Love & Loyalty

Sermon Ruth 1:1-19 June 25, 2017 Ordinary Time

Love & Loyalty

Love, commitment, joy, sweetness, are all the wonders we hear when people get married. June & July are the months that seem to be alive with weddings and anniversary celebrations. In our own two congregations, we have each had the pleasure of celebrating a nuptial in our sanctuaries.

I think we are still fascinated with weddings.

We witness all the froo froo and just enjoy watching two people make a commitment to each other and then seal it with their vows.

I often ask couples who have been together for years,

why they even want to get married when they’ve proven their commitment through the way have lived their lives together.

Their response is most often the desire to make their commitment public-to ‘seal the deal’, so to speak. Living together through commitment is one things but, making vows to each other are clearly another thing altogether.

Whether people believe in God or not,

God is present wherever vows are made.

Marriage vows, whether in a church, a courthouse,

a field somewhere, are made before God.

Vows are binding.

Vows are not to be made lightly.

They are for a lifetime-unless one partner breaks the vow-and that’s a whole other story-they are what seals us, and sticks us like a magnet to the other.

In this story, Ruth makes a vow to Naomi-it is one we’ve often heard at weddings. The story behind those words is worth your time learning about. And that is what we will do beginning today.

The story of Ruth is really the story about Naomi.

 It is a story about turning.

It is a story about God’s impact and influence in the lives of others.

It is about grace and mercy. It is about a woman who suffers so much, without the possibility of rising above the miserable circumstances which have befallen her.

Naomi had nothing to do with the tragedy that came upon her.

We are often so quick to judge and this story puts calamity in perspective.

Sometimes horrible things happen to ordinary, regular people. ‘It is what it is.’

Naomi, with her husband, moved from her homeland to a foreign country to find food. During difficult times, people seek to find the way to turn their circumstances around. Sometimes it’s through a move, a change of jobs, or a change of environment. To turn in a new direction and to leave behind everything is a challenge in itself. Naomi and her husband Elimelech did just that.

They lived as foreigners in the land of Moab. While there her sons married. They were there for more than ten years. Then within a short period of time all the men died.

Tangent: While Ruth is part of the lineage to King David and therefore also the lineage to Jesus, the story seems to also be a significant parable. Because in the telling of the story the names of the characters signify their fate-Mahlon means sickness, and Chillion means failure. However, Elimelech means, God is my King.

Naomi was left a widow and a childless mother.

Her daughter in laws were also childless. So, here in this foreign place to which Naomi had turned and moved to with the intent to build a new life, has now left her utterly alone with no future. So, she struggles with what to do. In a culture that is not your own, it is really difficult to navigate problems and solutions. Naomi has heard that things had improved in her homeland and so she turns and faces the place from which she came. She decides to go back to Bethlehem and the customs she understand for widows. She still has a relative left alive so she chooses to go to his house and rely on the Jewish custom of caring for the family.

All of us here have moved at one time or another.

We know what it’s like to pick up and all of our belongings and plunk down in a new place.

It’s hard.

Even if the move was to something exciting and wonderful, it is still hard.

Even if the move was just down the street from the old house, it is still like starting over because the neighbors are different and new relationships have to be built.

Naomi’s decision to move in the first place was for survival because of famine.

Now her decision to move is again based on survival.

This time because of culture.

As a woman, she could not be independent and was required to be under the protection of a male.

As she is thrown into another survival situation her heart turns bitter.

She is bitter to her circumstances,

she is bitter to her surroundings,

she is bitter toward her God.

She cannot see any good in her life.

And this is where the grace of God enters into the life of Naomi through the words of a woman who worships other gods.

Here in this beautiful story is the beginning of how one woman’s emptiness is turned to hope, and then to fullness.

As you go home today and read this short Old Testament story you discover the power of God at work in the people that surround Naomi. Four short chapters.

God is in the business of constantly surprising us through the grace and mercy offered in unimaginable ways.

Naomi had her way set and turned toward Bethlehem.

In her bitterness, she cuts off the very people who love her. Her daughter in laws adore her and only want to stay with her. But, she sends them away hoping for them they can begin a new life with another husband. Orpah obeys her and leaves. But, Ruth, as stubborn as she is, disobeys.

In our lives we do the same, we get so caught up in our grief, or our bitterness, or our hurt, that we cut off and cut out the very people who love us most.

I’ve heard it asked by some special folks over the years,

‘Why do people stop coming to church when they experience hardship?

Isn’t church the very place where people love and support you through the hard times?’

In our emotional turmoil of things, we tend to behave in some crazy ways.

It’s in times like those that we need a Ruth in our life.

We need a Ruth to ignore our ever so rational and logical statements and tell us like it is.

We need a Ruth to hold on tighter to us when we try to shake her off and get her out of our life.

We need a Ruth to grab us around the waist and hold on to us saying she will never let us go.

We need a Ruth to say she loves us forever, she loves us no matter what we say to her, she loves us even if we try to leave her.

We need a Ruth in our lives who makes a vow to bind herself to us.

Friends, I hope more than anything, that we the church, can be the Ruth for those who need a Ruth in their lives.

We have a job to do.

Let us be faithful for those who struggle to be faithful.

Let us be faithful to those whose lives need a binding.

Let us be faithful even when we are pushed aside.

Let us be the lineage that holds firm to a future we don’t even know.

Let us learn how to be Ruth for the world. Amen.