Call Me Naomi

†CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 66:1-2, 4

Paul Mulner, Elder

Minister: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give him glorious praise.

Congregation: All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, we will sing praises to your name!

†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION

†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #219

“O Worship the King”

†CONFESSION OF SIN & ASSURANCE OF PARDON

based on I Tim. 1:15; I Pet. 2:24

Minister: Let us confess our sins to our Holy God:

Congregation: Eternal God, you do not change. You have revealed yourself to us in your word. You call us to worship in spirit and in truth. We confess that we often worship not your true self, but who we wish you to be. We often ask you to bless what we do, rather than seeking to do what you bless. We seek concessions when we should be seeking guidance. Forgive us, O God.

Forgive us for selfish and half-hearted worship; worship that tries to shape you into what we want, rather than shaping us into what you want us to be. You have drawn near. Help us to meet you here. Give us love and reverence for you, bowing before your unspeakable majesty, and living for you now and ever, in Christ. Amen.

Minister: This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, that we might be dead to sin, and alive to all that is good.

CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE. I Timothy 5:1-6:2a

Pastor Austin Prince

THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS

“They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:18–19, ESV)

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

†PSALM OF PREPARATION #119N

“Your Word Sheds Light Upon My Path”

SERMON Ruth 2:14-23 // “Call Me Naomi”

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Guide us, O God, by your word and Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in you truth find freedom, and in your will discover your peace through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Text: Ruth 2:14-23

Ruth 2:14–23 ESV

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.

AFTER SCRIPTURE

The Lord bless to us the reading of His holy word, and to His name be glory and praise.

Intro

If you remember, as Ruth and Naomi travelled back home to Bethlehem after losing their husbands and the loss of their homes, Naomi was broken and angry, wishing to be addressed as “Mara” (a name meaning bitter) instead of Naomi. “El shaddai”, she said, (addressing God more in the name which means almighty instead of his covenant name of YHWH) he has brought calamity upon me, sending me out full and bringing me back home empty. He has dealt very bitterly with me”, she said (Ruth 1:20-21).

Her’s is an interesting case. She has not lost a view of God’s sovereignty, but she has perhaps lost trust in God’s goodness. She knows whose hands are bringing her circumstances (she says as much in v.21), but she is unsure if those hands are trying to hurt her or to help her. Adding to her circumstantial vulnerability is an insecurity of who God is. In Naomi’s mind she has concluded that ‘God is against me’.

And so ended chapter one and the last we have seen of Naomi.

But the ending of chapter two has Naomi singing a different tune. No longer are her hands clinched in anger but open in praise. No longer is she questioning who God is and if he is faithful. And no longer does she wish to be called Mara (or bitter).

So what happened? What did she see that took her bitterness away?

What changed her mind about God? What washed away her fears and insecurity? What could wash ours when we feel that God is absent, or indifferent, or even against us?

What changed for Naomi was the actions of a redeemer. Or, at this point in the story, a potential redeemer. Boaz and his kindness (his hesed), brought hope and the nagging temptation, this draw for despair and abandonment, was taken away.

We looked at the beginning of Boaz’s kindness and actions towards Ruth last week, and we have left a little more of that kindness to look at today before moving on to Naomi’s altered response. Let’s look at vv.14-17.

Boaz’s Hesed

“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. When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.” (Ruth 2:14–17, ESV)

Last week we began to see how Boaz had taken note of Ruth. He regarded her diligence in her work, and he recalled how her reputation had proceeded her, of her great faith and loyalty, not only to Naomi, but to YHWH when she could have gone back to her parents, to Moab her home, or to the household of one of Moab’s young men. Boaz instructed her to remain through the harvest season in his fields, that she was under his protection, and that even if she needed a drink all she had to do was ask and it would be provided to her.

Boaz prayed that YHWH would bless Ruth, rewarding her in full for her devotion. And we noted that this prayer was starting to be answered by him. He became the means of her reward. To this woman, and by extension Naomi, Boaz became the means of their provision, protection, and of Ruth’s integration into the covenant community. He went beyond his obligations to Ruth and embodied this concept of hesed that is the theme of this book. Hesed being this barrier-breaking excess of love and kindness that exceeds obligations and expectations. It’s a position that says, I owe you nothing more but I give to you everything. And in this we noted last week how Boaz serves as a picture of Christ, our provider, protector, and our Redeemer.

But before we leave this scene of Ruth and Boaz in the field. Before Ruth goes home to tell Naomi about her extraordinary day, there is one more interaction between Ruth and Boaz that articulates his hesed.

At some point during the work day Boaz calls Ruth to come and join him and his workers for a meal. A meal of bread and wine (you can make the connection there). Boaz isn’t too lofty to eat alone; he condescends to be with his workers. And Ruth isn’t too presumptuous, either, taking her seat to the side of the reapers. She was richly provided for, eating to the point of fullness and having more left over. And on top of it all, Boaz instructs his young men to take out some of the bundles and leave them for Ruth to take. No longer does she merely pick up the scraps that are left over, but she is given the pick of the harvest, going home, we are tole, with an ephah of barley (which is two-weeks worth of food from her one day of work). Again, Boaz demonstrates a lavish provision. His actions help us to see with more clarity just how ridiculous and lavish God’s hesed is to us. We are in a position of total need, just as the Canaanite woman says to Jesus, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Matt.15:27). We come to Jesus with nothing to offer. Our situation in life is so desperate that all of mankind must glean from the scraps of common grace just to get by. But God says to us, “come and buy without price (Isa.55:1). Come and take and eat. Have the sheaves not just the scraps. Come and be so filled that your cup runneth over. Come under my protection. Come and sit with me, take the bread and drink the wine. Take my flesh and my blood and be reconciled to God. Be fully covered.

And like Ruth, we are to respond with gratitude and humility, knowing that there is nothing that we are bringing to the table. There is a temptation always to miss this –to feel that God is responding with all of his many benefits to our work and effort, that his grace to us is the wage we deserve (that we are owed) for our diligence. But what does that communicate to God? It says, “you need me”. It says, “you are lack something that I am providing”. Maybe God needs us to encourage him or to serve him. No, He needs nothing from us. But He is the God of hesed. He has no needs and he is not obligated to pour out this grace to us, and yet He does morning after morning and moment after moment, even spilling His own blood for our souls. Worship is the response. Worship.

Ruth, in relation to Boaz, was being redeemed. And when Naomi was finally informed as to what had happened to Ruth, she just sees right past Boaz, knowing exactly whose hands were at work here.

Naomi’s new response

“And she (Ruth) 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. 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.” 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.” 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.’ ” 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.” 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.” (Ruth 2:18–23, ESV)

I love the little detail that was a brief aside earlier and is brought back in this section, that Ruth had food left over from her lunch with Boaz and brought it back to Naomi. Clearly Naomi was shocked at the amount of harvest that Ruth was carrying, but she must have been even more perplexed that Ruth had somehow been provided for with a meal from someone’s home. “Blessed is the man who took notice of you”, she says.

As an aside, sometimes we are in Ruth’s position here. God’s provision is so abundant that we bring some of the grace home for others. It becomes their food. And to the bittern Naomi, this provision becomes the turning point of her story. May God bless us as we take some leftover grace back home.

As the story begins to unfold, as Ruth tells Naomi that the man’s name was Boaz, Naomi bursts into praise: “Praise God”, she says, “whose kindness (hesed) has not forsaken the living or the dead!” She is eating Ruth’s leftovers–a provision for the moment, before her is enough harvest for a month, and at the name of Boaz, she sees that God is providing for her indefinitely. “Boaz”, you say? “He is the right man. He is capable.” All of her bitterness is melting away. God hadn’t abandoned her. God hadn’t forsaken her. Though she couldn’t see the way, God had brought the right man, the qualified man, who brought grace and hesed.

Bitterness has to do with broken expectations. Naomi expected God to act in ways that He didn’t, even believing him to be her enemy. “If this is going to be my circumstance, God must be cruel or indifferent or gone.” This is the primal lie. The same repackaged and rebranded story from that serpent’s mouth from the beginning. But what fear and need and poverty and anxiousness confuse in our mind, the hesed of God clears away. When we see past the mirage of who we think God is and we see His hands and touch his scars, when we see Him draw us in and offer us the bread and the wine, all of our expectations are shattered and the bitterness must go. There is no place to be sour as we are lavished with the grace of God.

I can imagine Ruth saying to Naomi, “So, do you still want us to call you Mara?”

“No. You can call me Naomi. I was wrong; glory be to God.”

Closing

You may not think that you have a Boaz. That this story is nice for Ruth, but where does your help come from? At the name of Boaz Naomi knew that they had the right man on their side. He was the go’el, the kinsman redeemer. He was of the clan of Elimelech, one of their closest redeemers. She knew that this was from the Lord, and that it was much richer that just a source of bread.

No matter your circumstances, our souls are not satisfied even when our temporal needs are met. We are more than that and need more than that. We need a Redeemer. And at the name of Jesus, we know that we have the right man on our side. He is our kinsman Redeemer, who is born as a man and yet fully God. He it is who stands in the right place and position for our redemption, and he it is who joyfully and completely pays that redemption price in full.

Like Peter walking on the water, when we look down, when we are looking at our circumstances, we see with eyes of fear, not knowing how we can stand or that God will hold us. Naomi was doing the same. But when we look up at Christ, when we see Him as He is, we are steadied by glory. We see that our fears were lies after all. That God isn’t against us. That he will never leave us or forsake us.

As Romans 8 articulates so well,

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31–39, ESV)

†HYMN OF RESPONSE #256

“God Moves in a Mysterious Way”

THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Minister: Lift up your hearts!

Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.

Minister: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!

CONFESSION OF FAITH Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A’s 32, 34

Minister: Christians, confess your faith in Christ!

Congregation: I am called Christian because by faith I am a member of Christ and so share in His anointing. I am anointed to confess His name, to present myself to Him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a good conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity.

We call Him ‘our Lord’ because - not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood He has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of the devil, and has bought us, body and soul, to be His very own.

INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE

// ad hoc invitation or use below if needed //

As we were reminded from Scripture this morning. God is faithful. And though it does cause us to remember, this table is no mere memorial to that faithfulness. The bread and wine offered here is tangible evidence of that faithfulness as the grace of God, through union with Christ, is given to those who receive these elements by faith. This meal boldly proclaims and exhibits the faithfulness of God, who so loved his own people, sinners as they were, the he became man for their salvation.

No one should come to this table without recognizing that it is his faithfulness, and not ours, that makes us worthy recipients. Those who may come to receive the Lord’s body and blood are those who rely entirely on God’s faithfulness for their hope and assurance.

This meal is for those who are sorry for their sin and those who hate their sin. This table welcomes all who belong to Christ through repentance, faith, baptism, and continuing union with his Church. If you do not repent of your sin, you must not come. If you do not believe you have sinned, you must not come. But if you know your sin, and confess it, he is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and this table is for you. Come, touch, taste and see the faithfulness of God.

PRAYER

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS

Please partake of the elements as the words of institution are read.

WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND SHARING OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Minister: The Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, took bread;

and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of me.”

After the same manner also, he took the cup when they had supped, saying, “This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

†OUR RESPONSE #572

“Gloria Patri”

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;

as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

world without end. Amen, amen.

†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord makes His face to shine upon you and is gracious to you. The Lord lifts up His countenance upon you and gives you peace. Amen.