This morning I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about three people who were loyal to each other and the difference their loyalty made. And even though he’s hardly mentioned, it’s also a story about God and the loyalty he shows to all three.
The story begins in ancient Israel during the days of the judges, more than a thousand years before Jesus was born. Those days were a little like the wild wild west. The very last verse of the book of Judges says this: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” But while this was an accurate description of Israel overall, it wasn’t true of everyone. There were still people, families, even villages that remained loyal to God and followed his will. One of those villages was Bethlehem, a little place only four miles from Jerusalem. "Bethlehem" means "the house of bread" and was called this because of its spacious fields of wheat and barley. Every fall the rainy season would begin in October and would end sometime in April. But one year the rain didn't come. It didn't rain for one year, for two years, and then for three. The fields dried and cracked. The barley and wheat shriveled and died. All the wheat and barley that had been stored was gone. People began to starve. The youngest and the oldest were the first to die. Disease was not far behind. It was a time of famine.
Many stories were told and retold about the famine that struck Israel in those days, stories of tragedy and heroism. They were passed down from one generation to another like family heirlooms, but in time all the stories were forgotten except one, the one we find in the book of Ruth. Sometime during the famine, a farmer in Bethlehem named Elimelech heard there was food in Moab. The land of Moab lay just a few miles east of Israel across the Jordan River. Elimelech decided to leave Bethlehem to become a refugee in Moab, and so he packed up his belongings on his donkeys and left for Moab with Naomi his wife and his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion. But when Elimelech fled Israel to escape Death, Death was waiting for him in Moab. We don’t know how it happened or when it happened or why it happened, but Elimelech died in Moab. Some commentators see this as a punishment from God. Some say he lacked faith. He didn’t believe God would protect him and his family. Some say he discouraged his friends and neighbors and caused them to lose faith. Rashi, an old rabbi, speculates that Elimelech was a wealthy man and selfish and was afraid that all of the impoverished people would come and knock at his door for help. And for this he was punished. It’s natural for us to want rational explanations for why things happen the way they do. God wouldn't allow a good man to die like this, so Elimelech must not have been a good man. He must have been unfaithful by leaving Bethlehem and that would explain why he died. But we get no explanations. Elimelech died for a reason, but God keeps that reason to himself.
And so in spite of his plans and against all his family's expectations, Elimelech died. Naomi was now a single mom in a foreign land, left to raise her sons by herself and take care of family business as best she could. Time went on as it always does and eventually she found wives for both of her sons. She chose well for them; how well she wouldn't know til much later. Their names were Orpah and Ruth and they were both Moabite women.
Ten years slipped by, years full of life but not full of children; Orpah and Ruth bore no sons, no daughters. And then both of Naomi's sons died. We don’t know how but Mahlon and Kilion died, leaving Naomi alone, quite alone in the world. Naomi had come to Moab as a wife and a mother. Now she was a widow and childless. (Explain how widows in ancient Israel didn’t inherit their husband’s estate but their sons did. They would then be taken care of by their eldest son.)
Not long after the death of her sons, Naomi heard that after so many years the famine in Israel was over; the Lord was finally providing food for his people. She decided to return to her homeland, to Bethlehem, so she packed up all her belongings on her donkeys and prepared to leave Moab. When Naomi's two sons died, Orpah and Ruth had no more legal obligations to Naomi. Normally they would have gone back to their homes and lived under their fathers' authority until they remarried. But Orpah and Ruth packed their things also and prepared to go with her. (A mark of how good a woman Naomi must have been.) Then at the edge of the city, just before getting on the path heading west, Naomi told them both to go home. "Go back," she said, "Go back to your mother's home." And then she left them two blessings. The first, that the Lord would show them kindness just as they had shown kindness to her sons and to her. The second, that the Lord would give them rest in the home of another husband. Naomi loved them and wanted nothing but the best for them. But her sons were gone and there was no use pretending. Painful though it might be, it was best for them to go.
And so she kissed them and they wept. They wept for all they'd lost and were losing, they wept when words weren't enough. Everything they'd known for ten years and more was falling apart. And so on a dusty footpath heading west toward Bethlehem, three women held each other one last time, and they wept. "We will go back with you," they said, "back with you to your people." But Naomi reasoned with them. She hoped they would see how foolish it would be for them to go with her. "Why," she asked, "why would you come home with me? Am I going to have more sons who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I'm too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me - even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons - would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them?"
And then she added a warning for anyone who tried to go with her: "It's more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord's hand has gone out against me!" Orpah and Ruth had options. They were good women and still young. If they returned home now they might remarry and have a family. Naomi was an old woman who'd run out of options. She was convinced that God had cursed her, that his hand had gone out against her. The road ahead of her would only lead to more bitterness and suffering. Why would they stay with someone who seemed under God's curse? When Naomi was young, God had seemed like a loving father, answering her prayers and helping all her girlish dreams come true. She’d married Elimelech, a farmer from a prominent family. She’d borne two sons, usually considered the most important thing a woman could do in ancient Israel. But the dream had become a nightmare, and the happy life she once knew now seemed like a thousand lifetimes ago. Famine, the heartache of leaving home, the loss of Elimelech so suddenly in a strange country, and now the loss of her sons. Loss after loss. Why had God taken away everything he had given her, everything she had ever loved? From her point of view, God had made himself her enemy for reasons she could not understand. How could she ever trust God again to be good to her?
Orpah and Ruth didn't answer. What could they say to such despair? They could only hold her close and weep. Orpah loved Naomi and always would, but Naomi’s words had struck home. She knew that going home was the sensible thing to do. So Orpah held Naomi one last time, kissed her, and turned back east toward home, weeping as she walked.
And then Ruth did something extraordinary. She clung to Naomi. "Clung" is the same Hebrew word translated "cleave" in Genesis 2:24 when it says that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It may seem strange to say that one woman clung to another woman in this way, but it refers to the loyalty one person can have for another. Naomi tried one more time to persuade Ruth to go home. "Look," she said, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."
But Ruth answered Naomi with some of the most memorable words that have ever been spoken. "Don't urge me to leave you," she said. "Don't urge me to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried." I've heard these same words repeated many times in weddings. So have you. Did you know they were spoken first by one woman to another woman? Does that mean it's wrong to use these words in a marriage ceremony? Not at all. They express something we need to say at a wedding. "I will be loyal to you forever because I can't imagine living my life without you. Whatever life may bring, both good and bad, I'll be there to share it with you. From this moment forward, we'll face the future together." In a wedding, though, these words are usually spoken by a young couple standing on the threshold of possibilities. They're young, with all their road before them. Ruth says these words to a broken down old woman, saturated with despair, whose life has fallen apart. Naomi's convinced that God has cursed her, is working against her, and she doesn't want Ruth to get hurt.
Ruth doesn't commit herself to Naomi because she believes Naomi's future is bright and they'll have a wonderful life together. She accepts the hardness of Naomi's life and the chance that only difficulty lays ahead. Naomi will not face her future alone. As long as there is breath in Ruth's body, there will always be someone to help her.
Ruth finished in the strongest possible way, with an oath. "May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you from me." Ruth called down a curse on herself if she let Naomi go back alone. Naomi saw how determined Ruth was and stopped urging her to go home. Home for Ruth was now wherever Naomi was.
And so they came to Bethlehem. News quickly spread and relatives and old friends turned out to see Naomi. "Can this be Naomi?" the women asked. More than ten years in Moab had left their mark. She seemed different somehow, and it wasn't because she was older. The Naomi they once knew was another woman. Her name, Naomi, means "pleasant." Maybe she was the kind of easy-going, fun-loving person all of us like being around. Maybe she had a good sense of humor, loved to laugh and have a good time. But suffering had changed all of that. "Call me 'Mara,'" she told them, "Call me 'bitter,' because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me, the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
Naomi didn't blame her suffering on the famine or the economy or the government. She didn't blame her husband or her fate. She blamed God. These words disturbed me when I was younger. Now I look at them quite differently than I did as a younger man. In many of the psalms, Israel was suffering and placed the blame squarely on God, and God has preserved these psalms as His word for us! The Israelites never stopped believing in God when things went wrong. God was still there, his massive presence a force to be reckoned with. They could beat on God, beat on his chest over and over again and he was big enough to take it. "God, we're angry at you. Why did you let this happen to us? We did everything you asked us to do, so why are we suffering? You haven't kept your end of the bargain!" Israel knew that God was there, and as long as he was, there was a chance that he would change the way things were. And so Naomi blamed God. "Why call me Naomi? Call me 'Mara.' Call me 'Bitter.'"
Sometimes it’s difficult, isn’t it, to see what God is up to when we’re suffering? We try to figure it out but often God is subtle, so very subtle, that we only see his hand much later if we see it at all. Naomi wanted to be called Mara because she thought she could predict her future based on what had happened in her past. She couldn’t see how things could ever get better, but God was already turning things around for her and Naomi didn’t even know it. It all started, didn't it, on a dusty footpath in Moab heading west for Bethlehem. Ruth was God's gift to Naomi, and in an important sense, Naomi was God's gift to Ruth. Ruth would see to it that Naomi would never face her future alone, and Naomi would open up the future for Ruth in ways neither one could imagine. One of the most significant verses in the book is the next verse, verse 22: "So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess." She wanted to change her name, to be called "Mara," but she never was. Why call her Mara? God had begun to bless her again. Ruth and Naomi had just arrived in Bethlehem and by chance the barley harvest was beginning, and with the new harvest came new hope.
Now things turned in a new direction for Naomi and Ruth. Nothing could bring back what they had lost, but God would bring them new joys. Chapter 2 begins by sharing an important piece of information: a relative of Naomi's husband was a "man of standing," a successful man whose name was Boaz. One day Ruth asked Naomi for permission to glean the barley fields. They didn't have any barley of their own to harvest, so the best they could do was to follow the harvesters and hope to pick up stray stalks of grain along the way. (Brief description of gleaning) Gleaning was reserved only for the poorest of the poor in Israel. This is where Ruth chose to be with Naomi, among the poorest of the poor. She wasn’t concerned with keeping up appearances, but she was determined that neither would go hungry. So Naomi gave her permission and she went out early in the morning to glean in the fields.
In verse 3 it says "as it turned out," the field Ruth just happened to choose to work in was owned by none other than Boaz himself. These "coincidences" will form a pattern throughout the book. God was at work behind the scenes, somehow working through the choices of people to bring about his own ends. Then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The Lord be with you." "The Lord be with you," they called back. It didn't take Boaz long to spot a stranger among his workers. "Whose young woman is that?" he asked his foreman. The foreman replied that she was the Moabitess who came back with Naomi.
The rabbis were of the opinion that Ruth was one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world. Maybe that's why Boaz first noticed her. The Bible sometimes speaks of personal beauty. Abraham’s wife Sarah was so stunning he was sure men would kill for her. Rachel was a beauty and the same words used to describe her are used to describe her equally handsome son, Joseph. But whether or not she was beautiful, Ruth is never described in these terms. It's her mind and her actions that the writer wants us to consider. She's loyal and she’s wise, courteous and hard-working. Boaz asked Ruth not to glean in another field. If she worked in his fields, he promised to protect her. Ruth didn't know he was related to Naomi and asked why he was treating her so kindly. Surprisingly, Boaz didn't say it was because he was related to Naomi. His reasons are related directly to Ruth's personal reputation. "I've been told," he said, "all about what you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband." And then to this woman who'd suffered so much and given up so much, he gave her this blessing. They're some of the most beautiful words a man has ever said to a woman: "May the Lord repay you for what you've done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
After working all morning in the fields, Boaz offered Ruth food and drink at lunchtime. You've heard the old saying, haven't you, that the way to a woman's heart is through her stomach?! After lunch, Ruth stayed in Boaz's field the rest of the day. Boaz had told his men not to stop her from gathering among the sheaves. He instructed the women to drop stalks from their bundles for her to pick up. Usually harvesters were told to be as thorough as possible and very little would be left for gleaners. This was good business, but it was contrary to biblical law. At the end of the day, Ruth weighed the grain she had gathered and it amounted to about 29 pounds. We have documents from other parts of the ancient near east that show male workers rarely received more than 1 to 2 pounds of grain per day as their wages. This means that Ruth collected the equivalent of at least half a month's wages in one day!
When Naomi saw how much grain Ruth brought home, she knew something special had happened. "Where did you glean today? Where did you work?" she asked breathlessly. "Blessed be the man who took notice of you." "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," Ruth said. "The Lord bless him," Naomi said, and then added one of the most fascinating statements in the story: "The Lord has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." The word "kindness" is one of the most important concepts in the Old Testament and in Jewish culture. It's the Hebrew word "hesed" and it refers to God's loving loyalty for his people Israel and the loyalty the Israelites were to have for each other. It assumes a covenant between two parties. The covenant establishes a relationship between the two, and with that relationship come both benefits and responsibilities. Israel is to obey God's commandments, and God is to bless Israel. God will not abandon Israel on a whim or choose another nation that looks more appealing. He will be loyal to Israel and bless them as long as they are loyal to him. That's God's hesed. In this case, Naomi means that God hasn't in fact abandoned her personally. God is still being loyal to her and she begins to sense how God might lead them out of their troubles. Then she adds a new piece of information that's important for the rest of the story. Boaz is not only a relative; he is what she calls "one of our kinsman-redeemers." (Brief explanation)
And so Ruth gleaned in Boaz's fields through the barley harvest, and then through the wheat harvest which followed a few weeks later. When both harvests were done, it was time for the barley and wheat to be threshed, for the husk to be knocked off the grain. It was a time of great rejoicing, feasting, and partying. Naomi told Ruth to wash, put on perfume, and wear her best clothes. Not much has changed in 3,000 years! When the party was over at the threshing floor, the men would go to sleep next to the grain to protect it from thieves. While the men were sleeping, Ruth was to lift up the cloak Boaz would use like a blanket, and lie down at his feet. That's what it means to "uncover his feet."
Ruth followed Naomi's instructions and in the middle of the night Boaz was startled by something and noticed a woman lying at his feet. "Who are you?" Boaz asked. "I'm your servant Ruth," she said. "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer." It may not sound like it, but Ruth was asking, "Will you marry me?" ancient Israeli style. "The Lord bless you, my daughter," Boaz replied. "This kindness (the word hesed again) is greater than that which you showed earlier. You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character." "Noble character?" It's the same phrase used of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31.
But then Boaz added that things were not as straightforward as they might seem. He wanted to do what Ruth was asking, but legally there was another kinsman-redeemer before him who had first rights to Elimelech's land and to Ruth. He promised that in the morning he would seek a resolution. If the other man decided to buy the land and marry Ruth, there was nothing he could do about it. But if he decided not to, Boaz vowed that he would buy the land and marry her.
The first half of chapter four is a courtroom drama at Bethlehem. Early in the morning, Boaz went to the village gates and waited for the other kinsman-redeemer to walk by. When he did, Boaz pulled him aside and asked him to sit down for a moment. Then he found ten village elders and asked them to serve as witnesses. Quickly Boaz sketched out the situation. Naomi had recently returned from Moab and wanted to sell the field that belonged to Elimelech, her deceased husband. Since the other man was first in line to buy it, Boaz asked him to make a decision whether or not to purchase it, because Boaz was next in line. Well, the man decided to buy it. Boaz then added that if he bought the land, he must marry Ruth in order to perpetuate the line of Mahlon, Elimelech's dead son. The man didn't like the sound of this because it complicated his own situation. The children he might have by Ruth would not legally be his own. They would be considered the children of Mahlon, and the property would eventually be inherited by them and pass into the hands of another family. So he gave up his right to purchase the field and Boaz, true to his word, announced to the elders that he would buy the field and the right to marry Ruth. The elders then chanted a traditional marriage blessing for Boaz and Ruth: "May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephratah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah." Little did they know at the time how true this blessing would be.
Look at what it says in chapter 4, beginning with verse 13: "So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: 'Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.' Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, 'Naomi has a son.' And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David." That's right. There's a surprise at the end of the story. Ruth was the great-grandmother of David, Israel’s greatest king. Looking even further ahead, read chapter one of Matthew and you'll see that Ruth is in the line of the Messiah himself, Jesus Christ.
So even though these were dark days, dark because everyone was looking out for themselves, there were still people in Israel who remained true to God and loyal to each other. You could find people like Ruth, like Naomi, and like Boaz who were kind to each other and who looked out for each other during the best of times and the worst of times. These were the kind of people who produced a man after God’s own heart like David.
So what's this story about? It's about Ruth, a young widow whose kindness and loyalty brought hope to an old woman who'd lost hope. It's about Naomi, who lost faith in the faithfulness of God only to find it again through Ruth. It's about Boaz, an aging farmer and village elder who, in one of the great acts of a great life, became a refuge for Ruth and Naomi. And it's about God, who stands silently behind everything that happens, bringing about his mysterious and subtle, but perfect, will. Through the lives of these ordinary people, he’ll alter the future of a family, shape the destiny of a nation, and ultimately, change the course of the world.
The story begins in ancient Israel during the days of the judges, more than a thousand years before Jesus was born. Those days were a little like the wild wild west. The very last verse of the book of Judges says this: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” But while this was an accurate description of Israel overall, it wasn’t true of everyone. There were still people, families, even villages that remained loyal to God and followed his will. One of those villages was Bethlehem, a little place only four miles from Jerusalem. "Bethlehem" means "the house of bread" and was called this because of its spacious fields of wheat and barley. Every fall the rainy season would begin in October and would end sometime in April. But one year the rain didn't come. It didn't rain for one year, for two years, and then for three. The fields dried and cracked. The barley and wheat shriveled and died. All the wheat and barley that had been stored was gone. People began to starve. The youngest and the oldest were the first to die. Disease was not far behind. It was a time of famine.
Many stories were told and retold about the famine that struck Israel in those days, stories of tragedy and heroism. They were passed down from one generation to another like family heirlooms, but in time all the stories were forgotten except one, the one we find in the book of Ruth. Sometime during the famine, a farmer in Bethlehem named Elimelech heard there was food in Moab. The land of Moab lay just a few miles east of Israel across the Jordan River. Elimelech decided to leave Bethlehem to become a refugee in Moab, and so he packed up his belongings on his donkeys and left for Moab with Naomi his wife and his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion. But when Elimelech fled Israel to escape Death, Death was waiting for him in Moab. We don’t know how it happened or when it happened or why it happened, but Elimelech died in Moab. Some commentators see this as a punishment from God. Some say he lacked faith. He didn’t believe God would protect him and his family. Some say he discouraged his friends and neighbors and caused them to lose faith. Rashi, an old rabbi, speculates that Elimelech was a wealthy man and selfish and was afraid that all of the impoverished people would come and knock at his door for help. And for this he was punished. It’s natural for us to want rational explanations for why things happen the way they do. God wouldn't allow a good man to die like this, so Elimelech must not have been a good man. He must have been unfaithful by leaving Bethlehem and that would explain why he died. But we get no explanations. Elimelech died for a reason, but God keeps that reason to himself.
And so in spite of his plans and against all his family's expectations, Elimelech died. Naomi was now a single mom in a foreign land, left to raise her sons by herself and take care of family business as best she could. Time went on as it always does and eventually she found wives for both of her sons. She chose well for them; how well she wouldn't know til much later. Their names were Orpah and Ruth and they were both Moabite women.
Ten years slipped by, years full of life but not full of children; Orpah and Ruth bore no sons, no daughters. And then both of Naomi's sons died. We don’t know how but Mahlon and Kilion died, leaving Naomi alone, quite alone in the world. Naomi had come to Moab as a wife and a mother. Now she was a widow and childless. (Explain how widows in ancient Israel didn’t inherit their husband’s estate but their sons did. They would then be taken care of by their eldest son.)
Not long after the death of her sons, Naomi heard that after so many years the famine in Israel was over; the Lord was finally providing food for his people. She decided to return to her homeland, to Bethlehem, so she packed up all her belongings on her donkeys and prepared to leave Moab. When Naomi's two sons died, Orpah and Ruth had no more legal obligations to Naomi. Normally they would have gone back to their homes and lived under their fathers' authority until they remarried. But Orpah and Ruth packed their things also and prepared to go with her. (A mark of how good a woman Naomi must have been.) Then at the edge of the city, just before getting on the path heading west, Naomi told them both to go home. "Go back," she said, "Go back to your mother's home." And then she left them two blessings. The first, that the Lord would show them kindness just as they had shown kindness to her sons and to her. The second, that the Lord would give them rest in the home of another husband. Naomi loved them and wanted nothing but the best for them. But her sons were gone and there was no use pretending. Painful though it might be, it was best for them to go.
And so she kissed them and they wept. They wept for all they'd lost and were losing, they wept when words weren't enough. Everything they'd known for ten years and more was falling apart. And so on a dusty footpath heading west toward Bethlehem, three women held each other one last time, and they wept. "We will go back with you," they said, "back with you to your people." But Naomi reasoned with them. She hoped they would see how foolish it would be for them to go with her. "Why," she asked, "why would you come home with me? Am I going to have more sons who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I'm too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me - even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons - would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them?"
And then she added a warning for anyone who tried to go with her: "It's more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord's hand has gone out against me!" Orpah and Ruth had options. They were good women and still young. If they returned home now they might remarry and have a family. Naomi was an old woman who'd run out of options. She was convinced that God had cursed her, that his hand had gone out against her. The road ahead of her would only lead to more bitterness and suffering. Why would they stay with someone who seemed under God's curse? When Naomi was young, God had seemed like a loving father, answering her prayers and helping all her girlish dreams come true. She’d married Elimelech, a farmer from a prominent family. She’d borne two sons, usually considered the most important thing a woman could do in ancient Israel. But the dream had become a nightmare, and the happy life she once knew now seemed like a thousand lifetimes ago. Famine, the heartache of leaving home, the loss of Elimelech so suddenly in a strange country, and now the loss of her sons. Loss after loss. Why had God taken away everything he had given her, everything she had ever loved? From her point of view, God had made himself her enemy for reasons she could not understand. How could she ever trust God again to be good to her?
Orpah and Ruth didn't answer. What could they say to such despair? They could only hold her close and weep. Orpah loved Naomi and always would, but Naomi’s words had struck home. She knew that going home was the sensible thing to do. So Orpah held Naomi one last time, kissed her, and turned back east toward home, weeping as she walked.
And then Ruth did something extraordinary. She clung to Naomi. "Clung" is the same Hebrew word translated "cleave" in Genesis 2:24 when it says that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It may seem strange to say that one woman clung to another woman in this way, but it refers to the loyalty one person can have for another. Naomi tried one more time to persuade Ruth to go home. "Look," she said, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."
But Ruth answered Naomi with some of the most memorable words that have ever been spoken. "Don't urge me to leave you," she said. "Don't urge me to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried." I've heard these same words repeated many times in weddings. So have you. Did you know they were spoken first by one woman to another woman? Does that mean it's wrong to use these words in a marriage ceremony? Not at all. They express something we need to say at a wedding. "I will be loyal to you forever because I can't imagine living my life without you. Whatever life may bring, both good and bad, I'll be there to share it with you. From this moment forward, we'll face the future together." In a wedding, though, these words are usually spoken by a young couple standing on the threshold of possibilities. They're young, with all their road before them. Ruth says these words to a broken down old woman, saturated with despair, whose life has fallen apart. Naomi's convinced that God has cursed her, is working against her, and she doesn't want Ruth to get hurt.
Ruth doesn't commit herself to Naomi because she believes Naomi's future is bright and they'll have a wonderful life together. She accepts the hardness of Naomi's life and the chance that only difficulty lays ahead. Naomi will not face her future alone. As long as there is breath in Ruth's body, there will always be someone to help her.
Ruth finished in the strongest possible way, with an oath. "May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you from me." Ruth called down a curse on herself if she let Naomi go back alone. Naomi saw how determined Ruth was and stopped urging her to go home. Home for Ruth was now wherever Naomi was.
And so they came to Bethlehem. News quickly spread and relatives and old friends turned out to see Naomi. "Can this be Naomi?" the women asked. More than ten years in Moab had left their mark. She seemed different somehow, and it wasn't because she was older. The Naomi they once knew was another woman. Her name, Naomi, means "pleasant." Maybe she was the kind of easy-going, fun-loving person all of us like being around. Maybe she had a good sense of humor, loved to laugh and have a good time. But suffering had changed all of that. "Call me 'Mara,'" she told them, "Call me 'bitter,' because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me, the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
Naomi didn't blame her suffering on the famine or the economy or the government. She didn't blame her husband or her fate. She blamed God. These words disturbed me when I was younger. Now I look at them quite differently than I did as a younger man. In many of the psalms, Israel was suffering and placed the blame squarely on God, and God has preserved these psalms as His word for us! The Israelites never stopped believing in God when things went wrong. God was still there, his massive presence a force to be reckoned with. They could beat on God, beat on his chest over and over again and he was big enough to take it. "God, we're angry at you. Why did you let this happen to us? We did everything you asked us to do, so why are we suffering? You haven't kept your end of the bargain!" Israel knew that God was there, and as long as he was, there was a chance that he would change the way things were. And so Naomi blamed God. "Why call me Naomi? Call me 'Mara.' Call me 'Bitter.'"
Sometimes it’s difficult, isn’t it, to see what God is up to when we’re suffering? We try to figure it out but often God is subtle, so very subtle, that we only see his hand much later if we see it at all. Naomi wanted to be called Mara because she thought she could predict her future based on what had happened in her past. She couldn’t see how things could ever get better, but God was already turning things around for her and Naomi didn’t even know it. It all started, didn't it, on a dusty footpath in Moab heading west for Bethlehem. Ruth was God's gift to Naomi, and in an important sense, Naomi was God's gift to Ruth. Ruth would see to it that Naomi would never face her future alone, and Naomi would open up the future for Ruth in ways neither one could imagine. One of the most significant verses in the book is the next verse, verse 22: "So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess." She wanted to change her name, to be called "Mara," but she never was. Why call her Mara? God had begun to bless her again. Ruth and Naomi had just arrived in Bethlehem and by chance the barley harvest was beginning, and with the new harvest came new hope.
Now things turned in a new direction for Naomi and Ruth. Nothing could bring back what they had lost, but God would bring them new joys. Chapter 2 begins by sharing an important piece of information: a relative of Naomi's husband was a "man of standing," a successful man whose name was Boaz. One day Ruth asked Naomi for permission to glean the barley fields. They didn't have any barley of their own to harvest, so the best they could do was to follow the harvesters and hope to pick up stray stalks of grain along the way. (Brief description of gleaning) Gleaning was reserved only for the poorest of the poor in Israel. This is where Ruth chose to be with Naomi, among the poorest of the poor. She wasn’t concerned with keeping up appearances, but she was determined that neither would go hungry. So Naomi gave her permission and she went out early in the morning to glean in the fields.
In verse 3 it says "as it turned out," the field Ruth just happened to choose to work in was owned by none other than Boaz himself. These "coincidences" will form a pattern throughout the book. God was at work behind the scenes, somehow working through the choices of people to bring about his own ends. Then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The Lord be with you." "The Lord be with you," they called back. It didn't take Boaz long to spot a stranger among his workers. "Whose young woman is that?" he asked his foreman. The foreman replied that she was the Moabitess who came back with Naomi.
The rabbis were of the opinion that Ruth was one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world. Maybe that's why Boaz first noticed her. The Bible sometimes speaks of personal beauty. Abraham’s wife Sarah was so stunning he was sure men would kill for her. Rachel was a beauty and the same words used to describe her are used to describe her equally handsome son, Joseph. But whether or not she was beautiful, Ruth is never described in these terms. It's her mind and her actions that the writer wants us to consider. She's loyal and she’s wise, courteous and hard-working. Boaz asked Ruth not to glean in another field. If she worked in his fields, he promised to protect her. Ruth didn't know he was related to Naomi and asked why he was treating her so kindly. Surprisingly, Boaz didn't say it was because he was related to Naomi. His reasons are related directly to Ruth's personal reputation. "I've been told," he said, "all about what you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband." And then to this woman who'd suffered so much and given up so much, he gave her this blessing. They're some of the most beautiful words a man has ever said to a woman: "May the Lord repay you for what you've done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
After working all morning in the fields, Boaz offered Ruth food and drink at lunchtime. You've heard the old saying, haven't you, that the way to a woman's heart is through her stomach?! After lunch, Ruth stayed in Boaz's field the rest of the day. Boaz had told his men not to stop her from gathering among the sheaves. He instructed the women to drop stalks from their bundles for her to pick up. Usually harvesters were told to be as thorough as possible and very little would be left for gleaners. This was good business, but it was contrary to biblical law. At the end of the day, Ruth weighed the grain she had gathered and it amounted to about 29 pounds. We have documents from other parts of the ancient near east that show male workers rarely received more than 1 to 2 pounds of grain per day as their wages. This means that Ruth collected the equivalent of at least half a month's wages in one day!
When Naomi saw how much grain Ruth brought home, she knew something special had happened. "Where did you glean today? Where did you work?" she asked breathlessly. "Blessed be the man who took notice of you." "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," Ruth said. "The Lord bless him," Naomi said, and then added one of the most fascinating statements in the story: "The Lord has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." The word "kindness" is one of the most important concepts in the Old Testament and in Jewish culture. It's the Hebrew word "hesed" and it refers to God's loving loyalty for his people Israel and the loyalty the Israelites were to have for each other. It assumes a covenant between two parties. The covenant establishes a relationship between the two, and with that relationship come both benefits and responsibilities. Israel is to obey God's commandments, and God is to bless Israel. God will not abandon Israel on a whim or choose another nation that looks more appealing. He will be loyal to Israel and bless them as long as they are loyal to him. That's God's hesed. In this case, Naomi means that God hasn't in fact abandoned her personally. God is still being loyal to her and she begins to sense how God might lead them out of their troubles. Then she adds a new piece of information that's important for the rest of the story. Boaz is not only a relative; he is what she calls "one of our kinsman-redeemers." (Brief explanation)
And so Ruth gleaned in Boaz's fields through the barley harvest, and then through the wheat harvest which followed a few weeks later. When both harvests were done, it was time for the barley and wheat to be threshed, for the husk to be knocked off the grain. It was a time of great rejoicing, feasting, and partying. Naomi told Ruth to wash, put on perfume, and wear her best clothes. Not much has changed in 3,000 years! When the party was over at the threshing floor, the men would go to sleep next to the grain to protect it from thieves. While the men were sleeping, Ruth was to lift up the cloak Boaz would use like a blanket, and lie down at his feet. That's what it means to "uncover his feet."
Ruth followed Naomi's instructions and in the middle of the night Boaz was startled by something and noticed a woman lying at his feet. "Who are you?" Boaz asked. "I'm your servant Ruth," she said. "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer." It may not sound like it, but Ruth was asking, "Will you marry me?" ancient Israeli style. "The Lord bless you, my daughter," Boaz replied. "This kindness (the word hesed again) is greater than that which you showed earlier. You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character." "Noble character?" It's the same phrase used of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31.
But then Boaz added that things were not as straightforward as they might seem. He wanted to do what Ruth was asking, but legally there was another kinsman-redeemer before him who had first rights to Elimelech's land and to Ruth. He promised that in the morning he would seek a resolution. If the other man decided to buy the land and marry Ruth, there was nothing he could do about it. But if he decided not to, Boaz vowed that he would buy the land and marry her.
The first half of chapter four is a courtroom drama at Bethlehem. Early in the morning, Boaz went to the village gates and waited for the other kinsman-redeemer to walk by. When he did, Boaz pulled him aside and asked him to sit down for a moment. Then he found ten village elders and asked them to serve as witnesses. Quickly Boaz sketched out the situation. Naomi had recently returned from Moab and wanted to sell the field that belonged to Elimelech, her deceased husband. Since the other man was first in line to buy it, Boaz asked him to make a decision whether or not to purchase it, because Boaz was next in line. Well, the man decided to buy it. Boaz then added that if he bought the land, he must marry Ruth in order to perpetuate the line of Mahlon, Elimelech's dead son. The man didn't like the sound of this because it complicated his own situation. The children he might have by Ruth would not legally be his own. They would be considered the children of Mahlon, and the property would eventually be inherited by them and pass into the hands of another family. So he gave up his right to purchase the field and Boaz, true to his word, announced to the elders that he would buy the field and the right to marry Ruth. The elders then chanted a traditional marriage blessing for Boaz and Ruth: "May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephratah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah." Little did they know at the time how true this blessing would be.
Look at what it says in chapter 4, beginning with verse 13: "So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: 'Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.' Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, 'Naomi has a son.' And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David." That's right. There's a surprise at the end of the story. Ruth was the great-grandmother of David, Israel’s greatest king. Looking even further ahead, read chapter one of Matthew and you'll see that Ruth is in the line of the Messiah himself, Jesus Christ.
So even though these were dark days, dark because everyone was looking out for themselves, there were still people in Israel who remained true to God and loyal to each other. You could find people like Ruth, like Naomi, and like Boaz who were kind to each other and who looked out for each other during the best of times and the worst of times. These were the kind of people who produced a man after God’s own heart like David.
So what's this story about? It's about Ruth, a young widow whose kindness and loyalty brought hope to an old woman who'd lost hope. It's about Naomi, who lost faith in the faithfulness of God only to find it again through Ruth. It's about Boaz, an aging farmer and village elder who, in one of the great acts of a great life, became a refuge for Ruth and Naomi. And it's about God, who stands silently behind everything that happens, bringing about his mysterious and subtle, but perfect, will. Through the lives of these ordinary people, he’ll alter the future of a family, shape the destiny of a nation, and ultimately, change the course of the world.
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