They moved for the same reasons that families all over the world all through history have moved. Economic reasons. Karen read the story earlier how a man name Elimelech moved from Bethlehem to the country of Moab because of a famine that spread across Israel. There was a scarcity of luxury items like food and so they decided to look for their fortunes elsewhere. If we pull up a map we discover . . .
Those are the same reasons that Canada and the United States were settled and for that matter after the secret got out that Australia was a lot nicer climate then England why Australia was settled. For thousands of years the people of this planet have been willing to leave all that is near and dear in order to make a better life for their families. And it was no different 3000 years ago.
A lot of ground is covered in the first five verses of the book of Ruth, we discover that Elimelech had a wife named Naomi, she was famous for the squares she made, you know the cream filled ones with the chocolate top. You know Naomi bars. (I know they aren’t Naomi bars I was just kidding.)
And along with Elimelech and Naomi were their two sons. We don’t get very far in the story before we discover that Elimelech died and left Naomi a widow with two sons. Which is good for me because I have a hard time pronouncing Elimelech, but probably not nearly as good for Naomi and her sons. We don’t know how old anyone was at this time and the story skips to the two boys getting married to Moabite women. One named Orpah, not to be confused with Oprah and one named Ruth. About ten years later the two sons died, we don’t know if it was illness, war or an accident we are just told they died and instead of one widow the household now consisted of three widows. Now Victor Robinson was a doctor how lived in the late 1800s and he said “Widows are divided into two classes -- the bereaved and relieved.” We don’t know which class these ladies fit into all we know is that they were widows.
It was then that Naomi heard that things had gotten better economically back home and she packed up all of her belongings and told the other two I’m going home. When we were in Australia we discovered a singer that soon became one of our favourites his name was Graeme Connors and this became one of my favourite songs (Clip from Sicilian Born) You catch that last line? “Home isn’t where you are born it’s where you are prepared to die.” If we listened to the whole song we’d discover that in the end the old man goes back to Sicily, because “Home isn’t where you are born it’s where you are prepared to die.” And the same held true for Naomi. If you are familiar with the story then you know that Orpah decides to stay in Moab and Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth return to Bethlehem, where Ruth eventual meets and marries Boaz.
A little back ground here on the book of Ruth. It is the eighth book of the Bible and Jewish tradition holds that the book was written by the prophet Samuel although he is not named and modern scholars move the writing outside the time period that Samuel lived. Which may simply mean that Samuel told the story which was retold for centuries before it was committed to paper.
Why was it written? Understand that in the culture of that day Ruth didn’t have a lot going for her, at a time when people honoured women with children Ruth was childless. In a culture where a woman’s identity was tied to her husband Ruth was a widow. In a tight knit community she was an outsider and a foreigner and so God uses this story to teach his people to have grace and kindness and to include foreigners into their nation.
Now when I was reading through the story I was struck by one attribute of the three main characters and that was their character. The entire story revolves around the integrity of the main players, and the outcome would not have been the same without the qualities that were displayed.
What is Character? I remember hearing it defined many years ago: Character is who you are when nobody is looking.
What it isn’t is our reputation Thomas Paine said “Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and the angels know of us.” Which is echoed by Henry Ward Beecher when he stated: “A man’s character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.”
And former American President Ronald Reagan said “You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans.” And I have no idea what that means but he was the leader of the most powerful country in the world so it must be important.
This morning we are going to look at some of the Characteristics of Character.
Let’s pick up where Karen finished reading Ruth 1:8-9 But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes instead of coming with me. And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept.
So in Naomi case she Displayed Character through 1) Her Words And Her Attitude. Everything she had had been taken away from her. She was far away from her extended family, her husband had died, her sons had died she had no grandchildren. In that culture she had very little to offer to the community in the way of services, her livelihood would have been tied to the men in her family and so when they died she would have been well on her way to destitution. If there was a sense of welfare in the community it probably wouldn’t have been extended to a CFA. (that’s maritime speak for Come from Away.)
Naomi had every reason to feel like she had gotten a raw deal out of life. That she had been treated unfairly. It seemed that in her life every silver lining had a cloud. And here she is, leaving whatever her family had built and accumulated through the years starting back on a hard journey and she has a choice to a make. And that choice is the same choice that everyone of us has to make when we are faced with adversity, will we allow this to make us a bitter person or a better person? Will this break us or make us? Naomi’s attitude is shown in her words. Listen to what she tells the other women “And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.”
We’ve all met people whom life has seemed to treat unfairly, and we know that the results can be very different. When I first became a Christian the Pastor of my church was Jack MacKenzie and he and his wife Charlene had been though the mill. They had lost two children who were in their late teens, one to an accident and one to disease and yet in the twenty five years I’ve know Pastor and Mrs., that’s what they’re called, I have never heard them moan about the way life treated them. They always exhibited a care and concern about others, they always looked on the bright side of life and talked about how much God had done for them. People who learned their history after knowing them for awhile could hardly believe the tragedies that had visited this couple.
They had made their choice to become better people.
I have known others that whenever you talk to them you want to ask if they’d like a little cheese with their whine. Australians call it whinging. Now understand that doesn’t mean that you put on a false front, it doesn’t mean that you deny reality but it does mean that you deal with it. As a matter of fact listen to the words of Naomi in Ruth 1:20-21 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why should you call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy?” In Hebrew “Naomi” means pleasant and Mara means “bitter.” But that was the last we hear of it, she doesn’t bring it up again and nobody calls her Mara.
There will be times that you vent your frustration, hopefully those around will understand, but it can’t shape your life. I had a man in another church who was just plain negative, he was what Politician John Crosby called a “Nattering nabob of negativity.” Or as my friend John Symonds once commented about a person “If the Angel Gabriel showed up he’d put on dark glasses and shoot him for a crow.” He as always moaning and groaning about how rough life was and how poorly he’d been treated by life, what a joy he was to be around, not.
Naomi could have stayed in Moab, talked about how poorly she’d be treated by life, made life miserable for her daughter in laws and everyone who came around but she didn’t she got up and moved on. She turned her back on her troubles and sought out a new future. Motivational speaker and author Les Brown made this statement “Just because Fate doesn’t deal you the right cards, it doesn’t mean you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.”
How will you face the adversites that come in your life? And come they will, will you become a bitter person or will you become a better person? It’s your choice.
Let’s move along in the story Ruth 1:16-17 But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. I will die where you die and will be buried there. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!”
Ruth Displayed Character through her 2) Words and her Actions. This words must have been so wonderful for Naomi to hear. We all have this innate desire to be accepted and to have people that we love be close to us. Naomi had offered Ruth the chance to return to her family and I’m sure that she wouldn’t have resented Ruth for doing that, but my how her heart must have leaped when Ruth said “you’re not going to get rid of me that quick.”
We all need affirmation of loyalty, from our friends, from our family and from our peers. We need to hear people say, “I’m going to stick with you no matter what.”
But if you are going to say it then please do it. While nothing makes you feel better then to hear people tell you they are committed to you and your dreams nothing makes you feel worse then to have those same people turn their backs on you. In the New Testament Peter said very similar words to Jesus in Mark 14:29 Peter said to him, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I never will.” And you all know what happened right? Before the sun had risen Peter had denied Christ not once but three times. Words can be cheap and sometimes our loyalty matches Oscar Wilde’s when he said “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
I remember in the spring of ’97 I had preached on the Church and my vision for BCC and following the service a lady came up to me and told me I could count on her to be there, that she was committed to the church and my leadership. I felt pretty good, not the same feeling I had two weeks later when she called to tell me they had decided to go to a bigger church.
And so Ruth’s character was exhibited through her words but also through her actions, not only did she tell Naomi that she would never leave her and she’d be there for her, she was. She travelled with Naomi to Bethlehem and when she got there she went to work to help provide for them. Remember your commitment is not proved by your words but by your actions. Jesus brother James writes in James 2:17 So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all—it is dead and useless. And I don’t think it would be unfair to the scriptures to say that words with out actions are dead and useless as well.
Ruth 3:10-13 “The Lord bless you, my daughter!” Boaz exclaimed. “You are showing more family loyalty now than ever by not running after a younger man, whether rich or poor. Now don’t worry about a thing, my daughter. I will do what is necessary, for everyone in town knows you are an honourable woman. But there is one problem. While it is true that I am one of your family redeemers, there is another man who is more closely related to you than I am. Stay here tonight, and in the morning I will talk to him. If he is willing to redeem you, then let him marry you. But if he is not willing, then as surely as the Lord lives, I will marry you! Now lie down here until morning.”
Boaz Displayed Character through his 3) Words and Inaction. Let’s bring you up to speed here. When Naomi and Ruth arrived back in Bethlehem neither of them had an immense amount of skill with which to find meaningful employment, but it was harvest time and in Israel God had decreed in his word harvesters were to leave behind a certain amount for the poor, that’s found in Deuteronomy 24:19 “When you are harvesting your crops and forget to bring in a bundle of grain from your field, don’t go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all you do.
And so Ruth went into the field of a wealthy land owner who was a distant relative of her late father in law to gather the left over grain. Now as you read the story it seems that Boaz saw Ruth and was smitten with her, or at least attracted to her because he told his workers to make sure they left extra grain when they saw she was close by. We don’t know what the attraction was but it was there, what is it that attracts men and women to each other what are they looking for in relationships? Let ask some people (show video clip from e*ssentials cd)
Ruth worked for Boaz through the harvest and when Naomi heard about the sparks flying between Ruth and Boaz she hatched a plan. Boaz was working late in the threshing house and it must have been his custom to sleep right there during the harvest, perhaps for security. So Naomi whispered her plan to Ruth. That evening Ruth got bathed dressed in her finest dress and dabbed some perfume behind her ears, snuck into the threshing house to the sleeping Boaz and laid down at his feet. Now I don’t know if that was some kind of middle east wedding proposal or what.
Boaz wakes up at midnight and there’s a lady at his feet. And he says who’s there? Good response. And she says “It’s me, Ruth.” And he says “ who’s me and my name’s not Ruth.” Just kidding. So here he is, a single guy and a girl he’s attracted to crawls into his bed, what’s a guy supposed to do?
Probably not what he does, he knows why he’s there and she knows why she’s there and you only think you know why she’s there. But Boaz, stops and says this isn’t right, first of all there is someone else who is in line before me. You have to understand what’s happening here, remember in Leviticus there were rules set in place to keep land in the hands of it’s original owners. And so even though Elimelech had left Bethlehem years before the land he owned still belonged to his family and that ultimately was Ruth. So whoever married Ruth got the land as well.
It was evident from the story that the other relative, who was first in line to redeem the land of Elimelech, was not aware of what was happening. And Boaz could have kept his mouth shut and married Ruth and redeemed the land and nobody would have been the wiser, except for Boaz. And although Henry Van Dyke wouldn’t be born for another 3000 years Boaz knew the truth of the statement “What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.” And it’s here we see that Boaz was a man of Character in his inaction as well as his word. He didn’t do what others might have.
So what’s the point of this little story? Well, Boaz and Ruth got married and had a son named Obed, and eventually Obed grew up and got married and had a son named Jesse, and Jesse eventually grew up and had a son named David, who became the greatest King that ever governed Israel. But there’s more because in the book of Matthew and the book of Luke we read the record of Jesus Ancestors and right there in the middle of both lists in Boaz and by Ruth. All because of the Character of three people.
So where you at today, how are you when nobody is looking? Always remember that people of genius are admired, people of wealth are envied, people of power are feared; but only people of character are trusted.
Hope you enjoyed the message, powerpoint for this other messages of Denn’s are available at www.pennofdennn.com
