We come to the end of the story of Ruth, and the story ends with redemption.  Let us hear good news right off the top once again.  In the end, there is redemption. 

Redemption is not only for the end of this story or any of our stories.  What is this redemption thing all about anyway?  We used to sing a song in church when I was young called “Redeemed.”  Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.  What does this mean exactly?  Sometimes we hear and use language that we’re used to in church that really has very little meaning for the world outside of these walls.  You don’t hear the word redemption very much.  If you’re a sports fan, you hear it.  American tennis player Amanda Anisimova loses the 2025 Wimbledon Final in straight sets.  Will she get redemption at the US Open?  Losing then winning – redemption.  She lost, but it’s just a game.  We may enjoy athletic contests and feats of athletic prowess, but let’s keep it in perspective (something I’m learning).  We talk about a person’s redeeming qualities that make up for shortcomings.  These uses of the word point us toward what we mean when we talk about God’s redeeming work; Christ’s redeeming work.  God’s redeeming work takes us from defeat to victory.  God’s redeeming work makes us God’s children – despite our shortcomings – and gives us something back that we have lost – a right relationship with God.  My redeemer lives, and I have been redeemed! Let us look at our text this morning and see what God has to say to our hearts.

The picture at the end of Ruth is a picture of peace.  It is a picture of wholeness.  In the middle of a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, we have a portrayal of a community in which everyone is being cared for, from the youngest to the oldest.  The story does not start there, we remember.  These are the stories of our lives, after all, and we know hw life goes.  The story of Ruth starts with famine.  It starts with want.  It starts with death.  It starts with a woman who loses not only her husband but both of her sons.  A woman who feels so completely bereft that she feels that God has turned against her.  She is so bereft that she is unable to recognize that there is someone who represents God’s hesed – God’s steadfast love, loyalty – right beside her in the person of Ruth, her daughter-in-law.  We’ve seen Ruth taking matters into her own hands, going out to the fields to ensure her own survival and that of her mother-in-law.  We’ve seen Boaz caring for the young woman, telling her that he’s heard about the steadfast love she has shown Naomi.  Boaz shows the same steadfast love and care to Ruth.  He allows her to glean in his fields and makes sure that his reapers leave plenty for her to take, inviting her to eat with them and making sure she has leftovers to take home.

We said last week that while the immediate needs of Ruth and Naomi are taken care of, the long-term security which Naomi wants for her daughter-in-law is not.  We heard at the end of last week’s episode that Boaz is a relative of Elimelech, or one with the right to redeem.  We passed over chapter 3, so here’s a quick recap.  It’s winnowing time, separating the barley from the chaff.   Naomi tells Ruth to go to Boaz at night on the threshing floor once he falls asleep.  Ruth is told to lie down and uncover Boaz’s feet, which she does.    There is some ambiguity when it comes to terminology as far as what exactly is happening, but we do know that Ruth asks a question.  She has heard Boaz say things like “The Lord be with you” and “May you have a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!”  As we have heard through this story, it’s often through people that God makes his lovingkindness and steadfast love known.  God invites us to show the same hesed that has been shown to us.  Ruth invites Boaz to show her the same kindness that he’s been talking about.  “Spread your cloak over your servant, for you are next-of-kin.”  The one with the right to redeem. “Marry me,” in other words. 

The Biblical concept of redemption has to do with ensuring well-being.  Someone has said that our Western concept of law focuses (in a highly individualistic way) on deterring behaviour, while Biblical law “bends toward restoring social equilibrium and well-being.”  To redeem meant to pay a price to free someone from slavery, from debt, or from loss.  To redeem, to restore, to set free in order to ensure well-being was based on the redeeming nature of God, who set free, who rescued his people from slavery in Egypt and later restored them from exile in Babylon.

Practically speaking, this looked like three things, two of which are somehow operative in our story.  When a family became poor to the point where they had to sell land to survive, the nearest male relative was responsible for buying back that land, rescuing them from poverty, and restoring the land to the family.  If a family became poor to the point where they sold themselves into slavery, a relative with means was to free them.  When a man died, leaving his widow without a child, the man’s brother was to marry the widow so that she would have children, thus carrying on the family name and ensuring the property stayed with the family.  The spirit of these laws was ongoing well-being and security, based on the God who has acted, acts and will act for our ongoing well-being and security.  Those mighty acts of freedom from Egypt and restoration from Babylon point forward to the freeing, restoring work of Jesus.

“Spread your cloak over your servant,” Ruth tells Boaz.  Let me find refuge with you. 

Boaz agrees.  Read 3:10-13

Boaz goes to the city gate. A town square type of place.  The place to see and be seen.  The place where legal matters were settled in ancient Israel.  This next-of-kin comes passing by.  We’re not told his name.  Boaz sets everything up.  “Come over, friend; sit down here.”  Boaz gathers ten elders of Bethlehem around them. 

He then brings something new into the story.  Talk of a field.  “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our kinsman Elimelech.  So I thought I would tell you of it and say: But it…”  The relative answers “Yes, I will redeem it.”  Boaz then tells him that there is a bit of a catch.  (It’s like when you’re buying a new car and all of a sudden they start adding on how much the undercoat/extended warranty/rust proofing is going to cost.)  “The day you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi, you are also acquiring Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead man…”  That foreign woman.  The woman from the place of which we Israelites are not such big fans.   Boaz is shrewd here.   He doesn’t describe Ruth  with the same words he’s used to describe her in their own private conversations.   Her worthiness.  Her devotion to her mother-in-law.  Her beautiful heart.  The hesed she has shown. He keeps all of that to himself.  “I cannot redeem it for myself without damaging my own inheritance,” is the answer from this nearer relation.  “This would make my situation too complicated,” in other words.

Just what Boaz and Ruth wanted!  

The next-of-kin takes off his sandal and makes the deal.  Boaz will redeem it as he addresses the crowd – “Today you are witnesses that I have acquired from the hand of Naomi, all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon.  I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, to be my wife, to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance, in order that the name of the dead may not be cut off from his kindred and from the gate of his native place; today you are my witnesses.” 

We don’t know a lot about the legalities going on here, but we know this.  Boaz did something that Naomi and Ruth could not do for themselves.  Boaz wanted to ensure not only the survival of Ruth and Naomi, but their security, their future.  We talked two weeks ago about the lovingkindness of God being reflected by Ruth when she pledged herself to her mother-in-law.  Here we have the loving kindness of God being reflected in a whole new way by Boaz.

We remember that this story is taking place in Bethlehem.  Look at how this story is pointing forward to Christ.  Boaz redeems.  Boaz buys back. Boaz restores.  Boaz ensures a future.  Christ redeems.  Christ brings us back.  Christ does something which we could not do for ourselves.  Christ restores our identity.  Christ brings new life and restores our identity as beloved children of God.

What does it mean to be redeemed?  To know redemption?  Christ brings us into the family.  Are you familiar with what we call family-style eating?  You put all the food on large plates/bowls in the centre of the table.  Everyone shares.  Everyone makes sure that everyone has enough (ideally).  People ask if anyone wants the last pork chop or whatever.   We help one another out.  Please pass the gravy, that kind of thing.  There’s no wedding banquet mentioned here, but I’m sure Ruth and Boaz had one, and I’m sure there they had a lot of food going on.  Is it any wonder that the Kingdom of God is compared to a banquet at which all are welcome?  A banquet at which “family style” takes on a whole new meaning? At this banquet, we are part of a whole new identity.  There are typically three ways to become a part of a family.  One is to be born into it.  The second is to be married into it.   A new family is created.  Is it any wonder that the Bible talks about the church as the bride and Christ as the bridegroom?  A new family has been created.  There is a third way for someone to become part of a family.  Adoption.  In ancient Israel, peace, well-being, flourishing, was tied to land; it was tied to male children to carry on your name.  When Christ came, he brought about something new.  A new situation in which our well-being, our flourishing, would be found through life in him.  A new identity in him as beloved children of God, adopted into God’s family.  Paul put it like this, writing to the Romans – “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.  When we cry, “Abba! Father!” It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”   This is what we are.  Let us acknowledge and give thanks for this every day.  New life in the bread of life, who was born in a time called the House of Bread.

Ruth has a baby boy.  Who would have thought?  Old(er) Boaz and this Moabite widow.  We have this lovely blessing in v 14: “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel!  He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is worth more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” 

Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.  She gathered the child against her chest.  Redemption is going on all over the place.  Restoration, wholeness.  It’s for everyone.  It’s lifelong.  From life’s first cry to final breath.  For little Obed.  For little Sean, Stefan and Nylah.  For young Valentina.  For Ruth Fletcher.  For…..This redemption, this bringing back, this freeing, this rescue,  this having life restored is for everyone, and it goes beyond death.  Everyone is in this together. Naomi will help raise this child because it’s not just up to the parents.  We don’t say “The old people need to get out of the way.”  We don’t say “The young people have nothing good to say.”  The end of our story shows that we all have a part in this redemption project in which we’re invited to take part.  Naomi took care of him. This is a picture of the redeemed community friends.  We’re all called and enabled by God to make his lovingkindness known. 

Obed means “servant” or “worshipper.  He’ll become the father of Jesse, who will become the father of David – “beloved.”  The king who received the promise from God that his house would last forever.  This promise was born out in Jesus.  The servant.  The beloved one.  The son of God.  The one in whom we find life restored.

Our redeemer.   In the weeks to come, may our faith community see and show itself ever more as a community of the redeemed.  Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, the song goes.  May our proclamation of these wonderful truths sound loudly with every word - with every deed.  May we ever more be coming to know in our hearts our identity as beloved children of God.  May these things be true for us all.