Finding Home: The Story of Ruth
November 11, 2012 | Anita Retzlaff | Ruth 1:11-17, 2: 11-12, 4: 13-17

Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ.  Ken and I along with Renata and Allan Klassen have just returned from a three week trip to China in which we saw the beauty and majesty of a great and sprawling country, filled with people, burdened with massive growing pains yet building upon four millennia of intriguing history and rich culture. China is a magnificent country; as diverse in geography as Canada is diverse – and as large. The Yangtze River carves its way through the mountains into the Three Gorges at which place the largest dam in the world has been built. Standing upon the stones of the Great Wall and as far as the eye can see in either direction snaking along the mountain tops we see but a tiny segment of a 5000 mile fortress that was built to keep out the “barbarians” from the north.  The excavation site of the Terracotta Warriors; a massive burial ground where once 6000 larger than life-size soldiers each with a uniquely carved face along with hundreds of earthen horses and chariots were purposely covered over with earth and hidden so that this army and entourage could protect the Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife. The sheer numbers of high rise buildings and sky-scrapers that we saw in the cities were beyond anything we had imagined. Traffic was bizarre. The language was totally and completely incomprehensible to us and the food, quite unfamiliar except for the beer.  Into this fascinating and colourful world we entered as foreigners, strangers: as aliens - vulnerable.

Enter into the world of the Hebrew people as foreigner and alien, the young Moabite woman, Ruth. Not only is she a foreigner, she is of an enemy people. Her story however is a compelling story of peace. It should not escape us that on this Peace Sunday, on Remembrance Day, we hear a bright story of creative cooperation. Let me remind you that it was Patrick who last week unloaded the nasty stories of violence and bloodshed and deceit from the Book of Judges. Today the story of Ruth is an oasis of civility and goodwill bracketed by the carnage of Judges and the leadership disappointments of 1 and 2 Samuel.  Ruth finds another way out from under the isolation of loss and despair.  As the youth have shown in the dramatization that you have seen and Deanna has read from scripture, daughter-in-law Ruth and mother-in-law Naomi cling to each other. Together they begin to pick up the pieces of their lives after losing everything. Their husbands are dead. And thus it is that they return to Bethlehem and for Naomi it is a return home but for Ruth this is not so.  However she will find home; she creates home.

And she does it through loyalty, trust and love: a counter-narrative to the book of Judges: a peaceable way – the way of shalom.  An outsider and an alien Ruth delicately and purposefully builds relationships. Beginning with her mother-in-law Naomi, Ruth promises fidelity and companionship working tirelessly, without fear, to protect her mother-in-law in a society in which widows are horribly vulnerable.  Because of Ruth’s efforts Naomi not only survives ostracism and starvation but is redeemed in her community and “grandmothers in” a very important future for Israel.

Then Ruth meets Boaz and accepting his invitation to glean the leftover harvest in safety she strikes up a friendship with this benefactor.  With the urging of Naomi Ruth orchestrates an intimate encounter with Boaz and we feel that we are suddenly party to an evolving love story. There is much speculation as to what happens on that threshing floor. This is how the story goes:

“So Ruth went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had instructed her. When Boaz had eaten and drunk and he was in a contented mood, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came stealthily and uncovered his feet, and lay down. At midnight the man was startled, and turned over, and there, lying at his feet, was a woman! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over your servant, for you are next-of-kin.” He said, “May you be blessed by the LORD, my daughter, this last instance of your loyalty is better than the first; you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich.  And now, my daughter, do not be afraid, I will do for you all that you ask, for all the assembly of my people know that you are a worthy woman…”     Ruth 3: 6-11

We will be content to say that a great relationship was forged and eventually Boaz takes Ruth as his wife.
The genius of Ruth’s firm gentleness and obvious goodwill transforms insecurity into safety and meagerness into fullness wherever she goes.  As she says to Naomi at the beginning, “Wherever you go, I will go, where you live, I will live, your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die…”  In other words Ruth is prepared to accept, change and adapt to a new world foreign to her but she does so because she trusts a God that she barely knows.

The book of Ruth is punctuated with blessing that translates into the success of Ruth’s enterprise, of finding home.  The key players in the story offer blessing to each other; an acknowledgement that God is the source of blessing and that life unfolds with mercy because God is present and active.  At the outset Naomi blesses her daughters-in-law and attempts to send them on their way. (1:8) In God’s name Boaz blesses the reapers in his fields (2:4) and they bless him in return. (2:5) He then blesses Ruth (2:12) and Naomi blesses Boaz (2:20).  The townspeople bless Ruth and Boaz (4:11-12) and the women bless Naomi (4:14) when she becomes a “grandmother” to Obed, the first child of Boaz and Ruth.  All of this is to say that the people in the story are firmly rooted in the ways of God therefore inclusion is natural and grace is the order of the day.

Through the blessings offered all around everyone is able to find home, to return to God.  This tiny book in the bible promotes a healthy way of living with each other so that all are brought closer to the center, to the heart of God.  Through one person, an exile and an alien, the desires of God are lived and expressed so clearly.  Ruth becomes a redeemer.  Not only does she accompany Naomi back to her mother-in-law’s ancestral home but Ruth restores her to family status in the community.  Before, Naomi was husbandless, landless and cut off from a family legacy. Now, she has new status within a family, that it turns out, will have a prestigious genealogy.  The new baby Obed becomes the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David, the one who would become king of all Israel.

And so it is in this story of one woman’s humility and loyalty that another woman’s life is restored, redeemed. Naomi again is at home in her community with the isolating bitterness of loss behind her making it possible for her to be open to the heart of God. And Ruth, well she becomes the great-grandmother of the great King David: her husband Boaz tracing his family back to Abraham and further back to Adam and Eve.  So the story of this insistent, gentle foreigner becomes the linchpin that holds together the ancient families of faith from Adam to David, from creation to kingship, from one new beginning to yet another.  A foreigner and an outsider through the grace of God and the gospel of shalom ties together a long story of faith that continues to this day.  Thanks be to God.

Prayer - God of peace, creator of the nations, hold us together this day, foreigner and resident, alien and homebound.  Work in us the miracles of grace that redeem your world and bring the wandering closer to your heart Lord God. May we be people of blessing offering peace and good will in places of need so that we might all find our home in you.  AMEN