naomi used during a wedding.  It is ironic that the original context here is two grieving widows struggling to find a place in the world.  But the vows are a beautiful model for what it might mean to build a supporting community together.  Let’s review Ruth’s vows to Naomi.

First, Ruth says she will go wherever Naomi goes.  Being with one another is central to any journey together.  In the days before Facebook and telephones, the first criteria for community was actually being together. 

Then Ruth says she will lodge with Naomi.  This is complicated in the Hebrew.  The Hebrew word for lodging here is a derivative of the word meaning to murmur or complain.  The word is used most extensively in the Exodus story, where the Hebrews complained as they lodged together in the desert for forty years.  In our story, Naomi complains about her terrible lot in life, but Ruth vows that she will accompany her anyway.  We might say that whatever troubles or difficulties Naomi has, that Ruth will bear them, too.  This vow reminds us that our lives are filled with good and bad, the wonderful and horrific.  But the grief of these widows will give way to a future time of joy and new life. 

Then Ruth says your people shall be my people.  In community, we share each other’s people. In community we share belongingness.  We share  people.  The place where you are community will be where I am community.  The central factor in community is people sharing.

And then, Ruth says your God will be my God.  Every ancient nation had its own God or gods.  This is the core vow to me, and the most ironic.  If you reflect here on the theological perspectives of these two women, you will discover they are living two very different worldviews.  In the verses following ours today, we discover Naomi, the Jewish woman, is bitter and angry and struggling.  She blames God for her travails, even renaming herself Mara, the Hebrew word for bitter.  But Ruth, the Moabite woman, who is also grieving, is ready to embrace the Jewish God, anticipating a full and joyous life together, ironically becoming the hope of the nation Israel through her son in the line of David.  The one with cherished Jewish heritage and inheritance is bitter and angry, but the outsider Moabite is hopeful and expectant in God.  Everything about this story is upside-down, with the characteristics belonging to the women opposite of what we expect. 

Why?  Why are the characters backwards?  Who is living expectant hope?  Who is downcast and despondent?  Who inherits God’s Realm but does nothing with it?  Who is born anew into a new way of being with God?

Does this storyline seem a bit familiar?  Remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son?  The son that loses everything returns with a new-found appreciation for blessing, grace and unconditional love.  The son who never left and who stays home claiming his inheritance loses sight of grace, and becomes bitter that those on the outside are treated with grace and love.

Our world is filled with Naomis and Ruths.  Many established Naomis inherit a tradition with positions of prestige and power, but forget their blessedness and become anxious and blinded.  And then, there are always the new Ruths, those who see the world from the perspective of an outsider first.  They sense the incredible sacredness of community while helping one another, claiming the importance of the journey together, living with one another in faith, and sharing the common bonds of God and love and compassion for each other.

So this story about Ruth is really a story of redemption.  The word appears many times in the 85 verses of this short book.  Ruth redeems Naomi from despair.  Boaz redeems Ruth from poverty.  Ruth redeems Israel with a half-foreign child who becomes prominent in the line of Jesus.

Redemption.  Not a word we hear much these days.  A redeemer is someone who buys something back, who restores things to rightful place.  In the Book of Ruth, Boaz is Ruth’s redeemer—he restores Ruth to dignity by taking her as his wife.  But the real redeemer in the story is Ruth, the foreign one who redeems Naomi through friendship and community, and the one who redeems Israel by providing a child in the line of King David and Jesus.  Of course a story about redemption causes us to ask who or what redeems us in this modern world?  Are we redeemed by anything anymore?

Ron Hutchcraft, a British historian, shares a story of modern redemption.  A gathering of friends at an English estate nearly turned to tragedy when one of the children strayed into deep water. The gardener heard the cries for help, plunged in, and rescued the drowning child. That child's name was Winston Churchill. His grateful parents asked the gardener what they could do to reward him.  The gardener hesitated, but then said, "I wish my son could go to college someday and become a doctor." "We'll see to it," Churchill's parents promised. 

Years later, while Sir Winston was prime minister of England, he was stricken with pneumonia. The country's best physician was summoned. His name was Dr. Alexander Fleming, you may remember him as the man who discovered and developed penicillin. He was also the son of that gardener who had saved young Winston from drowning. Later Churchill remarked, "Rarely has one man owed his life twice to the same persons."  Redemption.

Our gift of $1500 to the UCC Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund is a modern redemption, and your personal gifts can also redeem someone’s world—it can redeem safety or shelter or food or dignity for someone you don’t know by name but do know as fellow human being.  Our celebration of Communion together today is a celebration of redemption on many levels.  We are redeemed by the presence of God’s love in the world.  We are redeemed, that is we are restored to our rightful place, by our relationship with Jesus and communion with the Holy Spirit.  Our communion table celebrates our restoration and redemption as children of the living God.  Here, God invites us all into graceful redemption. 

But we are also restored and redeemed in community here with one another.  When Ruth clung to Naomi, these two widows restored one another in loving faithful commitment and promise to be together.  When we share Ruth’s vows of being with, journeying with, sharing our people and sharing our faith in God, our vows of fidelity join us in community that redeems one other in love, compassion and faithfulness.

In our Gospel reading, we are reminded that love of neighbor is the second most important commandment—second only to loving God.  Sometimes just a kind word, a loving action, or a simple gesture can redeem those around us.  A kindness to a neighbor in a storm.  A thoughtful gift of hot coffee when there is no electricity.  A simple offering of help to one another in troubled times.  A silent visit to the bedside of a sick friend—all these loving actions can redeem your neighbor’s day.  Wherever you go, whatever you do, care for one another.  Your compassion will redeem the world around you, and you will be redeemed by caring for your neighbors.  Amen.