Ruth 1:1-18
Revelation 21:1-6a
The story of Ruth begins in tragedy. There’s a famine in Israel and so Naomi, and Naomi’s husband, and their two sons move to a foreign land to find food. Already, in the first sentence, we have the threat of starvation, families forced to migrate across borders and live as immigrants just for the hope of a better life – a life not destined to starvation and death. But, as is often the case with immigrants searching for a better life, life in the new country is not kind to them either. Naomi’s sons marry women from this foreign land, but tragedy quickly strikes, and death claims Naomi’s sons and her husband. Suddenly, Naomi and her daughters-in-law are left in a dangerous situation. In the ancient world, widows were particularly vulnerable, and there were very few means by which unmarried women could safely provide for themselves. These women are, suddenly, on the verge of even more disaster.
And then, again, famine strikes. The land that Naomi had gone to in search of food is now, itself, running short of grain. And so, the family is forced, again, to move to a far off land in order to survive. And, so, at this moment of loss, we see these women who had been bound together by their shared family tragedy parting ways. If Naomi’s daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, go with her, they will be moving far away from their homes – far away from any chance they have to be supported and protected, far away from the close family and kinship networks of care and support that were so important in the ancient world – and going instead to a place where they are foreigners, where no one will be looking out for them except for one old woman, Naomi, who is already torn apart and defeated by grief. So, after a genuine offer to stay with Naomi, Orpah goes home, to the care and love of her family, to a place where she has hope for a better future. But Ruth – Ruth does the unthinkable. Even when Naomi tells her to go home, Ruth refuses – she stays with Naomi. There’s no foreseeable hope for Ruth if she goes with Naomi, and yet, she cannot bear the thought of leaving her. And so, she gives up everything she knows – she walks away from her home, she gives up on ever seeing her family again, she forsakes her homeland and the religious practices she would have known there, and instead hitches her wagon to Naomi, commits herself to joining up with Naomi’s people, and says that whatever it means to be an Israelite – including this strange worship of only one God – all of that will now be hers, will be who she is. Not because she necessarily believes in any of it or feels connected to any of it, but simply because she loves Naomi, and is willing to do whatever is necessary to be with her, support her, walk through life with her. Theirs is a new family, based not on blood, but on love.
All of this is made even more shocking when we remember that Ruth is a foreigner. And not just any foreigner, but a Moabite. Moabites were the enemies of Israel. Moabite women, like Ruth, had been blamed, during the Exodus, for enticing Israelites to worship foreign gods and thus incur the wrath of the true God. Moabites were dangerous. Moabites were not welcome in polite Israelite society. Ruth was not going to a place where she would fit in – she was not going to a place where she would have many opportunities to get ahead – or even to survive. She was going to a place where she would be hated. But she had to go, because Naomi was going, and all she knew was that Naomi was her family and that, wherever Naomi went, she had to go too. No matter the danger, no matter how much of an outcast she would be, no matter what problems it caused. Do you have anyone in your life who is that loyal to you? Do you have anyone in your life to whom you feel that kind of loyalty? How far would you go out of love? Out of faithfulness? Out of holy friendship?
Later in our story, we will discover that, as a result of her unrelenting faithfulness and love, Ruth comes to play a major part in God’s story of salvation. Naomi’s bitterness and brokenness is relieved when Ruth, despite the odds, finds a way to feed herself and her mother-in-law, finds a husband to give their family roots and protection, and gives birth to a son. Through that son, Ruth is ancestor to King David and, through David, is ancestor of Jesus Christ. Through Ruth, her family is saved from starvation by the work of her hands, Israel is saved from its enemies by the hand of its first king, David, and the whole world is saved from the powers of sin and death through the King of Kings, Jesus the Christ, Son of David, Son of God.
But we will talk more about what Ruth does after she gets to Israel over the next few weeks. For now, it’s worth remembering that Ruth becomes ancestor to David and Jesus even though she is a foreigner and an enemy of Israel. Israelite men are told in Scripture not to marry foreign women. Our Scriptures include prohibitions against marrying foreign women, especially those whose people are enemies of the people of God. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah include a record of an organized campaign requiring the men of Israel to divorce their foreign wives because it was assumed that intermarriage would lead to idolatry and that, in order to keep the people of God pure, the enemies of the people of God had to be pushed away, driven away. The enemies of the people of God were, as enemies, assumed to be dangerous. It was dangerous to spend time with them, and even moreso to marry them and welcome them into God’s people. And yet, here, in Ruth, this foreigner – this enemy of the people of God – becomes the source of God’s ultimate blessing – both to Israel and to the whole world.
By all of the standard rules of the people of God, Ruth should be excluded. But, through her radical loyalty and the deep and loving relationships that her loyalty enables, her exclusion is overcome and she is welcomed into God’s people. Through those relationships of love, faithfulness, unrelenting loyalty, through those relationships, God breaks in and does something world-transforming. When the walls of exclusion are broken down, radically new possibilities emerge – God’s grace breaks through the walls and brings the greatest blessing from the most unlikely of sources. Through an enemy of God’s people, God offers Good News and new life. Who do you consider an enemy? Who do you think should be unwelcome among God’s people? The story of Ruth is a reminder that it is precisely those folks – the outsiders, the enemies – through whom God is at work to save us. Enemies, outsiders, foreigners, refugees, those you consider unclean or unholy – God is with them, God works through those folks to save the whole world.
The people of Israel – and the church, this weird body of folks that God has grafted into the story of Israel, made to share in their blessings – we are a people who are defined by the God who we worship – and the God who we worship is one who welcomes outsiders, who breaks down barriers, who is constantly doing a new thing, rewriting the rules – who throws open the door even to those who would be our enemies. The God who we worship is in the business not just of welcoming outsiders, but of using outsiders, unexpected people, to save us – God turns hostility into community, scarcity into abundance, enemies into friends.
The story of Ruth is a window into the God who saves us in the most unexpected ways. Ruth, this foreigner and an outsider, an enemy of God’s people, becomes an ancestor to kings – and to a savior. But she’s not the only person with a sketchy past in Jesus’s family tree. Judah – the ancestor who gives his name to a whole tribe of people – Judah lied, and did violence, and slept with prostitutes, and went back on his word. Jesus is descended from liars and prostitutes and refugees and men of violence. God, it seems, does not avoid the messy places, the troubled people – God steps into our mess, into our suffering and our sin, our failures and our fears – and works through them to save us.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday. On this day, every year, we pause and remember the saints who came before us. Saint is a big fancy church word, but, at its core, it means “holy people” – and, here’s the thing, because we believe that God is the one who makes us holy, when we talk about saints in church, what we’re really talking about is everyone who has ever followed God, everyone who has ever committed their life to Jesus. I am a saint, you are a saint – we are God’s saints – and, today, in particular, we remember those who came before us, who passed down the faith to us – whether that’s our parents, or friends, or folks from church, or folks a thousand years ago who kept the faith and kept telling God’s story so that, eventually, that story could get to us and we could find our place in it.
And, here’s the thing – the saints of the church, even the greatest ones, the famous ones – all of them, all of us, are a mess. Mother Teresa was haunted by doubts, by despair, by hard questions that sometimes caused her to wonder if God was real at all. Dorothy Day – a 20th Century leader in the Catholic Worker movement, living in intentional community with the poor and the homeless – Dorothy Day was an atheist and a community organizer as a young woman, until she had a conversion experience. After her conversion, she retained her passion for justice but also discovered a passion for Jesus. She was never happy with the church, and she always resented how slow the church and its hierarchy were to change and to stand up for justice. And yet she also loved the church deeply. She believed in it. She knew that gathering for worship was essential, even when she was frustrated with the people who worshiped alongside her. She wasn’t perfect. But she kept the faith.
Or there’s John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley was a famous missionary and organizer of people, he started a movement that reached millions upon millions of people, that united a love for God with a love for neighbor, that combined a desire to personal transformation with a passion for social transformation. He did amazing things, served God and led God’s people in amazing ways. And he was also a neurotic mess. He was a workaholic who drove the preachers who he oversaw to exhaustion. He had a nasty authoritarian streak. And, he once denied communion to a woman he’d been courting – Sophie Hopkey – she came up for communion and he said she couldn’t receive it, and he had some churchy-sounding explanations, but really the reason was because she had told him that she wasn't interested in him and then she’d started dating someone else instead. He wasn’t perfect. But he kept the faith.
Or there’s Saint Augustine from the 4th century, who has gifted the church with essential pieces of theology and language to talk about God but who also left us with some less helpful – even harmful – ideas – ideas about God, and about salvation, and about human bodies and sexuality – ideas that are still causing trouble almost two millenia later. He wasn’t perfect. But he kept the faith.
And it’s not just the big names. Think of the people in your life who have done the most to change your life for the better, and especially the people who helped you find your way into faith, into this thing called church – whether that was a Sunday School teacher or a parent when you were young, or a friend inviting you to church as an adult – that person who made a real difference, who helped you connect with God, who shared the love of God with you and helped you find your place in the story of Jesus – that person was, is, a complicated person. That person has flaws and faults – maybe even has done some really not OK things – and, yet, that person is also someone who God has used – in your life and maybe also in the lives of others – to do God’s work, to share God’s message, to keep on writing God’s story of love. They don’t have to be perfect. But they keep showing up, allowing God to use them – they keep the faith.
Ruth is – saints are – people with messy histories, who don’t have everything all put together, but who nevertheless decide to throw in their lot with God’s people, to declare their loyalty to God, sometimes when it doesn’t make much sense. Ruth wasn’t perfect. The people who passed the faith onto us weren’t perfect. But they belonged to God. And so do we. That’s what we celebrate on All Saints’ Day. That, despite our imperfections, despite all the reasons why we don’t belong or we aren’t good enough, despite all the barriers we have built to keep people apart – despite all of that we belong to God, and God promises to use us – to use all of God’s saints – to continue God’s story of love.
Kathleen O’Connor writes that “Ruth reverses the trajectory of Naomi's life from despair and death to fertility and hope.” Saints are people who, through their faithfulness, and through God working in their lives, join God in the work of turning death into life, of reversing despair, of launching an offensive of hope. They aren’t perfect. Maybe they feel like they don’t belong. Maybe it doesn’t make sense. But they keep showing up, stubbornly trusting in God’s leading, faithfully allowing God to use them. Thanks be to God for folks like that – for the saints who have come before us, and faithfully continued the story of God’s love.