5.2.34 7.16.2023 The Faithful Friendship of Ruth Ruth 2

Start:

Entice:

The Best way to find grace is to be graceful.

Jesus put it this way.

Matthew 7:12 ESV

12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

So, the two widows came into Bethlehem without any visible means of support.

And Ruth reacted

with candor

and grace

and goodness

and industry.

Engage: Their poverty brought worry. Rather than sit around and fret, Ruth decided to go to work. As fortune favors the bold, luck often follows the industrious. There is some of that happening in this passage.

Expand: Superficially we sometimes think of the OT as a book of law and the NT as a book of grace, as if strict categories can be enforced. Both testaments are driven by the grace of God. Ruth in particular reminds us that

grace is communicated to us in structures.

The story of how Ruth and Naomi overcame their great difficulties is largely about how structured grace gave them the opportunity to thrive. They did not just sit alongside the road weeping and praying for stuff to happen. The returned to Bethlehem, to the bosom of God’s chosen people where there were concrete structures that allowed the providential grace of God to move. God’s Word and God’s people give context and structure to His saving presence. Boaz is called the “kinsman redeemer” but redemption was a much bigger idea than getting Naomi’s land and fixing their problems. Redemption was built into the laws that molded Israel into a redemptive community.

Oddly enough, the book of Judges reminds us that redemptive living was a choice for Ruth and Boaz. Others in the same historical epoch chose to live selfishly and lawlessly without creating a community of faith. Even in the worst of times and in the worst of circumstances God is at work.

Excite: The story reads like this

Ruth 2:1–23 ESV

1 Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. 4 And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” 5 Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” 8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” 10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” 11 But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12 The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” 13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.” 14 And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. 15 When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. 16 And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” 17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. 18 And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. 19 And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” 20 And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” 21 And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’ ” 22 And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” 23 So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

God uses a little bit of luck, constructive labor, and good-hearted people to execute and affirm His will. We talked about CHeSeD last week and we will throughout this brief sermon series. I like “lovingkindness” when I translate the Hebrew term, but the more familiar term grace captures much of the diverse meaning of the term. I will use Grace for simplicities sake in affirming the central point of this sermon.

Explore:

If we know the God of Grace we should be a people of Grace.

Expand: What does a people of grace look like?

Body of Sermon: We should look like.

1 Community

1.1 Bethlehem.

Ruth 1:22 ESV

22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

1.2 Boaz

A substantial man in the community, who reflected the community building nature of God.

1.3 Barley Harvest.

All hand on deck. Work for workers and relief for the poor. The combination of opportunity and obligation. A celebration of God’s good work among His people.

Next if we are in a relationship with God we should demonstrate

2 Covenant

Much of what goes on in Ruth requires some knowledge of the Law, and some understanding of Israel’s history through the time of the Judges.

Moab and Moabites were despised…

Yet the law proscribes grace to the Alien, and Ruth is treated with kindness.

The Harvest not only provides wealth for the wealthy

It also provides food for the poor.

The Kinsman redeemer is able to redeem the land of the dead

And raise heirs to carry on the name of the deceased.

These structures are the framework upon which the beauty of the book of Ruth rests.

These structures imply

2.1 Covenant Responsibility.

2.1.1 To provide food for the unfortunate by allowing them to “clean up” the dropped grain at harvest.

This is a legal responsibility not a philanthropic gesture.

2.1.2 To provide an heir lest a family be cut off in Israel.

and these structures allow for

2.2 Covenant Outcomes

Ruth 2:10–13 (ESV)

10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”

11 But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.

12 The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”

Beneath the wings of YHWH Ruth found community.

Finally, expanding on what Ruth says to Boaz in verse 13 people of grace provide

3 Comfort

3.1 Boaz’s goodness comforted Ruth

3.2 Ruth’s goodness comforted Naomi.

3.3 God’s goodness comforted all Israel.

In the Messianic promise extended from this point in the story.

Shut Down

As luck would have it.

The book of Ruth almost goes out of its way to highlight bad breaks and good luck. The author almost seems to be saying that grace occurs unannounced when God’s people trust the structures entrusted to us. God’s providential will is both direct and indirect. More frequently the latter. He works through

good and bad circumstances.

Sickness and health.

Poverty and plenty.

He works through

and because

of the goodness

of good people

and despite

the badness

of bad people.

In the end He gets His way, and what we fail to realize that what He most wants is our faithfulness to Him. He extends covenant loyalty to us. We respond with covenant loyalty to Him. The story of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz is a beautiful retelling of the central tale at the heart of the Bible:

God’s CHESED for His people.

Ruth was a person of CHeSeD. Boaz lived by CHeSed. From a NT perspective they were people who gladly accepted the grace of God and extended it to others.

The Church is the 21st century outpost of CHeSeD.

Here the wandering find community,

Here the crushed find hope in covenant,

Here the widow and the alien find comfort.

That is the promise of the Gospel understood by Ruth and Boaz though they, like the rest of us would need for their descendent Jesus to bring life and immortality to light.