Ruin to Redemption: Ruth Chapter 2 Resilient Faith
Notes
Transcript
How do we respond when life does what it does.
How do we respond when life does what it does.
Highlight the actions of Elimelek and his response to hardship leaving the promised land.
Naomi’s response to the loss and ‘ruin’ in her life and the bitterness that began to take root in her heart.
Ruth 1:21 (NIV)
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.”
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or 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. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
Resilience is defined as the capacity to bounce back. In physics the term resilience is used to refer to a material’s quality to resist deformation or destruction and indeed to be strengthened by pressure or heating.
Justine Allain-Chapman
Resilience produces action
Resilience produces action
Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.
And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”
Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.
Actions are seen by others
Actions are seen by others
Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”
“The Lord bless you!” they answered.
Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”
The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”
So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”
At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 (NIV)
and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders…
Faith in action blesses others
Faith in action blesses others
Boaz blesses Ruth
“May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”
At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”
Ruth and Boaz bless Naomi
So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!”
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.
Faithful actions help to remove bitter roots
Faithful actions help to remove bitter roots
Faithfulness in little things is a big thing.
John Chrysostom
Compare Naomi’s words in chapter 1 with her response in to the actions of Ruth and Boaz in chapter 2
“The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.”
Resilience is shown over time
Resilience is shown over time
Ross Edgley in 2018 become the first person to swim all the way around Great Britain (1,780 miles over 157 days)
After 83 days at sea, having covered 1,000 miles to this point. Ross receives a call from his brother that his father is in the hospital and has an aggressive form of cancer.
Ross says of his response, “In that moment, storms and dangerous currents no longer mattered. Physical I was fine and the remaining milage actually seemed doable. But new of my dad’s health felt like I’d been punched in the stomach and run over that French cargo ship. This is why my first thought was to cancel the sim and return to land so I could be with him and the family. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I had forgotten everything I had learned about stoicism and being mentally tough and was now purely thinking through emotionally charged reflexive reactions rather than logic.”
Scott (his brother) hands the phone to his mom and she says to him, “Dad has asked if you can make him a promise,” she said. “Of course,” was my immediate reply. “You have to promise you will come home… but only via the beach at Margate once you’ve finished what you started. Promise?” As a dutiful son, I promised.
From his hospital bed (Ross’s Dad), in the face of sheer adversity, he still wanted me to realize the Power of Seeking a Higher Purpose.
Ross was only about half-way through this swim. He did finish but it required him to get out and continue to swim each and every day to make it back home.
Ruth’s problem were not solved for her over the course of one day.
So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
These two harvest covered the span of about 2-3 months. This one good day did not erase the fact that she still had to go out again the next day and glean in the fields. When life gave her a heavy blow, Ruth leaned in and committed to doing what was right. Ross’ higher purpose was a good purpose, but for those of us who are believers we have a purpose far greater than that and we have not only purpose but a promise. Paul writes to the church in Rome,
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
