Sunday: 20th Sunday after Pentecost 23C
Reading: Ruth:1-19a
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

I love my mother in law. No, I'm serious. But this Ruth character we read about in our first reading, she takes it a bit far, don't you think? "Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die." What? Can you imagine saying that to your mother-in-law, the old battle-ax? Who is this mother-in-law loving Ruth character anyway?

Ruth is one of those short little books in the Old Testament. It is one of only two books, along with Esther named after a woman. Today's reading is the only place in the three year Episcopal lectionary that we hear anything from Ruth. Like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, Ruth is a mother of the faith.

Let me tell you the story. It begins at a time of famine. A woman named Naomi, a Judean goes with her husband and two sons to Moab to escape this famine. Naomi's two sons marry Moabite women Ruth and Orpah. Naomi's husband dies and so do her two sons. That leaves Naomi, Ruth and Orpah in the land of Moab without a male to protect them and earn for them. So, in the first five verses of this book, Naomi suffers famine, emigrates, loses her husband and two sons and is left without any grandchildren because her daughter-in-laws are seemingly infertile. Not a good start. Naomi despairs, saying "it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has turned against me."

When Naomi learns that there is food back in Judah, she offers to let her daughters-in-law return to their families so that she can go for the food. Orpah does the sensible thing and leaves. Ruth, on the other hand, is overtaken with compassion and utters the famous lines that change the whole tenor of the book, "Where you go, I will go...your God will be my God..." Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem together. There, Ruth takes to gleaning from the fields of a wealthy relative of Naomi. Gleaning was the biblically mandated practice of allowing the poor to walk behind the harvesters and pick up the leftovers. I suppose it is not that different from the people today who take food out of garbage cans or smoke the little remaining parts of discarded cigarettes. The rich man, Boaz, notices the pretty Ruth and tells his farmhands to leave plenty of grain behind.

This prompts the mother-in-law Naomi to come up with a new idea. She sends Ruth to lie down at the feet of Boaz once he has eaten and drank and has fallen asleep. Ruth indeed waits until Boaz is sleeping, uncovers his feet and lays down. Now this whole episode is written in code. It is about as subtle as our contemporary phrase, "Did you sleep with him?" It's not sleep we're talking about and Ruth was not just giving Boaz a foot massage. It's pretty clear that Ruth offers herself to Boaz. Boaz takes mercy on Ruth and ends up fulfilling his right as next of kin to marry Ruth. The union results in a grandson for Naomi.

The book of Ruth begins on a very sour note: famine, a dead husband and two dead sons, and expressions of despair with God. The book of Ruth has a happy ending: family, children, and money for Ruth and Naomi. The tone towards God has changed too. ‘Blessed be the Lord...He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age."

The book of Ruth gives us a picture of a world for which we hope. A world not characterized by death and infertility but by new life and reconciliation. In Ruth's story we get a glimpse of that beloved community; a glimmer of that peacable kingdom that we long for. It is a place where children are looked after and the elderly are cared for. It is a place where outsiders are welcomed-whether Judeans in Moab or Moabites in Bethlehem. It is a place where the graceful initiative of a poor foreign woman is met with the compassion of a rich powerful man. It is a place where a usually hated Moabite is accepted and even marries into the Bethlehem clan.

The book of Ruth is an extraordinary book. And it is only four chapters long. You should read it. At St. Paul and the Redeemer we make a lot of effort to remember the mothers of the faith along with the fathers. Ruth is one of the mothers.

Now, there are problems in Ruth. Like in other places in the bible, we need to read and interpret carefully. The book of Ruth assumes the powerlessness of women in that ancient culture, it suggests that sexual forwardness is the way for women to get noticed, it implies that women are valuable only for their ability to reproduce. Should we ignore these implicit themes? No. Katharine Sakenfeld, on whose commentary I am relying heavily this week, argues that we need to guard against a simple reading of Ruth that merely supports cultural expectations that women should serve others. But Sakenfeld goes on to argue that Ruth's behavior is not unreflective self-sacrifice but rather appropriate caring. This is a story of two women, Naomi and Ruth, supporting each other-neither are acting as doormats. The book of Ruth has women at the heart of a story of conspicuous graciousness and envisions women as fully human. Now that's a world for which we hope.

Even for Ruth's very first audience, the purpose was to envision a hoped for beloved community. The author envisioned that community by speaking against exclusion. Scholars argue: perhaps the author was trying to speak to the Israelite exclusion of the Canaanites, or maybe it was the controversy between Jews who stayed during the exile and those who were returning. No matter, it is clear that the book of Ruth speaks to the problem of social exclusion. Ruth was a Moabite, strike 1, a Woman, strike 2, a Widow, strike 3, seemingly infertile, well, I need a different analogy, an immigrant, poor, hungry, yet Ruth is the hero of this short Old Testament book-an outsider.

My dad told me this story recently. He was out for an early morning walk; it was still dark. He saw the paper deliveryman jumping in and out of his little car throwing papers on to people's stoops. My dad didn't think much about it until he walked by the little car and saw a baby and a three year old sleeping in the back seat. Here was a marginalized if hardworking man. In the beloved community portrayed in Ruth, the graceful initiative of that man who is clearly an economic outsider would be met with the compassion of the community so that the newspaper delivery man and his kids could say "Blessed be the Lord...He shall be to us a restorer of life and a nourisher till our old age." But let's not sit around waiting for God to initiate this peacable kingdom for which we hope. The book of Ruth shows that it is in the ordinary events that God's subtle providence is seen. Let's follow Ruth's lead and act in conspicuously gracious ways. We can start with our mothers-in-law.