Ruth – Loyalty and Love
Pastor Mathew Magera – 7/14/19 – Sermon 357
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
There are many love stories in the Bible, but the
story of Ruth often gets one of the top credits of iconic love stories. We love
her relationship with Naomi. We love her relationship with Boaz. But, is there
more to her story? Is there something deeper that takes Ruth’s life beyond the
love story that we know it to be and, if so, what word can it speak to us in a
time and place where our stories are tainted and relationships are strained?
What can God say to this? Is there another love story within Ruth?
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
After the battle of Jericho and help from Rahab,
Israel took over the Promised Land. Having settled themselves, times were not
always easy for Israel. There were no kings yet so there was political unrest.
Led by the priests and the judges, Israel coasted through a number of ups and
downs.
The story of Ruth begins during one of these downs.
A man named Elimelek and his wife Naomi decided to leave the Promised Land and
settle on the east side of the Jordan River in a country called Moab. For a
devout Jew to leave the land God provided for them must mean that conditions
were awful, to say the least. A prominent landowner such as Elimelek would not
just up and abandon his home, his land, unless he had to. Israel was parched
physically and spiritually. Times were desperate and so they were taking their
chances in a foreign land.
Elimelek and Naomi had two sons. Their two sons
married women from this foreign country they lived in, of which one was named
Ruth. Unfortunately, Elimelek and his two sons died. The Bible doesn’t tell us
why they died but we can imagine that while there was a famine going on in
Israel conditions in Moab, right next door, were likely not that great,
especially for them being foreigners. So now, Naomi is left alone with her two
daughters in-law. It is here we find our first love story.
Naomi commits to returning to Israel and while she
tried to send Ruth and Orpah away, Ruth commits to staying with Naomi. “Where
you go, I will go…” Ruth says. Ruth loved Naomi and she was committed to her
even if it meant leaving her home country.
The second love story takes place after Naomi and
Ruth have arrived Israel. By chance, Ruth has the opportunity to gather grain
from a field of a distant relative of Naomi who then encourages Ruth to
continue gathering, even going so far as to tell his own servants to be a
little careless in their gathering so that more would be left behind for Ruth.
So that Ruth could be provided for, Naomi encourages her to get to know this
Boaz fellow who takes a liking to Ruth. Getting over some minor problems in
land ownership and inheritance, Ruth and Boaz eventually marry and the story
ends happily ever after.
It’s a wonderful story, the love story between Ruth
and Naomi, the loyalty Ruth shows. The love story between Ruth and Boaz. I
think we may tend to fantasize these stories to the point they seem more like
fairy tales that we can observe without going to their darker depths. We love
the fairy tale type sayings of Ruth when she says, “Where you go, I will go.”
It’s so empowering and encouraging. But, do we really know the depth from which
a statement like that must’ve come from? Do we really look into the struggle
Ruth must’ve had between committing to Naomi and marrying Boaz? We must
understand what faith it took for Ruth to do this, for her to leave her own
country and venture into a land that was not her own with a woman to whom she
was not a blood relative. Ruth can come off like a Cinderella but I want us to
think about the Ruth in Israel, on her own, with no future, no family, no status.
Ruth, in committing to her mother in-law, who had no
obligation to support her, was taking a big risk. She was willingly entering a
life that would guarantee her poverty, that would guarantee her struggle, that
would guarantee her hard labor, that would guarantee her sacrifice. A slight
positive here is that the culture of Israel was very mindful of the poor as
well as foreigners, but it did not mean that people who were in this category
had an outstanding life. There was still struggle.
While Naomi could retain her husband’s land through
his next of kin, she had no power over that land. The culture was also very
male driven. As a woman, if you didn’t have a father, if you didn’t have a
husband, if you didn’t have a brother, you were in pretty terrible shape. Ruth,
therefore, had it even worse. She wasn’t a blood relative, much less a native.
To get by, she would have to work fields after the harvesters completed their
work. There were rules that allowed for you to go into anyone’s field and pick
up the leftovers but this was a very physically demanding task and it would not
yield much more than what you could live on each day.
Ruth was an absolute nobody without any glimmer of
hope, that is, unless she were to marry an Israelite. If she could remarry, her
husband would inherit the land in her dead husband’s place. But, marrying a
foreigner was frowned upon in Israel. You do not marry someone who practices a
different religion. Ruth was stuck.
How many of us would willingly subject ourselves to
the conditions Ruth would be facing? How many of us would subject ourselves to
the lack of a future with only a hope and a prayer that you might be accepted
and received into another culture, knowing you may not even be welcome back in
your own culture if you decided to return?
We certainly wouldn’t willingly subject ourselves to
this kind of life but sometimes it feels as if we are placed into it or that it
is the only life we have. We know how fierce the world can be, how earthquakes
can shatter homes, how floods can drown the fields. We know how our income and
expenses can change at a moment’s notice. We know how fragile our health is.
There are times we may feel like Ruth and never asked for it. The depth of her
story is real for us and it’s easy to avoid looking it because it is one of
those unwelcome pieces of our life. We choose to focus on the fairy tale
stories because quite honestly, we don’t want the hardship. We don’t want the
struggle. We don’t want the unknown. We don’t want the thought that we will be
stuck there for the rest of our lives. So, we choose to glance over it. In
doing so, however, we cheapen God’s grace. If we take away the struggle, the
hardship, we take away the need for God’s action.
When we enter the struggle, when we choose to allow
the numbness to return to pain, that is where we find the third love story,
God’s love story, His love for us in Christ. The Christ who became that
suffering servant so that our future may have a brighter ending, so that our
present reality may not be how we envision the end, but that Christ himself may
be how we envision the beginning of something new.
We might look upon this story and say that all she
needed was her Prince Charming to come and rescue her. We can look at this
story and say that she desperately needed Boaz. While this may be true to an
extent, Ruth needed more than Boaz. Ruth needed the immeasurable grace of God.
God’s grace came to her through the concept in Israelite
culture known as a Goel, a Hebrew word that means redeemer. The redeemer in
Hebrew culture was a prominent person in a family. If the occasion arose, this
person would be the guardian of the family’s honor. If someone in their family
were murdered, this redeemer would be the one to avenge the blood of the
murderer. This person could buy back family land that might have been sold in
tough times. This person could pay the redemption price for family members sold
into slavery. They could also revive the family lineage when someone died
without an heir.
As the events unfolded, Boaz ended up becoming the
Goel in this situation for Ruth when the first person in line declined but I
don’t look at Boaz as the man that came riding in on a white stallion to save
the day. Instead, I look at what Boaz on a deeper level as an illustration of
Christ. Ruth didn’t need a man, per se. She needed a redeemer. And it wasn’t a
sure thing by any means. But, this idea of a goel, or redeemer, is the perfect
illustration for Jesus and it’s fascinating how prominent a role this was
within the Hebrew culture. The idea that Christ himself would fulfill this role
for all of them really puts the grace of God on display.
Ruth’s story teaches us something. Life worked
against Ruth. Life also works its way against us. When this happens, we see
through her story, and others along with her, that not only do we receive an
opportunity for life but we see the opportunity for eternal life. Ruth was not
only given an opportunity to live a better life but she was also given a spot
in the lineage that had been set in place since Eve and that would eventually
lead to Jesus. She, an undeserving foreigner, was gifted a spot in Jesus’
ancestry.
The good news to us comes because we are the
foreigner. We are Ruth. Her story is our story. We do not deserve God’s grace
by any means, just like Ruth. When we enter the darkness of Ruth’s story, we
learn something. First, God has a redeemer for us. God has a Goel for us. We
may struggle, we may not deserve God’s grace, but God has looked down on us and
he has sent Jesus to be that redeemer so that we might not live in spiritual
poverty or in spiritual loneliness. Christ comes as the groom to redeem us his
bride. Second, God does not limit his grace to certain people. While there may
be certain divisions in the Bible between Israel and other pagan nations,
Ruth’s story teaches us that God can redeem whoever he wants whether they are a
native Israelite or a stranger from a foreign land. For God to redeem us, it
doesn’t matter our looks, our thoughts, our way of life, our politics. God does
not limit his grace to certain people but makes it available to even the most
unthinkable person. Lastly, Ruth’s story teaches us that the struggles we
endure now are not indicative to our future. We may struggle now but that
struggle is only temporary. When the work the redeemer has begun is completed
the inheritance is well worth the wait. When the work of Christ on the cross is
completed in his coming again, that inheritance will be well worth the hardships
we endure today. Ruth took a giant leap
of faith, perhaps not knowing or even expecting any of this to take place. It
was as close to blind faith as it gets and her faith paid off as God’s grace
swept in.
Considering all of this, I take us back to my original
question. Is there another love story here beyond Ruth and Naomi, beyond Ruth
and Boaz? In the depths of her situation, the places we don’t want to go, the
places that we don’t want to be, the places that seem all to real for us, in
those places can we find a third love story? You bet we can and it’s the one we
relate to most. The love story between Ruth and God. It’s a story in which Ruth
was on the bottom and out of options and yet her faith in a God who had no
obligation to invest in her paid off. God redeemed her. Yes, the fairy tale
parts of this story are great. But, the salvation story hidden within is far
greater. Ruth’s story is our story. We stake our faith on a God who has no
obligation to invest in us whatsoever and it pays off. God looks upon us,
regardless of our walk of life, our status, or what life may be like for us
right now and he loves us. God sends Jesus to be our goel, our redeemer, and
restores us to himself. In all honesty, this is the best love story there is.
Only this love story can reach into the depths of
our lives. Only this love story can reach into our tears, our pain, our
weakness, our sin and pull us out. Only this love story can actually take those
tears, those pains, those weaknesses, those sins, and replace them with all
things good. This is the truth of the love story that envelopes you today. Be
loved. Be goeled. Be redeemed. Because you are. To God be the glory, now and
always. Amen.