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. 

Song of Simeon

Sermon Luke 2:21-40 Christmas 1 December 27, 2015

Song of Simeon

Christmas Eve we spoke of ordinary people and ordinary places. We spent time learning about how God appeared to the most unsuspecting people in places of insignificance. We were left to consider who else like Mary has God used to fulfill God’s promises of love? Has it been you? Or me?, Your neighbor? Or perhaps the stranger down the street?

We learned about the ordinary insignificant towns of Nazareth and Bethlehem and were left to consider how are we, in our community the source of goodness and wonder for those around us? How are we aware of the power of the ordinary in our midst?

Friends, we are all returning to the ordinary of our routines and back to the grind of life. We have much to consider about the power of God among us as we go forth. God’s presence is always in the ordinary. As we read these stories from Scripture we discover more and more about how God is present always in the ordinary. It is our challenge to discover God in these moments.

God’s promises were fulfilled within the ordinary rituals of the practice of life. God continued to be revealed through the faithful journey of Mary and Joseph as they continued their routines of living out their faith rituals.

We might ask ourselves, what rituals we have that we are faithful to?

How are we living our faith journey beyond the season of Advent and Christmas? How will we keep the sentiment of the Christ child in our hearts throughout the whole year?

May I suggest keeping the ritual of coming here to this place each week over the past month, may the ritual of your presence here spill over into the New Year and all year long. Your presence has made a difference for all of us. We have felt united in faith and in our story of life, and in our shared relationships.

You see, Mary and Joseph did the same, they continued the pattern of their life faithfully and that allowed for the promises of God to shape their current and future relationships.

Mary had already learned through the voices of angels, shepherds, and wise men, that words are powerful.

Words are powerful enough to curse or to bless.

Words carry with them either curse or promise.

Words are powerful enough to harm for life. They carry much weight, enough that wars have been built on the words of others.

Words are used by the powerful to diminish and denigrate the weak.

Words are used by the mighty to slay the even the purest, to keep them lowly.

And in the midst of this the power words spoken by prophets of old and of today break through with words that sting and sing with strength and courage for the weak and the lowly.

How, we say?

They break through-By listening to those who step forth by the power of the Spirit to speak the truth when the truth must be heard.

And so Simeon, a beloved faithful man who had been waiting his whole life for a glimpse of the promise of the Messiah, scans the crowd at the Temple that day, and behold!,

He sees them,

the couple carrying the child,

stand out,

and he rushes to them

knowing that this IS the Child!

The promised one,

come to save the world.

An old man comes forward and takes the baby in his arms and begins to sing a song.

He praises God for this child. He comes and holds this baby because the Spirit of God has come upon him. Three times Luke affirms that he has been led to this baby by the Spirit. It is clear that we are to hear that Simeon has been called by God to claim this child.

As we listen to his song it’s not just about praising God for this child who brings salvation to the world,

 but it’s the prophecy,

the forward telling about the conflict that even salvation brings.

This child will cause the rise and falling of many.

There will be people who will be confronted with their own frailties, their own injustices and their own corruption.

People for generations into the future will be faced with decisions about who this child is and whether to follow and believe he is from God bringing salvation and new life to all.

Words MATTER! Where are we in this generation, as the forward telling of the conflict salvation brings enters into our lives?

How are we seeking to proclaim love, justice, peace among one another, in the community, and in our world?

Simeon and his story of holding on to a promise his whole life, a promise he lived out by being active in his ordinary world, a promise he chose to allow to guide him in all his ways, a promise based on love, the fulfillment of God’s love for him and for the world would appear to him.

As I shared on Christmas Eve, the story of Christmas is the story of love. It’s the story of a people lost in darkness seeking to find a way home. It is the story of a people seeking comfort from their pain and their struggles, their brokenness and their suffering. The story of Christmas is the love story of God made complete through the clashing of heaven with earth as God became flesh and dwelt among us.

The story of Christmas is NOT over. The love story of God lives on in us. The love story of God is how God’s Word goes forth.

Words matter, friends!

How will the words of our mouth be acceptable in God’s sight as we live the rituals of our faith in our ordinary ways?

Mary treasured all these words she received along the way in her heart, they sustained her and gave her strength.

Jesus as he grew gave us the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, so many other words of power to grant us what we needed to go forth as his followers for generations to come.

Hear these words I say every year as Howard Thurman speaks

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Don't ask yourself what the world needs.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive!!

God, in Christ, has come alive in us this Christmas and this is just the beginning. A