Ruth: a Mother’s Day sermon.
The book of Ruth starts with the words, “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So, a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.” (Ruth 1:1) Incidentally the book of Judges finishes with the sentence, “"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25).
You may remember when I spoke about the Judges there was a theme to the book that was, that “over the period of the Judges things spiraled out of control for the nation of Israel.” Samson was the one who really brought it all crashing down, literally, figuratively and metaphorically. Lust, a donkey’s jawbone, a thousand dead Philistines, blindness, mockery and idol worship always proves to be a bad combination. Probably best never to enter down that track in life, you’ve been warned young people.
What the author of Judges is implying is that everything goes better when the people are being told by their king how to go about living, there’s nothing like a benevolent dictator to keep things on the up and up, if they are a good one.
However back to the Book of Ruth which tells the story, initially of a lady by the name of Naomi meaning sweet and pleasant, an Israelite woman who with her husband Elimelek meaning God is my King, and sons in a time of famine, leave Bethlehem in Judea, to go and live in Moab where there is food. Interestingly Bethlehem means “house of bread” but as we see there wasn’t any bread there at that time. Pay close attention to the meaning of these names, it plays a big part in this book and todays sermon.
Long story short, the family are in Moab, the sons’ Mahlon, meaning, weak and sickly and Killion, meaning, frail or death marry a nice Moabite girl each and then it all goes to pack. Elimelek dies, then the sons die, well with names like theirs, it appeared to be a likely outcome. Why would you give your kids names like that? Well not everyone’s name can mean strong and manly (Andrew).
So here we get this story of an elderly widow with her two widowed daughters-in-law. The three of them bound by the common bond of widowhood, grief, hunger and homelessness. Life for the three of them was miserable, a woman at the time without a husband or son to protect her was vulnerable, unsupported and open to exploitation. These three women; Naomi; Orpha, meaning, handful of water and Ruth; meaning, drenched or saturated were sort of stuck in a place now, their situation was between life and death things could go either way. Due to their all being widowed there was a dark and ominous towering cloud over their existence, ahead of them lay a gloomy future.
A bit of a change of direction, context is important. Ruth, this book is a pearlier, 85 verses across 4 chapters, about three widows, famine, relocation, death in a strange land and a strange romance and ongoing redemption. For the size of the book, it really is deep, deep as it gets, literary splendor, so many themes and so much history. At face value a good account of life at the time for widows, an historical account but so much more. But really why would it be in The Bible, in the book of all books? I love a good mystery, why indeed.
Well, we are about halfway through the first chapter, when Naomi tells her widowed daughter-in-law’s to head home to their people, she has nothing to offer them. Orpah kisses Naomi goodbye and heads off into the sunset, or like a handful of water, just drains way. However, Ruth clung to her. Despite Naomi’s insisting that she also leaves, Ruth enters into a covenant with her Mother-in-law, a covenant that would drench their relationship forever, soaking through their lives and drenching the history of the world. Naomi tells her to go like Orpah did:
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” Ruth 1:16-17. These are profound words establishing a relationship that is beyond death itself. More than a Mother, daughter-in-law bond.
The two of them returned to Bethlehem. Naomi was recognised, she tells those that recognise her not to call her by her name, but to call her Mara; meaning bitter, as she went away full and was now returned empty, she blames The Lord for her affliction and misfortune. Life for her is miserable, of interest here is that she returns at the beginning of the barley harvest. Bethlehem will again be a ‘house of bread’.
We are then introduced to a man who is a relative of Naomi’s a man called Boaz. Boaz is a wealthy man whose name incidentally means ‘Strength’ with fields and workers and he sees this young lady out in his fields gleaning the barley. Where the journey goes between Ruth and Boaz, is that Boaz was one of a couple of what was called back in the day ‘Kinsman redeemers.” They could buy the ladies out of their predicament if they purchased Naomi’s, husband Elimelech’s property. In doing so they would be responsible for the ladies. Acquiring responsibility for these two widows as part the land deal. A duty of care.
So in chapter four we see Boaz as kinsman redeemer take on Naiomi’s land and his marriage to Ruth in the deal. This was seen as a good thing in the eyes of those present. They say this to Boaz as a blessing:
Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” (Ruth 4:11-12).
Where this goes is that Ruth and Boaz have a wee son. I could talk about how from the kinsman redeemer Boaz comes the whole line of the kinsman redeemer of mankind, Jesus. But having referenced it where I want to go with Ruth’s story is this: she a foreigner, acquired in a land deal, she becomes the mother of Obed, the father of Jessie the father of David. Now David currently is well known through the star that resides on the flag of the nation of Israel and is the name holder of Jerusalem, the city of David. From his line comes as I said Jesus.
So, what is the lesson from these 58 verses of Ruth? Well there are a number but today, the lesson is, on this Mother Day and hear this mothers, hear this-children, hear this anyone in a mothering role, senior to and mentoring a younger person now or sometime in the future or past. Dads hear this about your other half. Ruth was in a place where her life could have very simply have meant nothing in history or to anyone other than Naomi. She was a woman committed to her former mother-in-law; the bond was broken with the death of her husband. However, she chooses a relationship stronger than that bond, death would not separate them.
This resulted in an outcome that has changed not just the nation of Israel, the outcomes since her time for the Hebrew people, but for us who are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, our kinsman redeemer.
You may be hearing this today for the first time; you don’t know what the outcome of your existence will be. Your life may look small in comparison to some, but the outcome of your existence may be world changing. Out of the time of Judges comes this historical account of the beginning of an extraordinary outcome.
Naomi had two daughters-in-law, Orpah, like a handful of water we hear nothing more of her. Ruth and her descendants have saturated history. I think the reason to this day that that has occurred is that she committed that Naomi’s God would be her God, she was devoted and devout and as a result her descendants are famous not just in the nation of Israel but through the whole world. She didn’t live to see this outcome, just like we won’t live to see the outcomes of all our actions, but here and now we can make the choice, to allow the things of God to run through our hands or to be drenched in them. To be committed to the God of Naiomi or to remain in ways that led to nothing of consequence.
For us the choice is clear. It is always clear.
