Where Hast Thou Gleaned Today

Where Hast Thou Gleaned Today

Ruth 2:17-20

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this amazing day that the Lord has made!  Well, kids are back at school and regular schedules are starting to take shape again.  I am excited that we are relaunching our Wednesday Night Connect! 

I will be working through Romans at 4:00 with those who wish to join in.

We will have our Wednesday Night Supper at 5:15.

Then at 6:00,

Gary will be starting a study on 1stJohn.

Jerod will be starting a new study on The Class Meeting.

The Gathering will be meeting for their Class Meetings.

Jeme will have their Bible Study.

Children’s Ministries will be meeting.

Youth Ministries will be meeting.

Bells and Choir will be kicking back off soon or are already going strong…

All the things will be launching… and I am so looking forward to it all.

Make sure you find your place to Connect to God and to one another on Wednesday nights!

And, don’t forget… August 30thwe will be having another mini-celebration for our 175thAnniversary.  Worship will be at 10:30… so mark your calendars.  We will have a special guest appearance by Suzanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley! So you won’t want to miss out on that!

But, we aren’t here to talk about Wednesdays or the end of the month, we are here today to open God’s Word and see what God has for us!  Specifically, we are talking about the scripture and the stories behind the windows that surround us each Sunday as we worship.  I am calling this, The Window’s to Faith series, as we consider those who gave these windows, restored these windows, but more importantly, the stories of faith behind these windows.  Today, we are looking at an image of a window that comes to us from the story of Ruth.

Sermon Slide

The “Where Hast Thou Gleaned Today” window depicts Ruth gleaning in the fields of Boaz.  We will get to that in just a moment, but first I want us to consider who gave this window.  This window was initially given by the Young Ladies Society.  While this organization no longer exists, it was an organization across denominations that incorporated mission work with older youth and young adult ladies.  I didn’t find a lot about our group here at First Methodist, but what we know is that it was absorbed into the Women’s Mission Society and later, after the merger of the Methodist Episcopal North and South as well as the Methodist Protestant Church in 1939, it became part of the Women’s Society of Christian Service.  In 1969, after the merger of the Evangelical United Brethren and The Methodist Church, it was known as The United Methodist Women.  Today, here in Corsicana, we call the group First Methodist Women.

Through the years, the organization has been known for its focus on Bible study, local community service, global missions, and support for children, youth, and women.  I’m not going to go any deeper in this as the First Methodist Women will be leading us in worship on September 20thand I don’t want to steal their thunder.

But it is so fitting that the Young Ladies Society would give us a window that focuses on both the story of Ruth and the idea of The Harvest being plentiful.  And, we will get into both of these ideas in the next little bit.

I must also note that this window was masterfully restored by Stanton Glass in memory of Billie Love McFerran.  Those who knew Billie Love do not need an explanation, but for those who didn’t, Billie Love taught Sunday School here for 60 years!  Many of those years, she invited the High School students into her home weekly, and taught them scriptures, leading numerous youth to Christ.  She was a fixture in this church from 1947 to 2015.  And that was just her ministry here at First.

She was also the first registered female stockbroker in the state of Texas.

She taught women how to independently take care of their money in a time when women weren’t allowed to even have a checking account without a husband cosigner.  Though the pioneer era of Corsicana was long over by the time she arrived here, she is considered a pioneering business leader in Navarro County.

It is significant that this is the window restored in her honor.  The providential care of God for Ruth… the idea of planting and harvesting, visible in this window, is evident not only in the story of Ruth but also in the life of Billie Love.  And, I am so thankful for the work the Riverfront Capital and Jim Pannell are doing to honor her in town.

But, we aren’t here to talk about Billie Love, we are here to hear from God as we consider the story of Ruth… and before we get into the story of Ruth, let us pause for Prayer.

<Prayer>

The story of Ruth is one of the most touching stories we have in Scripture.  It is a story of great sadness and of great redemption.  I spent a Sunday on this topic when we looked at the Great Women of The Bible last year.

The story begins as Naomi and Elimelech head off on an adventure with their two sons, sickly and dying – that’s an actual translation of the boys' names… This family of 4 headed off to Moab in search of food to survive the famine.  Then Elimelech dies, the boys marry – like most men, it looks like they married up – then the boys die too, leaving the three women to grieve together the loss of their loved ones.

Then, Naomi receives word that the famine is over, and she prepares to return home.  I’m sure it was a touching moment as Naomi encourages the women not to follow, but to return to their families, and Orpah does, but not Ruth…

Ruth gave up everything.  She had no future with Naomi.  She had no people if she went with Naomi… She was an outsider, a foreigner.  And yet, in one of the most touching phrases we have in Scripture, Ruth tells Naomi:

Ruth 1:16-17

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.”

The rest of the chapter shares how Naomi returned to Bethlehem with Ruth and the people rejoiced, but Naomi – whose name means “lovely” or “Delightful” tells them not to call her by her name because her life has been destroyed… she wanted to be called “mara” which means “bitter” or “desperate.”

Sermon Slide

Chapter 2 begins by introducing new characters to the story and Ruth’s desire to help Naomi and herself survive.  Then Ruth goes out into the fields to glean the leftovers. It was proper for the owner of a field to allow widows and orphans to work behind the workers and pick up the scraps.  It was like welfare, if you will.  But not everyone followed this custom.  Some would chase the widows and orphans out of the field while others would harass them until they left, so there’s always a chance that you will be kicked out.

Ruth came to a field, did as the customs allowed, and worked all day behind the hired harvesters.  When the owner of the field arrived, he was greeted by the workers, and he offered a blessing back to them. This owner, named Boaz, then asked about the young lady gleaning in the field.  He discovered that she had been married to a relative and was the daughter-in-law of Naomi, both of whom were widows. Their situation was well known among the people of Bethlehem.  Once he knew that there was no man in her life, he approached her and invited her not only to glean the leftovers, but to come and glean from around the sheaves.  He then told his workers to “accidentally” leave a little extra behind.  When it was time to eat, he invited Ruth to eat with his workers.

When the day of work was done, Ruth had an entire basket of grain, along with the leftovers from the meal Boaz provided.  When Naomi asked where she gleaned, she said it was in the field of a man named Boaz, and Naomi replied that he was a relative, and not just any relative; he was a “guardian-redeemer.”

This goes on for a while, then Naomi hatches a plan.  I mean, Ruth can’t live with Naomi forever, so she needs a man… and not any man; she needs a redeemer.  She needed a relative who would accept her into his family and care for her, even though everything she had… everything he got out of the deal… would actually belong to her deceased husband and her offspring.

If you recall the story, Boaz works to become Ruth’s redeemer, he accepts her into his family and she becomes his wife.  They have a child together, and that child becomes the Grandfather of King David.  If you follow the ancestry of King David, you find that it leads to Jesus.

From the lineage of Ruth the Moabite, we get our redeemer… Jesus.

So, the scripture reference itself comes to us as a part of this story of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, the family redeemer, leading to the redeemer of humanity.

But the image itself and the harvest lead us to think of other things… like Jesus words to the disciples after his encounter with the woman at the well in John 4:

John 4:35-38

Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

When we think of the harvest available as the followers of Jesus, the fields truly are ripe for harvest.  Most of us grew up in a time when it was advantageous in society to be a follower of Jesus.  When a person moved to town, they would find a church to plug in to… When a young person went off to school, they would be involved in a campus ministry and a church… the expectation was that everyone was a Christian.

Over the past 20-30 years, that has changed.  A generation of young people, who are now adults, grew up with church as an option.  They live in a world that questions everything and seeks to deconstruct every aspect of what we believe as followers of Christ.  In my book, Evangelism for Today, I detail the decline of Christianity in the Western Hemisphere, and specifically in the Methodist movement… The church has been in decline for decades, but here is the great thing today… Young people are returning to the idea of faith.  They are asking questions.  They are interested.

The generation of adults who walked away from the church is starting to ask questions. They are wondering what is happening in the world and how God fits into their life.

What I am saying is that the fields are ripe for harvest.  

AND YOU ARE THE HARVESTER… well sometimes.

In 1 Corinthians 3:6, Paul tells the Corinthians that he “planted, Apollos watered, but it was God who gave the increase.”   When you plant a seed, there is nothing you can do to make that seed grow, except to water it.  Planting starts the process… but to plant a seed alone doesn’t do anything.  The seed needs water, so someone has to water the seed… and as that seed absorbs the water and the nutrients from the soil, something miraculous happens… something you and I cannot control… what is that miracle? Life… life emerges; God produces the life that emerges from the seed, and once the new life matures, someone has to harvest the crop from that one tiny seed that was planted and watered by someone else.

Friends… you are seed sowers… You are called to go and sow the seeds of God’s faith into the world around you.  Maybe it’s offering to pray for your waitress at the restaurant...  Maybe it’s caring for the needs of a person… maybe it’s telling someone about your experience with Christ… It could be any of these things and thousands more…

But here is the thing… if all we ever do is plant seeds and no one waters them, then how will the new life spring forth?

You are not only planters… you are also called to water.

You may be watering the seed that you planted, but you may also be watering the seed that someone else planted… and someone else may be watering the seed that you planted.

To put it another way, Romans 10:14 tells us, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

The planting and the watering are all part of that process of sharing the word of God and the love of God with those who need to experience the truth that is Jesus Christ.

Your job… our job… is to plant and water. That is it.  God does the rest.  God is the one who gives the increase. God is the one who brings new life into the soul where the seed has been planted and watered.

Then, a beautiful thing happens… God ripens the field for harvest, and we get to walk alongside the workers of God and participate in the harvest.  We get to be a part of seeing someone come to faith in God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

When I look at this window, I see the story of Ruth, redeemed by Boaz.  But I also see a field that is ripe for harvest and the opportunity to not just glean… to just pick up the leftovers…

No, the field is ripe for harvest, and you and I are invited to harvest alongside the other workers.

So, then, the question we should all ask ourselves every time we walk in this building and see this window is, “Where hast thou gleaned today?”  Or, maybe we could update the language and ask, “Where has God used you in the harvest today?”

That is a question, not just for the days we walk into this building, but maybe it is a question we should ask ourselves every night before we go to bed… and if we haven’t been a part of planting, watering, and/or harvesting that day… we can plan to do better tomorrow and join in the harvest!