I am very much a creature of habit.  I like my routines, patterns of life, seeing others in the same patterns.  One of my routines is going to my local mall after dropping Nicole off at work on Monday mornings (my day off).  Not long ago, I saw a young woman and her little daughter walking toward the mall as I was parking.  I was ahead of them as I reached the entrance, where a security guard typically stands, mostly making sure people aren’t stopping their cars for too long at the entrance.  As I went to open the door, the security guard joyously exclaimed, “Hello, my baby!!” I turned, and the little girl was running toward her, arms outstretched, for a big hug.  I continued on nodding approvingly and thinking, “There are beautiful things in this world!” We need to ask God to give us eyes to see such things, opportunities to be part of such things, even seemingly simple things like loving greetings on a Monday morning at the mall.  We live in an age where moral and spiritual chaos get a lot of play. We can be reminded that even in the midst of a lot of moral and spiritual chaos, God is at work and God is working through His people.  This is why we turn to the book of Ruth.

The book begins “In the time of the Judges”.  The time in Israel’s history between the death of Joshua and the rise of the monarchy.  It was a time of moral and spiritual chaos; a time of danger from other people groups; a time when families were against each other; a time when tribes were against tribes.  Judges end like this, “all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”  We are all too familiar with where this gets us.  Throughout the story of Ruth, we see people being kind to one another.  There is so much attention paid to rights in our culture, and quite rightly, you may say.  What about our responsibilities to one another?  In Ruth, we see people showing above and beyond responsibility toward others.  We see a loyal daughter-in-law, a caring mother-in-law, a caring field owner and relative, people blessing babies.  We see the hand of God acting in events and the loving-kindness of God being demonstrated in people.   

As in any Bible story, it’s not so much about the people or types (loyal Ruth, kind Boaz) as it is about God.  This is not simply a moral lesson.  It’s a story of how the loving-kindness and faithfulness of God are reflected in a community in the midst of moral and spiritual chaos, along with personal uncertainty and upheaval.  At the same time, we see God’s saving purposes being advanced.  Let’s ask God to help us as we begin.

We’re very familiar in Toronto with migration.  Many of us personally.  When talking about our city to people, I always like to point out that more than half of our population was born outside of Canada.  We’re familiar with being uprooted from what is familiar.  This story starts with such an uprooting.  It begins with famine.  V1 –“…a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.  The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah.  Without giving away the ending, we know that Bethlehem is important.  It was a big deal for Elimelich to bring his family to Moab.  Moab wasn’t traditionally seen as a very good place for the ancient Israelites.  East of the Dead Sea, they were a people who refused to help the Israelites during their wandering-in-the-wilderness years.  Moabites were outsiders.  They were “the other.”

So this family has to leave a place which is called House of Bread. “Beth” is house and “lehem” is bread.  A place in which there is no bread.  This is where our story starts. 

People read this story and try to assign all kinds of motivations to characters.  It has been said, for example, that Naomi was acting out of self-interest when she told Ruth and Orpah to go back, like she thought she’d be better off without these foreign daughters-in-law.  We can’t say, and the story doesn’t say.  We need to be careful when we try to fill in the blanks like this.  Hebrew stories don’t go into a lot of the inner life of characters.  We can say with some degree of certainty, though, that things in her life did not go the way Naomi expected.  Elimelech dies.  Her two sons take Moabite wives.  Ten years go by.  They don’t have any children.  Children in the OT signified a fulfilled life.  Sons meant security.  A continuation of the family name.  Property rights.  A good life.  Naomi might have wondered about the lack of kids.  Did she think that maybe God was punishing them for being in Moab?  Was this belief confirmed for Naomi when her two sons also died, leaving her without her two sons and her husband?  She’s alone in a strange land.  Everything she had hoped for is gone. 

You may be thinking, “There goes Pastor David being a big downer, and on Labour Day weekend too!”!  The Bible does not shy away from the reality of the human experience, and neither do we.  Why do we look at these ancient stories?  How does God speak to us in them?  The human condition is still the same.  The Bible recognizes that before creatio,n there is chaos.  Before God speaks life, darkness covered the face of the deep.  Before a return to the House of Bread, there is pain and despair.  The story begins with death and suffering. 

We get this right?  A friend of mine was telling me recently how her mother used to say, “All God’s children got problems.”  We know what this is like.  If you don’t, you will know.  Things did not go the way I expected.  We get a phone call in the middle of the night.  We get called into the boss’s office unexpectedly, and all our fears about being called into the boss’s office unexpectedly are realized.  The test results are not good. The doctor wants to see us.  We don’t get into the program we had our heart set on.  I don’t need to tell a story here because we all have our stories, just as Naomi had her story. 

Thank God, though the story doesn’t end there.  A return is possible, you see.  Look at these words in V 6 – “Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food.”  The Lord had considered his people.  Now we may think, “What does she have to lose?”  There’s nothing left for her in Moab, after all.

Except… except for these two daughters-in-law who set out with her.  We don’t know if this was usual cultural practice in ancient Moab or not.  When they get to the outskirts of town or wherever it was they got, Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah to go back.  Naomi sees no hope for herself.  She’s too old to have a husband.  Even if she miraculously found one, she’s too old to have sons to take the place of Mahlon and Chilion for the two women.  “There’s still hope for you,” she tells them, but “the hand of the Lord has turned against me.”  Have you ever felt this way?  Have you ever felt that God was punishing you for something?  Or wondered what you had done to deserve this?  Felt that God was against you?  People are told this kind of thing, you know.  We need to be getting this right, friends.  A friend of mine was told that the death of her husband was the result of her not following her religion properly.  It’s crazy what people are told.  It’s damaging.  Naomi is feeling that God is against her.

She’s going to be reminded that the situation is not quite the way it seems to her, however.  There’s a great line in Psalm 56:9.  I like it especially, considering how much I go on about what we don’t know.  “This I know, that God is for me.”  God is for you.  God is for me.  God puts people around us to remind us that God is for us.  Ruth is beside Naomi to remind her of this truth.  Naomi is feeling without hope, alone, bereft. 

Ruth is about to remind her that there is something that not even death can separate us from.  God’s love.  God’s hesed.  This wonderful Hebrew work, to describe God.  It’s part of God’s nature.  Part of who God is. Hesed.  There’s no one word that does justice to it in English.  We say “loving kindness.”  We say “steadfast love.”  Whenever you see those words in our NRSV Bibles, chances are it’s this Hebrew word hesed.   Naomi mentions it first when she says in V 8, “May the Lord deal kindly (hesed) with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.” 

Ruth is about to be a living reminder that God deals hesed with us.  Orpah returns home.  We’re not to judge Orpah here.  The narrator doesn’t judge, and neither should we.  Going home might be an expected custom that Orpah is following. It’s not simply “Don’t be an Orpah, be a Ruth” or “Every daughter-in-law should show unswerving loyalty to their mother-in-law in every circumstance.”  Ruth makes the decision to show steadfast love and loving-kindness to her mother-in-law.  Hesed is shown by others in the story, too (as we will see) because we’re all called to reflect it.  Ruth is throwing her lot in with Naomi and with YAHWEH, whose name she invokes in her vow. 

We all have a decision to make about trusting God – our desire to trust God or trust God more.  The image of a journey is a good one to describe our lives.  Ruth has reached a cross- road.  Important things happen at crossroads.  Life-changing directions.   We have a decision to make.  The prophet Jeremiah put it like this – “Thus says the lord, Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way lies, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” (Jer 6:16)  We don’t know what Ruth understands about YAHWEH, but she knows something about hesed.  She tells Naomi that she is throwing her lot in with her mother-in-law and with God.  Look at how the terms of the vow get stronger and stronger, starting with “going” –  V16-17 “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you!  Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die – there I will be buried.  May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.”  That is beautiful.  People say this at weddings even (without the “Do not press me to leave you” line).

What is Ruth doing here?  Ruth is making a declaration that all hope is not lost.  She’s reminding Naomi (and us) that it is in Yahweh’s steadfast love/lovingkindness that life is to be found.  In our going, in our staying, in our trusting, in our living, in our dying.  Ruth is saying, in effect, “I am for you, I am with you, no matter what.”

Not even death will separate me from you.  Does this remind us of anyone we know?  Look for this throughout the story – truths of God being demonstrated in the lives of these people.  Ruth is speaking some truth here.  Some very good truth. 

Naomi doesn’t seem to take it that well.  V 18 “When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.”  It’s almost as if Naomi has forgotten about her daughter-in-law.  This couldn’t have been a comfortable trip.  “Awkward”, as the kids say.  All this silence.  When they get back to Bethlehem, the whole town is stirred.  Is this Naomi?  She looks kind of familiar.  Who is that young woman with her?  Naomi speaks again – V 20 “Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”  Naomi is speaking a lament.  Unfortunately, she’s not lamenting to God here, but rather about God.  It’s Ok, though.  God is on Naomi’s side.  She will know this by the time the story ends.

For now, though, she’s alone – she’s returned empty.  The thing is, of course, that she hasn’t returned empty.  Remember who’s standing beside her.  I can picture Ruth going, “Hello – I’m right here! You know I can hear you, right?” as Naomi goes on about how empty she is.

Ruth has made a vow, you see.  Where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge….  I’m with you, in other words.  You have me.  There’s a new situation along with a new woman in town.  Vows aren’t just to declare things, you see.  Vows are performative.  To speak them is to do them.  They create a new situation.  I’m officiating a wedding today at which vows will be spoken.  We welcomed new members into Blythwood not long ago and made vows and promises to one another.  The words of a vow call into being something new.  A new family.  Ruth has made a covenant with Naomi – a loving agreement born out of hesed – out of the steadfast love and lovingkindness of God. 

Naomi doesn’t know it yet, but this will change things.  They’re back in Bethlehem.  Our chapter ends like this – V 22 “They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.”  I said at the beginning that Bethlehem means House of Bread.  Lehem is bread.  It sounds a lot like l’chaim – the word for life.  Do you know what they use to make bread?  Barley.  Bread is life.  We know the one who called himself the Bread of Life.  Oh, and he was from Bethlehem, too.  Isn’t it great how that all comes together?  The Bread of Life made a New Covenant – a new loving agreement based on the lovingkindness of God, Father, Son, and Spirit.  This story began with famine and death.  It won’t end there.  Thanks be to God that it ends in life.  So does our story in Christ.  Stand at the crossroads and ask for the ancient path, where the good way lies and walk in it – let’s walk in it together – and find rest for our souls.

Thanks be to God for His precious gift.