Vacation sermon 2.2
Dave and I just returned from a mini-vacation. We spent 4 days touring the antique stores of southeastern Indiana. Our venture also had us make 2 brief treks into nearby towns in Ohio and Kentucky. If we would have driven directly to our destination of Batesville, IN, the round trip would have clocked at 436 miles. Instead we put over 900 miles on our rental car. This morning I want to talk about the journey.
About 6 years ago I met an artist at the Will County Antique Fair. When I first entered her booth my spirit danced. The images were so joyful I knew that I had to have one. I took her card and a year or so later we went down to Bloomington and bought 2 small pieces. The purchase was bitter sweet because although I was thrilled to have the 2 small prints, I was in love with a larger piece we couldn’t afford. After we got home I sent Sara an email to thank her for meeting us. I mentioned that I regretted not being able to buy the bigger piece. When she replied to my email, she offered to paint me a smaller version at ½ the original price. Naturally, I said yes.
Point 1: If God goes before you, so will His favor.
Five years later, I got to thinking about Sara, she had been in her 70’s when I met her and had some health issues. So, I contacted the gallery and then started an email correspondence with her husband. They had a new website and I got to see some of Sara’s later work. It wasn’t the same. Although she still used some of the same images, they were dark – the joy was gone. I didn’t say anything about the new work to Dave, just that I had been in contact with Sara’s husband.
You often hear Christians say that if God did it for one person, he can do it for me. My intent this morning is to testify about God’s goodness to me by contrasting the life of Ruth with the journey that Dave & I took last week.
Turn to Ruth 1
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
2 The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3 Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.
7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
They had a plan, a road map to get where they needed to go.
Before I go on, you need to know some background information about Dave’s planning process. My husband is thoughtful and romantic and very generous. He’s methodical; he needs to mull things over in his mind. He is not impulsive. And when something works, he sticks with it. So when he began to plan my surprise birthday get-away, he ran though a mental check list of things that I enjoyed.
1. Get a mid-size rental car.
2. Trip to the gallery.
3. Stay in a Bed & Breakfast.
4. Antique stores nearby.
Then he spent hours on the computer – and you all know the only websites Dave is familiar with have Pez in the address line. So this was a major ordeal for him.
Now what you may or may not know about Lisa, is that she hates, loathes, and despises surprises. And I don’t have a poker face. If I’m disappointed or annoyed, you can read it in my expression. So on the Wednesday before our departure, Dave presented me with his master plan. Mind you, this was just the plan, He hadn’t made any reservations.
Ruth 1: 8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. 9 May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has gone out against me!”
14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
Point 2: Always have a plan, do the research, and ask for input from your traveling companions.
I was really concerned that I would hurt Dave’s feelings when I had to tell him that the gallery stop wasn’t something I wanted to do. So I asked about the rest of his plans. I then jumped on the internet and went to the website of the B&B he had chosen and did a search for nearby antique stores. As I expanded the search, we kept gravitating further and further east. After about an hour, the destination had changed and our entire itinerary had been worked out with plans and directions for 4 days of travel. The directions, by the way, no longer took us through Bloomington so with a quick email, the gallery appointment was cancelled.
Ruth 1: 15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16 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. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Point 3: Be ready to correct course.
With our destination set, Dave made reservations at the Stonebridge Inn & Spa in Batesville, IN. Batesville is about half an hour from the Indiana/Ohio border. The next day I spent a few hours on the Internet, mapping out travel routes and itineraries for each day. On the day before we were to begin our journey Dave and I laid out everything that needed to go in our suitcases. We didn't pack. You can't pack in our house.
You all know that we have a brood of Boston Terriers. Boston's have great separation anxiety. All you need to do is take out the suitcase, and they begin sulking and whining. So in order to pack a suitcase in our house it has to be done at the very last minute when they are being distracted by something else. In fact, if they see a packed suitcase, they will park themselves at the back door and block your exit.
Ruth 1:19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi, ” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 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.”
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Point 4: Not everyone is happy or helpful in getting you to your destination.
The first leg of our journey took us to Carmel, Indiana. Despite careful planning we arrived out an hour later than we had planned. The antique mall that we anticipated was actually a small shop. It was here that we found our greatest bargain of the trip. I purchased a tricolor Bakelite bracelet. Bakelite is the prototype for plastic invented in the early 1900’s. In the 1930s and 40s it was used to make everything from radio cases to jewelry. The most common type of Bakelite bracelet is yellow in color ranging from butterscotch to russet brown. Occasionally you will find a red or green Bakelite and rarer still is black or blue - the rarer the color of the more expensive the cost. In this tiny antique store Dave found a tri-color Bakelite bracelet with a price tag, reflecting a fraction of the bracelet’s worth.
I took this is confirmation of point #1. If God goes before you so goes his favor. Or in other words, this was going to be a great vacation.
We stopped at five more antique stores before arriving at our destination. The bed and breakfast was absolutely beautiful. Because it was off-season, and we were scheduled to stay the early part of the week there were no other guests present. Basically, we had the whole place to ourselves. On Monday Dave had arranged a day of pampering at the spa followed by a gourmet dinner. But it was God gifted me with favor, every moment of the day.
Ruth 2 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess 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.” 3 So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.
4 Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”
“The Lord bless you!” they called back.
5 Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “Whose young woman is that?”
6 The foreman replied, “She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”
Point 5: Arriving at your destination is not the end of your journey.
Tuesday's schedule included a road trip to Florence, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. In Florence, we encountered an antique mall with 500 vendor booths. We also encountered an elderly gentleman and a security guard, who were drawn to us and followed us around the mall, sharing life stories. We then headed to Cincinnati, Ohio. The advertisement boasted of 100,000 square feet of antiques. Yet when we got there, the warehouse was empty. We hadn’t seen another Bakelite bracelet or a single Pez dispenser in two days. It took several hours to realize that this part of the journey was not for us God had us there just to visit with those 2 men.
Ruth 2 8 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 my servant girls. 9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”
10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
11 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.
12 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.”
13 “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls.”
14 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. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her. 16 Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.” 17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. 18 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.
19 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.
20 “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 kinsman-redeemers.”
21 Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”
23 So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Which brings us to Point 6: not all stops on the way are for your benefit.
On Wednesday, we checked out and headed for home, taking a detour to make three stops along the way. Stop #2 in Edinburg, IN turned out to be the largest antique mall we have ever been in. There were 1000 vendors, and for the first time in four days, some of them actually carried Pez dispensers. The thought makes me smile as I remember thanking God for showing Dave favor on the trip he had planned for me. Incidentally, Dave did find a 1980, wonder woman Pez with raised star for the unbelievable price of $2.
Ruth 3 One day Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not try to find a home for you, where you will be well provided for? 2 Is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been, a kinsman of ours? Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. 3 Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.
4 When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”
5 “I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered. 6 So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.
7 When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down. 8 In the middle of the night something startled the man, and he turned and discovered a woman lying at his feet.
9 “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer.”
10 “The Lord bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.
11 And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character. 12 Although it is true that I am near of kin, there is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I. 13 Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to redeem, good; let him redeem. But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives I will do it. Lie here until morning.”
14 So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized; and he said, “Don’t let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.”
15 He also said, “Bring me the shawl you are wearing and hold it out.” When she did so, he poured into it six measures of barley and put it on her. Then he went back to town.
16 When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did it go, my daughter?”
Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her 17 and added, “He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”
18 Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”
Point 7: There is a reward for blessing others along the way.
As a bonus, both Dave and I were off on Thursday. I've often heard people say when they return from being away that they need a vacation from their vacation because they had been so busy. That wasn't the case for us. Dave remarked several times on the trip how peaceful and restful the journey had been.
Ruth 4 Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat there. When the kinsman-redeemer he had mentioned came along, Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down.
2 Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, “Sit here,” and they did so. 3 Then he said to the kinsman-redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech. 4 I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.”
“I will redeem it,” he said.
5 Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess, you acquire the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.”
6 At this, the kinsman-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”
7 (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel .)
8 So the kinsman-redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it yourself.” And he removed his sandal.
9 Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, Kilion and Mahlon. 10 I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from the town records. Today you are witnesses!”
11 Then the elders and all those at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. 12 Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”
And that brings me to my final point.
Point 8: The trip is neither hard nor tiresome when you find your rest in the Lord.