Title: Finding Good In the Bad Things
Text: Ruth 1:1-18
Thesis: Though life is uncertain we may be sure of the certainty that God is at work.
Introduction: "Go West, young man, go west…" is a quote popularized by American author Horace Greeley concerning America's expansion westward. It was in keeping with the then-popular concept of Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Destiny was the conviction that the United States was destined to expand across the continent… the mission of the country was, so to speak, the redeeming of the Old World. Manifest Destiny carried with it the belief that the expansion of the United States was pre-arranged by God… it also played into the belief of American Exceptionalism.
Greeley favored westward expansion. He saw the fertile farmland of the west as an ideal place for people willing to work hard for the opportunity to succeed. The phrase came to symbolize the idea that agriculture could solve many of the nation's problems of poverty and unemployment characteristic of the big cities of the East. It is one of the most commonly quoted sayings from the nineteenth century and may have had some influence on the course of American history.
Greeley’s quote in full reads, “Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.”
Our text today is another “go west” saga… only it was not “go west” it was “go east.” The circumstances were such that Elimelech, Naomi and their two sons had to go east… for Elimelech and his family; their land of promise was on the other side of the Dead Sea.
We begin with this thought:
I. Bad things happen to God’s people, Ruth 1:1-5
“…in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man in Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him.”
In our story today the bad thing was an unforeseen circumstance.
A. Unforeseen circumstances interrupt the lives of good people
Our story begins with a family who lived near Bethlehem in the country we call Israel today. Times were tough; there was a severe famine in the land. There was no work to be had and no food to eat.
It was a time reminiscent of The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl during the 1930’s. There was no work in the towns and cities. The farms blew away and farmers lost their farms to the wind and greedy bankers who were more than anxious to gobble up the land that would make them rich when the dust settled. And so there was a huge migration of Americans who packed up what they could and set out for the San Joaquin Valley and other agricultural areas of California where there were jobs harvesting fruit, vegetables and cotton.
It was a time of such devastation that a man named John Steinbeck sat down and wrote The Grapes of Wrath which was published 1939.
So Elimelech, along with his wife Naomi and their two sons set out for their California, a place called Moab. Moab was east of Israel… across the Dead Sea. We know Moab as the current day Jordan.
It was good in Moab. It was a place of promise. There were natural resources to be mined. There was a vast plateau that rose some 3,000 feet above sea level where the land was fertile and the grass plentiful. The King’s Highway, a well established trade route, ran through Moab. So in the mind of Elimelech the voice in his head was saying, “Go east young man, go east.”
However this good Jewish family found, just as the good Americans found in the 1930’s, the land of promise turned out to be a land of enormous challenges and disappointments.
We are told that they “settled” there in the land of Moab. And then things began to unravel for the Elimelech family.
If famine was not enough… the second unforeseen circumstance is that…
B. Good people lose people they love and depend on – People Die!
After getting settled in Moab, Elimeleck died!
Naomi’s two sons then married Moabite women, which was a good thing other than that good Jewish boys did not as a rule marry Moabite women. However, it was good in the sense that despite being widowed, Naomi had two sons and two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, who would care for her. Everything seemed to be going just fine for ten years, but then, as if one death was not enough…
Both sons, Mahlon and Kilion died!
Their deaths left now only their widowed mother but two young widows as well.
This was serious… being widowed in many cases was the kiss of death, and if not death, certainly a life of destitution and poverty. While Ruth and Orpah may have been able to return to their families and perhaps even remarry… that was not an option for Naomi.
Stuff happens and it happened to Naomi, Ruth and Orpah.
According to a 2006 study, our circle of friends is getting smaller. Over the past twenty years, the number of people we can discuss matters important to us has dropped nearly a third. The number of people who said they had no one to talk to about important matters more than doubled to nearly twenty-five percent.
I read an article recently in the New York Times that specifies that the scarcity of friends has especially impacted mid-lifers. During midlife it is harder to meet the three condition of necessary for making new friends: Proximity; Repeated Connections; and a Setting the Encourages People to Let down Their Guard and Confide.
In your thirties and forties, plenty of new people enter your life through work, our children and their activities, Facebook, etc. But actual “friends you might call in a time of crisis” are in short supply. In midlife you are less likely to do more daring things where they might meet people. Schedules are compressed. Priorities change and people become more picky about who and what they want for friends.
Ultimately, no matter how many friends a person makes, people begin to realize that the kind of “BFF’s” they had in their teens and twenties simply do not exist and they begin to resign themselves to the fact that friendships are situational or “Friends for Now.” Matt Woodley, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; sources: "Americans Have Fewer Friends Outside the Family, Study Shows," Duke Today (6-23-06); Alex Williams, "Friends of a Certain Age," The New York Times (7-13-12)
Naomi found herself in a situation where the only “friends for now” were her two daughters-in-law.
And the third unforeseen circumstance…
C. Good people sometimes feel very much alone in their circumstances
But I think the most telling word of this passage is found in 1:5 where the paragraph concludes: “This ‘left’ Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.”
Alone!
Despite the desperation and the sense of “aloneness” of their situation, Naomi discovered something.
II. When bad things happen family and faith are important, Ruth 1:6-18
“Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live, your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Ruth 1:16 (You may recognize this as the marriage vows of some traditional weddings…)
Verses 6 – 18 unfold in the aftermath of the devastating deaths of three husbands that left three women widowed and facing a not so promising future. But they did not sit around waiting for someone come around and rescue them.
Naomi had left Israel in search of a better time and place. But now her better place had become a bitter place. No husband. No sons. She was alone with two young, widowed, daughters-in-law. That was her plight.
It was time to go home. In verse 6 we see that Naomi heard that God was blessing the folks back in Judah so she decided to migrate back to her homeland. The story tells of how Naomi, along with Ruth and Orpah hit the road that would take them out of Moab and back into Judah. But a short-way into their journey Naomi has second thoughts about Ruth and Orpah leaving their own families and their own homeland. She attempted to get them to return to their mothers’ homes where at worst, they would be cared for and at best they would find new husbands and remarry.
Orpah eventually decides she would prefer to return to her mother’s home. But Ruth would have none of it and that is where we pick up our text, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live, your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Ruth 1:16
This tightly packed verse serves to remind us that when everything is turned upside down and we feel absolutely alone in this world… the people in our lives, our family and our faith are what sustain us.
Naomi discovered Ruth was deeply committed to her. And it is through our own challenging times that we discover what is really important.
A. Commitment to persons – Ruth said to Naomi, “Don’t ask me to leave you. Where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live…”
B. Commitment to family – “…your people will be my people,”
C. Commitment to faith – “your God will be my God!” (And if that were not sufficient commitment…)
D. Commitment to love – “Wherever you die, I will die. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” 1:17
Ruth’s commitment to love Naomi is reminiscent of the way God loves in Romans 8:38-40:
“I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us form the love of God. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries for tomorrow – not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. In deed… nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus.”
Less than a year after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy. As the interview unfolded and she related her thoughts on several of the significant events of her life in the White House, she spoke of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The Soviet Union and Cuba were intent on building nuclear missile bases in Cuba that would be capable of striking major U.S. cities. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear war was real.
When Jacqueline Kennedy learned that the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba that were aimed at American cities, she begged her husband, J.F.K., not to send her away. She said, “If anything happens, we’re all going to stay right here with you. I just want to be with you and I want to die with you, and the children too… rather than live without you.” (Janny Scott, “In Tapes, Candid Talk by Young Kennedy Widow,” New York Times, 9/11/11; based on Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy)
When we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place… if we are to learn anything from the lives of Ruth and Naomi it is that the most important thing in bad times are:
The people we love, our families, our faith and undying love.
It is also helpful to know that it may not look so hot right now but someday we will be able to look back and see that God was at work.
III. When bad things happen you may not like it or understand it... but God is doing something,
“I have plans for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28
In the final verses of the chapter and as the Book of Ruth unfolds we see God was busy doing what only God can do…
But know that while they were in the midst of it Naomi in particular, was not seeing it. When she arrived back in Bethlehem her family and friends were delighted to see her, “Is it really you Naomi?” And Naomi said, “Don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara because God has made life bitter for me. I went away full but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer and sent tragedy upon me?” 1:20-21
However our emotions and our conclusions may not be entirely accurate… while we may be looking at the little picture, God is looking at a much larger picture.
A. God’s plans for us are good
“I have plans for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
B. God causes everything to work together for our good
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28
A. God’s plans for us are good
“I have plans for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
Naomi and Ruth made it safely back to Bethlehem where they were warmly received.
Ruth was able to glean in the fields after harvest to meet their needs.
A kindly landowner named Boaz allowed her to glean behind his workers and protected her.
Ruth later married Boaz and lived happily ever after, so to speak.
But Ruth didn’t know any of this when she left Moab to return to Israel with her mother-in-law.
Keep in mind that when Ruth immigrated she was not necessarily hoping for a better life. She is repeatedly referred to as a Moabite. Moabites were descendants of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were viewed by Israelites as wickedly evil people. They were enemies. There was incredible racial tension between the Moabites and Israelites. And to that, she was a young woman and a widow. Her’s was a dangerous existence… when she went into the fields to glean Boaz specifically warned the young men to not treat her roughly.
God’s plans are good and they are also good for us.
B. God causes everything to work together for our good
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28
If you check the genealogical tree you will find that Ruth was the great grandmother of King David and is one of the five women mentioned in the lineage of Christ in Matthew 1.
Whodda thunk it? A young Moabite/Jordanian woman is married to a Jewish/Israeli man. Her Jewish husband died and she moved to Israel where she married a wealthy farmer. They have a child they name Obed who became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of King David… and to top it all off, she winds up on the family tree of Jesus Christ.
The story of Ruth and Naomi is one of those “through it all” sagas filled with pain… yet “through it all God was good..
Conclusion
On February 25, 2007, author and noted speaker Philip Yancey experienced a horrible car accident here in Colorado.
He was driving alone on a remote highway when a curve came up suddenly and as he veered to the left his front wheel dropped off the asphalt onto the dirt and his car rolled over and over and over before stopping right side up. The windows were all blown out, skis, boots, laptop and suitcases were strewn along the ditch. He managed to unbuckle himself and walked away.
Passers-by stopped and phoned for help. He had lots of minor cuts and bruises, a nosebleed… nothing serious. But he did have an intense pain in the back of his neck.
When the ambulance came, they strapped him into a rigid body board, taped his head still and immobilized his neck with a brace. It took an hour to reach Alamosa where they ran tests and because there was no radiologist on duty on the weekend there… they modemed his films to Australia where it was Monday morning for interpretation.
When the tests came back the physician on duty at the hospital in Alamosa told Yancey he had comminuted his C-3 verteba which is doctor speak not for breaking a vertebra but for crushing a vertebra. It was an injury similar to that of Christopher Reeves.
Apparently vertebra have three channels: Two for blood supply and one for the spinal column and depending on the way it splinters you may impede the flow of blood or rupture an artery or damage the spinal column. An MRI Dye-Test revealed that the arteries and spinal column were still intact and though surgery may yet be needed in the future… he wore a neck brace for ten weeks or so.
But this is what he remembers most: For the first few hours after the accident while immobilized on the body board the medical workers refused to give him pain medication because they needed to know his responses. The doctor kept probing and moving his limbs and asking, “Does this hurt? Do you feel that?” And Yancey would respond, “Yes. It hurts. I can feel it.” Each sensation gave proof that the spinal column was not severed. Pain offered proof of life!
If pain offers proof of life… Life offers proof of hope!
Though life is uncertain we may be sure that God is at work and if God is at work, good will come of it.
