Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

“In the days when the judges ruled.”

That’s how the book of Ruth begins.

If you know your Bible history, you know that the time of the judges were dark and turbulent days for the people of Israel.

It was a time of unfaithfulness to God, political upheaval, and oppression by foreign nations.

The only semblance of law and order was brought by the “Judges,” who were honestly more like warlords than justices of the peace.

The writer of the book of Judges summarizes the state of affairs in that time with the ominous words, “In those days there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

In short it was a time when it would be easy to think that God was absent, or had abandoned his people.

And right in the midst of this “Wild West” scenario we get the story of Ruth.

One of my favorite descriptions of the book of Ruth that I’ve heard is, “a Hallmark movie in the middle of Game of Thrones.”

That might be an exaggeration, but it makes a good point.

This charming, beautifully told story illustrates for us how, even in dark times, God works in the mundane circumstances of everyday life to prove his faithfulness to his people.

Naomi and Her Complaint (v.

1-13)

In the first part of the story we watch as Naomi’s whole world gets turned upside down.

In fact, as hearers of the story, our expectations get flipped over as well.

As the story opens, we’re told there was a famine, and the famine drove a man named Elimelech and his family to abandon their ancestral property in Bethlehem to seek better fortunes for a time in the foreign country of Moab.

At first glance, it would seem that the author has neatly introduced the setting, the conflict, and our main character, Elimelech.

That is until verse 3 when Elimelech suddenly dies, and the focus shifts to Naomi, his wife.

Two more verses introduce Orpah and Ruth, Naomi’s Moabite daughters-in-law, and tell us that her two sons also died.

In 5 short verses, the author has introduced us to 6 characters and killed off 3 of them.

Naomi, it would seem, is left behind as the tragic heroine of a story she didn’t want to be in.

She has lost just about everything: her homeland, her husband, and both of her children.

And the loss of her family also means the loss of any hope for a legacy or future, and any means to sustain herself in the often harsh and lawless ancient world.

She might well wonder, and so might we, where has God been in all of this so far?

Yahweh, the god of Israel has been noticeably absent from the cruel chances of the narrative that have been buffeting Naomi.

But it’s right at this point that we do get just the faintest rumor of what God is up to.

Naomi hears that Yahweh has visited his people, he is acting to show his faithfulness and mercy to Israel.

The famine is over.

Time for Naomi to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and start over.

Time to go home.

So Naomi starts on her way back to Bethlehem and says a tearful goodbye to her daughters-in-law.

Orpah and Ruth are all that’s left of Naomi’s family, but they are also foreigners to Israel.

Naomi knows that they have better prospects in their homeland than they do with her.

So after everything else she’s lost, in spite of their protests, she has to say farewell to them too.

Naomi give vent to the pain and the bitterness in her heart.

We see what she really thinks of her situation: pretty much hopeless.

Sure, she’s still clinging to that rumor of God’s kindness, but deep down, she doesn’t think it can be for her.

On the contrary, she sees more than God’s absence in her circumstances, she is convinced that God is out to get her.

“It is much more bitter for me than for you,” she says, “because Yahweh’s hand has gone out against me.”

Naomi believes herself to be under God’s judgment.

Her prayer for Orpah and Ruth is that Yahweh would “deal kindly” with them.

That “dealing kindly” is a rich term that means to show steadfast love, faithfulness, and mercy, it has to do with Yahweh’s covenant commitment to his people.

Naomi has hope that her daughters-in-law will experience that faithfulness and kindness of God, but she doesn’t have that hope for herself.

“Don’t attach yourself to me,” she warns, “or you’ll only come under God’s wrath.”

Naomi, like Job, has lost everything and doesn’t understand why.

Her complaint against Yahweh reaches its climax after our reading when she gets home to Bethlehem, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara (Bitter), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.

I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty.”

Naomi feels empty, like a jar that’s been flipped over and shaken.

And what’s more, she’s convinced that it’s God who has done the shaking.

Application

I hope that no one here has suffered as devastating a series of losses as Naomi did.

But I’m sure that many of you know what it’s like to feel like your story is just not going the way it was supposed to.

Maybe you’ve also experienced the loss of a beloved spouse or a child.

Perhaps you’ve watched a career that was your passion or your livelihood go up in smoke, and didn’t know what you were going to do.

When something like that happens, it can turn your world upside down.

And more often than not, there is no rhyme or reason for it, no rational explanation.

The honest truth is that life often just seems cruel and random.

When that’s the case it can easily feel like God is absent, that he has forgotten you, or even that he is out to get you, that he is being cruel and capricious.

Like Naomi, maybe you hear the rumor of God’s kindness and faithfulness to others.

You hear about the wonderful things he has done for other people in your family or your church.

But it just makes your own pain hurt that much more.

“God may have blessings and kindness for other people, but it can’t be for me,” you may think.

“The hand of the Lord has gone out against me.”

It’s easy when you’re hurting and it feels like your life is in shambles to do what Naomi does here: complain about God to the people around us.

But what you really need is to bring your complaint to God.

Naomi is right to see God’s hand in her circumstances.

God is ultimately in charge of everything, and nothing befalls us unless he allows it.

The buck stops with him.

But Naomi is wrong to assume based on her circumstances that God is against her, that he won’t listen to her.

God’s motives and purposes are rarely clear to us, and we can’t conclude God’s attitude toward us from the things that happen to us.

The fact that God’s hand is behind all the changes and chances of life means that he is the one who has the power to do something about them.

We need to make our complaint heard before him.

He has promised to listen and his promises remain true even in unspeakable suffering.

When you’re in pain, cry out with the psalmist Psalm 44:23-26 “Awake!

Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself!

Do not reject us forever!

Why do you hide your face?

Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground.

Rise up; come to our help!

Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” God is always ready to hear a complaint like that.

Ruth and Her Faithfulness (v.

14-19)

Picking the story back up, we see Orpah and Ruth's response to Naomi’s attempt to shake them off.

Orpah allows herself to be persuaded and regretfully says her farewell to Naomi.

But Ruth is not ready to give up her loyalty to Naomi.

Naomi had already acknowledged that both girls showed faithfulness and kindness to their dead husbands and to her, but Ruth goes above and beyond.

She clings to her faithfulness with an iron fist, and in so doing becomes a picture of God’s own covenant faithfulness.

She bursts forth with an unforgettable statement of devotion: “Stop pressing me to abandon you, where you go I will go, where you stay I will stay, your people are my people, and your God is my God.

Where you die, I will die and there I will be buried.

Thus may Yahweh do to me, and more besides if even death parts me from you.” Ruth is probably adopting Israelite burial practices: as a member of Naomi’s family, their bones will be buried together, so in a way, even death won’t separate the two of them.

Even when Naomi can’t see any hope for a family or a future, Ruth doggedly insists on being her family.

This is faithfulness that imitates the loving, covenant faithfulness of God, it is unconditional.

And we will see in the rest of this story that God will use Ruth to show his faithfulness to Naomi.

Through Ruth, God will turn Naomi’s life right-way-up again.

Ruth’s loyalty will lead to her marriage to Boaz, who redeems and buys back Naomi’s family land.

Boaz’s redemption and his marriage to Ruth restores Naomi’s livelihood, her honor in Israel, and even gives her a noble legacy.

The story that began in the lawless time of the judges ends by telling us that Ruth and Boaz became the great-grandparents of King David, Israel’s greatest king and the forefather of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this story in which God seems so conspicuously absent, we see that he works in the mundane ups and downs of life, through unexpected people, to show loving kindness to his people.

At the end of the day, no matter how random or meaningless our circumstances appear, God will prove faithful.