RUTH: WOMAN OF DEVOTION – SERMON II: A CAREGIVER WHO TOOK THE INITIATIVE
Ruth 2:2-7
Ruth has been considered through the centuries as one of the greatest women of devotion in the Bible. Her devotion as a caregiver has stood out in our minds so much so that those beautiful words of commitment spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi have been used worldwide in religious wedding ceremonies.
“Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for wherever you go I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”
These words were spoken at a time when both women had suffered the loss of the men in their lives; and they had a decision to make about where they would go and what they would do. There was no coercion on the part of either of them, although Naomi did encourage Ruth to stay in her own land of Moab rather than go with her to the land of Palestine.
Without hesitation Ruth made the decision to go to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law purely and simply based on the love the two women had for each other.
In the book of Ruth, we read that when Naomi returned to Bethlehem, the people asked, “Is this the Naomi that we knew?” No doubt being away for more than a decade along with her tragedies had changed Naomi.
Tragedy always changes the people who are affected by it; but also, there are times when tragedy changes the people who have only heard about it happening to someone else; and all too often we sometimes get the notion that we ourselves are exempt from suffering. Yet, as was the case with the Virginia Tech tragedy not to mention other tragedies like 911, the nation and the world are deeply affected by tragic events.
In the case of Naomi, the tragedies were personal; she had lost her husband and two sons; Ruth had lost her husband who was one of Naomi’s two sons. So, both women shared a common grief, and they needed to have someone to lean on as they worked through their grief; Naomi was fortunate to have her daughter-in-law take on the role of caregiver as long as she lived.
It is understandable, though, that Naomi was still so grief-stricken that she told the folks who noticed a change in her that they should no longer call her Naomi – a Jewish name that meant “pleasant” – because she was now living a life that was anything but pleasant. Instead, she said call me Mara – another Jewish name that meant “bitter”. Naomi had gone through some bitter experiences; so that’s the way she felt – bitter.
One of the changes in attitude that any of us has to deal with when our lives are turned upside down - declining health or the death of a spouse or anything else - is the choice we all have to make as to whether the unwanted experience is going to make us “bitter” or “better”. Oftentimes, it happens with most of us the way it did with Naomi; at first we tend to be bitter; but as time goes by and we come to grips with the reality that life goes on, we tend to feel better – if we want to!
You can choose to stay bitter about the curves that life throws you; or you can make the better choice of asking God to work through your situation to bring about something good. God is in the business of turning negatives into positives.
It’s difficult for us to come through a bad experience better rather than bitter, but it’s doable; it all depends on our attitude. If we are willing to cast all our cares on the One who truly does care for us – the Lord God our creator and redeemer – we shall experience relief from grief.
But it is also the case that, like Naomi, if we allow someone sent into our lives as a gift from God – in Naomi’s case Ruth – to become a part of our lives and to assume the role of God’s helper, or caregiver, we will most likely find ourselves on the receiving end of a blessing in our time of need.
Now, it just so happened that Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. It was time for folks to go out into the fields and reap the harvest.
Ruth was not one to sit around and wait for good fortune; no, she got up and took the initiative; she joined the poor people of the area by going into the fields as a gleaner. This means that she followed the reapers and picked up the grains of barley that the reapers had left behind.
It’s interesting that in the Mosaic Law landowners and their paid reapers were not allowed to go back and pick up any grain they had missed. It was to be left for the poor to glean for their own food.
Gleaning was hard work; but it also could have a negative effect on those who gleaned because to do so would be an admission that they were poor, and nobody liked to be looked upon as poor; also, since there were those who might try to take what you had gleaned away from you, it was especially a risky business for a young, single woman to be a gleaner.
So, Ruth asked Naomi’s permission to go into the fields to glean. Then she asked the overseer of a certain field if it was okay for her to glean in his field; now the Bible says that the hand of God led her to that field because it belonged to a Jewish landowner by the name of Boaz.
The Bible says, “He was a prominent man of noble character”; and even more important, he was “from the family of Emilech” who was none other than a descendant of King David.
We can tell that Boaz was a man of faith because of the way he greeted his reapers when he came out to the field for a visit; he said to them, “The Lord be with you”; and they responded, “The Lord bless you!”
Then it was that Boaz noticed Ruth gleaning in the field, and he asked his overseer about her; the overseer told Boaz that she was the young woman who had come back to Bethlehem with Naomi from Moab. The overseer went on to mention to Boaz about what a hard worker she was – that she began her work very early in the morning and worked all day except for a brief time of rest.
Some folks would say that all of this that happened – Ruth’s deciding to glean in the fields in order to provide for herself and Naomi; her choosing a field that was owned by a prominent man of faith; and her being noticed by the owner whose family descended from King David – was coincidental.
Those of us who take the Bible seriously see in this story a remarkable way in which God works through all things to bring about something good; we prefer to say that all of this that happened was providential. We shall see the hand of God at work in this story when we continue our study of it the next two weeks; but as we conclude for today, I want us to see the practical point that this story makes about Ruth the caregiver.
Although Ruth was an outsider, she did not let that stop her from finding a way to help Naomi survive. Gleaning was one way for widows to obtain food. Naomi was too old for this very strenuous kind of work. So Ruth took the initiative to find a way to provide for her mother-in-law and also for herself.
Folks who take care of others must be sensitive to what those they take care of need and then act to meet those needs.
I shall be forever grateful to those who ministered to me, and continue to do so, after the untimely death of my youngest son who lived with me due to his disability. I had cared for him as best I could for as long as I could; but it never dawned on me that one day I would need someone to care for me; yet the day came when I needed to be ministered to – and was.
God knows our every need; and no matter what, He is going to bring into our lives someone who will take the initiative to care for us.
Isn’t this what Jesus taught in the Golden Rule? He taught us to put ourselves in the place of those who need help and determine what we would need; then do the things we would want others to do for us.
Most if not all of you have served God in the past by serving others. Now it is your turn to allow others to serve God by serving you. Let them do so gladly; and always keep in mind that in your hour of greatest need, Jesus is always there. Ruth was there for Naomi; Jesus is here for you! Amen.
