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Hopelessly Devoted

11/5/2024

First Presbyterian Church of Blackwood
21 E. Church Street
Blackwood, NJ 08012
Sermon Notes (Sunday ~ November 3 2024)
Sermon Title – Hopelessly Devoted
Text –Ruth 1:1-18
Rev Beth Thomas
Throughout the fall you’ve been looking at lectionary selections that have told us how to fashion our lives around the example of Jesus. Many of them talked about how our faith, mirrored in our actions, helps us be the church. Now, in this last month of the Christian year, we turn to stories that point us toward the celebration of Christ. Leading up to Advent, the lectionary gives us several examples of faithfulness and our first one today comes from the book of Ruth.

The book of Ruth, as a part of our cannon, is of course one of the few places in the male-dominated world of scripture where women play the major roles and are the central characters. It is one of the few places in the Bible where we find Hebrew writing that uses feminine verb forms.   I also read somewhere that this is the only conversation recorded in scripture between two women that is not about a man…but about their own welfare.

Ruth’s story is a story of immigrants fraught with poverty, loss, risk and survival. We read about hunger, death, perilous journeys, loneliness and bravery before we get to the happy ending that turns Ruth, a reviled Moabite, into the great-grandmother of King David and earns her a place in Matthew’s listing of the ancestors of Jesus. This is a story of courageous decisions and bold actions by two women who at different times in their lives are strangers in a foreign land.

And isn’t it ironic and also sad that this same topic has become such a divisive topic in our own country, today. Haven’t we Christians been reading this story for centuries? What does it tell us about how we are called to treat people who are different from us?

The story begins with the family of Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons. The family is part of the Hebrew population living in exile in the southern kingdom of Judah. The original Israelites from Jerusalem were taken there by the Babylonians long ago. When famine struck in Judah Elimelech and Naomi made the bold decision to move to the country of Moab. The Moabites were descendants of Lot. They were pagans who worshipped many gods and they were generally despised by the Jewish people.

Knowing that, we can imagine that Elimelech and Naomi were really desperate, that the threat of starvation was very real for them, to make such a drastic choice. Think about the last place in the world that you would want to live and then imagine that it is the only place left on the planet with enough food to feed your family. How would you choose?

We do not know much about the family’s life in Moab—how they were treated as immigrants—but we know that they were once again aliens—like their forefathers and mothers who first had to go to Judah. In Moab they were strangers in a strange land—where everything—the language, the food, the religion, the culture was different. Elimelech and Naomi were raised in a culture that kept careful watch over people who were different from themselves and now they were the ones who were different.

Then the unexpected happens, Elimelech dies. Naomi is bereft but her sons, who now presumably have the responsibility for their mother, seem well settled in Moab. It is where they have grown into men and--perhaps putting the idea of ever returning to Judah out of their minds--they have taken Moabite wives, even though intermarriage is forbidden in several places in their original Jewish culture.

The danger of foreign women is a reoccurring theme in the Old Testament because such women were thought to sway their husbands toward foreign gods. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, for example, the men returning to Jerusalem from exile are told to expel their foreign wives. And Ruth, you will notice is never just referred to as just Ruth, she is always marked as “Ruth the Moabite,” always tagged as a foreigner.

Do you think people still flinch when someone from another culture marries into a typical American family? I hope not.   I have a friend from what I assume is a very stereotypical Southern family who rejoices in the differences of her daughters-in-law and embraces the one from the Philippines, the one from Columbia and the one from Argentina the same way she embraces the one from Georgia. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all do that? Neil and I went to a wedding last weekend and at the reception there was one set of music that I recognized, then a set of mostly rap music and finally a set of Hispanic music—all to cater to members of two wildly diverse families.

But back in our story of Naomi. The years pass and 10 years after their father dies, the sons of Naomi die too. Naomi is left widowed and childless in a foreign land. A stable household that once consisted of a woman and three men is now a household of three childless widows, none of them blood relatives. In a society where fathers, husbands and sons provided family security this household’s prospects now look grim.

This is when the narrative really becomes a story about women.   Even God does not appear in the narrative as a person, but is heard about and given testimony to through the lives of the three survivors.

It is difficult for us to imagine or to remember all these years later, just how terrible this situation was.   Without any men in their lives these women had no lives—no status, no stability, no place.   For these women living in the ancient Near East their best hope, their only hope of survival was to find new husbands as soon as possible.   And let’s think about it…in a culture that is all about having male heirs who would marry Naomi who is already past child-bearing age, and who is going to marry Ruth and Orpah who have been married to reviled Jews and now come with the baggage of a Jewish mother-in-law?

So what are three widows to do? Naomi, who name means, “sweet” belies that nature now and becomes bitter.   She even suggests at one point that her name be changed to “Mara”, which means “bitter,” to better reflect her new state of mind.

Then there is a hint of good news. The women hear that the famine in Judah is over; there is food back there now. So, Naomi decides to pull up stakes and go back there where someone may have pity on her, where things will be more familiar, where she may feel at least a little bit more at home. Where would you go if your circumstances were just awful?
What would you need to do to feel most secure?

We can only imagine that this decision to travel was difficult for Naomi. She had made the trip before and it was hard. Now she was reversing her travels along the same perilous path and this time there wouldn’t be any men along for protection or to provide food. She knew how dangerous it would be to travel with her daughters-in-law and no men.

She must also have had doubts about how she would be received back in Judah…would people welcome her back home or would they resent the fact that she and her family left in the first place? Would they think that she was tainted from choosing to live among a hostile people like the Moabites? Would people at home think her choices were foolish and her losses well deserved? And most of all what would they think of her foreign daughters-in-law?

Still grieving the loss of her husband and living with the anguish of losing not one but both of her sons, we can only imagine that Naomi was not in the best position to be making life-changing decisions. And we know that at some point something changed in her mind.

She suddenly encouraged the girls to go back to their own families. There are lots of tears and drama as there often are with mothers-in-law and daughters-in law—(I could tell you stories from both perspectives!) But suddenly Naomi wants to go on alone.   Is that really because, as one scholar puts it quite bluntly, “With the younger women clearly not pregnant they are of no use to Naomi so she tries to get rid of them.” Is that her motivation? Or does she really believe that having the girls stay in Moab to try to snag another husband from their own people is the better path for them? Or does she remember how difficult it is to live in a strange land? Does she want to spare Orpha and Ruth an experience in Judah like the one she had in Moab?

Naomi tells the girls that there is no reason whatsoever for them to continue on with her. She can have no more children that might be husbands for them and even if she could the age difference would make that impossible. Naomi seems to want to be alone with her grief. She blames God for her misfortunes and just really seems to be in a bad place.

Now, we don’t know what the daughters-in law might have been going home to, but in the end only Orpha does leave. Ruth insists on staying with and traveling with Naomi even if she realizes that decisions about faithfulness and loyalty are rarely made with a secure knowledge of how things will turn out.

We can anticipate that things will not be easy for Ruth. She will be living among unknown people, with new customs, a new language and a new faith. We have to wonder what Ruth felt about claiming a new God in her life—especially when she has seen bad things happen to Naomi that have been blamed on this god.

Now that’s an interesting dynamic isn’t it? Both women have made all these huge, life-changing decisions, planned all of these big transformations in their lives and now it sounds as if Naomi isn’t sure she wants Ruth with her. What drove Ruth’s response?

I suspect that she really did see that this bitter, older woman needed her. But I also wonder why Ruth didn’t want to return to her own family. Why would she prefer becoming a foreigner to going home?   I wonder if there was something in her reply that said, “Hey! You can’t rid of me that easily!” I wonder if for Ruth, home was wherever Naomi was?

And I wonder how Naomi felt when she was unable to continue on alone? We only know that she zipped her lips and said no more on the matter. We don’t know if she was happy with Ruth or not, although I suspect she was relieved.

And isn’t it interesting that Ruth’s response to Naomi leads her to utter some of the most famous lines in the Bible, “Where you go, I will go; where you stay I will stay; your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” Isn’t it surprising that these words we use in our wedding liturgy don’t come from some romantic love story—maybe from the time when Ruth and Boaz are married? But no, it comes from a story about love between in-laws.

And so our reading for this week concludes as a foreign woman from a reviled nation and a bitter, older widow make their way towards Judah where they will try to enter and re-enter life among the Jews. For the rest of the book Ruth will make slow progress in living her new life with the grieving Naomi. And I don’t think either of them is aware of the happy ending God has in store for them.

Some scholars say that Ruth is an unrecognized gift of God’s grace to Naomi: that is takes quite a while for Naomi to see all the good in Ruth. What about you? Do you have a Ruth? It seems as if we could all use one!

Ruth has much to teach us about loving and caring; she has much to show us about selflessness and putting the welfare of others above our own. Is that easy for you? I find some of the people in my life difficult and I am often fuming because I can’t make them see things my way.

So I have this little bracelet that is engraved with the word, “anyway.” It is from a saying that most people attribute to Mother Theresa. My mother-in-law used to keep the whole poem posted on her refrigerator.

It says:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best
anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

I think Ruth chose to love Naomi’s anyway. She may have been the answer to Naomi’s prayers. Who in your life needs a Ruth? Is God calling you to walk step-by-step and side-by-side with a Naomi? How will you respond? Anyway?

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