Ruth And Naomi's Enduring Love Transcript

Commitment and Paying Attention

If there has been a theme these last few weeks. It's been this that there have been powerful women, ordinary women, yet powerful, who, because they noticed what was going on around them, decided that they were going to focus on the here and now and what was happening right in front of them, they had profound implications and profound effects through history. We saw that in the story of Moses and the three women in that story. We saw that repeatedly, people who noticed what was happening and took action could transform history. The same is valid here. Our story takes place in the time of judges. So, we've made a massive leap over last week's story. Before the people entered the promised land, Moses gave the Ten Commandments and the Law again for them to follow, and they went to the promised land. Depending on whether you read the Book of Joshua or the Book of Judges, they either went into the promised land. They did what God commanded of taking the land and, unfortunately, killing all of the people in the land and living prosperously, or you read the book of judges, where they went into the land, they didn't kill everybody, they didn't do what God had commanded, and therefore there were a lot of challenges facing them. 

The book of Ruth is set in the time of the judges, where things would go well and then they would go poorly. They'd go well, and then they'd go poorly. People would follow God's commands, and things would go well, and then they would turn away from God's command and turn to other gods, and things would go poorly. Such was the case in Bethlehem, the city of bread, where there was now a famine. Naomi, her husband, and her two sons go off to Moab, a distant, foreign land, a neighboring country, but a foreign land that traced their roots back to the story of Noah and his daughters, so these were foreigners. There was a hatred. There was an expectation that Israelite women and men would not marry Moabite women. They were supposed to be kept separate. But Naomi, her husband, and her two sons go there, and after a time, Naomi's husband dies, and she carries forth with her sons, and the sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Unfortunately, Naomi then lost her sons, and only Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth lived in this foreign land. She had no people to turn to. She had neighbors, perhaps, but she had no kin, and that's the setting of today's story. And so Naomi decides that it's time for her to go back to her people. Go back to her land. She will find people who will care for her. She has heard the stories that bread has returned to Bethlehem, food has returned, and that it would be better for her to return than live alone in this foreign land with no husband. 

Now we have Orpah and Ruth, who travel with her. They cling to her at first. They want to accompany her. They want to fulfill their duty, but more than duty, it's out of love. They want to travel with this woman who is their mother-in-law, the mother of their husbands, who cared for them for some time until she decided to return. Now, she convinces Orpah to go back. Return to their mother's home, remarry, find a new husband, and thrive in your homeland. And Naomi reluctantly does so, or sorry, orpah reluctantly does so. But Ruth makes that powerful declaration that we read today: where you go, I will go, your people shall be my people, your God shall be my God, and I will be buried wherever you are buried. She makes this commitment to go with Naomi, and in doing so, the history of the Israelites is transformed from that point forward. 

Because, if you aren't aware, Ruth is a part of David's timeline. Ruth is, I believe, the great-grandmother. Now that I'm drawing a blank on it of David. There are three generations from Ruth to David. And then, if you read the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, and the genealogy of Jesus. We trace all our ways back; we see women mentioned and Ruth mentioned as foreign. The woman is included in the genealogy of the most revered king in Jewish history and in Jesus himself. So how do we get there? How do we get from Ruth to David in Deut and to Jesus? What impact did Ruth have, and how? 

Ruth's story can easily be compared to the story of Job. If we look at Job, the overlay between Job and Naomi is similar. They lost their spouses. They lost their children. They were hungry. Job spent about 37 verses complaining to God about how he shouldn't have suffered, how these things shouldn't have happened, and how God had let him down by allowing these things to happen. Naomi says well, I must keep going. I have to go back to my homeland. I can't just dwell on these losses. I need to move back. And Ruth goes with her. 

As we've already talked about Ruth's declaration, to pay attention to what is happening to Naomi, who has lost everything, despite losing her husband and losing everything herself, is the sign of the power of paying attention and committing to those who are hungry or those who are hurting. These two walk side by side and go about this journey together back to Bethlehem and all the things that happened in the rest of the book. But in these moments, it's Ruth paying attention and saying I will not leave you. I commit myself to you so much that your people will be my people. I commit to you so much that your God will be my God. I commit to you so much that when you die, where you are buried will be where I am buried. 

Can you imagine what Ruth has gone through? Can you imagine making this commitment to someone? It truly is profound. It's not just I'm going to go with you. I will go on this journey, but more than that, I will give up who I think I am and become like you. So, how do we live this out? How do we live out this commitment that Ruth has made? We can get guidance. We can move forward with this and how we live it out by turning to the passage from Matthew today, where Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. 

You have a shepherd who noticed that a sheep was missing. He had 100, and he looked, and he was counting, and he realized one was missing, and he decided to leave behind the 99 to seek after the one. He not only noticed that one was missing, but the one that was missing, he knew that he had to leave the 99 that he already had. Think of the profoundness of that. We needed to find out how long he needed to search. We needed to determine how far he needed to look for that one. He just knew that he needed to do that. There was the commitment to the lost and to give up or leave the 99 wherever they were, to seek out that one lost. 

We see in this parable the same sort of commitment that Ruth made: A willingness to give up her homeland, to go back to her mother where life could have been easy, to find a new husband, to follow after this one Naomi, as she goes about reclaiming and going back to her people in the hopes that she might find someone who will take care of her, in hopes that she might find bread to eat and at least live out the rest of her days with some comfort that she didn't have where she was. We see in both stories this unwavering commitment that does not make sense. It does not make sense for the shepherd to leave the 99 to find the lost one. It does not make sense for Ruth to leave her home, her family, and any potential future that she might have had of likely finding a new husband and having children, and carrying on that lineage. These two make choices that, in our minds, in our logic, in our worldly logic, do not make sense. 

Committing to the Lost and Hurting

The call is on each of us today to do the same. We are called to pay attention to what's happening around us. We are called to see who in our midst is missing. We are called to see who in our midst is hurting, and we are called to commit to them. And it shouldn't make sense. It shouldn't make sense to do what God calls us because our logic is not how God thinks. The way we calculate who is worthy and who is not is not how God makes those calculations himself. 

As a church, we want to care for and focus on those here and in our midst. We want to grab onto and make sure that our ministries, how we function, and all the things that we do first appeal to the ones who are already here in our midst and that we don't want to rock the boat and go too far afield because we might lose the 99 in seeking the one. And I get that. We have relationships that are here. We have people who we love. We have a long history with those sitting in the pews next to us, gathering beside us, worshiping with us, being with us in the difficult times of life, and being with us in the blessing times of our lives. We focus on that, and that brings us joy. 

But every time we decide to make decisions based on who is already here, we can't do that because people over here don't like it, don't use technology in that way, or can't be blessed in that way. We can't do those things because it appeals to only some here, or choose the 99 over the one. We're failing to make that commitment to those who are not present, those who still need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, who still can be transformed and blessed by what we have to offer to the world, and that is a message of hope, a message of joy and a message of peace, even during trials. If we genuinely believe that what we have to offer here through the ministries of this church and here through answering Christ's call, and what we have been taught and what we have received, it is something that will make a difference in someone's life, then will we make that commitment to the hurting and for the lost and will we decide what we need to do, not based on what's convenient, not based on what's comfortable, but based on God's measure? That's not an abandonment of what we have, it's not abandonment of the relationships that we've already built, but it's a recognition that what matters most in this particular time, in our world right now, is in desperate need of, is making sure the good news that we share, the good news that we believe, the good news that has been passed on to us, is shared with others, not for our sake, not so that more people will come to us and sit in our pews, but for the sake of the hurting, for the sake of the lost, for the sake of the abandoned, for the sake of the forgotten, for the sake of the hungry, will we make that commitment to them. 

I pray, so I pray that with each moment, with each decision, with each challenge that stands before us and, as many of you know, who came to the fall retreat or have seen various reports about who we are and how we're doing, you know that there are many challenges ahead of us. Still, we can only meet these challenges well if we make decisions based on what God wants us to do and that commitment to the lost, more so than the commitment to maintain what we've got. And in the process, I'm confident that what matters most, that we already have, will continue. It may look different, feel different, or be transformed, but it will remain. This is the blessing, hope, and challenge before us, and my prayer is for each one of us to grab on to it, think as God thinks, and live out this commitment. Amen.