Ruth

some notes on the the beginning of the story. First there is word play at work in the text. Bethlehem is the land of bread, or of loves, and there was a famine there. But God brings bread back to the land of bread.

Secondly Naomi thought of herself as cursed by God, this is important because it represent what we believe and what is true about God does not always match up. But in that there are reason that might exist for us to think like that. In this Ruth only had her mother-in-laws imperfect theology to learn from and it was still enough for her to follow her to Judah.

the story has a lot to do with a greater response to situations that are outside the control of the characters. what should you do when there is a famine in the land, travel to a place that has food. But is that being faithful to What God has ordained? this question comes up in the context of when the characters lived. Look to the book of Judges to see if Israel at this point in time was behaving in a way that honored the convenet with God. Additionally when Sons and husbands have died, it is then when Naomi is free under her own authority to go back to her people. But she might see it as a dangerous thing to go back to her community after fleeing them at a time of famine regardless if she had any say in the matter to begin with. This should be treated carfullly as not to read to much into the story. Additionally having the death of the house does sound like a curse was placed on her, in the context of the ANE would anyone think any different. Even though Naomi believed that God had cursed her, she was still going to rely on him and invoke his name because he was her God. She didn’t have any other choice. She correctly identified that the gods and goddesses of the Moabites held no relief from the “curse” of YHWH.

What is the main point of this first Act in the book of Ruth. The main point is that when there is trouble we see Naomi blame God for it but also look to him for a solution. IN that there is a real human reaction to suffering where we do not have to have a justification for what we do sometime we believe and do things that are contrary to what we know to be true. In this Naomi is acting like any other person in her situation. She is reacting to what has been done to her, and looking for a solution that makes sense in her context. There is no leaning on God in this it is all human wisdom, similar to what we would do if we had a business go under or a bad year in the harvest. She was looking at the mecenisme that would keep her safe and leaning on those as much as she could. But she did not think that God was going to help her in this, at this point she believed that God was actively working against her in the narrative.

Outline

Ruth 1

Main Idea: The main idea of the book of ruth is the idea of the need for a heir for the family. This drives the entire narrative throughout the first chapter all the way to the genealogy at the end of the book.

What is the main idea of chapter 1: Naomi is grieving the loss of her husband and sons, and feels the weight of the responsibility for her daughters-in-law. (Not the main idea but the main point in the narrative) What is the main idea from this. Naomi feels that God has cursed her. She went out full and came back empty and changes her name. She does not recognize the devotion that Ruth and her other daughter had for her at this point in the story. She does not recognize who God is moving in her life to redeem her back to her people.

Preaching Idea: Suffering forces us to look at God.

Main idea 1 Suffering forces us to look at God when we would rather live in the world comfortable

Ruth 1:1-5

when there was famine in the Land Elimelech had his family flee from the hardship to live in a land that did not know God. Instead of dealing with what was going on in the community there was a choice to stay comfortable and find an easier way for the family to survive.

The covenant given to the people when they entered the Land and the promises attached.

Ok why was going to Moab wrong when we read through the entire story there is nothing wrong with Moab. At most we might be able to read the statements that Ruth was a Moabite as pejorative but even then its not necessarily the case that the narrator paints them in in a bad light. well if its not coming from the narrative we have to look closely at the first couple of words here in the first verse. We have “when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land” Well we have some cluse to this. If anyone has read Judges we know another phrase that gets tossed around a lot is “every man did what was write in their own eyes” and with that in the back of our mind we might look at the actions of Elimelech in a new light. He probably was not looking to YHWH for guidance and sustainment in the land that God had given to him and his ancestors. In fact it looks like Elimelech was abandoning what the Lord had give to him. Lets remember that this entire story is set in a time when the Covenant was in effect and the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy were present in the land. It almost seems like the famine was not because of just natural weather patterns. That there was a curse on the land becuase of how the people refused to Worship God in the manner that they were supposed to and in faling to do so they were under the curse. And a lot of you might be thinking well I don’t see that in the text at all and your right but we need to be thinking along these lines when reading the Old Testament. Especially if we are going to interpret what happens here to Elimelech and his sons. It looks like he was unwilling to confront what was going on in his town and decided to flee. and that is what he did and that is what he lead his family into. Instead of looking at what was going on and seeing the hardship that was coming and looking to God. He ran away. And it even looks like his Sons continued in that same way even after he died. they lived their for 10 years in the world outside of the land that God had provided for them and in a land that did not recognize YHWH as God. When suffering came they looked to the world to try and make it easier on themselves and lead their families in the direction. We might wonder when we read this passage if it was the women who were barren because there are so many different parallels to Rachal and Saha in his book. But we are also given a picture of Perez and his mother was Tamar who was married to two sons who chose not to have kids and were killed. Now I don’t know if that is in view here, its not mentioned by the narrator but it is interesting that we are looking at Perez’s family line and we have a women who does not have difficulty giving birth once they are with a different man. So when I read this I read it as both Mahlon and Chilion were infertile instead of the women who were barren. And I feel this is appropriate as they were living outside of the will of God in Moab. When there father died they had the opportunity to go back to their land in Judah but they didn’t they could have turned back to God but they stayed in Moab. They could have lead their families in way that would have had them already have connections with the community Naomi went back to but they didn’t. they kept their families in the world and it caused sufferings for them, and for their families.

When I am talking about this it seems self evident that Elimelech should have stayed in Judah but we don’t really think that way most of the time. When the going gets tuff and we don’t know what to do, because our family need food we do the first things that come to mind. A lot of the time we do them without going to God for guidance because we are reacting to what is going on. And in our reaction we do the first thing that we have trained our bodies to do. If we are looking at a sports and we have been training to kick a soccer ball for the last 10 years of our live and then we go to a football game and we are expected to kick a 50 yard feildgoal we wont be able to do it. we haven't been practicing on how to kick a football we have been kicking a perfectly round soccer ball. and its the same in life. when we problem solve how many of us include God in the conversation, for most people they make a decision based on how smart it is, or it will provide for the family, or if it makes sense in their carrier but hardly anyone askes the question is this what God wants me to do. And we might ask that question when it comes to big decisions when we have a lot of time to think but in our day to day decisions we don’t ask. Its more of just living life one moment at a time without the impute from the Lord. and that means when there is a tragedy or an emergency we react in our own knowledge and without the guidance from God because we haven’t even thought of asking him until the decision has already been made.

Unfortunately it is only when there has been enough suffering do we start to think about God again. If we read through this again we see that after the death of her husband and her sons Naomi finally looked back to Judah and its at this point that see sees that the Lord has given Food to the land of bread. it is an interesting thing in the narrative that she looks back to the land were she came from after all that has happened but we need to remember that this is a patriarchal society. After her husband died the head of the house so to speak was her first born son and after her sons died then she was the head. We see this later in the story where in the purchasing of the field. That Boza must ask for the purchases from Naomi and Ruth is included in the transaction because she is under the authority of her Mother-in-law. there are some interesting studies to be done around this topic but what is important here is that She looks back to Judah were her husbands and sons did not. She was looking for food and the place that had food was were the Lord is.

Main idea 2 Suffering forces us to lean on God when we still don’t know what is going to happen

And know we come to the main chuck of this first act in the story where Naomi tells her daughters to go back home. And in this we are struck by the practicality that Naomi must have learned from her husband. Because this is all very practical advice. It comes from a place of love for sure. and I want to point out at this point in the narrative that both of the daughters-in-law are devoted to Naomi Ruth 1:10 “And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”” Both Ruth and Orpah loved Naomi and this must say something about her character. We see her in her suffering in this first act and we see her at her lowest but in the midst of this we see just how much she was loved. Its not in the text but Naomi was more then just a smart lady, as is illustrated in the next act but she must have been a loving person to have this sort of devotion from her two daughters-in-law.

Its a common trope in entertainment and in story telling to have the mother-in-law not get along with the wife and there are certainly a truth that combining families does produce some friction but i don’t think there was anything but love in the relationship between Naomi and her family. She was well named and she must have been a very pleasant person.

but Naomi starts with a blessing that comes up throughout the Ruth and that is “May the LORD...” and in that she is invoking what we talked about before a sense of covenant idea when she gives a blessing over her daughters. And in this first blessing we find the first mention of the word Hesed

Hesed translated by the NIV as kindness, or other translations as loving-kindness “cannot be captured with a single English word. It is a term of endearment and commitment, incorporating all the positive attributes of God: Love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, and loyalty demonstrated in acts of devotion, especially toward one with whom one enjoys a family or convent relationship.” page 86 Ruth By Robert Hubbard

and as I mentioned before this is a large part of the overall story and how the characters act toward each other and toward God. When we think about how Suffering forces us to lean on God we want him to act in a heses way. We believe rightly so that God is kind, he is merciful, he is good, What does it say in James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” That is a promise that we can live on and in this we can ask the Lord to bless others in that same way. In her time of suffering Naomi’s love for her daughters drove her to ask God to treat these two Moabite women in the same way he would treat her as a Israelite. And we need to think about that for a second because we miss what that means. it means Naomie was asking God to act toward the Moabites who were under the judgement of God because of their actions in Numbers 25 and if you need some refresher on that account it tells about how the Moabite women seduced the men of Israel and had them worship foreign gods at the command of Balaam. I don’t know if Naomi knew about this if it was passed along to her from her family but in asking God to bless her daughters she is both acting as head of the house, in trying to secure their future but more than that she was leaving it up to God and asking him to act in a hesed manner to them. I love this about Naomi because she gets a bad rap in this first chapter and for a lot of us we read what is happening and we see someone who has given up and is rejecting God but I don’t think that is quite right. Naomi is very active in these first couple of verses and she acts in hesed ways toward her Daughters wanting the best for them regardless of what will happen to her when she returns to Bethlehem.

So what do we learn from this and how do we act in our own suffering. When we suffer we must lean on God in all things. the first thing and hardest thing in the world to do when we experience trials and tribulation is to let go. We need to be in control because if we are in control we can keep things from hurting us. But that is not the reality that we live in. In fact most things in the world are outside of our control and we only have the illusion of having any sort of power of what is going on in our own lives. We have seen it so much in everyone's life, when sickness comes, when we loose a job, when we don’t make the next promotion, when we have to move to a new city. In all of these things we are reacting to things that are outside of our control. And when we do we try and white knuckle it by holding everything so close that know one knows just how scared or sad or hurt we really are. We want to present to the world our own strength and our own intelligence and how we were able to solve the problem with our own recorcess. But even in that sort of thought it hardly provides any comfort because the anxiety of it failing and the possibility that we might be found out for the weak person we really are eat away at us until we are nothing but a shriveled wreck. All we have to do is give up control to avoid this, all we have to do is look around and recognize that we are not in control and that God is in control. Even when it looks bad if we are able to do this we can do two things.

First we can ask God for help and he will answer us. He can give us answers on what to do and where to go and how to do it. He really can, I know people are looking for answers to prayer and if we start to pray and we start to lean on God he will answer our prayers. He delights in giving good gifts to those who ask. Just look at the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:9–11 “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” and the parallel passage in Luke 11:11–13 “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”” and in that passage we have the giving of the Holy Spirit who even helps us in our prayers when we don’t even know how to ask for the things that we need. he will help us in our growing and take care of us.

secondly we can bless others and ask God to do the same because we have been freed from looking at ourselves and our own situation. Naomi here was able to recognize that God had given bread to Judah and she was looking to God and because she was looking toward God she was able to bless her daughters-in-law. In the same way we are able to take care of the people around us if we are focused on God. For anyone in authority in a house, Parents especially it is much easier to wish the best for your children and lean on the Lord in that instead of your own will when you yourself have your eyes focused on God. We are firm believers in believers baptism in this church and with that comes a very large chuck of Faith that God will bring our children to the Lord in his timing. We might prep them for the plunge so to speak but each one of us has to trust in the Lord that he will work on the hearts of our sons and daughters. And that is terrifying, because the only desire we have for our children is for them to know the Lord as we do. WE wish we could force them into that but the truth is we need to give control of that over to God and trust that he will act in a Hesed manner toward them and toward us.

lastly the perfect example of what this looks like on how to lean on the Lord in the midst of suffering and to act in hesed way toward someone because of you love for them is in Ruth. Look at the difference between the two Daughters-in-law. they both loved Naomi we see that but one was able to look beyond herself and act in a way that matched what it meant to Love another more then herself. We have read the story enough to know the positive outcome but at this point Ruth was trusting in God for her provision, she loved her mother so much she was willing to go to a place that would very likely reject her for who she was. But as Naomi sought to bless her daughter Ruth became a hesed blessing to her. She acted in a way that went above and beyond what was necessary and truly acted in a way that pleased God. And that is where a lot of the narration is focused in this book we see Orpah act as one who is taking good advice do, she left Naomi and followed her advice but Ruth stayed out of devotion to her Mother-in-law she saw her suffering and said I will stay to help her and be a blessing to the person that I love. In my suffering i will lean on God, and for Ruth this meant giving up her gods and her cultural heritage to follow Naomi. And in not knowing what was going to happen she was able to lean on God as she followed Naomi to Judah.

Main Idea 3 Suffering forces us to look at our belief about God and how he moves in our lives.

the last portion of this act comes as Naomi and Ruth enter into Bethlehem. And its shorter but it is where we see the extent of how sorrowful Naomi is. In this we see a real person in suffering and destress. And Naomi gets a bad rap for what she says here but in these words are the frustrations and sorrow of someone who does not understand what is going on and how she is supposed to make sense of her lot in life. it is unsanitiesed and it is real. Why do I say that, well in Naomi we have a women who is deeply practical and partnered with her husband to move outside of the land, so that was wrong but she was able to recognize that God had blessed Judah and brought food to the Land, which is God. She recognizes that God is a God of hesed and will act in loving kindness and she asks that of him on her daughters, but she does not believe that he as done that for herself. She truly believes that she has been cursed by God. and it is a true accusation here “the LORD has testified against me and the almighty has brought calamity upon me” and in this we are confronted by a real truth that sometimes what we believe about God and what we know able God are not true. In her humanness and what she knows and believes about God he has cursed her. her husband and sons are dead and it will be the end of the line of Elimelech. She has every right to change her name to mere which means sorrowful. for that is what she is.

In suffering a lot of time what we really believe comes out and in a lot of cases that means that there are a lot of beliefs that we have that do not line up with what scripture teaches. this is what we call functional theology and confessed theology. And most of the time we don’t have a matching pair. it the man who says that eveything is in the Lords hands and says that the Lord is in control but when he goes to work he is a micromanager getting in everyones business and making sure it is done the “correct way” becuase he can’t lean on anyone at work becuase they will do it wrong and its better for him if he just does it right the first time. You see what I am talking about their. He says with is mouth that the Lord is in control but in his actions and in how he lives out his live there is nothing worse that letting anyone, especially God have control over what he is doing. And this is present all over our lives. And unfortunately the more that we look at it the more we recognize that what we say and what we do are two different things. And a lot of time these are never addressed until something forces us to address them. when we experience suffering and when we are faced with trials those discongrancies between what we know is true and what we believe is true come to the forefront. And its hard to face them because it means that we have been living in sin against God, that we have been trying to do everything our way instead of Gods way. and when we read the response that Naomi gives to the women we see that. She left and came back empty because of God, but no where in there is the acknowledgement that maybe going to Moab was a bad idea, or there needed to be any repentance in that.

And isn’t that true in our own life as well that we see trials as committed against us for no reason. this is happening to me, but we know that God does not cause us to sin and the trials that come are such that we can overcome them with the help of god and that any temptation comes from the devil or our own sinful nature. and how we guard against this is to try and bridge the gap between what we know is true and what we practice. So knowing that God loves us and seeks for us the best is the start, and if Naomi would have understood this and recognized this she might have had a different understanding of what happened to her in Moab. In the same way when trials come they are an opportunity to put what we know about God into practice because we truly believe what we read. and we practice what we preach, so to speak. So suffering and trials force us to look at what we Believe about God.

So in review trials force us to Look at God in three ways. we have the opportuinty to look at him instead of the world, we can look at him and lean on him when we don’t have control over our lives, and last trials force us to translate what we believe about God into practice and forces us to address difinances in our own understanding of God and who he is.