Insights from the Life of David – Part 3:
“Grandma’s Legacy: The Story of Ruth”
Ruth 1:1-22
This week I heard some fascinating statistics on motherhood. In modern history the oldest mother on record was 69 years old when she gave birth to a child in April of last year. The youngest mother ever recorded was 5 years and 7 months. The mother with the most children was a woman who lived in eighteenth century Russia who between the years of 1725-1765 had 69 children! That’s right - 69!
Did you know that by the time a child reaches 18, a mother has had to handle some extra 18,000 hours of child-generated work? In fact, women who never have children enjoy the equivalent of an extra three months a year in leisure time!
A Junior High science teacher lectured on the properties of magnets for an entire class. The next day he gave his students a quiz. The first question read like this: “My name begins with an “M,” has six letters, and I pick things up. What am I?” Half the kids in the class wrote, “Mother.”
That reminds me of the father who was trying to explain the concept of marriage to his 4-year-old daughter. He got out their wedding album, thinking visual images would help, and explained the entire wedding service to her. When he was finished, he asked if she had any questions. She pointed to a picture of the wedding party and asked, “Daddy, is that when mommy came to work for us?
It’s on this day that we celebrate our mothers and recognize what they’ve given to make us who we are. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Men are what their mothers make them” and an old Spanish proverb says, “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.”
It’s on this day that we spend time with our moms who are here and remember those who are not. So before we begin our study of our scripture lesson this morning I think it’s important that we stop and say “thank you” to our moms. If you’re a mom will you stand. Let’s show them how much we love them…
While today is a joyous celebration there are many for who today is a difficult time. Some of you want or wanted to be a mother but for some reason have never been able to be. Some of you have not had the best mother in the world. Some of you have had a mother who has died. Some of you are mothers who have lost children to death. Some of you mothers are feeling the pain of a wayward child this morning. Please know that if today is not a joyous mother’s day for you, our hearts go out to you. May God comfort you.
As I spent time planning this year’s sermons back in January I realized that Mother’s Day would fall right smack in the middle of this series on “Insights from the Life of David” and I wondered how I could ever cover both topics at once. Then something hit me: David did not become the man he was without a strong upbringing. So, we can assume that David must have had a good mother in order for him to turn out as well as he did. But we’re not told about her. And so I started to trace his family tree and discovered that his great-grandmother was Ruth, the name sake of the book of Ruth in the Old Testament. You probably haven’t heard her story before. I’ve never preached out of this particular book. And while it’s only four chapters long we don’t have time to read the entire book. So let me summarize the story for you.
Ruth was set in a time before there was a King and when the judges ruled in Israel. This was a very dark time for the country as everyone did what they wanted to do and sin was rampant because God’s people had hardened their hearts. We read in verse 1 that because there was a bad famine in Bethlehem, a man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi took their two sons to live in the country of Moab, a land of rich soil that was not overcome by a famine. But, Moab was an eternal enemy of Israel. It’s not going too far to say it’s a bit like Israel and the PLO today. The people of Israel had been instructed in the book of Deuteronomy never to enter into a treaty of friendship with these people. But Elimelech disregarded God’s law and went anyway.
During their stay in Moab, Naomi’s husband Elimelech died and then about ten years later, both of her sons die as well leaving behind their young wives who were from Moab, Orpah and Ruth. So now there are three widows. Now understand that widows in the ancient world had no social status and no economic means to survive. This would especially be true for Naomi, since she was an Israelite living in a foreign country. There was no Social Security system and she had no male protector or provider. In such a situation, widows back then would equate to the homeless in our society today.
So Naomi decides to go home. At least there she has some family. And as she’s starts on her journey her daughters-in-law follow her but Naomi turns around and releases them of their obligation to do so. Her one daughter-in-law, Orpah, returns to her own family but her other daughter-in-law, Ruth, will not leave her mother-in-law and instead returns to Israel with Naomi.
In Israel Ruth begins providing for both herself and her mother-in-law by gleaning from the fields the remnants that the Old Testament law mandated that farmers leave to provide for the poor and the widows. While she’s in the field she is noticed by Boaz, a relative of her mother-in-law who to make a long story short, she later marries. Finally, at the end of chapter four we discover that Ruth has a son who turns out to be the father of David’s father Jesse. And ultimately Ruth, a foreigner, who the Old Testament had explicitly prohibited the Israelite people from even befriending, let along marrying, became the great, great, great, great, great (x’s 25 ) grandmother of Jesus.
As I thought about Ruth and studied these four chapters this week I was amazed at the simple yet profound legacy that she left. I’ve conducted many funerals over the years. And some of the most powerful, moving services, have been for women who left behind grateful children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. I’ve discovered that five minutes after we’re gone, more important than anything we obtained or accomplished in this world, will be the mark we left on the lives of those we loved. The real mark of a person’s greatness is not in their wealth or their worldly accomplishments but in their legacy.
Today as we celebrate Mother’s Day, I want to look at the life of Ruth, the great-grandmother of David and discover seven simple, yet powerful characteristics of a legacy that’s not only worth leaving but worth living. While drawing the principles from the life of Ruth, a mother, they’re applicable to everyone whether a parent or not, and whether a male or female.
The first thing we see about the legacy of David’s great-grandmother was that she was loyal. From the very beginning of the story we find a woman who refuses to abandon her mother-in-law. When Naomi began the journey home and her daughters-in-law began following, Naomi turned to them and released them. She basically said this, “You’re still young. You can marry here. No one will marry you in Israel. You know how most of our people treat your people. There’s no point in your returning home with me and wasting your life when your family is here. Go make a start over again. And may God bless you.”
The story tells us that Orpah, one of Naomi’s daughters-in-law did return to her family, but that Ruth clung to Naomi. That’s pretty powerful imagery! She wouldn’t let her go. And in verses 16-17 Ruth pledges her allegiance and her devotion to her mother-in-law. We’re not really told why Ruth does this. But may I suggest that Naomi was getting older, and Ruth knew it. Ruth knew that there would be no one to take care of her mother-in-law and no one to provide for her basic needs. She was too old to remarry. And so Ruth decided that she would continue the commitment that she had made to her deceased husband by caring for his mother. Folks, that kind of loyalty is rare.
We live in a culture that is so self-centered that relationships are forged and broken on the basis of convenience. Very seldom do we see the kind of loyalty that Ruth showed embodied today.
May I challenge you both men and women to commit to the relationships that you are in whether, marriage, family, or friendships forever. Be loyal. It will be a trait for which you will be remembered.
The second thing we see in the life of Ruth was that she never stopped loving. In chapter 1 verse 8 Naomi says to her daughters-in-law, “May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.” The Hebrew text (the original form in which the book was written) uses a word that carries a powerful meaning which is lost in the English translation. The word is hesed and it used repeatedly in the Old Testament to refer to God’s love for us. It’s unconditional love. The word was first used to describe the nature of the covenant between us and God. In the past we’ve discovered that God entered into a covenant (relationship) with the Hebrew people. In a covenant both sides agreed to terms and in a typical covenant if one side broke the agreement the other side was released from their obligation to that covenant. But we’re told that unlike typical covenants God’s love for us is hesed, unconditional, unmerited. In other words, even when we fail, God continues to love. God never stops love.
That’s the same word that’s used to describe Ruth and Orpah’s love for their families.
On August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after taking off from the Detroit airport, killing 155 people. One survived: a four-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia.
News accounts say when rescuers found Cecelia they did not believe she had been on the plane. Investigators first assumed Cecelia had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed. But when the passenger register for the flight was checked, there was Cecelia’s name.
Cecelia survived because, even as the plane was falling, Cecelia’s mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would not let her go.
Nothing could separate that child from her parent’s love. That’s the kind of love for which we are remembered as parents. And isn’t it incredible to know that God loves us with that same kind of love.
The third characteristic that’s evident in the life of Ruth, which I frequently hear families recall of their mothers or grandmothers, is that She was a hard worker. I know that seems a little simplistic for a sermon outline, but just stop and think about a member of your family that you remember with great fondness. One of the things, certainly not the most important, but important nonetheless, is the work ethic of a person.
The beginning of the second chapter of Ruth tells us that she was on her feet working in the fields without resting for several hours. Now please don’t misunderstand me: this doesn’t mean you should be a workaholic. There have got to be appropriate boundaries in life. But being a good, hard worker, is something that we pass on to our children and their children for generations to come. And unfortunately it seems to be something that’s missing more and more these days.
The fourth characteristic is that She never thought about her self. If I were to point to the people that I admire most in this life I can guarantee they would all have something in common – they think more about others than themselves. I want to be remembered as that sort of person. But It doesn’t come naturally for me.
In the book of Ruth we find a woman who was more concerned about the needs of others than her own. We also find a woman who was extremely humble as we see in verse 10 when she says “Why have I found favor in your sight? Who am I?”
The reality is too many of us are trying to get noticed. Rather than simply working hard and living our lives as we know we ought we become obsessed with what others think to the point that our pride gets out of control.
One of the best traits that we can embody is humility and high-respect for others.
The fifth characteristic which I saw in the life of Ruth and which I see in the lives of most good mothers is that she was crafty. Now I’m not talking about her ability to make things. Webster defines it as being sly, cunning. We see it in Ruth when she approaches Boaz to propose marriage. She’s got a plan worked out, which goes beyond that which was instructed by her mother-in-law. She knew how to handle herself. And she knew how to work within the system to bring about a favorable outcome.
Have you ever known a person who outsmarted you for your own good? According to a news report, a certain private school in Victoria recently was faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror, leaving dozens of little lip prints.
Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day, the girls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something
had to be done.
She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.
To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.
He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror. There are teachers, and then there are educators.
There come times in our lives when a little bit of craftiness is a good thing. If used wisely it can instruct others.
The sixth characteristic of Ruth was that Everyone respected her. After Ruth’s son is born, the other women in the community are visiting with Naomi and they say this of Ruth, “Your daughter in law loves you, and is more to you than seven sons.” Think about the significance of that statement. In ancient culture the worth of a woman was dependent upon her ability to produce a male heir to carry on her husbands name. Naomi’s sons had died, so she was at risk of losing her ability for her family tree to continue growing. But these women say, Ruth is better than seven sons! By her loyalty, by her love, by her hard work, by her selflessness, by her craftiness, Ruth had gained the respect of those around her.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Ruth was used by God. We know this because not only did she become the great-grandmother of David, but an ancestor of Jesus himself.
Imagine that. A woman from outside of Israel, in a day and age in which the only worshippers of God were in Israel, marries an Israelite, against, Jewish law, and becomes the great-grandmother of David and later of the Messiah.
I don’t know about you but that encourages me. God does not choose us according to blood-line, genetics, or ability, but according to our heart.
Ruth was a woman who left behind an amazing legacy. She’s the kind of woman to whose funeral the whole town would have shown up.
My question for you this Mother’s Day, whether you’re a mother or not, is what kind of legacy are you living now? What will your eulogy sound like? It’s never too early to start writing it. We’re writing our eulogies by the way we live our lives today.
Let us pray…
