She Doesn’t Even Go Here

2004 was a great year — if for no reason other than the fact that the greatest comedy movie of all time was released. Perhaps my attachment to it is mostly driven by the fact that I had just recently graduated from High School when I first watched it, but something inside of me just melts into the beauty that is the Cult Classic — Mean Girls.

Have you ever seen Mean Girls? Ok well if you haven’t, let me just fill you in on the plot really quickly. The main character Cady, played by Lindsay Lohan, is a new student in her high school. She just moved back to America from South Africa and what she finds really quickly is that things are definitely different here in this school than anywhere else that she’s been thus far in life.

Mostly, the school is run by a group of stuck-up girls called “The Plastics” and their leader Regina George. Cady befriends 2 outcasts and they begin a plot to bring down Regina and her band of mean girls. Over the course of the film Regina’s reign of terror begins to crumble, as does the general culture amongst females in the school.

In an effort to bring about reconciliation, a teacher sets up a bit of a public forum for the girls of the school to air their feelings and secrets. In the midst of that scene, a very weird girl starts talking about a world she envisions where everyone gets along. From the back, someone yells “she doesn’t even go here!” Turns out the girl isn’t even a student at the school.

But this quote also encapsulates the main theme of the movie. It’s a story about how outsiders make their way into the mainstream social fabric of the school and create major culture shifts and reconciliation that make the school a more hospitable place for all students to experience.

And this is such a strange, yet applicable part of the Good News of Advent. We celebrate that the established order has, and will again come face to face with the God of the universe at some point. And because of that, the world will be transformed to become a more hospitable place for everyone.

And that work actually started to become real and evident long before Jesus entered the scene.

We are in the middle — the very middle- of a sermon series called “Bad Company” where we are looking at the women mentioned in Jesus’s family tree and seeing how these 5 outsiders and people who would generally be considered “Bad Company” have been immortalized, redeemed, and celebrated as members of the family of God.

So we have talked about the deceptive black mailing widow Tamar, the prostitute Rahab, and today we get to one of my favorite stories in the bible. Let’s find out who’s up next:

Matthew 1:5 NRSV

and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse,

There we are already. Just like one generation. Ruth.

Ruth’s story comes to us shortly after the conquest of the land of Canaan by Israel. In Israel’s history this is a period called the “Time of the Judges.” Israel is basically just a disorganized confederacy of tribes. There’s not a lot of leadership continuity, and there is almost no religious continuity. Who would have thought that the children of the people who couldn’t follow God when God was literally leading them through the wilderness would struggle to follow God once they settled in the land?

But regardless of that, this is the time period that we find Ruth in. Now Ruth is from a land called Moab. There was a famine in Judah and a man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi have fled from Judah to the land of Moab to survive. They end up staying there, and their two sons marry Moabite women — Orpah and Ruth.

So just know that this is not something that would be celebrated by Israelites. If the Bible wasn’t inspired by God, I doubt that the book of Ruth would exist — and here’s why. Earlier in scripture, in the book of Genesis shortly after Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed there is a disturbing story about Abraham’s nephew Lot. Lot’s wife dies as he and his family are fleeing from Sodom. And there is a story about how Lot’s daughters have illicit relations with him — and it’s explained that the offspring from that relationship are the origin point of the nations of Ammon and… you got it — Moab.

So to Israelites Moabites are the offspring of shame. Not good company.

What happens next is tragic. Elimilech and both sons die, leaving Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth widowed.

Naomi decided to go back to Judah, to Bethlehem to see if her family will care for her. She sends the girls home to their families, but Ruth refuses. She insists on going with Naomi to Bethlehem.

When they arrive they find a relative of Naomi’s husband — a man named Boaz. Boaz gives Ruth permission to harvest barley from his field, and actually insists that she only harvest from his field. Then he orders his people to protect her — knowing that she is a female in a patriarchal society, and a female who is from a despised foreign land. She has no connections to protect her, but Boaz assumes that role for her.

Ruth, astounded at this kindness, reacts in this way

Ruth 2:10–13 NRSV

Then she fell prostrate, with her face to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?” But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. May the Lord reward you for your deeds, and may you have a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!” Then she said, “May I continue to find favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, even though I am not one of your servants.”

It turns out that Ruth’s actions have been noticed and are being talked about. What kind of person leaves their family and their nation to willingly come into a life of poverty in a hostile place? Who is this curious character?

Boaz even invites her to stay for something to eat, and then she returns home to Ruth for the evening. When she arrives this interaction occurs.

Ruth 2:19–23 NRSV

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 name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.” Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin.” Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay close by my servants, until they have finished all my harvest.’ ” Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is better, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, otherwise you might be bothered in another field.” So she stayed 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.

It turns out that Boaz is a relative of Naomi’s husband. And this is very good news, because it means that Boaz can play a very important role in the future of Ruth and Naomi.

Because they are both widows they have no property rights and no real way to improve their social and economic standard. We are in an ancient familial patriarchal society. A woman’s lifestyle was only as good as the lifestyle of the male that she was attached to. And for a widow that was no lifestyle at all.

But a woman could have her life rearranged by what we call a “kinsman redeemer.” They could be brought back into the family through marriage and kindness of a family member of their late husband. Boaz, it turns out, is an eligible suitor to be a kinsman redeemer for Ruth, as well as Naomi as they are the widow and mother of one of his relatives.

I know that’s kind of a dense technical thing to wrap our minds around, but just know that it’s pertinent to this story, and by proxy Jesus’s story.

Naomi tells Ruth to go back to Boaz while he is at a place called the threshing floor, which is where a farmer would sort and process their crops. It was tedious and exhausting work, and Ruth goes there and does some good old ancient near eastern flirting with Boaz. This is what that looks like:

Ruth 3:7–12 NRSV

When Boaz had eaten and drunk, and he was in a contented mood, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came stealthily and uncovered his feet, and lay down. At midnight the man was startled, and turned over, and there, lying at his feet, was a woman! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over your servant, for you are next-of-kin.” He said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter; this last instance of your loyalty is better than the first; you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not be afraid, I will do for you all that you ask, for all the assembly of my people know that you are a worthy woman. But now, though it is true that I am a near kinsman, there is another kinsman more closely related than I.

They confess their love and Boaz is like “listen I want to marry you, but I’ve gotta check with my people first to make sure no one closer to your late husband in familial relation wants to marry you.

Kind of strange, but there were rules to these things back then. But the important thing that Boaz says is that he knows Ruth’s loyalty. The word for loyalty is a word that is typically reserved for describing God’s love for Israel. Boaz has seen Ruth live out this loyal love in the way she has left everything to follow and care for Naomi. He’s seen it in her insistence on getting close to Boaz, and Israelite man, despite the fact that she doesn’t really belong in Israel. She’s an outsider. She doesn’t even go here. But she’s got the willingness to go out on a limb in order to make sure Naomi doesn’t have to live her life on the margins.

And friends this is the Gospel. This is the work that Cady and her friends, a group of outsiders, accomplished in Mean Girls. This is the work that Ruth accomplished as Boaz eventually got permission to marry her and redeem her and Naomi. This is the work that Jesus reflected in the inclusion of Ruth in his family tree and it is the work that Jesus continues to complete with every single heart that is touched with the redeeming message of Gospel love.

This is the work that you and I do every time that we welcome the stranger, the outsider, the broken down, beat up, rough around the edges, or whatever people into our family and say to them: I have seen you. Jesus sees you. Come in. Be redeemed. You belong here with us. You are part of this family.

If you’re hurting, feeling like a stranger in a strange land: this place is a place where you are seen as good company. This is a place where you can belong. This is a place where we love you. And I want you to know that.

The hardest thing that most people ever do in their lives is leave the comfort of their own Moab and grace the doors of a church. They’re afraid that the life they’ve lived disqualifies them. That the place that they come from is a place that’s looked at by the church with shame. And it’s time that we remember Boaz. Boaz saw Ruth for who she is — not where she came from.

Jesus saw people for who they were, not where they came from, and not from the sum total of the consequences of their lives. Jesus saw them as family. Jesus sees you as family. And that right their… that’s the good news. That’s the gospel.