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S. Pentecost 18.25 Ruth 1:1-19, Luke 7:11-19a

‘And your God, my God’

Ruth’s story is a beautiful and instructive one. Just in case you’re wondering how it ends, I can tell you; it ends… happily.

Ruth goes to glean grain in the field of Boaz—a well off relative of Naomi’s late husband. She’s a real looker, Ruth is, and gets Boaz’s full attention, Day One. He makes sure she gets plenty of… grain; and Ruth comes and lays at Boaz’s feet while he’s sleeping in the barn after a long day in the field. They fall in love and marry and have a son they name Obed. Naomi becomes his Nana and Obed turns out to be the father of Jesse, the father of King David (!).

So this non-Israelite Moabite Ruth turns out to be the great-grandmother of Israel’s great King David!!!

Since Israel is singled out, chosen by God as his people above all others and the Moabites (descendants of Abraham’s n’er-do-well nephew Lot) are flagged as rotten apples, pagan worshipers of false gods, destined for destruction (they lure Israel into early contemporary worship, complete with ritual prostitution, back in Numbers 25—so not a promising place to be finding a faithful wife!) it may seem surprising a whole book of the scriptures is dedicated to the story of how this hot Moabite woman ends up being King David’s great-grandmother.

You would think this would be a story David would want suppressed from the holy records! But no, it’s a much beloved book and popular source for wedding texts.

But aren’t the Israelites the heroes of the story and the Moabites (and all the other “ites”!) villains to boo and hiss? Uhm, surprisingly, NO! In fact, if you read the scriptures carefully (as I have many times, including devotionally once through every year for the last 33 years straight!) you’ll find that only a tiny Remnant of Israel ever really believes and adores YAHWEH, while the Israelite majority are hypocritical closet pagans.

Elijah is told by God in I Kings 19:18 (when he’s complaining he is the only actual believer left in Israel) that there are 7,000 (out of over a million Israelites!) who haven’t bent the knee to Baal or kissed him. This 1% believer figure seems typical for any population. On the Day of Pentecost, only 3,000 out of a crowd of probably at least 300,000 get baptized. Only 1 leper of 10 return to worship Jesus and he’s a f’erner!

Ruth is another “good f’erner” who comes around and turns out to be more singularly and selflessly devoted to the worship of YAHWEH than the born and raised Lutherans, er… Israelites. And her story is told in the most detail, so she seems paradigmatic, like a patron saint for Gentiles like us. So let’s look at it more closely shall we?

What strikes me, right off the bat, is that there is no reported witnessing of Naomi to Ruth, no attempt to get her to convert and become an Israelite. While Ruth had married Naomi’s son, we don’t hear that they were much on church going—not surprising since there was no synagogue in Moab to go to! So easy to get out of the habit of church going!

Naomi certainly treats both Ruth and her sister-in-law Oprah, er Orpah (my spell checker insists Oprah is the correct spelling but, in fact, Oprah is a misspelling of Orpah 😉 as if they are both unchurched pagans. She thinks they are only being polite walking her out of town; and Orpah certainly is not serious about actually going back with Naomi to Israel and becoming a Lutheran, er… Israelite.

In fact, Naomi thinks they are only following because they think she will have husbands for them back in Israel. Naomi insists this can’t happen. It’s true that the next oldest surviving brother is supposed to take his brother’s widow as wife and then their children will be heirs of the late brother. But, it’s also true we find out, that when the brothers are gone, we go to cousins.

But Naomi wants to be clear there is no hope of them finding a husband because they aren’t Israelites! And Orpah departs back to her own kin. But Ruth’s famous speech stuns Naomi. She didn’t see that coming…(!)

“Entreat me not to leave you, nor return from following you. For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people, my people…” Actually, there’s no verb “shall be” in the Hebrew, it’s just “your people, my people, (su casa mi casa 😉 your God, my God.”

This is important because modern translators treat Ruth as a potential convert; not already a believer in YAHWEH, because Naomi doesn’t think Ruth is a believer. But the Hebrew has Ruth simply stating, “I can’t leave you because: I am an Israelite. Your God is my God and I cannot but follow him and be wherever his people lodge, for good or ill.” (!)

It’s striking thing to me that there is no mention anywhere of Naomi ever witnessing to Ruth or asking “If you died tonight, would you to heaven?” No proselytizing or even talking about the God of Israel seems ever to have occurred. It gob-smacks Naomi that Ruth identifies as Israelite. How did that happen?!

Well; we are never told!

But David tells us in Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.There is no speech, nor are their words; their voice is not heard, yet: their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.”

And how does David know this great paradoxical mystery of the wordless word being heard without a word we can find? Uh, from his great-grandmother!

I would submit Ruth’s whole story is underscoring this line from Psalm 19. Without a word that we can hear, Ruth somehow hears the proclamation of the word by which alone faith comes as St. Paul says in Romans 10 where he quotes these verses from Psalm 19.

And Ruth’s faith puts to shame that of the born and raised Lutherans, er… Israelites!

She doesn’t care about anything but the God of Israel who has become her God and LORD. She isn’t concerned to find a husband to take care of her. Flood, famine, war, not even the Zombie Apocalypse could dent her joy! She has achieved—a Moabite a f’erner!, against all the odds, that state the scriptures praise above all—purity of heart which is to will ONE THING, whatever God wills for her.

She is after the One Thing Jesus says we alone must seek—the Kinging of God, his gracious Reign. And when HE becomes our ONE desire, all other things needful will be added to us. And so Ruth finds Boaz, a fine husband, a Wonderfully Great-grandson—Jesus! whose love surpasses all other loves and who happily lists her as his great grandmother.

Ruth is my great-grandmother, as she is for all who seek the One Thing needful, and, by grace, through faith alone, find IT and the Peace, surpassing all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.