Ruth 1:19-22 - Bitterness blinds us to the providence of God

Welcome

So glad to be together to worship God

If you are a little bit frustrated by all of the rules we have to follow, that’s ok

If you don’t agree with all of the mandates and rules, that’s ok too

There is room for Christian freedom on this issue

BUT, thank God we do not gather and unify around our agreement on matters of opinion like the seriousness of COVID or the validity of government mandates

We gather and unify around the gospel - what Jesus has done for us to forgive our sin and reconcile us to God, to adopt us into his family and give us a great hope for our future

We gather in order to worship the triune God together

So I’m asking all of us to honor all of the rules, not because I’m asking you to agree or change your personal conviction on this, but rather I am asking you to defer out of love for the body, out of commitment to a greater purpose for our gathering, out of a desire to come together with the people of God to worship him even if we have to obey some silly rules in order to do so

Introduction

The story of Ruth so far

This is a story about a family from Bethlehem in Israel in the days of the judges in Israel

These were dark days for Israel, characterized by terrible acts of injustice, depravity, and sin

There was a famine, so this family left to go to the country of Moab

While there, the father of this family and the two sons died, leaving Naomi alone

Eventually, Naomi hears word that there is once again food in Israel, so she decides to go back

One of her daughters in law, Ruth, pronounces a fierce and relentless devotion to Naomi and returns with her

So in our short passage today, we see Naomi’s return to Bethlehem and what we learn about her perspective on her life thus far

Remember, Ruth is a story that is ultimately about God’s providence

His wisdom and foresight to see the end from the beginning

His reign as king over all of creation

His control in every circumstance to bring about his good purposes

But Naomi has experienced such trauma and crisis in her life that it makes it very difficult for her to see God’s providence

Has the difficulty and pain of life ever made you wonder how God can possibly be at work?

Have your circumstances ever caused you to doubt God’s goodness or even his existence?

I. Naomi’s return to Bethlehem - Life leaves it’s scars upon us

Ruth 1:19 ESV

19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?”

Naomi and Ruth come to Bethlehem to a strange reaction of the town

The word הום = to be outside of one’s senses, to wander about

To be confused, to murmur, to be in an uproar

The town is very surprised to see Naomi, and we might say her return “blew their minds”

Why did the town react so strangely?

She shows up out of the blue after more than a decade

No way to announce her journey and arrival, so they are not expecting her

After ten years, they at best perhaps forgot about her or at worst presumed that she and her family must be dead

She shows up without her husband and sons

She is accompanied by an unknown woman who they recognize as a Moabite

The town asks, “Is this Naomi?”

This is probably not because they literally can’t tell who she is

But after ten years, they are so surprised they can barely recognize her

Aside from the strange conditions of her return, she probably simply looks different

The stress of her extreme adversity has likely taken a toll on her such that the woman returning from Moab is a very different woman than the one who left

Life leaves scars on us, doesn’t it?

Look at pictures of president’s at the beginning of their term as president and the end of their term as president

You can see the drastic effect of 8 years of carrying the kind of weight that the leader of the free world carries

The stress, the pain, the sorrow, the anxiety, the loneliness leave their marks

Many of us carry the marks of suffering and pain we have endured

The adversity we have had to overcome

The stress and anxiety we have struggled with

The sin that has been committed against us

The sins we have committed against others

These things leave their mark, don’t they?

I think this is even true on the level of societies and humanity at large

Our country bears some scars and marks from our history, don’t we?

Our sin has scarred and wounded us

The ghosts of our past still haunt us

Our world bears the scars of thousands of years of sin, depravity, injustice, bitterness, hatred, suffering, violence, and idolatry

And we all have this sort of underlying angst and stress

Things are so broken, we don’t know how to fix them

We want to believe that someone else knows how to fix them

But look around folks - no one knows!

The incredibly sad truth of those scars is that they don’t just live in the past - they haunt our present and, if we’re not careful, they can dictate our future as well.

II. Naomi’s response - The suffering of life can embitter us

Ruth 1:20–21 ESV

20 She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

Naomi hears the town whispering about her and responds

We find out that Naomi’s suffering has seriously embittered her

She tells them to not refer to her anymore as Naomi, but Mara

The name נָעֳמִי comes from the root נֹעַם and means “pleasant, beautiful, delightful”

The name מָרָא comes from the root  מרר which means “to be bitter”

Naomi’s explanation for this bitterness comes in four statements

The Almighty has caused me to be exceedingly bitter (הֵמַר)

Though I went away full, the LORD has brought me back empty

The LORD has testified against me

The Almighty has done evil to me

Naomi’s cannot see beyond the horizon of her own pain, and so she is unable to see God’s gracious providence

This is revealed in three misconceptions Naomi has

She believes God’s sovereignty is cold and unfeeling

She believes in a version of God’s sovereignty and power that is without compassion, without love for her, without mercy, without good purpose for her

She cannot see any human agency in what has happened to her

She believes God’s purposes toward her are malicious

He has brought her back empty

He has brought calamity, lit. “done evil” to her

She believes that “she” went away full (emphasis on her agency), but “God” brought her back empty (emphasis on God’s agency)

She is essentially taking credit for going away full and laying the blame on God for bringing her back empty

She believes she has no hope left for her

She went away full, and came back empty

This is an interesting perspective - what does Naomi mean by “full” and “empty”

She could be referring to material, physical provision of her needs

In this case, she is blatantly wrong because she in fact did not go away “full” nor return “empty”

She left because of a famine when she had no bread, and returned when God had visited his people and ended the famine

She could be referring to relational fullness - her family was alive when she left, and she is alone as she returns

This is probably her meaning, and we will come back to the truth of this

Application: Does our frustration and sorrow in life drive us to view God in unhealthy ways?

Some of us have a conception of God as simply the JUDGE, in a cold and unfeeling sort of machine way

He is not warm, he is not compassionate, he is not loving, he just renders judgments, pulls strings, makes decrees

This is a view of God’s sovereignty without grace, power without compassion, divine will without mercy

An interesting twist here is that we will often ascribe bad things to God’s sovereignty and control while claiming credit for good things

If things are going well, it’s because I made good choices, I am smart, I am talented, I did this or that or whatever

When things go bad, “why is God doing this to me?”

This view can then drive us to believe God is against us rather than for us

The pain of our life sometimes makes us wonder if God is angry with us, punishing us, against us

God might love other people, but he surely doesn’t love me

This might even lead us to believe that God is not even real

If God loved me, then why did he allow this to happen?

If God is so good, why is there so much evil in the world?

Ultimately, this leads us to conclude that perhaps our best days are behind us

We have no real hope for our future, because really we just feel empty

And at some point, we have to really struggle and wrestle with these kinds of issues, or this is maybe where we will always stay

Some people have been stuck in the blindness of their own bitterness for years and years without ever actually moving

However, on the other hand it’s ok to not be ok

It’s ok to grieve, to have sorrow, to be angry at God even

The day does come where we have to actually wrestle with what we really believe about God, us, our life, the world

But it’s also ok to just grieve for a moment with things are bad

Notice the town’s reaction - nobody immediately steps up to correct Naomi’s faulty theology

Think of Job - he loses everything, his friends show up, and they do pretty good right up until the moment when they open their mouth

But let me humbly suggest for us today that we actually wrestle and struggle with this rather than just slipping into years and decades of bitterness

Naomi had some bitterness from the scars live had given her - but notice next how Naomi’s bitterness was not in fact the final word.

III. God still loves Naomi

Ruth 1:22 ESV

22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

We are given two small pieces of information here that the discerning reader will pick up as glimmers of hope

Naomi is not alone - she is accompanied by Ruth, and the author here goes out of their way to make sure we don’t miss that

Ruth, the Moabite, her daughter in law, the one who returned from the fields of Moab - she came with Naomi

Later in Ruth, these same women that Naomi is talking to will tell her that Ruth is “more to her than seven sons.”

So, even if Naomi meant that she went away full of family and belonging and then came back empty and alone, she didn’t

She is not alone - she has Ruth

Notice how Naomi’s bitterness over what she has lost has blinded her to what she has

Secondly, Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest

First, this means that God has in fact given his people bread

Second, it’s a hint of what is going to happen immediately after this passage - God is at work on Naomi’s behalf to provide for her in ways she can’t even at this moment imagine

Right in the midst of Naomi’s bitterness and anger, God loves Naomi.

He is in fact not against her but for her

He is still providing for her

He has good plans for her

Even though Naomi has a bitterness toward God, he responds to her with grace and mercy

You have to understand that in the midst of your darkest night, your most painful sorrow, your deepest lament, God loves you

Right now in whatever circumstances you find yourselves in, God is sovereign, in control, and working for your good

In the midst of your accusation against God, your anger toward him, your bitter grieving of difficult times, God loves you

In the midst of your angst and frustration in our present circumstances, God loves you

And this is actually how we see the gospel in this story, because there is no more clear proof of this than the cross.

Jesus is God’s proof

That he is not against you but for you

Because he took your sin upon his own body and endured the wrath of God for it so that you can be forgiven

That his sovereign providence is not cold and unfeeling but rather compassionate and loving

Because he did not count even his own son too dear a cost, but rather gave him up because he loves you

That he has good purposes for you and for us

Because Jesus is coming again to establish his kingdom, reign in justice, and live with us for all eternity

Conclusion:

But for today, we continue to live in the struggle that is life.

Life leaves all kinds of scars and marks on us. We don’t even know yet how this season of difficulty and pain will affect us individually, as a church, as a nation.

The question is whether we will allow those scars to embitter us and then dictate how we view the world, God, ourselves.

Some questions to ask to determine if you are allowing frustration and bitterness of your circumstances to blind you to God’s providence:

Are you struggling to see beyond the horizon of your frustration, anger, pain, sorrow?

Are you consumed with bitterness over what you have lost with the inability to see what God has given you?

Is your conception of God skewed by your experiences?

You can’t fathom the thought that God loves you because of the pain of your life

You can’t view God as a loving Father because you have painful experiences with your own father

We do not want to be a people who are blinded by our frustration and bitterness. We need to remember in the midst of our suffering and pain:

In Christ, God has demonstrated his great love for us

God is right now at work for good purposes

We have work to do in participation with what God is doing