All through this Advent season we are exploring the complicated family tree of Jesus of Nazareth Matthew shares with us.
Their stories are a legacy of courage and faith, justice and peace, that shape how we understand our Savior in the manger of Bethlehem.
Today, we remember that there would be no Christmas, no Jesus, no salvation without Ruth.
Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Obed was the father of Jesse.
Jesse was the father of David the king. (Matthew 1: 5-6)
So let us listen today, for how God moves through unexpected people and in unexpected ways to bring to us a redeemer…
Our story begins in Bethlehem itself.
Bethlehem, or “House of Bread.”
A place of abundance is overrun by famine.
Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, had two sons and lived contently within the city in the time of the judges.
It was a time without a centralized government, with great instability and turmoil.
When they could no longer make a future for themselves within their hometown, they fled and became refugees.
We might see their faces in the images of refugees from Syria and Iraq and northern Africa today… Camping in muddy fields, clothes wet from the journey, their only possessions what they could carry, completely unsure if they will be welcomed wherever they arrive.
The place they come to call home is the land of Moab.
Now, it is important at this point to consider what it meant for them to find a home here. The Moabites were actually distant cousins of the Israelites, tracing their lineage all the way back to Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his daughters.
The Ammonites and the Moabites are their descendants and were regarded with disdain and suspicion.
As the story of the people of Israel continues, these distant cousins became enemies.
They refused hospitality to the Israelites as they fled from Egypt and watched with great unease as Joshua and his people conquered the land.
Our story today is just one generation removed from this conflict, yet Naomi and Elimelech seek refuge there.
Just as they establish themselves, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi and her two boys, Mahlon and Kilion.
Years pass. They grow up and they each marry women from that land… Moabite women… Ruth and Orpah.
But then one son after the other dies.
As Helen Pearson notes, “This healthy family had earlier departed a sick land only to become sick in a healthy land. Death canceled hope, and Naomi became a stranger in a strange land.” (p. 115)
She plans to return to Bethlehem to live as a widow… resigned to beg for the rest of her sad and bitter life. And she sends the Moabite daughters-in-law away, releasing them from any obligations with the opportunity to start anew.
Naomi prays that God would show them the same kind of loving-kindness, chesed, that they and their people had shown to them as strangers.
They weep. They grieve. They lament all they have lost.
And then… one of these daughters, Ruth, refuses to leave Naomi’s side.
It is an act of loving-kindness… unmerited love and grace and mercy shown to Naomi.
Even more than that.
Ruth casts her lot with the God of Naomi.
Ruth commits herself to a life where she will be the stranger and the foreigner, a grieving widow with no tangible possibilities.
You know, this year we have ourselves experienced grief, loss, tragedy, and disruption.
The loss of jobs and income.
The grief over loved ones we have lost.
The disruption of our routines where everything normal and familiar was taken from us.
We have been cut off from one another and have had to miss out on times of celebration.
There have been moments where we felt like Naomi and Ruth in this moment… grieving, lonely, and depressed.
As they make the journey back to Bethlehem, this despair so overtakes Naomi that she begs people to call her Mara – The Bitter One.
What she fails to recognize in this moment is that she is, in fact, not alone.
Ruth is by her side.
She had not been completely abandoned.
And friends… you have not been abandoned in this season either.
In small ways and in big ways, we have walked with each other through the dark and shadowy valleys and show up with cards and calls and food and connection.
Ruth takes the initiative to provide for them by going out to glean in the fields.
She is essentially going to pick up the small grains that are left on the ground after the harvesters have done their work.
It was back-breaking work, demeaning work, dangerous work.
She was a Moabite stranger, with no one to look out for her, utterly at the mercy of the field hands.
Remember how Naomi prayed that God would show her daughters-in-law kindness?
While she is out there working, a man named Boaz sees her.
Boaz, the son of Salmon, whose mother was Rahab.
Rahab the prostitute.
Rahab who herself was a foreign woman.
Rahab who herself risked everything to secure a future for her family.
Rahab who had faith in the God of Israel.
Rahab who welcomed the spies in hospitality and in peace.
You can’t ignore that her story has impacted the character of her son.
Boaz is moved not only by her work-ethic, but also by the way in which she sacrificed and acted to stand beside Naomi. He decides to show her favor and protection.
He make sure she has access to the best fields, has plenty to eat and drink, and protects her from his own men.
This act of favor and kindness is like a spark of life for Naomi.
She realizes that Boaz was a distant relative, someone who could redeem her husband’s property and provide for their future.
The law of levirate marriage that we heard about in the story of Tamar couldn’t apply here because Naomi had no other children.
But a kinsman redeemer could intervene. As Helen Pearson notes, they had “the obligation and duty to provide security, especially for widows and the poor; to restore the honor and prestige of the family; and to protect the interests, property, and inheritance of his extended family.” (p. 128)
Boaz could act to protect Naomi, but Ruth would remain vulnerable.
And so Naomi hatches up a plan for them to both get what they needed.
Ruth would present herself to Boaz as a potential wife.
If I had more time today, we’d get into the details of this drunken encounter on the threshing floor, but let’s just say, Boaz is willing and eager to take Ruth as his own and to take on the role of redeeming Elimelech’s property.
After going through all of the proper channels, Boaz marries Ruth and protects the legacy of Elimelech, Kilian and Mahlon.
They give birth to a child, Obed, and Naomi rediscovers the meaning of joy and life and abundance through her grandchild.
One the scriptures we will explore this week in our daily devotions is Psalm 126.
It is a song that rings out in times of exile and struggle:
Lord, change our circumstances for the better, like dry streams in the desert waste!
Let those who plant with tears reap the harvest with joyful shouts.
Let those who go out, crying and carrying their seed,
Come home with joyful shouts, carrying bales of grain!
Ruth and Naomi went out with tears, but God acted in their lives and they came home with joyful shouts.
And as we continue this journey to the manger, we see their legacy in the story of Jesus.
You see, when Joseph discovered his fiancée was pregnant, he probably cried out: Lord, change our circumstances! But he stuck by Mary, like Ruth stuck by Naomi.
When the holy family had to feel to a strange land and flee from the wrath of Herod, they probably cried out: Lord, change our circumstances! But God journeyed with them, as God did these weary refugees.
All along the way, acts of hospitality and gifts of kindness sustained their parched spirits.
We see how Christ takes up this legacy as he acts to bring life and joy and abundance in the midst of moments of despair and hunger and longing.
He brings the dead to life.
He feeds the multitudes.
He shows compassion and kindness upon strangers and foreigners.
Those who plant with tears reap a harvest of joyful shouts.
In this season of Advent, we are called to prepare our hearts and our lives for Jesus Christ.
We are called to make a home in our hearts for Christ to dwell.
And we do so by remembering the legacy of these faithful ancestors and allowing it to transform our own lives.
After all, there would have been no Christmas without Ruth.
When we find ourselves, as Naomi did, swallowed up by despair and grief, joy is discovered when we realize that others are journeying with us and that we are not, in fact, alone.
Your acts of connection, the cards you send and the calls you make, the cookies you drop off at a neighbor’s door… all of these things are like seeds of joy that you can plant every single day.
But I’m also struck by the larger forces that this story brings into focus.
This is a world in which asylum seekers and refugees who have left their homes with tears are crying out. At the end of 2019, an estimated 26 million people had sought refuge from violence war, famine and climate disasters. Another 33.4 million people were internally displaced, living in shelters and camps within their own country due to violence or disaster.
But we don’t have to even think globally to be aware of the deep need and hunger for support for people right here in our own neighborhood who rely upon the food pantry and our social services to stay in their homes or to make it through a long, cold winter.
Lord, change their circumstances for the better!
And then I realize that God acts through you and me.
God acted through the Moabites who welcomed refugees into their land.
And God acted through the compassionate hospitality and protection of Boaz and the community in Bethlehem that provided for Ruth and Naomi.
Your acts of kindness, generosity and welcome can make an incredible difference, changing circumstances, providing possibility, filling mouths with laugher and joy and abundance.
This next weekend, we are hosting a drive-through food drive for the DMARC Food Pantry Network. Let us pour out joy and abundance and grace and love to our neighbors during this difficult season.
