Sermon: “A Family Story”

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

November 8, 2009

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading this morning is drawn from the Old Testament book of Ruth, which is set in the period of Israel’s history that came before the establishment of the kingship.  We will read a selection of verses from the happy ending of the story.  However, in order to see just how joyful the ending really is, we need to know how the story begins.  The first chapter of this four-chapter book relates how an Israelite man and his wife Naomi were forced by a famine in Israel to move with their two sons from their home in Bethlehem to the land of Moab on the far side of the Jordan River to the east.  Naomi’s husband died in Moab, and after that each of her sons married a woman from Moab.  Before they had any children, both of the sons died, leaving a household comprised of women only—Naomi and her two daughters-in-law.  We should understand that a woman who was not under the protection of any male family member was extremely vulnerable.  And so it was that Naomi resolved to return to her relatives in Bethlehem.

Naomi told her daughters-in-law that she could offer them nothing.  If they stayed with her, they would be aliens and strangers in the land of Israel.  And she had no more sons to offer them as husbands.  If they stayed in Moab and returned to their own families, they could re-marry and have happy lives.  One daughter-in-law saw the wisdom of this advice and left Naomi.  The other daughter-in-law—Ruth—insisted on staying with Naomi and returning to Bethlehem with her.  Her commitment to Naomi and to the family she had married into was complete.  She promised Naomi, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”[1]

Somehow, despite all the dangers of being alone, Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem after days on the road.  Yet they had no means of support.  Providentially, the barley harvest was just beginning.  Ruth suggested, and Naomi agreed, that Ruth go to the fields owned by Boaz, a wealthy and prominent relative of Naomi’s dead husband.  Ruth took advantage of Jewish law and custom, which allowed poor persons to walk behind the reapers in the field and to harvest the grain that the reapers had missed or dropped.  As he oversaw the harvest, Boaz noticed Ruth and learned from his servant that Ruth was the Moabite widow who recently had returned with Naomi.  Impressed with Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi and to Naomi’s family, Boaz called Ruth over and told her to stay near his servants in the fields; for he had instructed them intentionally to leave grain behind them for her to harvest.  At the lunchtime break he invited her to share his provisions.

When the workday was over, Ruth returned to Naomi and told her what had happened.  That is where our passage for this morning begins.

Sermon.  Ruth is a family story.  Of course, it’s about individuals, too—Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.  But underlying the action is the overarching question whether Naomi’s part of the family, the line traceable through her husband, will die out.  This is no small matter, for by the time we get to the end of the book, we find out that this is not just any family.  Ruth’s son, Obed, turns out to be the grandfather of King David.  And the line of ancestors coming down before Obed included Perez, the son of Judah, one of the sons of Jacob.  Our knowledge of the inheritance laws of those days remains somewhat sketchy, but it seems clear that the actions taken by Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz result in the continuance of the family line that went through Naomi’s deceased husband.  Even though Ruth’s first husband, Naomi’s son, was dead, the child born to Ruth by Boaz was considered to be the son of her first husband—and thus Naomi’s grandson.  This was because Boaz himself was related to Naomi’s first husband. 

Much like the earlier stories of the Old Testament, the story of Ruth shows the hand of God working behind the scenes to preserve a particular family line, sometimes in the most remarkable of circumstances.  Let me remind you of a few of these.  Abraham and Sarah were childless; but according to the promise of God, they had a son in their old age.  That son, Isaac, was nearly killed as a sacrifice, but at the last second his father’s knife was averted at God’s warning, and Isaac was preserved.  Isaac had two sons.  Through some scheming and trickery, the second-born, Jacob, obtained the legal rights of his older brother, Esau, and became the patriarch of the Israelites, the father of twelve sons and, thus, twelve tribes.  Jacob’s son, Joseph, was sold by his brother into slavery in Egypt; but when it appeared that Jacob and all his family would die in a famine, they fled to Egypt and found their brother Joseph, who saved them.  Later, when the Israelites were all enslaved in Egypt, God chose Moses, who had a speech impediment, to lead the people to the Promised Land.  Time after time, as it appeared that the family line might be extinguished, God’s providential care preserved them and caused them to flourish.  Likewise, the knowing reader of the book of Ruth understands that although Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz are named characters, God, who makes no actual appearances in the book—not even through angels or dreams—is the most important character, always working behind the scenes to preserve this family line.

And God’s sense of irony must be highly tuned, for it is Ruth who turns out to be the hero of this story.  In the early chapters Naomi, who has lost her husband and both sons, has a near melt-down.  It is Ruth who stays with her and supports her on the dangerous journey back from Moab to Bethlehem.  When they arrive, it is Ruth’s clever idea about gleaning in the fields that preserves the two of them from starvation.  As we read in our passage today, Naomi had the idea that Boaz should marry Ruth.  Suggesting a strategy that was at least a provocative PG, if not all the way to R, Naomi told Ruth, “Lie with Boaz on the threshing floor, and he will tell you what to do.”  In the verses of chapter 3 that the lectionary leaves out, we learn that Ruth did what Naomi instructed.  However, Ruth did not wait for Boaz to “tell her what to do.”  In fact it was Ruth who suggested to Boaz what he should do: she, not Boaz, was the one who proposed the marriage.  Boaz and Naomi are both honorable characters, but without Ruth there would be no story.  God chose Ruth, who was not even an Israelite—a poor woman and a widow—to save the family line of David.

In the Hebrew text of Ruth, the word goel, “redeemer,” appears repeatedly.  Boaz is the kinsman who “redeems” the family by purchasing the farmland that had been owned by Naomi’s husband and by marrying Ruth.  But in a very real sense, it is Ruth who is the true “redeemer.”  As the chorus of village women say to Naomi, Ruth is more to her than seven sons; and Ruth’s son Obed becomes like a son to Naomi, who lays him in her own bosom and becomes his nurse.  In current Jewish tradition, the book of Ruth is read at the festival of Shavu’ot, also called the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, which is a harvest festival.  It is also the festival that celebrates God’s giving of the Torah to the Israelites.  The Jewish lectionary prescribes that the book of Ruth is to be read during this festival, for Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David, is held up as the prime example of someone who, as a foreigner, a Moabite, did not have Torah, but who later voluntarily took the obligations of Torah upon herself.  “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” 

Not too long ago a good friend of this congregation, someone who is connected to us but who is not a member here, spoke lovingly but frankly about our congregation and about this splendid old building that we are renewing.  “Do you realize,” this person said, “that to students at Indiana State University and to the average person walking up Seventh Street, your building is not inviting, but intimidating?”  I confess I had never thought of it that way.  This place that to us insiders is a worshipful place of comfort and warmth and family and joy, to outsiders can be stern and uninviting.  I tried to imagine myself as an outsider looking up at our tall brick walls, with front doors that look like a castle portcullis.  How would I imagine the goings-on within the walls?  “I’ll bet they sing doleful hymns and listen to organ music.  The preacher’s sermons are probably long and boring.  I’ll bet it’s like one of those fraternal organizations, where they have secret rites and handshakes—special ways of doing things—that as an outsider I would not know and would not want to take the trouble to learn.  I think I’ll just walk on by.”

Wow, what a perspective!  How grateful I am to this friend of the congregation, who, while not a Moabite, is still in some sense an outsider, or at least a newcomer, for sharing this insight with us.  It doesn’t make me less enthusiastic about our renovation project.  It doesn’t make me want to get rid of Gary and the new organ!  But it does help me to understand that we may need to work harder to communicate to persons on the outside that they are welcome here.  Once someone walks through the door, I think we do a pretty good job showing them that they are welcome.  But will they walk through the door?  It pains me to think that we appear intimidating.  How do we de-mystify our church without losing the nurturing mystery that is at the heart of our worship?  As we renew our building, will you help me and our church officers think this one through? 

It’s important that we get this right because you never know when God’s plan calls for someone on the outside to be the redeemer of things that are on the inside.  Someone who is now “out there,” someone who looks different from us, may have just the ideas and energies that we need to grow in faith and ministry.  Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if we ignored their gifts just because they had not grown up in a church or because they were as bold as Ruth?  Let’s make sure they feel invited and welcome in this house:  not an on-the-surface and merely polite kind of welcome, but one that communicates our genuine pleasure that they have chosen to invest their lives with us.  And once they arrive, let’s be just as open to their ideas and insights.  As members of the Reformed tradition, change is in our DNA.  We are reformed, and we are constantly being reformed.  Like a familiar and beautiful melody that can be harmonized in new ways, the essentials of our faith and tradition can speak not only to the past, but especially to the future.