Sermon Tone Analysis

Uncommon Week Two:

Uncommon Generosity

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

February 29~/March 2, 2008

 

Now that was cool; Pink Floyd in church is a little uncommon.

Cool, but uncommon.

No more turning away.

And even cooler than hearing it would be to fully live it out, to be people of the no more turning away.

That isn’t their idea, that is God’s idea.

That is part of the uncommon life that God calls us to, to be people who don’t simply turn away but who turn toward the need, toward the poor, and actually do what God’s heart demands that we do.

That would be uncommon.

Today in our series in the book of Ruth, /Uncommon/, we are talking about uncommon compassion~/generosity, about being the people of the no more turning away, and what we are going to see is that this is a /really/ big deal to God, not small, big.

Yet, this is a part of God’s heart that is easy to miss.

In fact, over the years, many Bible scholars and rabbis hundreds of years ago wondered why the book of Ruth was even in the Bible.

Many over the years questioned if Ruth should even be in the Bible, because it is essentially this story about God taking care of two poor widows.

Their thinking was, “Big deal, so God takes cares of two widows.”

But as we will see today, they completely missed the heart of God, a heart that identifies with the poor and that commands those of us who are rich to do something uncommon, to join the ranks of the no more turning away, to see the responsibility that the haves have to care for the have-nots.

And, yes, you are rich.

Think this through with me a minute (use flipchart).

Let’s take the world’s population of around 6 billion people and reduce it to 100 for the sake of this illustration.

If the world’s population today was 100 people, here is what would be true of those 100 people: 70 do not know Christ.

30 are white.

51 are men, which means only 49 are women—which also means some women are kind of out of luck on finding a man.

80 live in substandard housing, meaning that they are either homeless or live in inadequate shelter.

50 are malnourished.

70 cannot read. 1 of them is a child under 10 who will die today because he or she does not have enough to eat.

And 6 of them have over ½ of the world’s wealth, those of us who live in the USA.

Now for those six people, us, who have been given 50% of the world’s wealth, do you think that God might want to say something to us? Do you think we might want to think more deeply about our responsibility, especially when we understand the heart of God? Today, let’s open up our hearts to understand God’s heart.

Let’s turn to this little book in the Bible, Ruth, and be open to what God might say to us about uncommon compassion.

Before we turn to Ruth chapter two, let me give a quick recap of Ruth 1 for those who weren’t here.

The story starts with Naomi enjoying a wonderful life with her husband and two boys, but all that changes when famine hits.

They got to a neighboring country, where Naomi’s husband and eventually two grown sons die.

This leaves Naomi and her two daughters-in-law in a bad spot, because in that culture being widows with no one to care for you was about as bad as it got.

Women had no rights of ownership, no way to make a living, and if you had no one to take care of you, then you were out on the street with nothing.

Naomi was too old to remarry, her parents were dead, and she had no grown children.

Ruth was a foreigner with no family in the region of Bethlehem, so these two women were penniless and destitute.

They were the lowest of the low in that culture, and had no good prospects apart from the grace of God.

You might remember that they return to Bethlehem “just as the harvest is beginning,” which is a note of hope, signaling that something good might be about to happen.

Today is a story of God’s heart for not only these two women, but for the billions that they represent.

Let’s pick up the story again in Ruth 2:

 

Slide: _____________ ) Ruth 2:1-3

 

/Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.

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./

Already we see God taking care of these ladies.

The narrator lets us know about this relative named Boaz, whom Naomi has discounted as too distant or too typical of people in her day to even care and Ruth has never even heard of.

Naomi is paralyzed with anxiety and depression and isn’t even trying to survive, but Ruth is not so paralyzed.

Ruth decides to try to go out and join the harvesters and try to talk them in to letting her have some of the grain, so that Ruth and Naomi will have food…more about that in a minute, but the narrator lets us know that the field she picks isn’t just any field, but one belonging to Boaz, who is going to become very important in the story.

And here we see God at work on behalf of these two ladies.

It seems coincidental that she picks that field, because she just picked a field, but it isn’t.

It is God at work.

The narrator of Ruth makes this obvious, especially in the Hebrew.

The phrase in the NIV “as it turned out,” literally in Hebrew says, “/Her happening just so happened to happen in Boaz’ field./”

In other words, this is no accident.

God is at work.

Had she gone to another field, she would have come up empty, but she goes to this particular field.

In the Old Testament law, God had made provision for people like Ruth to be able to join the harvest and get food from any farmer’s field.

Most farmers just blew that off and didn’t allow people like Ruth on their land, so Ruth was taking a big chance.

God was very strong and very specific about the responsibility of landowners to care for the poor, the widow, and the alien.

The haves were to care for the have-nots.

There were two big provisions in the Old Testament law to make sure that happened.

The first provision was that at every harvest, the farmers were instructed to leave part of the grain for the poor to come and get it.

Slide: _____________ ) Leviticus 23:22

 

says, “/When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

Leave them for the poor and the alien.

I am the Lord your God.” /

/ /

Slide: _____________ ) Deuteronomy 24:19-22

 

says, /When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it.

Leave it for the alien, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God will bless you in all the work of your hands.

When you beat the olives from the trees, do not go over the branches a second time.

Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless, and the widow.

When you harvest your grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again.

Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless, and the widow.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.

That is why I command you to do this./

So, every harvest, they were to leave sections of their field and leave behind part of their crops for the poor to be able to gather food.

The second provision was established through an every 3 year tithe.

Slide: _____________ ) Deuteronomy 14:28-29

 

/At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites…and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows, who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands./

Every three years, they were to collect 10% of their grain, and give it to the poor, so that they could store it, sell it, and use it for food.

The idea with both of these provisions for the poor was this: those who had land were not to live on 100% of their income, but instead to reserve a portion of their income for those who had no way to sustain themselves.

From God’s perspective, if the haves acted like they had no responsibility for the have-nots, if they just consumed 100% of their income and made no provision for the poor, they were not people worthy of his blessing.

They were people who just ticked him off.

And in the time when Ruth lived, in the time of the Judges, most Israelites just chose to tick God off by blowing off these two provisions for the poor.

In fact, for most of Israel’s history, most people blew it off, because it was a lot of income.

To annualize it, they were basically saying goodbye to about 15% of their income every year if they did what God wanted them to do to care for the poor, and that wasn’t even including the tithes that went to the temple.

That was a lot of money, more than most were willing to part with to care for a bunch of poor widows, orphans, and aliens.

Because it was so rare that an Israelite actually practiced God’s instructions on this, this is why the passage says that Ruth “just so happened” to pick this one particular field, because Boaz, as we will see, was a godly person, which was very uncommon.

He was not the kind of person to blow off God’s heart for the poor, in a culture where almost everybody did blow off God’s heart and instructions.

So you could say that Ruth lucks out by picking this one person’s field, but we of course know that this was no dumb luck.

God was at work.

Let’s return to the story, as Ruth has gone to this field in hopes of being able to glean.

The workers let her follow behind them without chasing her off, because this is Boaz’ field.

Soon, Boaz shows up to check out how the work is going:

 

Slide: _____________ ) Ruth 2:4a-c

 

/Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, ‘The Lord be with you!’ /Already we see Boaz as uncommon, even by his greeting, “The Lord be with you!”

This was a time when almost nobody gave a flip about God, but Boaz was uncommon.

Boaz then notices Ruth: