Ruth - Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Exegetical Point:
Homiletic Point:
Intro
Intro
What would it take for you to turn back on everything you know?
What would it take for you to switch loyalties?
low value of loyalty in our age
Loyalty - it’s importance
In Bible loyalty is the difference between life and death, blessing or curse.
In OT Loyalty is really the best way to describe faith.
Language like faith, trust, belief and conversion become more prominent later in salvation hoistory.
Recap last week
Ruth is during the time of Judges
Family fled Israel due to famine (God’s promised judgement)
Sons married foreign (unbelevieing) women
All the men died, Naomi was left with two Moabite daugher in-laws.
Bad things can happen to God’s people.
Bad things come from Actions of others (Devil, other people)
Our own actions - consequences
Corruption of the world - the Curse
Judgments of God
But God turns all things for the good of His people.
Death suffering and trial come under God’s hand - sometimes as discipline, refining fire, correction or testing but never punitive for the Christian (Jesus paid your debts).
In God’s providence Naiomi suffered under God’s judgment against His people, then under the curse of death. Now because of the bad choices of someone else she has two Moabite d-i-Laws
Lets see how the bad of Naomi’s situation will turn to good.
Blessing others in Hard Times
Blessing others in Hard Times
Ruth hears the news that the famine is over and now as a childless widow she resolves to go home.
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.
God had relented and come to the aid of Israel. As we know from Judges, although God brought Judgement against Israel, he was merciful and heard their prayers. The LORD had visited his people with bread.
Naiomis sojurn outside the promised land had come to an end.
D-i-Law were still a kind of family so they were together.
Family dynamic in ANE - society was constructed much differently to ours. Need to spend some time talking about this because it bears on what comes in the story.
No police, no beurocratic Gov, no medicare, no pensions, no centrelink. No companies or salaries with 4 weeks holidays. No public schools. No Vicroads managing roads.
While these things are in many way good and beneficial to us now, one of the downsides is that they do not incentivise family responsibilities. Many people today do not take seriously the call to honour their parents because they think the some government programme will do it for them. Programes should be the back-up for when other support structures fail.
In the ANE, they didn’t even have the option. When you fell on hard times, or got too old to work, you couldn’t ask for a pension. Your social security was tied up with your family connection.
Instead of corporations that managed poduction of goods and so on, you had family units that were kind of like small businesses. Much in the same way many family farms are still run around australia. The family works together to grow food, provide housing for everyone, look out for one another. Everyone has a shared responsibility to the family and everyone benefited from their place in the family. It was mutually beneficial.
Usually there was a patriach leading the family who would be succeded by the eldest son. Other Sons would go out and forge their own family.
Sometimes these family units could be quite large, like Abraham’s. There was enough people living together that they could pull together a small army.
Sometimes they would be much smaller, like Elimelech and Naomis family.
There was saftey in numbers from roving bands of thugs. SO if you didn’t belong to the larger families it was in your best interest to live inside a walled village where the community could work together for saftey etc.
Should it be this way still? Yes and no. This is a cultural difference between us and them, we don’t need to be ANE people. But, the scriptures do tell us what about the ANE way of life was good and what is bad and what is neutral. Strong families that care for one another are definitely a good thing, but so is limited support systems in our society to save people from destitution and poverty. Godly leadership is still the calling of husbands in their families. It’s a good thing that we have public order managed by a police force that we can call to come at a moments notice and defence is not left up to individual families.
Now, Naomi has lost her family support stucture. Well almost, but not quite. Three women in a sharehouse is not a crazy thing to consider in our day, but in their day, three women by themselves is a vulnerable and precarious position. She is basically a refugee in a foreign country, so she would have limited legal rights and no property. She is on the doorstep of destiution and vulnerable. So she knows that the best bet is to return to her hometown where there is food, and some relatives who may be able to help here out.
Naomi from Bethlehem (good guys come from Bethlehem).
Initially it looks like they’re going to go together, but....
But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.
Now, even though Naomi is in a precarious position, she is also looking out for the best interests of her daughter-in-laws. I’m sure she would have been happy for them to both come with her, but she is being self-sacrififcial by highlighting a better path for them.
That path is to go back to their mothers. As the ex-m-i-law of these widows, Naomi was suggesting that they would be better off going and supporting their own mothers rather than herself. In terms of order of honour, they should honour their own mothers more highly than their ex-mother-in-law. In addition to that, there was also more safety and security for them back with their families of origin, rather than with a poor widow in a foriegn land.
As Naomi tries to send Ruth and Orpah to their respective homes, she begins to bless them. She prays for them. Remember, Naomi is an Israelite who serves YHWH. There is a big question mark over Ruth and Orpah. Moab is a ssociated with the god Chemosh, but is he Ruth & Orpah’s god? They’re in Moab, and they’re moabites so and it’s likeley that they still serve Chemosh, but having bee married to israeilites maybe they had converted?
Nevertheless, Naomi blesses them in the name of her God, the God she is loyal to:
May the Lord deal Kindly with you as you have with me. - It’s a recognition of the way that they had stuck with Naomi, they had served her and cared for her. She was blessed by them and she wants them to be rewarded by YHWH. The prayer goes on in the next verse:
The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.
Knowing that their long term prosperity and security lied with being re-married, Naomi asks God to givie it to Ruth and Orpah.
Although it is Naomi’s best interests to keep them close, she is self-sacrificial, and wants the best for these women. Even though they are not her own flesh and blood, they owe each other nothing in terms of rights and obligations, but even so, Nomi tries to bless these women in the midst of her own hard times.
Pause for Application: Is this your attitude? This is a wonderful example of caring for others even when her own needs are great. You would forgive here for being selfish at a time like this, where here saftey and security hangs in the balance, yet here she blesses and gives what little she can.
Is this your response?
Remember Jesus who prayed for his executioners? Forgive them for they know not what they do? This is a wonderful example for us to follow, to bless otheres even in our own extremity. Even when our needs are great, to give, for it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Then, they have a good cry together. They know that there is change afoot. They will part and likley never see each other again.
But the girls are reticant...
And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?
The girls, despite their condition, don’t want to part ways! They prostest.
Naomi uses a ridiculous suggestion to show them the practically, its in their best interestes to go home: Even if I married today, and I could still have children, would you stick around to marry them when they’re old enough? What’s your long term plan here?
They all love each others company, but whats the long term solution?
Naomi was trying to get them to think about the future, and that staying with here meant they would probably never have the security and legacy that comes with family in the ANE. SHe contiues....
would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
Orpah convinced, she kisses he M-i-law and she goes home. She returns to her former life in the hopes of securing a better future. As a widow, she would not have the same opportunities for remariage as she did before her first marriage, but even so, practically, it seems to make the best sense.
But Ruth will not turn back....
Oath of Allegience
Oath of Allegience
We have historically understood the importance of being faithful and loyal to a particular people, tribe, family etc, over others. There are always competing loyalties and priorities, so how do we make sure that the right people get their due? How can we get everyone on the same page in terms of loyalties?
Traditonally that has come in the form of oaths. A kind of promise made with the expectation of penalty if you fail in your promise.
You’ve probably never had to make an oath of alleigence. They’re not all that comon these days. But you may be interested to know that even today it’s constitutionally required that every member of the parliment is required to make an oath (or a weaker affirmation) to the King of Australia:
“I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles the Third, His heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!”
We expect our polititians to be loyal to our country to work for this nation as opposed to any other, and that is represented in an oath to the king of Australia.
It was similar in acient days where people would swear fealty to their local rulers and as we will soon see, swear loyalty to certain gods.
You see in ANE gods were often associated with geography - they thought of gods having authority over a certain area. It meant that if you defeated a neighbouring tribe in battle, your god was expanding his teritory and now had a bigger zone of influnece. We may think it silly, but it makes sense right - kings only had influence over land in his kingdom, so surely it was the same for the gods right?
(This also exxplains why that syrian general takes home a buch of dirt after being cured of leprosy.)
For Naomi, she expected an understood that your loyalties lie with your people and your land. a she is sending her d-i-law home she expects them to go back to those loyalties:
And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
Orpah has turned back to Moabites & Chemosh.
You need to go back to your loaylties too.
But Ruth doesn’t want to go
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Ruth refuses to Go! She will not turn back!
Ruth refuses to repent, in a good way. She knows the path she is on is the right one - to stick with the Israelite mother and go to her land, and take her people as her own.
This is Ruth switching, or at least doubling down on her loaylties. In some way she was in a kind of loyalty limbo when she married into this family, and here she is making the definitive choice to go with YHWH and his people.
To go with YHWH means to go with his people: You cannot have Christ without His Bride. There are a great many who see the problems of the church and then pridefully hold themself aloft as if they are better than other Christians, and as if they know better than God. God knew what he was getting when he saved us, with all our faults and foibles and how we would mess up his church, but he saved this mixed multitude none-the-less, called us his bride, and then he is purifying us over time into the pure holy church that we are meant to be. The church is the kingdom of God on earth, and so if you want to come into God’s kingdom, to become loyal to him also means becoming loyal to his people.
Ruth is becoming loayl to Naomi’s people. She is throwing in her lot. And this is a sacrifice - she’s giving up what she knows, she’s giving up the scurity of her “own” people and the likeleyhood of prosperity.
Why is Ruth doing this? dunno. It may initially be because she is commited to loving and serving Naomi, but the implications are that will mean a new identity. She will serve and love Naomi even if it means her own loss.
She swears all this as an oath:
Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”
Ruth invites devine retribution if she fails in her task to love and care for Naomi. This is self sacrificial love and she is committed to it. All in. My life is now joined to Naomi’s - till death.
I think this is because she has a deep love for Naomi and she want to ensure her saftey. Imagine Naomi, and old widow travelling home by herself. She may not even make it home, let alone make a go of it when she gets there! Ruth is committed to helping Naomi, even to the extent of switching gods.
This is a wonderful attitude of love. Don’t swtich Gods just to help somebody! But the love and care and committment is admirable!
Naomi accpets the help:
And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.
Conversion
How often is it that you goin to some commitment for some reason, but you get something better or an unexpected result?
Come in for community, friendship, theological curiosity, perhaps you wanted divine blessing - but Christians get so much more! They get Jesus Christ - God himself! Salvation!
This is waht it means to convert to Christianity - to give up your loyalties to other gods, idols and even other people!
Take on YHWH as your God, take his people as your own. GO with him, do not turn back to the futile ways of the world!
God’s Hand in your Loss
God’s Hand in your Loss
When the Lord Strips everything from you
Go home...
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?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
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?”
Summarise and prepare for next “chapter” of this unfolding story.
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.
So What?
So What?
Beleiving loyalty in Jesus
Prayer
Convert to a better Kingdom
Sometimes God strips us of everything we have so that we can have a greater blessing (see Joseph also)