The Simple Faith of Ruth and Boaz

A Sermon by Andrew Colman based on Ruth 1:1-18

The book of Ruth has for a very long time thousands of years been a favourite book in both the Jewish and Christian traditions. I have had many conversations where it is studied and poured over as a book that shows what love looks like from many angles.

Just to name a few, we have the love, though it may not have looked the same as it does today; between Elimelech and Naomi, they had two sons named Mahaln and Chilion. It seems like a simple thing, but a loving family is still a wonderful example of love. The two sons, who are from Bethlehem, so they are Israelites, go to the country of Moab and find wives, and they seem to have a good enough relationship that Ruth and Orpah want to stick with Naomi, their Mother-in-Law. 

Again, it seems like a simple thing, but a marriage between an Israelite and a Moabite was was not a simple thing back then. 

Moabites, generally speaking, were seen as the people who tempt Israel into sin - and in the Book of Numbers, are held responsible for a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites because of their successful temptation. 

An event like that is not quickly forgotten, so the offspring of Israelite men and Moabite women were barred from entering the assembly of God for ten generations in Deuteronomy. This includes Ruth! 

Both Chilion and Boaz were Israelites, and there seemed to be love between them and Ruth during their time together.

    That is love across a very, very strong cultural divide.

And then, of course, there is the Love between Ruth and Naomi 

As the story unfolds, as we'll hear over the next couple of weeks, it seems like everything just goes right, not without a little tension here and there, but things fall into place really quite nicely.

There is a little bit of a tinge of a Hollywood Romantic within the Book of Ruth. It is much much more profound than a Hollywood rom-com, but there are echoes of it nonetheless.

Not that I am not saying that is a bad thing. When we think about where/when it is found in the scriptures, it is, in fact, a profound gift

It is "During the time of the Judges." which is the book's first line

I don't know the last time that you read or listened to the Books of Judges, but it is ROUGH. Its final story is one of the most revolting ever told. I will not recap it here, but suffice it to say that the last line of Judges is 

"Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." 

Everyone had their own moral compass - no one cared about anyone except for who they thought they should care about - for whatever reason they deemed good enough at that moment. (To understand the scope of that statement, I commend you to the last story of Judges - and that recommendation comes with a serious trigger warning)

The author of Ruth would have known very well that beginning any story with the line "During the time of the Judges" would immediately put people on their guard—they would probably get a grimace of some kind in anticipation of what was to come.

So the story of not just one but three widows, two of whom are Moabites, not only foreigners but the worst kind of foreigners, during the time of the Judges.  

With that, we can begin to understand why Naomi eventually tries to rename herself Parrah—which means Bitter—because her lot in life was not a good one. If there is any one person who is going to be marginalized, it's her—a widow with a Moabite widow daughter-in-law.

Without really understanding how bad Naomi and Ruth's situation is, it would be like watching a beautiful, quiet love story unfold in East Germany in the middle of World War II without knowing everything else that is going on around it.

            This is a beautiful story at a terrible moment.

It doesn't take much to draw parallels between the times of the Judges and our own. There are wars happening like we never thought we'd see again, man-made famines, and frightening people with far, far too much power and far, far too little compassion or sense. 

Countries, counties, congregations, and families have been broken apart because of a conversation that seek to understand with whom we disagree; in so many places, that conversation itself has been vilified. So any hope of compassion through understanding the other is dead before the exchange of words begins.

    Of course, this does not encompass every person. 

But it can very well feel like we live in a time where everyone does what is right in their own eyes. 

This is why we feel a sense of wholeness when we read the Book of Ruth.

This story is often portrayed as one of heroism and tenacity in one way or another. Don't get me wrong; there are both of those things in this story, but they are given too much credit. 

There are really three examples where heroism is given credit, and either being compassionate or simply following the Law is doing the work.

Ruth stayed after all the men had died despite Naomi entreating her to go back to live with her family, where she would have a better chance at living a good life. Yes, this is a bold act, even a self-sacrificial act of Love on Ruth's part.

It was also a deeply compassionate act of love. At this point, in their culture, Naomi would have been quite old. Scratching together a life for herself would have been difficult enough had she been a young woman. Ruth saw what this woman was going to have to go through and opted to go where she went and be a daughter to her so that she would not have to struggle more than she needed to just to live.

Second, Ruth goes to Boaz at night under Naomi's direction to seduce, essentially entrap him into a marriage so that they might have a man to support them. Yes, this would have taken great courage by Ruth. 

She was also acting under the direction of someone who knew what would help them both live better lives. Ruth could have objected and not gone for any number of very good reasons, but instead, she did what was best for her and Naomi, though she did it with her own twist.

Finally, Boaz, so often seen as benevolent and heroic, offering Ruth more than she deserved, was simply following the Law of caring for the widows by letting them glean as was commanded by God. Yes, he let her take more than she was supposed to get, but that is barely heroic. He did not build her a new house or anything like that—he was simply being generous in the spirit of the Law.

It is important to say that Ruth did not follow through on the plan to seduce Boaz. Rather, when the moment of potential seduction came, she opted to appeal to the Law. She opted to bring up the fact that Boaz was kin to Naomi, and the Torah, the Law, would have it that he would care for his family.

Instead of following Naomi's instinct of seducing to gain support, essentially another version of doing what was right in /her/ own eyes, Ruth appealed to Torah. That which is right in God's eyes. 

And Boaz heard the call to live by Torah, as he had been doing by helping her with food and protecting her as she worked the whole time.

You see, the story of Ruth is not one simply of overflowing courage, heroism, and benevolence. 

Rather it is a story of a small group of people doing what is right in the eyes of God. 

But when the world is falling apart at the seams, those acts that look like and are as far as they are counter-cultural- those acts that look courageous, heroic, and benevolent are simply acts of faith and trust that the ways that God has laid out for us are, in fact, good.

Every morning, when I wake up and read the news, it looks to me like the world is indeed falling apart at the seams. 

But God has given us this story of Ruth to communicate to us that goodness during the time of the Judges, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, is possible and, in fact, beautiful.

The thing that makes this different from a Hollywood rom-com is that the source of goodness and life that carries the characters through to the end is not a loveable English professor who has finally had a change of heart and seen the error of their ways. 

No, the source of Goodness and Life in the story of Ruth and our story is God, Creator of the Cosmos, who has given to us himself through his Son Jesus Christ. That we might know the way of goodness and life is possible even when the worst of all humanity is bearing down on us.

Despite what comes in the next days, weeks and months 

we need to remember that the story of Ruth is replaying itself all around us all the time in small pockets that we can't see. 

When it seems like things are falling apart at the seams, all it takes are a few people doing what is Good in God's eyes to change both our own lives and the lives of all those around us. 

And that God has given us the strength through the Holy Spirit to live in God's way and do God's will.