The section we read in worship this morning was Ruth 1:8-11, 14-18, 22; 2:2-3, 17, 19-20, 23; 3:1-11; 4:13-15, 17. But I encourage you to read the whole book, it is a lovely little story.
Fun fact, if you ask me to officiate your wedding, I will probably try to convince you to work in a reading from Ruth. I managed to get it into two of the three weddings I did this summer, including my brother’s Steinbeck themed wedding. You’ll probably want First Corinthians 13, “love is patient, love is kind” and I will be more than happy to read that and even preach on it, but it will make my day if I can also get you to include Ruth.
Our theme for this third Sunday of Advent is love, which is appropriate because Ruth is a love story. Though maybe not the one you’re thinking about, especially after my wedding reference earlier. While there is a wedding in Ruth, the love that is the focus of the story is not between Ruth and Boaz. They do get married, and maybe they had a romantic and love-filled marriage, we really don’t know. Ancient marriages were not so much about romance as they were about property rights, so what feelings developed between Ruth and Boaz are really tangential to the story. No, the love that is important in this story is the love between Ruth and Naomi.
Bit of background. The story began with Naomi, her husband, and their two sons moving to Moab to escape a famine that was sweeping through Israel. The family was there a long time, long enough for the two boys to become men and marry Moabite women. Eventually all three men died. The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about the cause of death, so we can assume it wasn’t important. They weren’t killed out of some wrongdoing on someone’s part, life was just generally cruel, brutish, and short in ancient times, and the men died because there were a lot of ways to die and no real medical anything, and that’s just what happened. But their death set up the major conflict in the story, the three women were now left alone, without anyone to provide for them. Naomi, having no family in Moab, decided to return to Israel where there may still be someone alive from her family who could provide for her. Before she left, she told her daughter-in-laws to return to their families. The women were probably still young, and as widows, if they were returned to their families by their in-laws, they would be free to marry again, to start a new life. This was a gesture of care on Naomi’s part. She wanted what she thought was best for the women whom she said had dealt kindly with her family. The word translated as “kindly” in verse eight is the Hebrew word hesed, which has a deep meaning. More than just kindness, it is often translated lovingkindness, and it is care, devotion, and loyalty well above the expectations and requirements of the law. It is usually used as an attribute of God. Naomi is basically saying to her daughters-in-law, “return to your homes, for you have been so kind and loyal to our family, that God will do the same to you.” And Orpah, the one daughter-in-law, did as Naomi commanded. She wept and she grieved, but she took Naomi’s offer of a chance to start over, and she went back to her home. But Ruth would not. Ruth, in fact, became indignant when Naomi told her to leave. The English obscures this; we don’t catch the tone of frustration that the Hebrew exhibits. There’s also something else that the English misses. In verses sixteen and seventeen, which, by the way, is the reading I love for weddings, the English reads “where you go, I will go, where you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” The English uses a future tense, this will happen. But Hebrew is a really succinct language that sometimes drops unnecessary verbs. Which, as an aside, is one of the reasons my Hebrew is terrible, but anyway. So the Hebrew actually reads: “You go, I go. You lodge, I lodge. Your people, my people. Your God, my God. There are no connecting verbs. The translators added the “will” in order to make it easier to understand in English, but it’s not in the original. This then wasn’t a future tense thing for Ruth; this was a current reality. Ruth said to Naomi, in essence, I cannot return to my people, because your people are my people, your God is my God. There is nothing for me but you, but where you are. The hesed, the lovingkindness that connected Ruth to her husband, connected her to his whole family, and she was every bit as connected, as loyal, to Naomi as she was to the original agreement.
See, that’s love. Love is not a feeling; it is an action, a commitment. Ruth was just like, look, I’m in this. Where you go, I go, that’s it. And that love that Ruth had for Naomi was transformative; it was redemptive. It redeemed Naomi. The title of this section of the Bible is The Book of Ruth, but it is really a story about Naomi. Remember, Naomi was the Israelite, and Ruth the outsider. So the story the writer wanted the Israelites to take from this text was not “be like Ruth,” it was “you are Naomi.” You are Naomi, and just as Ruth clung to Naomi, and loved her more than seven sons, and gave her a grandson who restored her connection to the community, so too does God cling to, and love, and restore you. Like Naomi, this restoration is not at all based on who you are, on your ability to earn it, it is simply an attribute of God. God is hesed, God is lovingkindness, and God is your people, your God, where you lodge, where you are. Not in a future tense, but right now, right here, in this moment. God’s love for you is not God’s warm feelings towards you; it is God’s constant, determined action to bring you to new life. That is love, God’s love.
That is love, but it is still oh so easy to forget what love is, to miss love when you see it. That’s what happened to John the Baptist in our Gospel reading this morning. John, if you remember from last week, first showed up in the wilderness of Judea with his crazy clothes and his wild hair and his weird food, shouting “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” He called out the Pharisees and the Sadducees, called them broads of vipers, fleeing from the wrath. John told them all about how the one coming after him, would baptize them not with water, but with fire. This one had winnowing fork at the ready to gather up the wheat into the barns, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. Not just regular fire, oh no, unquenchable fire. So, flash forward eight chapters, John was now in prison, and Jesus had been on the scene for a while. And John sent a message to Jesus asking, “are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John was basically like, hey, Jesus, I was pretty sure I knew who you were, but these things that you’re doing, these healings, and teachings, and feeding the hungry and forgiving sinners, um, these things don’t really look like what I was thinking, when proclaimed your coming. I was kind of thinking baptisms of the Holy Spirit and unquenchable fires would have a little more umph to them. Are you really the one?
Jesus responded not with some deep theological insight, or a listing of scriptures that proved his identity, or an explanation of his purpose, he simply listed his actions, “Go and tell John what you hear and see, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” If you want to know who I am, John, here it is. Here is what baptism by fire looks like, here is what cutting the trees that do not bear good fruit looks like, here is what clearing the chaff from the threshing floor looks like. It looks like feeding the hungry, it looks like healing the sick, it looks like raising the dead, and bringing good news to the poor. Baptism by fire and the Holy Spirit is baptism into the love of God, and this is what God’s love looks like in action.
Jesus is God’s love personified. It is what love looks like, when love slips into skin and comes to dwell among us. Now, before we let ourselves get to swept up in the snuggly, good feelings of the whole thing, let us also remember that love is not about making us feel good, it is about redemption. Which means it was just as much an act of love when Jesus turned over the tables drove the money changers out of the temple with whips as it was when he fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. And it was just as much an act of love when he rebuked Peter and told him “get behind me Satan,” as it was when he called the children to come to him. Love, God’s love, is sometimes challenging, sometimes comforting, but it is always redeeming, always transforming, always making us new. It is this sort of love that Jesus inherited from his ancestor Ruth, a love that is fierce and strong and determined and active. As we await the coming of our savior, may we be aware of God’s active, transforming, challenging, redeeming, fierce, and unfolding love in our own lives. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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