Ruth 2: Refuge of the Lord

A few years ago I was walking on the Isle of Palms in the morning, not on the beach, but on the roads.

Develop the idea that the Lord is a God of refuge

I was walking and memorizing and preparing for my ordination exams.

all we should extend God’s sheltering provision

Proposition The Lord is a God of refuge

We can be fearful, if we step out to extend God’s refuge to others,

We can be too committed to a political philosophy and not show hospitality

Ordinary Faithfulness is costly

Proposition The Lord is a God of refuge

A few years ago I was walking on the Isle of Palms, not on the beach, but on the roads. I was walking and memorizing and preparing for my ordination exams. I did this almost every day for a few months. But there was this one day I was walking down the road and I heard a loud squeak behind me. I turned around and there just 15 or 20 feet in the air were two huge bald Eagles, the size of tereadactals, souring down down the road, and they were coming right for me, well maybe they weren't, but I sure acted like they were. Although it really did not do any good I started running and just a few seconds later I was under their enormous wings. And when they passed I was one relieved they did not sink their dinosaur talons into my shoulders, but I was also awe struck at the beauty of their size and power. They were no sea gull, they ruled the air.

In the Bible God is often described as having wings, and specifically eagles wings, and under those powerful wings, God’s people experiencing refuge, rest, security, like a mother eagle and her young. I imagine people saw eagles power and and size and maybe even saw an eagle protect her young from predators and thought, yes that is what God does for us. Or more likely God made the eagle to display love, to remind his people that like the powerful eagle he takes them under the protection of his intimate fellowship, that under the shadow of his wings one finds the refreshing rest and safety of his love, from external and internal conflict.

Living protection

Commentary on the Old Testament Psalm 17

“God’s wings” are the spreadings out, i.e., the manifestations of His love, taking the creature under the protection of its intimate fellowship, and the “shadow” of these wings is the refreshing rest and security which the fellowship of this love affords to those, who hide themselves beneath it, from the heat of outward or inward conflict.

FCF: Because we live in a world where refuge is necessary. And the church is meant to be a place of God’s refuge. But many times that is not what you see. You see the abuse of power by people in the church, where children are harmed, or women abused.

But many times it is not what we see. You see the abuse of power by people in the church, where children are harmed, or women abused.

But not only is the church to be a place of God’s refuge for external threats, but for internal ones as well. We need refuge from our own conscience’s that condem us for failing not only to live up to the kind of people we think we should be, but also for failing to live as the person God created us to be.

And not only that we need refuge from the tyranny of our on conscience, for failing not only to live up to the kind of people we think we should be, but also for failing to live as the person God created us to be.

Yet many times the church is not a refuge here either, either by adding more condemnation on to people and withholding refuge offered in God’s forgiveness and grace, or by withholding refuge by acting as if forgiveness is not needed, oh stop worrying about that, it is no big deal.

But in our passage we see that the Lord is a God of refuge.

So if that is who God is, what are the implications for his people? What does that mean for his church?

So if that is who God is, what are the implications for his people?

all we should extend God’s sheltering provision

In our passage we see that if we want to be the kind of people experience God’s refuge and who extend God’s refuge it requires

courage, hospitality, and sacrifice

First extending God’s refuge requires

Courage

Ruth tells Naomi that she is going to go and glean in the field, she is going to gather food.

and then in verse 3 we get a summary statement that she did in fact glean. But in verse 7 we get a flash back of how she started gleaning. Through the words of one of Boaz’s servants we see that she is not simply ask to glean in the usually way a poor refugee might glean in the fields, picking up the grain that was forgotten or accidentally dropped. Look with me at verse 7

Ruth 2:2–3 ESV

And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.

Ruth 2:7 ESV

She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”

By asking glean among the sheaves, that is small bundles of grain that had been lined up on the edge of a field. She is being extraordinarily bold, maybe even presumptuous, but the only way for her to glean enough grain for not only herself but for Naomi was for her to glean among the sheaves.

For her to offer God’s refuge to Naomi and provide food for her she had to have courage to ask to gather more. This was a risk for her, there is no police force, no lawyer to call upon, she is a vulnerable stranger, and the only thing that would compel someone to grant her request would be their compassion, something that was very few and far between during the time of the judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

It took great courage on Ruth’s part to risk asking for more and then to stand there an wait, and wait and wait, not moving. Waiting extend God’s refuge to Naomi and provide food for her. The most likely scenario, given that she was a woman, a widow with no family, and a foreigner on top of that would be that she would be beaten and shamed simply for asking. And this may have come even if she had not asked.

Rosa Parks reminds me a little of Ruth. Who instead of standing, just sat and endured the shame so her brothers and sisters would be treated with equity under the law.

Application:

To risk

If we want to extend God’s refuge to our neighbors it will take courage, and maybe you might not face physical harm, but shame, being hushed, or pushed aside, that would probably come. It might mean advocating for the elderly in nursing homes, so that they are treated with the dignity that they have as an image bearer of God, or advocating for the life of the unborn children, in a politically charged culture. If we want to extend God’s refuge it takes courage.

It will take courage, if you catch wind of abuse taking place to stand and say something. You think, oh I would speak up, oh but the temptation to think, well maybe I did not hear correctly, or I don’t have all the facts, well it was not that bad, or that man, no not him he is so Godly, no one would believe me if I said anything anyway.

What ever the situation, if we want to be the kind of people who extend God’s refuge to another it will take courage.

What is needed is courage Or if you are part of an organization and you catch wind that a leader is abusing his power and used his position to take advantage of women, you risk your reputation, the reputation of the organization, or institution so that God’s refuge is extended.

Ruth’s faithful courage

But not only that it will take

Hospitality

Boaz extends the refuge of God to Ruth by showing hospitality.

Boaz allows her to glean, but also grants her request to glean among the sheaves. But that is not all he does.

In verse 9 we read

English Standard Version Chapter 2

Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

He protects her, she is vulnerable, but he ensures she is physically safe.

he goes on to say

English Standard Version Chapter 2

And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn

So instead of her going off and drawing water for herself which is what a foreigner and a gleaner would do, he did not treat her like foreigner but like one of his workers. This would enable her to gather more food.

He is kind to her, not nice or polite, maybe he was, but kind. He offers the sheltering wings of God to her.

Then when meal time comes, he calls her over to eat. She is welcomed to the table and there she eats until she is satisfied, who knows how long it had been since she ate until she was satisfied. She was treated as if she was one of his household.

And then before she goes back out to glean, Boaz says:

Ruth 2:15–16 ESV

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.”

Before we see the significance of this lets look at the gleaning law in Leviticus

Deuteronomy 24:19 ESV

“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Leviticus 19:9 ESV

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest.

So God’s law required that the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow had a right to glean grain in your field, it is required by God.

Boaz, followed God’s law, but he did not simply check off the box, I fulfilled my requirement by allowing her to glean, he went to the heart of the law, that is to offer God’s refuge to those in need.

a gleaner would normally only pick up what was dropped by accident, and not around the sheaves, that is the bundles of gran tha

So he not only allowed Ruth to glean what was left by mistake, he granted her request to glean around the bundles of grain, and not only that he even went further. He said pull some out of the bundles and leave that for her to glean as well.

And in verse 17 we see that Ruth gleaned about an ephah of barley. Which would have been about 29 lbs. This would have been equal to about half a months wage.

Illustration:

My parents renovated a garage in their back yard into a little house that my sister could live in when she needed a place to stay. But then my sister got married and moved into her own home. Then my mom, who apparently knows where Mexican workers hang out, drove there and paid a few of them to work on her driveway, well she is one of these people who’s always telling people about Jesus and so she is talking to this one Mexican and finds out that his family has just come here and they don’t have a place to stay. So one thing leads to another and he and his family live in her back yard for about a year as they got adjusted to living in the US. All the while he is doing work for my family, and my mom is helping with their kids and they became friends.

My parents who are probably about the furthest thing from being a social justice warriors. But like Boaz, they showed hospitality to this family in need.

Application:

needed some work to be done a

Application:

Biblical hospitality is about welcoming the stranger, and extending God’s refuge.

Now because we don’t live in ancient Israel the gleaning law’s seem far off, so does this mean I don’t mow the grass around the edges? Well no, but it does mean that you don’t work so much that you have no margin to give to someone else.

If we want to extend God’s refuge we will need to show hospitality, creating the space to welcome someone in.

But extending God’s refuge by showing hospitality is not simply about following the letter of the law, it is about going to the heart of the matter like Boaz.

Some of you hire migrant workers for instance, like my mom, I don’t know, do you pay them the least amount possible, because they will work for it? I mean Ruth would have probably just gleaned. Boaz did not have to give her more, but he knew the heart of God, and he knew what the gleaning laws were for, to extend the refuge of God.

If we want to extend the refuge of God it will take hospitality, but it will also take

1: He followed the law

Ruth 2:9 ESV

Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”

In verse

First he protects her,

SP1: He followed the law

SP2: He went to the heart of the Law

Sacrifice

Ruth had to sacrifice, she had to risk in order to provide for Naomi, Boaz had to sacrifice profit so that Ruth might come under the sheltering wings of God.

Every single person in this world is like Naomi, in the sense that she was alienated, and there was nothing she could do about it, about her homelessness. Unless someone else did something.

You see sin causes us to be alienated, alienated from ourselves, from each other, and from God.

Underneath a curse, that we cannot remove, and Like Naomi there is nothing we can do about our alienation, our homelessness unless someone else does.

And so Jesus like Ruth, who not only risked life, but lost his life so that we might experience the refuge of God

You see sin causes us to be alienated, alienated from ourselves, from each other, and from God. Like Naomi there is nothing we can do about our alienation, our homelessness unless someone else does.

And Jesus like Boaz, who not only gave up financial profit, but gave up the riches of heaven, so that we might experience the refuge of God.

He did not just risk losing his life like Ruth,

And at Jesus sacrifice, all who come underneath the refuge of the cross, will experience no more alienation, but reconciliation.

Under the refuge of Jesus outreached means that no more are we under a curse, no more does sin define us, no more condemnation, no more, forgiveness, and like Ruth at the end of the day we walk away with more than we could have ever asked or imagined.

Application:

And so if we want to be a church that offers the refuge of God to those under the weight and burden of sin? What do we do? We don’t offer more condemnation, and say you will be forgiven when you clean up your life.

You see sin causes us to be alienated, alienated from ourselves, from each other, and from God. Like Naomi there is nothing we can do about our alienation, our homelessness unless someone else does.

Unless

He scarified himself to bring us under the shelter of his wings

He preserved them under the shelter of his wings, so that he could preserve under the arms of Jesus on the cross

We point to the sheltering arms of Jesus on the cross, and say see, he became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God.

And acting like sin is not a burden, that not refuge either, saying “well no body is perfect” is not a refuge. Self help lingo will not protect us from condemnation. The only refuge for a weary soul is the son of God who offered himself as a full, sufficient, and perfect sacrifice in our place.

if we want to offer the refuge of God to those under the weight of sin is to

If we want to be a church that offers the refuge of God to a hurting and alienated world, we must be a church that hold high the cross of Christ.

Application:

The lord is a god of refuge, and as his people the church is meant to extend this refuge to others. And for us at Chris the Redeemer to extend God’s refuge it will take courage to risk standing with and for those in need, and it will take hospitality to sit with the stranger.

How do we do this? We must be melted and moved, by the sheltering love of God offered to us in the sacrifice of his son Jesus. Melted and moved by the truth that while you were still his enemies, Jesus died for you.

The lord is a God of refuge and it was at the cross that Jesus extended his nail pierced hands so that all might come come under God’s wings of refuge.

hat while we were still enemies, Jesus died for you, so that you might come under the sheltering wings of God. that is the degree we will courageously stand like Ruth, and

It is from

the courage to welcome and offer refuge to anyone in need, no matter race, age, gender, political part, or whatever, we are to offer refuge to anyone in need.

I did this almost every day for a few months. But there was this one day I was walking down the road and I heard a loud squawk behind me.

We are called to show ordinary faithfulness comes at great cost.

And just like he sovereign directed Ruth to Boaz’s field, so he has sovereignty directed us to a home that used to be the office of a doctor.

It will take hospitality, welcoming

the hands that have holes.

I turned around and there just 15 or 20 feet in the air were two teredactal size bald Eagles,

with wings outstreached soring down down the road,

and they were coming right for me, well maybe they weren't,

but in any case I sure acted like they were.

So I started running and just a few seconds later I was under their enormous wings.

And when they passed I was one, relieved they did not sink their dinosaur talons into my shoulders,

but I was also awe struck at the beauty of their size and power.

They were no sea gull’s, they ruled the air.

In the Bible God is often described as having wings, and specifically eagles wings,

And God’s people are often described as under those wings.

Where they experiencing refuge, rest, security,

like a mother eagle offers refuge to her young.

I imagine people saw eagles power and size and maybe even saw an eagle protect her young from predators and thought,

yes that is what God does for us.

Or more likely God made the eagle to display love,

to remind his people that like the powerful eagle he takes them under the protection of his intimate fellowship,

that under the shadow of his wings one finds refuge, the refreshing rest and safety of his love, from the conflict out their in the world and he internal conflict within our own self.

We need refuge, because we live in a world where refuge is necessary.

And the church is meant to be a place of God’s refuge.

But many times that is not what you see.

You see the abuse of power by people in the church, where children are harmed, or women abused, and men belittled.

But not only is the church to be a place of God’s refuge for external threats, but for internal ones as well.

We need refuge from our own conscience’s that condem us

for failing not only to live up to the kind of people we think we should be,

but also for failing to live as the person God created us to be.

Yet many times the church is not a refuge here either,

either by adding more condemnation on to people and withholding refuge offered in God’s forgiveness and grace,

or by withholding refuge by acting as if forgiveness is not needed, oh stop worrying about that, it is no big deal, leaving no real refuge.

But in our passage we see that the Lord is a God of refuge.

So if that is who God is, what are the implications for his people?

What does that mean for his church?

In our passage we see that if we want to be the kind of people who experience God’s refuge and who extend God’s refuge

it requires

courage, hospitality, and sacrifice

First extending God’s refuge requires

Courage

Ruth tells Naomi that she is going to go and glean in the field, she is going to gather food.

and then in verse 3 we get a summary statement that she did in fact glean.

And then in verse 7 we get a flash back of how she started gleaning, how she asked. And what she asked for.

Through the words of one of Boaz’s servants we see that she is not ask to glean in the usually way a poor refugee might glean in the fields,

picking up the grain that was forgotten or accidentally dropped.

Look with me at verse 7

She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”

She asked to glean among the sheaves, that is small bundles of grain that had been lined up on the edge of a field, where she would gather a whole lot more.

By asking this she is being extraordinarily bold, maybe even a bit presumptuous,

but the only way for her to glean enough grain not only for herself but for Naomi was for her to glean among the sheaves.

For her to offer God’s refuge to Naomi and provide food for her she had to have courage to ask to gather more.

This was a courageous request, there is no police force, no lawyer to call upon, she is a vulnerable stranger,

and the only thing that would compel someone to grant her request would be their compassion,

something that was very few and far between during the time of the judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

It took great courage on Ruth’s part to risk asking for more and then to stand there and wait, and wait and wait, not moving.

Waiting to extend God’s refuge to Naomi and provide food for her.

The most likely scenario, given that she was a woman, a widow with no family, and a foreigner on top of that

would be that she would be beaten and shamed simply for asking, and if she ended up in the wrong field, maybe even lose her life.

Rosa Parks reminds me a little of Ruth. Who instead of standing, sat and endured the shame so that people of color would be treated with equity under the law.

If we want to extend God’s refuge to our neighbors it will take courage,

and maybe you might not face physical harm,

but shame, being hushed, or pushed aside, that would probably come.

It might mean advocating for the elderly in nursing homes, so that they are treated with the dignity that they have as an image bearer of God,

or advocating for the life of the unborn children, in a politically charged culture, when it is a lot easier to do nothing.

If we want to extend God’s refuge it takes courage.

It will take courage, if you catch wind of abuse taking place to stand and say something.

You think, oh I would speak up, oh but the temptation to think, well maybe I did not hear correctly,

or I don’t have all the facts,

well it was not that bad,

or that man, no not him he is so Godly,

no one would believe me if I said anything anyway.

Whatever the situation, if we want to be the kind of people who extend God’s refuge to another it will take courage.

But not only that it will take

Hospitality

Boaz extends the refuge of God to Ruth by showing hospitality.

Boaz allows Ruth to glean, but also grants her request to glean among the sheaves.

But that is not all he does.

In verse 9 we read

Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

He protects her, she is vulnerable, but he ensures she is physically safe.

he goes on to say

And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn

So instead of her going off and drawing water for herself which is what a foreigner and a gleaner would do,

he did not treat her like foreigner but like one of his workers.

This would enable her to gather more food.

He is kind to her, not nice or polite, maybe he was, but he was hospitable.

He offers the sheltering wings of God to her.

Then when meal time comes, he calls her over to eat.

She is welcomed to the table and there she eats until she is satisfied,

who knows how long it had been since she ate until she was satisfied.

She was treated as if she was one of his household.

And then before she goes back out to glean, Boaz says:

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.”

Before we see the significance of this lets look at the gleaning law in Leviticus

ESV

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest.

So God’s law said that the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow had a right to glean grain in your field, it is required by God.

Boaz, followed God’s law,

but he did not simply check off the box, I fulfilled my requirement by allowing her to glean,

he went to the heart of the law, that is to offer God’s refuge to those in need.

So he not only allowed Ruth to glean what was left by mistake,

he granted her request to glean around the bundles of grain,

and not only that he even went further.

He said pull some out of the bundles and leave that for her to glean as well.

And in verse 17 we see that Ruth gleaned about an ephah of barley.

Which would have been about 29 lbs. This would have been equal to about half a months wage.

My parents renovated a garage in their back yard into a little house that my sister could live in when she needed a place to stay.

But then my sister got married and moved into her own home.

Then my mom, who apparently knows where Immigrant workers hang out,

drove there and paid a few of them to work on her driveway,

well she is one of these people who’s always telling people about Jesus

and so she is talking to this man named Juan and finds out that his family has just come here and they don’t have a place to stay.

So one thing leads to another and Juan and his family live in her back yard for about a year as they got adjusted to living in the US.

All the while he is doing work for my family, and my mom is helping with their kids and they became friends.

My parents who are probably about the furthest thing from being a social justice warriors.

But like Boaz, they showed hospitality to this family in need.

The gleaning laws that Boaz followed is about welcoming the stranger, and extending God’s refuge to those in need.

Now because we don’t live in ancient Israel the gleaning law’s seem far off to us,

so does this mean I don’t mow the grass around the edges of my yard?

Well no, but it does mean that you don’t work so much that you have no margin to give to others.

That you sacrifice productivity to show hospitality.

If we want to extend God’s refuge we will need to show hospitality,

creating the space to welcome someone in to our life, church, home, and family.

But extending God’s refuge by showing hospitality is not simply about following the letter of the law,

it is about going to the heart of the matter like Boaz.

Some of you might hire migrant workers for instance, like my mom, I don’t know,

do you pay them the least amount possible simply because they will work for it?

I mean Ruth would have probably just gleaned.

Boaz did not have to give her more, but he knew the heart of God,

and he knew what the gleaning laws were for, to extend the refuge of God.

If we want to extend the refuge of God it will take hospitality, but it will also take

Sacrifice

Ruth had to sacrifice, she had to risk in order to provide for Naomi,

Boaz had to sacrifice profit so that Ruth might come under the sheltering wings of God.

Every single person in this world is like Naomi, in the sense that she was alienated,

and there was nothing she could do about it, about her homelessness.

Unless someone else did something.

You see sin causes us to be alienated, alienated from ourselves, from each other, and from God.

Underneath a curse, a curse that we cannot remove,

and Like Naomi there is nothing we can do about our alienation, our homelessness unless someone else does.

And so Jesus like Ruth, not only risked life to extend God’s refuge, but lost his life so that we might experience the sheltering refuge of God.

And Jesus like Boaz, not only gave up financial profit, but gave up the riches of heaven, so that we might experience the refuge of God.

And Jesus reconciling sacrifice granted that all who come underneath the refuge of the cross,

will experience no more alienation, but reconciliation,

no more homelessness, but family belonging.

Under the refuge of Jesus outreached arms on the cross means that no more are we under a curse,

no more does sin define us,

no more condemnation, no more alienation ,

When we live under the refuge of the cross like Ruth at the end of the day,

we walk away with more than we could have ever asked or imagined.

And so if we want to be a church that offers the refuge of God to those under the weight and burden of sin? What do we do?

We don’t offer more condemnation, and say you will be forgiven when you clean up your life.

We point to the sheltering arms of Jesus on the cross, and say see look, behold,

he became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God.

And acting like sin is not a burden, that’s no refuge

saying “well no body is perfect” is not a refuge.

Self help talk will not protect us from condemnation.

The only refuge for a weary soul is the son of God who offered himself as a full, sufficient, and perfect sacrifice in our place.

So it is not that sin is not a big deal, and you should be easier on yourself, because then you will just feel guilty that you are easy on yourself.

It is not that sin is not a big deal, it is that sin has been dealt with.

If we want to be a church that offers the refuge of God to a hurting and alienated world,

we must be a church that hold high the cross of Christ.

The lord is a god of refuge, and as his people the church is meant to extend this refuge to others.

And for us at Chris the Redeemer to extend God’s refuge

it will take courage to risk standing with and for those in need,

and it will take hospitality to sit with the stranger.

How do we do this? We must be melted and moved, by the sheltering love of God offered to us in the sacrifice of his son Jesus.

Moved and melted by the truth that while you were still his enemies, Jesus died for you.

The lord is a God of refuge and it was at the cross that Jesus extended his nail pierced hands so that all might come under God’s wings of refuge.