God is in the Loyalty

This Advent season, we’re telling a different kind of Christmas story. Instead of beginning in Bethlehem with angels and shepherds, we’ve been traveling back through Jesus’ family tree, where the branches are tangled, and the stories are anything but tidy. We’re calling it the Messy Christmas Story because the miracle of Christmas isn’t that God arrives in perfect places, but that God keeps showing up in the mess.

Three weeks ago, we met Abraham and Sarah, who wrestled with waiting and took matters into their own hands. Still, God remained faithful. Two weeks ago, we stood at the margins with Tamar, who refused to be forgotten and claimed her place in God’s promise. And just last week, we met Rahab, a woman with a past and very little power, who risked everything to trust a God she barely knew. Her story reminded us that sometimes grace enters the world through people no one expects.

And today, that same grace keeps unfolding. We meet Naomi and Ruth, two women marked by loss and bound by loyalty. Their story begins in grief, not glory. Like Rahab, they step forward in trust, believing that God isn’t finished yet. 

Because sometimes grace does not look like an angelic announcement or a shining star. Sometimes grace looks like one person choosing to stay. It looks like showing up, holding on, and choosing hope when everything around us says to give up. It looks like loyalty that’s strong enough to carry someone through their darkest season. This is where today’s story begins—right in the middle of loss, love, and the quiet, stubborn faithfulness that God uses to move the world toward redemption.

The story of Ruth and Naomi is truly tragic. There was a famine in Bethlehem, so Elimelech and his wife Naomi, along with their sons Mahlon (Mah-Lin) and Chilion (Kee-lee-un) moved to Moab to survive. While they were there, Elimelech died. So, the sons took care of their mother. After their father’s death, Mahlon and Chilion eventually marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. As the scripture recalls, “When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman [Naomi] was left without her two sons and her husband.”

If ever we find a messy story for our messy Christmas story, it is this story. Ruth lost her husband and both of her sons. She is stranded in a foreign land with no family to care for her. With no sons to care for her and no brothers to give to Ruth and Orpah, Naomi decides she must go home to be with her family and will send the girls home to their families, as they are young enough to remarry. At first, both daughters-in-law resist. They won’t leave her. Then Naomi gives an impassioned speech in which she names her old age, making it impossible for her to have another son and to marry a new husband. Naomi feels abandoned, even by God. 

Even at the very beginning, the messiness of Naomi reminds us that the Christmas story has room for our mess, too. Christmas was never meant to be neat and pretty. Advent holds space for people who feel like they’re in a season of emptiness or lament. Maybe you’ve lost a spouse or a family member or a close friend. Perhaps you’re in a new season in the life of your family as your kids get older and move away. Maybe you’ve lost a job and are unsure of what the future holds. No matter your less-than-merry feelings, the Messy Christmas Story makes room for you. God knows your story. God knows where you are. God loves you, and God meets you where you are, because the messy Christmas story is not afraid of grief, sorrow, or loss. It makes room for people who feel bitter, empty, or forgotten.

The story of Ruth and Naomi invites us to see how God is at work in the messy parts of our lives this Advent. One of the things I love about this story is that God does not directly appear. God does not appear to Ruth or send an angel down to Naomi. God doesn’t step into the scene. Yet God is clearly at work. While Orpah goes home to her family, Ruth makes a radical decision. She decides to stay with Naomi. She gives an impassioned speech, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” Notice in this speech, she doesn’t make a theological argument. She doesn’t try to explain why she is doing what she is doing. Instead, Ruth offers the gift of her presence. She embodies faith by showing up and staying, by clinging to Naomi even when Naomi offers Ruth nothing. Even in Naomi’s bitterness, and anger, Ruth offers her presence.

In a season of promise, Ruth shows us that faithfulness, not power, status, or certainty, is what moves the story forward. God’s presence is found in Ruth’s decision to stay. In this decision, God’s grace is at work, preparing the future of both Ruth and Naomi. In fact, Ruth’s faithfulness highlights the important work of carrying the faith for others when they cannot carry it themselves. Ruth wasn’t an Israelite. She was from Moab. Moabites had their own gods and systems of worship. Yet even in the midst of Naomi’s doubt, Ruth offers to carry the mantle of faith for her. One theologian frames this up, writing, “Ruth will worship the God that Naomi believes abandoned her. She swears to do what four other people—Elimelech, Mahlon, Chilion, and Orpah—could not do: stay. Not even death, their household’s ubiquitous unwelcome guest, can stop her. In so doing, this foreign woman offers a model of biblical friendship and piety…” In other words, Ruth is faithful, cares for this holy friendship, and offers a model of piety we can all learn from. 

There are seasons of life when it can be challenging to see God at work. When we struggle, we often cry out to God, wondering where God is. How could God let our loved one die? If God really loves me, why did God let me lose my job? If God is faithful, why did my marriage and family fall apart? Why did God let me get this diagnosis? Why hasn’t God healed me? When questions like these come out, it can be difficult to believe fully. 

Sometimes, we go through the motions to do them, but we doubt. And sometimes, we, like Naomi, believe, at least on some level, that God has turned against us. Yet in seasons like these, God is at work through the presence of others. God is working through the friends who check on us. God is working through the ones who pray for us even when we aren’t sure that we can pray anymore. God is at work through the church family who walks alongside us, carrying the faith for us when we aren’t quite ready to do it yet. Those are the ones who say, “Where you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I’ll stay.” In your Naomi season, who was your Ruth? Who was the person that God used to continue to witness to you, care for you, and carry the faith for you? 

These are the people who God uses to work through the messiness of our lives. Sometimes, it can be the least likely people. Sometimes, it can be the ones we would rather not carry the faith for us. Sometimes, it is those that society would cast aside. Think about it, in ancient times, Ruth would be the least likely candidate for God to work through. She was a widow with no brother-in-law to marry her. She was an outsider to the faith. In going back to Naomi’s home, Ruth would be a foreigner in a strange land. But she becomes the great-grandmother of King David and an ancestor of Jesus. She does so not because of her power, but because of her love and faithfulness. The family of God includes the stranger and the outcast. God welcomes the least, the last, and the lost and calls us to work until all are included in God’s love, mercy, and grace. And, the family of Jesus includes the immigrant, the outsider, and the overlooked woman who says: “I’m not leaving you.”

And then there is Boaz. A man formed by the Torah’s laws of compassion and justice, Boaz sees Ruth. He notices her. He honors her dignity and her humanity. He steps into her vulnerability with protection, generosity, and care. In Boaz, we glimpse what it looks like when God’s people take God’s commands seriously: he welcomes the immigrant, embraces the outsider, and makes space for the one the world ignores.

He ensures that Ruth, the immigrant, the outsider, is safe. He tells his workers to leave extra grain for her. In doing so, Boaz becomes a living embodiment of God’s heart for the stranger. He shows us that faithfulness is not merely believing the right things; it's grounded in living out our faith. A faith that feeds the hungry. Gets to know the other and offers a part of ourselves to them; it is welcoming those that the world often overlooks.

The Torah commands, “When you reap your fields, do not gather everything. Leave the edges for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner.” Boaz hears this not as a suggestion but as a mandate, and he responds to the Torah's mandates and precepts. The Gospel always leads to the restoration of dignity for those who have been pushed to the margins. It always moves toward justice, hospitality, and welcome. And church—this same mandate rests upon us. We are called to see the outsider. We are called to notice the immigrant. We are called to feed the hungry and stand with those who are hurting. We are called to witness God’s love to those the world forgets.

We are called to make room, real room, for those who do not fit neatly into our story. Why? Because they already fit into God’s story. Ruth reminds us that the people we consider “outsiders” might just be the ones through whom God is carrying the faith forward. I have witnessed this time and time again. Those who were once on the margins now actively participate in ministering to us.

When Bassett Memorial United Methodist Church announced its discontinuance, it also told the community it would host one last meal. This meal was unlike the others…it was catered, but its significance had nothing to do with the food. What made it a sacred and holy space was the voices that rose around the tables. Voices that spoke testimonies of gratitude and blessings from those whom the church had ministered to for years. People on the margins—neighbors who had been fed, welcomed, and seen—stood up and said to the people of Bassett Memorial, “You made a difference in my life. And even when this place closes, God will still use you. Have faith!”

It was a beautiful and holy moment. A moment where the community, the very people the church had been ministering to, ended up carrying the faith forward for those who now felt loss, hurt, and despair that the church, which brought them hope, was now closing. It was the gospel made visible: the ones once considered “needy” becoming the ones who now ministered back to the church, restoring dignity, offering hope, and reminding them that God is not finished with their story.

You see, God has a way of turning bitterness into joy. God does the same for Naomi, who was so overwhelmed by grief that she asked to be renamed “Mara,” meaning bitter. Her life felt undone. Her hope felt spent. Her story seemed over. But God was not finished.

Through Ruth, through this immigrant, this outsider, God speaks just as he did through the community of Bassett. God renews Naomi’s story. God lifts her from despair and moves her from bitterness to belonging, from sorrow to love. Ruth becomes the very vessel through which God restores Naomi’s life, reminding us that sometimes the people we least expect become the ones who carry us back to joy. Renewal comes when we find ways to participate in the calling of God! 

Ruth’s story continues towards restoration, not just for Naomi but for the whole of creation. She bears a child with Boaz, and this child is the father of Jesse, the father of David. God moves within the most unlikely persons and situations to bring about the kingdom-building work of God. Soon another child will be born, in Bethlehem, one who is born to a woman who is also on the fringes of society. Through this child God will bring salvation to the whole world!  

So, church, may we be a people who make room. May we welcome the ones God sends. May we carry the faith for one another. And may we join God in the holy work of turning bitterness into joy, strangers into family, and ordinary lives into vessels of grace.

For the Christ who came through Ruth, who came through David, who comes now for us, is still being “born” into the messy places where love is most needed.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.