Ruth: The Miniseries: Act 1
By Ken Wilson
Ruth: The Miniseries: Based on the Bestselling Book
I'm in love with the biblical Book of Ruth. This book has something very timely to say to us. Recommend you get hold of a copy….
Ruth 1: 1-2 "In the days when the judges ruled"--some bad days for the people of God. Book of Judges ends thus: "In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit." (21: 25)
Book of Judges ends ugly. One of 12 tribes of Israel, Benjamin, saw fit to cover up a rape of someone in another tribe. Other eleven tribes are enraged---saw fit to take a rash vow never to allow any women to marry into the tribe of Benjamin…in effect, cutting Benjamin off. Once made, vow can't be broken. What did they do to undo what they'd done? Saw fit to murder men of neighboring village and give their women to tribe of Benjamin in forced marriage. Problem solved.
You hate to see the people of God making the pagans look good by comparison. But it happens.
Sometimes churches end ugly. Son knows a pastor diagnosed with PTSD--caused by conflict in church. I meet many heartsick over body of Christ. Friend who gave to our capital fund years ago. "This is third time, I've given money to a church capital campaign. The first church, the pastor crashed & burned from a moral failure and the new church was never built with the money I gave. Second church, pastor crashed and burned from a moral failure and the church was never built with the money I gave. I'm hoping this third time is the charm!"
Background music for chapter: Subterranean Homesick Blues. Naomi, husband Elimilech and sons are in a foreign land, the land of Moab--not a friendly place--because there was a famine in the land of Israel.
It's hard to be away from your homeland. Living in a place where nobody knows your name and if they did, couldn't pronounce it.
Daughter Amy and husband Ben had to move to Groton CT, when Pfizer closed. Loved living here. This was their home. One day, Amy's driving around Groton, and can't find what she's looking for. Nothing's familiar. She's starts crying in her car. Not a crier. But she's homesick.
Then the voice on the GPS says, "turn right at the next street." And the soothing voice calmed her. She felt better.
Then she realized she was so lonely, she didn't know a soul in Groton, that the voice on her GPS machine was her only company, and says "How pathetic is that!" Long wailing sobs this time commence.
Phili and Mike have moved across an ocean to be here. Many of you are here from other states, other lands. You know homesickness: The only sickness that isn't a disease because it's caused by love….
[One of the things we're meant to learn as a church is how to be a comfort to those who are suffering from homesickness.]
Ruth 1: 3-5: Reason for the Blues and songs like, "If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all." Lost homeland, lost husband, lost sons, leaving three widows.
This is our introduction to Ruth.
Hard to convey vulnerability of these widows. Ancient world treated women like property. Crimes against women were order of the day. Only safety net was family; when that was torn you were free-falling if you were a woman.
Surrounded, hounded, confounded by privation, emptiness, loss, heartsickness, homesickness…then first contrary note: "When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah." (Ruth 1: 6-7)
Good news often arrives as faintly as that….in land of Moab it comes to you from a distant place, like a rumor, too good to be true, but it's only alternative to your bad news life, and what do you have to lose?
So you do what feels like a crazy thing. You get on the road that leads back to the place where this wispy rumor comes from.
As though you are on a fool's errand.
Ruth 1: 8-15 Naomi not returning full of hope for better life in Judah "Why come with me? My life nothing to look forward to!"'
Why is she going back? Because she's run out of options.
Sometimes that's what it feels like to hope.
But these younger women love Naomi! Daughters-in-laws who love their mother-in-law, a widow with nothing to offer, no refuge, no safety. Not a given, such affection. All this weeping over, kissing Naomi. Orpah parts company with greatest reluctance.
Tells us something about Naomi that she can't.
Naomi has the mentality of Moab: sees herself under the afflicting hand of God. "It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord's hand has gone out against me!" (vs. 13)
There it is! The final insult to all the injury this woman has suffered!
Her view that this trouble is the back-hand of God smacking her, because she must have brought this on herself.
I've brought this on myself. I must deserve it.
This is one of the cross-cultural universals---something buried deep in the human psyche finds this so easy to believe about suffering.
The brain has what's called the "causal operator": with every event we seek out a cause. When it comes to the mystery of suffering, we'd rather blame ourselves than think suffering has no cause!
I've brought this on myself. I must deserve it.
Karma….part of what Jesus overturned like those tables in the temple.
When disciples saw man born blind, they said to Jesus: Who caused this man's blindness? His parents sin or his own sin?
Jesus just shook his head and said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." (John 9:3) Suffering isn't an event with a cause. Sometimes, it's just an occasion for God's help.
Ruth 1: 16-18 Ruth sees something in Naomi that Naomi can't see.
Ruth sees Naomi! Naomi means "pleasant"--and in Hebrew, such a name would suggest something deeper than "nice"; Naomi, pleasant one, would be a name for one pleasing to God. Because in the Hebrew mind, everything was in relation to God.
What this story has done is truly remarkable. We haven't been told much about these women, except what they've lost.
Yet, by virtue of wonder-working power of a story, without looking for it, or asking for it, our eyes have been opened!
These are not just pitiful women but women in most God forsaken place, who are--no other way to put it--shining with the glory of God!
Hebrews had a unique perspective on glory of God. Saw God's transcendent glory--his God-ness--in something called 'hesed. Steadfast love and faithfulness. Loyal love.
The Hebrews praise the steadfast love of the Lord above all his other attributes. You could say they were in love with steadfast love….
Here in bleak landscape of Moab, comes this painful beauty, this shaft of glory rising up out of the ashes: "Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay….."
If you heard this before, chances are it was at a wedding. Maybe sung by someone with a beautiful clear voice.
But this is a different setting. Ruth didn't sing these words to Naomi.
She spoke them through angry, stubborn, frustrated tears.
"Don't urge me to leave you or 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 will be 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 anything but death separates you and me."
These words are bigger than Ruth who spoke them, and bigger than Naomi who heard them: words of the glory of God,
words of Hesed.
If you seek to walk the Jesus path, understand that Hesed is what Jesus offers you, and it's the one thing he wants from you.
Jesus came to saints & sinners--pious & impious--asking one thing only: Hesed. "He has shown you o man, what is good and what does the Lord require you but to seek justice, love hesed and walk humbly with your God." (Micah)
These are the words of a disciple to the Savior: "Don't urge me to leave you or 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 will be 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 anything but death separates you and me."
Also words of the Savior to the Sinner: "Don't urge me to leave you or 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 will be 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 anything but death separates you and me."
Words of Hesed spoken by a Moabite woman, a woman on the outside of Israel's bounded set. But not outside of Hesed.
Upon hearing these words Naomi does wise thing: She stops fighting it, this Steadfast Love. Maybe she doesn't accept it. But at least she stops fighting it: "When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her."
If you can't accept steadfast love, at least you can stop fighting it.
Now the chapter draws to a close and I love the way it ends.
First you have the narrator's voice, and he's telling it like it is:
So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?" (Ruth 1:19)
The narrator is excited for Naomi--sees better times ahead.
Then you have Naomi's voice: "Don't call me Naomi, " she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me." (1: 20-21)
We've all been there. A long stretch in Moab. Our mindset stuck in Moab. A mindset fully adjusted to the fact life sucks. We expect to it to continue. Because the past determines the future, right?
Nothing new under the sun. We know how this script is written for us, right? We know that what we've got coming is coming, right?
We've been eating our Karma-Corn!
When things are so bad for so long there's only one thing you have to look out for that can make it even worse. Latching on to some fake good news that doesn't pan out and leaves you worse for the hoping.
Ground that's gone hard and dry for lack of rain has a hard time drinking it in when it comes.
But Naomi doesn't get the last word, the narrator does: " So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning."
The barley harvest was the first harvest of Spring.
The winter of emptiness is over.
The Springtime of fullness has come.
Book of Ruth is about God changing the script of our lives.
We've gotten so used to the absence of blessing, we buy the plot line that says I'm bound to get what's coming to me.
But we are not the only narrator of our life story.
God is telling a story that involves us and it has a different script.
When your brain is starved of oxygen, your field of vision narrows--things start going dark from outside in…light gets smaller/dimmer.
But God comes to breathe into us. Vehicle of inspiration is a new story, with a new narrator who has a new perspective….
When we first hear this new story, this different script, it sounds so remote, so far away….blessing in a landscape of where the eyes have adjusted to bleakness is hard to recognize at first….
When winter has been long, and cold and hard and bitter,
the first signs of Spring feel more like a tease than a promise…..
The mindset of Moab may be bleak, but at least it's familiar, and we cling to what's familiar….
But if we're willing to share authorship of our lives with another….
If we're willing to listen to a different voice narrating our story….
If we're willing, not simply to leave Moab behind,
but to leave the mindset of Moab behind….
Then perhaps we will be able to lift up our heads, just high enough to see in the distance, the fields of barley, coming into their own.