Small Story, Big Love

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, ‘My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing-floor. Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing-floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do.’ She said to her, ‘All that you tell me I will do.’

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.’ Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighbourhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

The way our lectionary chooses what scripture passages to preach on makes some strange choices sometimes. In today’s case, it completely skips over all the drama! It jumps from Naomi suggestively telling Ruth to go to Boaz in the night to Ruth and Boaz marrying and having a child who turns out to be the great King David’s father Jesse. What we miss here is the fact that there is actually a parcel of land that once belonged to Naomi’s sons that Naomi, simply because of her sex, has no right to anymore. We also miss Ruth’s and Boaz’s lovely back-and-forth, in which Boaz tells Ruth how much he admirers her compassion and her loyalty—it reads as kind of a very old-fashioned, Biblical pronouncement of love. Now, Boaz is related to Naomi, the widowed Ruth’s widowed mother-in-law, and in these ancient Biblical, deeply patriarchal times, next-of-kin essentially get first dibs on the widow (I know it’s super gross to say it that way, but the fact is that women were thought of as objects in these days). And in this case, Boaz is a good man, so this is actually a pretty ideal situation for Ruth, a foreigner with nothing to her name. But then there’s a twist! It turns out that there’s actually someone who’s a closer relative than Boaz! This person is never named, but Boaz does what he must do legally and goes to this guy and lets him know that there’s this land and this woman if he wants them. He leads with the land—this unnamed kinsmen is intrigued—says “oh yes please, give me more land.” But then Boaz, presumably knowing that Ruth would be a dealbreaker, follows this offer of land up with “okay, the land is yours, as long as you marry this foreign widow.” The unnamed relative responds, “oh, never mind, all yours.”  And then, after this back and forth that is written in a much more poetic, literary and sophisticated way, we come to the second half of our passage— of Boaz officially taking Ruth as his wife.

So now we’re caught up—but it’s worth reading that middle part on your own if you’re up for it. It makes the story much more interesting, it ups the drama and intrigue. But aside from making the story more interesting, the reason I wanted to explain it all to you is because it shows that Ruth is really a slice-of-life story. It involves the ins and outs of local politics and patriarchal marriage and land laws, it involves normal people figuring it out, normal people finding ways to survive in a harsh world by supporting each other.

Last week, I talked about Ruth being a very peculiar and unique story in the Old Testament in that it’s more of a short story than anything else, and God is barely present in it, besides a couple off-hand mentions. And at Bible study last week, Mill Moore’s study Bible had an annotation in his Bible that made note of the fact that the Ruth is this slice-of-life story sandwiched between God creating the world, between global politics and war, between kings coming to power. It stands out as a small and though sophisticatedly written, simple story about simple people. Mill noted at Bible study that this can be sort of a microcosm for us right now, and this was even before we knew the results of the election.

Everything just feels so big and so overwhelming. The work feels so daunting, almost impossible. On Monday and Tuesday last week, people were anxious; now many people are scared. Many are scared for our queer and trans siblings; many are scared of our daughters losing healthcare and their right to privacy. Many of us are scared of the plight of immigrants getting even worse. Many of us are scared of more cuts to programs that help poor folks get a leg up in a cruel world. God willing much we’ve heard over these past few months end up being empty threats, but there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of people are frightened right now.

There’s only so much we can do, Church. We have to look out for each other. And I don’t say that in some kind of hopeless isolationist way. I say it in a way to make it clear that no matter what happens over these next few months, years, decades, we must have each other’s backs. We must support one another in this community. And I say it to make it clear that the work is doable. We can be there for each other, we have that power, to help one another out—to support this church in its outreach, to support the people in this faith community and the community immediately outside it. I meant it when I said last Sunday and in my message to the church last week that one trip to the ballot box wasn’t going to save us; that there is so much work to be done regardless of who is leading this country.

I had to delete TikTok last week—and I will admit, my biggest guilty pleasure is TikTok, I loved that app—but all it was after the election was blame. And it was starting to suck me in, it was scrambling my brain; I found myself falling into despair trying to parse through the angry and confused talking heads, trying to figure out who’s to blame, because, sure, a lot of us are dying for answers right now. But infighting and blame isn’t going to get us anywhere. It’s just going to dig us further and further into the hole we’re in. Because there’s no single villain here on either side. All I can take from the results of this election and whatever is to follow is that a lot of people in this country are hurting in many ways, and the status-quo wasn’t working for them. Now many are still hurting; many more are now hurting and different ways. And the hurt may continue into the future, or it my morph and change into different threats and different harms.

 And so we have to meet those threats and whatever comes head-on in our community, in whatever small, but not insignificant way we can. Because no matter what, no matter who is in the white house, this community is what we have, and that’s where our power lies. We work with what we’ve got, and we’ve got each other. We will be there for the queer folks in our community. We will continue to help the poor, to support the prisoner, to lift up the oppressed. That won’t change. But we might have to work a little harder. We might have to show up more. We have might to be creative.

Ruth and Naomi worked with what they had. They were bound by the oppressive rules and laws of a deeply patriarchal and xenophobic culture. In chapter 2, Ruth gleans in the fields to make ends meet and support both herself and Naomi— gleaning is when the destitute, widows and beggars, would get the scraps left in a field after it’s already been harvested—not exactly dignified or lucrative work. While gleaning, she meets Boaz, the owner of the field, who tells her that he has heard of her and heard of her loyalty towards her mother-in-law. Ruth asks her how she, as a Moabite foreigner, has found favor with this relatively powerful man; Boaz essentially responds “Because you’re a good person.” He doesn’t care that she’s a foreigner. She’s kind and compassionate, and that’s all that matters.  

At the beginning of our passage today, we have Naomi, after hearing of this interaction Ruth and Boaz had in the fields, making this very suggestive, maybe sort of scandalous suggestion to Ruth, to go to Boaz in the night. Upon first read at Bible study, a few of us were a little scandalized by this— but this was actually Naomi’s way of helping. She knows how her society works, she knows her culture, and she knew this was how she could help Ruth get some support of her own—by getting involved with this good man, Boaz. Remember last week, we talked about the very beginning of Ruth—it starts out, “In the days when the judges ruled…”—so it was this period of time with no king, no central government. It was tribal, people of different religions, communities, and ethnicities fighting with one another constantly. So to get by, they had to find their people. They had to find good people and they had to support each other. So this was Naomi supporting Ruth, as Ruth was supporting her.

We also talked last week about how the book of Ruth was an antidote, to some of the horrific and xenophobic language of Deuteronomy—it was very anti-Moabite, announcing that for ten generations Moabites would never be allowed into the assembly of God. But here, not only do you have a Moabite woman who is a deeply loyal, devout, and kind—she ends up being the great-grandmother of the great King David. Some have tried to say this story is canon the sake of King David, to give him a miraculous birth—but it’s more likely that this is, in fact, that antidote to the angry prejudice of some of the Torah. That we are all, in fact, God’s children—this woman, a Moabite, was good and pure and kind, and found favor with God to the point of birthing Obed, farther of Jesse, who became father of King David.

So this small story, about otherwise insignificant people, two poor women, grieving and down on their luck, standing strong in the face of fear, uncertainty, and a prejudice patriarchy—they are able to make a home for themselves. They find security for themselves. They couldn’t depend on those in power to help them, so they banded together and they made a good life for each other. They find their people, they find their community, and they end up okay… in fact, they end up better than okay. Our story today ends with a village of women, coming together naming and rejoicing over this sacred son Obed! And then a great leader eventually comes out of it, as does a more positive view of the  foreigners, those of whom society had before been suspicious of, and vilified.

Since Tuesday night, I’m human, I’ll admit— I’ve been having this recurring feeling in my gut— it’s that horrible drop you get when you’re on a roller coaster. I’ve been too anxious to read the news. I’m scared for Frankie’s future. Things just feel very, very heavy for so many of us right now. But long before I had an inkling of what the election results would be this past Tuesday, I really did have the thought, the belief after our comfort food potluck here on Tuesday night, “regardless of who wins this thing, we’re gonna be okay.” Because we had a good turnout on Tuesday—many people I had never met before; friends of church members who brought their own friends; people who just needed a place to breathe… it showed me that spaces like ours are needed now more than ever, and it showed me that people do, in fact, show up when there’s a need. So let me be absolutely clear—this will always be a space where people are welcomed unconditionally; where people can be exactly who they are. It will be a sacred space where people will be welcomed and loved, not in spite of their gender or orientation; not in spite of their legal status; not in spite of their disability or their mental illness; not in spite of their differences, but because of them. We will not fall prey to the division and the tribalism that remains rampant.

God is subtle in the book of Ruth. God is in the background. Ruth is a small story with a big message and a lot of love. We are small, but our message doesn’t have to be. We are small, but our love isn’t. God’s presence might feel far away, and so we must see God in one another. We must see ourselves in one another, and therefore have faith in one another, as Ruth maintains her faith in God and those around her during an impossible time. How we stand together, really together, during whatever these next years throw at us, in this small but mighty community, will have reverberations. And so we will not despair. We will not get swallowed up and overwhelmed by whatever chaos may be to come; we will stand together and we will continue to fight for the most vulnerable, and we will continue to fight for each other.

Ruth and Naomi got creative found their people in a cruel, angry, and divided world. And so they survived. Against the odds, they thrived. We have each other. We have our people. We have this sacred space. We work and we love with what we have. And I promise, as long as we keep showing up, we will come out the other side.

I want to end this sermon with a quote from the theologian Jurgen Moltmann:

Our true hope in life…encounters us as the great promise of our life and this world: nothing will be in vain. It will succeed. In the end all will be well! It meets us too in [Christ’s] call to life: 'I live and you shall live also.' We are called to this hope, and the call often sounds like a command - a command to resist death and the powers of death, and a command to love life and cherish it: every life, the life we share, the whole of life.

Amen.