Sermon text: Ruth 1:1-19a
1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was 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.
3Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7With 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.
8Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11But 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? 12Return 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— 13would 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 turned against me!”
14At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
15“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16But 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. 17Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.
The Incredible Story of Ruth
1) A story of kindness overcoming bitterness
2) A story of God working all things for the good of those who love him
In the name of Jesus, in whom we were created as God’s handiwork to do the good works he prepared in advance for us to do.
Have you ever opened a book and flipped to the last page to see what the ending was like? Maybe to see if you wanted to keep reading? If we do that today with the book of Ruth, here’s what you’ll see as the conclusion. “This, then is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the Father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nashon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,…” Anybody want to keep reading this book? No…? Next verse is where it really picks up, “Salmon was the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse.” (Ruth 4:18-22a) I’m not sure if any of these names are ringing a bell, but I promise you if we put this book down, we’d miss out on one of the most incredible stories in the Old Testament.
This weekend is the only time in our 3-year schedule of readings called the lectionary that the book of Ruth comes up. So today, you’ve got to hear the Incredible Story of Ruth. First, we’ll see that it’s a story of 1) kindness overcoming bitterness. And we’ll also see that it’s a 2) story of God working all things for the good of those who love him. The story starts with hardship; it happens during the time of the Judges, which wasn’t a good time in Israel. “Everyone did as they saw fit,” is the theme of that time period. There is a famine in the land of Bethlehem, which is a little ironic because Bethlehem means “House of Bread”. So one family, Elimelek, whose name means “My God is King” and his wife Naomi whose name sounds like the Hebrew word for “pleasant” and their two sons flee to Moab to find food.
Time passes and while they’re there, Elimelek dies. Things are starting to feel more desperate. Now mom is a widow, and the sons are probably thinking, “Dad’s gone, we need to carry on the line,” so they get married to Moabites, which probably wasn’t the best idea. God’s people, for sure, were not supposed to intermarry with the Canaanites because of the danger of their heathen false gods. The Moabites were at least kind of like distant cousins from Abraham’s nephew Lot, but they didn’t worship the true God either, so there is always a danger when marrying an unbeliever to be led astray along with them. That’s part of what makes this story incredible: this is a time when a believing family lets their light shine and others see their deeds and praise God in heaven. The sons and their mother seem to keep their connection to the true God even in a foreign land, and their foreign wives are positively impacted by it.
About ten years into their sojourn in Moab, the family’s hardship turns into an outright tragedy. Both sons die, now leaving behind three widows without any children, a mother-in-law and two daughters-in-laws with no one to provide for them or carry on their family. You can imagine the kind of profound hopelessness and bitterness that might be brewing in a family who has faced so much tragedy. First dad dies, then the first son dies, and you think, “Not again!” and then the second son dies, and now it’s like, “You can’t be serious!” How does this keep happening? Has God abandoned us? Why does he keep doing this to us?” Looking at it from our perspective on ground level, there is not always much we can do to make sense of it, for their loved ones or our loved ones. Rarely, especially when we are in the thick of it, are we able to see the grand plan working and how much higher God’s ways are than our ways.
So the three women try to carry on however they can, which isn’t necessarily a given for them to stick together. I don’t mean to make this awkward, especially if you’re sitting in the same pew today, but mother-in-law’s and daughters-in-law are not always a match made in heaven. But these three seem to have a pretty special bond. Three times in this section, Naomi refers to her daughters-in-law, which has a perfectly good Hebrew word, instead as “my daughter.” Maybe that bond was forged in the fire of each losing their husband. Did the family grieve in faith for the death of the father in a way that made an impression on Ruth and Orpah? And was Naomi losing her husband what made her uniquely equipped to console her daughters-in-law when they lost their husbands. Did she, in the midst of her grief and bitterness, provide them with a comfort unlike anything they had ever heard? Some way, somehow, Ruth was brought the gospel by her family during her time in Moab.
As always, time keeps marching on, and no matter how much we’d like it to, reality doesn’t wait for our grief. The three are still going to need to eat, so when they hear that there’s food back in Judah, they decide to head back together. That’s when Naomi tries to do a seemingly sensible thing. She tries to send Ruth Orpah back home to their families, to have them get married again. She figures there’s no point in sticking with her, since none of them have husbands and the clock is ticking, and their chances for husbands and children are slim.
Initially, and surprisingly, both girls want to stick with her. But Naomi is adamant in her grief; she doubles down and tells them to go back again. While she may have had good intentions, she’s also being ignorant of what she’s telling them to do, which is essentially—“Go back to your families and your false gods. You’ll be better off there.” Grief has a way of clouding our ability to see the facts and the promises of God. At the end of her little speech is where Naomi reveals the bitterness that has set in. “No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has turned against me!”
That’s when Orpah turns back and goes, but Ruth does something quite miraculous, the kind of thing that is really only the result of the Holy Spirit working faith in her heart. Listen to her amazing speech again, “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. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.” Then she takes a solemn oath on top of it, using the covenant name of the LORD she’s come to know. “May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)
Ruth’s words express such a determined commitment that they’re the kind of words that couples sometimes choose for their wedding. But remember, they are not a couple. This is a daughter-in-law committing to her mother-in-law, a daughter-in-law, who by the grace of God, has become a daughter of God, and a daughter who will not abandon her mother, even to the point of death. What you see here is the “fruit of the Spirit—love joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” working in Ruth. (Galatians 5:22).
Here is maybe where you start to have hope for the silver lining in God’s grand plan for this incredible story. But here’s the thing. Real life is not like in the movies when it’s dramatically raining cats and dogs and then as soon as Ruth made her speech, the rain stops, and the sun comes out and they live happily ever after. They were still pretty desperate, with a lot to figure out and seemingly not a lot of options. But onward they went back to Bethlehem and when they get back, it causes quite a stir in the neighborhood. “Can this be Naomi?” the women of the town murmur. Remember, in Hebrew, Naomi’s name sounds like the word for “pleasant,” but she says, “Don’t call me Naomi, (pleasant). Call me Mara, (which means bitter), because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 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.” (Ruth 1:19-20).
Naomi is in a tough spot spiritually. She’s struggling. She’s been through tragedy, not once, not twice, but three times, and she’s bitter and she’s blaming God and maybe you’ve been there too—at a bitter spot when the passage “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28) lands like slap in the face, because what has happened doesn’t seem good for anybody, so maybe God just doesn’t love me anymore. And the last thing you want to do is pray to the God who in your estimation has just been beating you down over and over.
Naomi’s bitterness does not dry up the Lord’s kindness or undo his plan. He is still watching over his servant, whom he loves, and is about to work wonders through the kindness of her daughter-in-law, Ruth, to overcome that bitterness. Let me give you the abridged version of the last three chapters of the book, so that you can see that1) God uses the kindness of his believers to overcome bitterness in his struggling saint Naomi, and 2) God truly working all things for the good of those who love him.
The barley harvest was just beginning as the two widows got back. Ruth went to pick up the leftovers that the harvesters missed in order to provide for her and Naomi. Turns out the field she was in belonged to a God-fearing man named Boaz, which as luck would have it—no, as God’s plan would have it—was a relative of Naomi, her second closest kinsman-redeemer. That was the special term for the relative who was responsible for marrying his deceased relative’s widow in order to provide them an heir. Boaz took notice of Ruth. He had heard of the kindness she had shown to Naomi. He poured out his kindness on her as well, by making sure she went home with extra. He even told her not to go to anybody else’s field but his own. Boaz checks with the closest kinsman-redeemer who doesn’t want the job, and so Boaz is pleased to have the privilege to redeem them, by taking Ruth as his wife. They get married and have a son.
Now the women of the town are talking again, but this time in praise to the Lord, who did not leave them without a kinsman-redeemer or an heir, and when Naomi gets to hold the child in her arms, they rejoice along with her! “Naomi has a son!” (Ruth 4:17). God brought grace and every blessing back to bitter and empty Naomi, through the kindness and love of Ruth, the Moabite, and Boaz, her kinsman-redeemer.
Now here’s the most incredible part of the story. God wasn’t just blessing some random set of widows who came back from Moab. He was fulfilling his promises to bless the whole world through the line of Abraham, and to not leave you without the true Redeemer. That genealogy I read to you before, that seemed a little dry, is loaded with incredible meaning, so much so, that it is recorded again in the book of Matthew in chapter 1, with a few extra notes added and one verse I left off before.
The section from Ruth started with Perez. He was the child of an incest/ prostitution scandal between Judah and Tamar, the kind of child that might likely be aborted today, but the kind God worked through for good. “Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.” (Matt 1:5). Boaz’s mother was Rahab, the prostitute who helped the spies in Jericho, became a believer, and was saved not only from the walls falling down, but from hell. “Boaz [was] the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the Father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.” Ruth was not just rescued from starvation, she was given salvation, and she received the honor of being the great-grandmother of King David, and the great-great-ancestor of great David’s Greater Son- Jesus the Messiah, the world’s Redeemer! Just in that one part of the genealogy, we learn that Jesus was the descendant of two prostitutes, Tamar and Rahab, and a gentile, Ruth the Moabite, yet all of them were brought into the story of salvation, showing that the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of not just the Jews but the Gentiles as well. And this story was recorded to renew our faith over and over again, that “in all things”—even famine and hardship and death—”God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his good purpose.” Praise be the Lord our God, who through Ruth and Boaz, delivered Jesus our Redeemer. Amen.