Have you ever noticed that so many of the Calls to Worship that we hear in church talk about joy?
Ps 66: “Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious!”
Ps 100 “Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”
Or here is my favorite one, and I suppose I overuse it sometimes -- Ps 118: “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
As a worship leader, it is sometimes tempting to make worship nothing more than entertainment. Pick out a few snappy songs and have nothing but peppy, upbeat music. Skip that depression prayer called the “Prayer of CONFESSION.” Just throw in a few prayers of THANKSGIVING instead.
It is easy to make worship nothing more than “feel good therapy.” We can come in and have everything uplifting and we can even make our benediction “Y’all have a nice day.”
But have you ever noticed that sometimes life isn’t always ready for that sort of worship?
There are those here this morning who have lost jobs, or who work at jobs that are in jeopardy.
There are marriages that are hurting, and on the brink of being ripped apart.
For many of our high school and college graduates, the joy of accomplishment is mixed with the fear of the unknown as to what happens next.
Alcohol overwhelms one person. Drugs overwhelms another. Cancer has worked its way into yet another.
Today is Memorial Day – it is a day to remember those who have given their lives to preserve our freedom and our liberties and our lives. For many, Memorial Day is a day for people to think, “Hot dog – three day weekend.” My neighborhood has a picnic on Memorial Day. But for some people, this is not a happy day – but a sad one. It is a day to remember a father who died in World War II or a brother who died in Vietnam, or a child who died in Iraq.
Life is not always upbeat and happy and joyful.
In one of Simon and Garfunkle’s songs, there are these haunting words:
I don’t know a soul that’s not been battered,
Don’t have a friend who feels at ease,
Don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees.
Certainly, it is sad to know that there are so many people in our world -- in our church here at Good Shepherd, who are hurting -- who’s souls have been battered and whose dreams have been driven to their knees.
How can a person whose life seems to be hurting as in the Simon and Garfunkle song find peace and joy?
How can a life that is in a downward spiral begin to reverse that trend and begin making positive progress?
Let’s take a look at the life of one such person in the Old Testament. If there is one person who fits that song it is Ruth. Her soul has been battered, her dreams driven to their knees. Things start out bad, and get worse.
Ruth is a small Old Testament book. It only has four chapters and it really takes just a few minutes to read it.
It starts off with chapter 1 verse 1, in which we read, "In the days when the judges ruled."
Now that happens to be a narrative phrase that is another way of saying, "In the days when we had no king."
The text continues...
"In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land," which is to say, "when there was no food..."
"...A man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
"The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion.."
Now, if you have spent any time at all in the Old Testament, you will know right away that it is always important to find out the meaning of the person’s name, because the name’s meaning had great impact on the story.
Abraham – his name means “father of many nations” and his life is about just that – how he became a father of many nations.
Jacob was a manipulative person, and his name fit him well, because Jacob meant “supplanter”. But his name is changed to Israel when his character begins to change.
Esau means”hairy” and when he was born he had a lot of hair.
So, getting back to Ruth –
"...A man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
"The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion.."
Those are strange names, because they mean, "weakness" and "consumption."
Now, I know some people who have given their children some strange names, but these take the cake. I can just see Father Elimelech taking the boys to town and meeting some of his friends from work, saying, "Hello Bob. I don’t believe you’ve ever met my boys -- Weakness and Consumption.
Now, as the text continues, Elimelech and Naomi raise these two fine boys, but Elimelech dies.
Later, Weakness and Consumption, get married. One of these wives is named Ruth.
Then Naomi’s husband dies, and within ten years, both of her sons, Weakness and Consumption die. And Naomi, whose name means "joy" wants to be called Mara, which means "bitter."
So at the very beginning of the book of Ruth, we find no joy in the lives of these women.
There is no king,
there is no food,
no family name without a husband,
and no sons as heirs.
Now, let me jump to the end of the book of Ruth. At the end, Ruth marries a man named Boaz. All of a sudden, this woman who had no name, has a family again.
Boaz and Ruth have a child.
The Famine comes to an end.
And the very last verses speak of how the son of Ruth was named Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. And of course, David was the best king Israel ever had.
Do you see the literary movement here?
No king. No food. No son. No name.
Then, in the end, she marries and has a new name.
Then a son. Then with the end of the famine, food. And finally, there is a king.
She went from having nothing at all, to having everything. She went from being without joy, to having absolute joy. She went from emptiness to fullness.
She went from no king, no food, no son, no name, to having a name, a son, food, and a king.
The question is, how did she do that?
That is a question we would like answered! Those who live their lives in empty sorrow thirst and hunger after the fullness of joy.
How do you go from having your life be empty to having your life filled with joy?
The way this change comes about is in chapter three. By this time, Naomi has both of her daughters in law to go out and find husbands on their own. Orpah does just that, and we never hear from her again. Ruth, however, stays by her mother in law. "Where you go, I will go," she tells her. So these two women who have nothing, no home, family or food, go out on their own.
Ruth starts going into the farms in the area and picks the crops the farmers have left behind. This was a kind of welfare system. Farmers were supposed to leave part of the crop in the field so the poor could take some. It was called "gleaning."
Ruth makes friends with a distant relative named Boaz, and Boaz takes Ruth under his protection and even orders the workers to leave a lot of extra food for Ruth and Naomi.
This is when Naomi comes up with a plan.
Naomi has had it with their lives going from bad to worse. Something has got to happen to make their lives better, so in chapter 3, verse 3, Naomi tells Ruth that Boaz is going to be working late that night on the farm, and instructs her, "Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet" -- and by the way, uncovering feet is a rather delicate way in some Old Testament books to say, "have sex with him."
In other words, Naomi is telling Ruth, "We got nothing left but your good looks and feminine charm, and you’d better use them to catch a husband so we won’t be left homeless." And her last word of instruction is, "You uncover his --- feet, and he will tell you what to do."
Not a very saintly attitude.
But Ruth does this. Almost.
Ruth goes to where Boaz is working and does everything Naomi told her to do, except she does not wait for Boaz to tell her what to do. Instead, Ruth tells Boaz what to do. Boaz says, "I’ll do whatever you ask."
She tells Boaz, "you are my kinsman-redeemer."
In the culture of that day, Boaz had, as a distant relative, a covenant responsibility to take Ruth as his wife, and to take care of her and Naomi.
Ruth lays hold of that claim.
She takes hold of the claim to the redeemer in her life.
She doesn’t try to redeem herself, or to take care of herself, she doesn’t just depend on her feminine charm to trap Boaz or to manipulate him.
Instead, she looks beyond herself.
What she does is to trust in the covenant promises. She basically tells Boaz, "You are my redeemer. Act like it. Do your job. Be my redeemer."
That is the turning point in the story of Ruth.
Here is a woman who had no king, no food, no family, no name, no joy -- but whose life was reborn so that she found joy, a name, a family, food, and ultimately gave birth to the grandfather of the best king the nation of Israel would ever know.
The turning point was when she looked beyond herself for a redeemer.
Naomi tells Ruth to manipulate Boaz into taking care of them, but that isn’t what turns their lives around.
Our life spins out of control, and what do we do?
We manipulate people around us, but that does us very little good.
It didn’t do Ruth any good.
Naomi tells Ruth to use her own resources, her feminine charms, to turn their lives around, but that isn’t what helps.
Our life spins out of control, and what do we do?
We often look toward our own resources, whatever they may be, and find them insufficient.
Ruth looks to society for help, and gets onto the early welfare system of gleaning the fields, but that doesn’t help.
What helps Ruth?
What helps us?
Ruth’s life turns around when she looks beyond herself, toward her redeemer.
Our lives can turn around when we look beyond ourselves toward a redeemer.
There are families torn apart. There are lives in turmoil. There are people in crisis. What hope is there?
What can be the turning point of our life?
The hope we have is in trusting a redeemer -- the Redeemer,
Jesus Christ.
When we look at our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, our lives get back on track.
Copyright 2005, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
For copies of other sermons, visit www.Pittendreigh.com
