Not Far
Ruth 1:1-18; Mark 12:28-34

November 5, 2006


If things hadn’t been so bad, we would have never heard of Ruth. A famine is the first actor and unless you are talking about Ethiopia or Darfur in the world news, we barely comprehend the reality. Elimelech of Bethlehem and his wife Naomi and sons decide what millions have had to decide to do - migrate to a place where there was food and the place was Moab, southeast of the Dead Sea.

No sooner than had arrived to a land of food and plenty than Elimelech died. Naomi’s two sons married local Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, but then the sons died. How much worse could things get? Word had filtered down that the famine was over and food was once again available in Israel, so Naomi decided to go home. She was not a possessive person, so she released Orpah and Ruth from their obligations to her, but Ruth would not let go.

Warming the cockles of our hearts, Ruth insists on not abandoning her mother-in-law for her own interests. Isn’t this the irrational kind of loyalty we love to hear about: a complete devotion crowned by the promise, “Wherever you go, I will go.... Your God will be my God” - a devotion to another human being whom you have come to love simply for the sake of love. Your direction in life will do to be my direction. Your house will do to be my house. Your people will do just as well as any other people. Your God is just as good as any other God I can think of.

Ruth is choosing Naomi, not a country or a house or a people and especially not a God. I can change Gods as easily as I change clothes and houses. There is nothing wrong at all with Ruth’s commitment to Naomi; it is courageous and daring, to say the least. But we have over-romanticized her resolve to change. It will be very difficult and lonely for her to begin her life over at the very bottom of society as a stranger in a strange land, in particular because of her gender. Yet it won’t be easier to change Gods. Her devotion to Naomi renders her not far from the kingdom, even if there were no kings in Israel, but there is still a long way to go.

There was a famine of grace in Israel, now called Palestine nearly a millennium later. Food was available, if you could afford it, but occupation by a foreign army and government, and a self-serving religious leadership that did not lead, only grab the good stuff first, resulted in a land where people could argue over love. Wanting to discredit the charismatic teacher and healer Jesus of Nazareth, the Pharisees and Sadducees used every piece of knowledge they had about God’s Scriptures to destroy his credibility. Jesus read the Bible in order to insist upon a love that asked for nothing in return.

One of the scribes heard this arguing and he seemed to understand that Jesus had what he was looking for. Which commandment is the first of all? The two teachers bandy their verses back and forth, and the scribe does seem to have it right. God wants total all out love for God and for one’s neighbour long before worship services and sacrifices are even considered. Jesus acknowledged his wisdom, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Typical of the Gospels, we do not learn what this scribe then proceeded to do, and no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. You and I are supposed to carry on the conversation.

The conversation ends with “you are not far from the kingdom,” and there is no evidence or report that the scribe ever got there. He knew the right words and many of us know all the right words as well, but knowing the words doesn’t get us there unless we actually do the Word. Just across the deep chasm with the rapids raging below is your destination camp, but unless you cross that chasm on a rickety rope bridge you are going to be not far, but never there.

Bridging that gap between not far away and living in the kingdom is the issue at hand. How does one go from talking to walking the word? Jeremiah Wright says it is by doing three things daily. Daily walking is the first. Daily is the hard part for most people. As far as our words are concerned, we are Sunday people and tend to forget or at best mumble the words on Monday morning. So whatever you talk about Sunday in the pews, you have to walk and do on Monday, Tuesday and so on. “This is the day the Lord has made” applies to each of the seven days.

Second, you’ve got to be daily working. The fact that you might be born again doesn’t mean you are a finished product, a perfect disciple. Daily you’ve got to work on it, just like Sidney Lovett replied when asked if he were saved, “I’m working on it!” One day at a time, just as the members of Alcoholics Anonymous deeply understand, I’ve got to work on the faith daily, doing the best I can with what I have.

Third, you’ve got to worship daily. Not just one big dose on Sunday, but daily come into the presence of God, praying and studying and thinking and praising and giving thanks for the grace bestowed on you so freely and undeservedly. That famous passage from Micah 6:8 says, “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” One problem in our churches sometimes is that there are people who are hot to do justice, but don’t want to bother with the second part, to walk humbly with God, to worship God, to listen to God, not just to our own ideas of justice. Pretty soon, they certainly won’t need God to do justice; they can do it on their own without all that God talk and presence. Walk humbly, daily, with God.

All of this sounds pretty pious, I know. What kind of walking are we talking about? What kind of prayer, what spiritually correct words work? The form does not matter. God is looking for an important something else inside our heart and soul, and it is the story of Ruth that illustrates the odd ways that God gets things done.

Naomi goes back home to Bethlehem with her pagan daughter-in-law, let’s say it as it is. Ruth is young and willing to do anything and everything to help Naomi, but when you are a foreigner in such societies you are at the bottom with few, if any, rights and privileges. There was an old custom that after the workers harvested the grain in the field, the poor and disadvantaged and stranger was allowed to go back into the fields and pick up the grains strewn off to the side. Ruth went right after it, working from dawn to dusk without a break.

The owner of the field, Boaz, a relative of Elimelech, noticed her work ethic and inquired about her, being even more impressed by what she had done for the widow Naomi. He praised Ruth, gave her extra privileges and protection, invited her to eat with him. Ruth took home a good portion of barley, along with a doggie bag from the luncheon meal. Ruth wasn’t just talking, she was walking daily.

Naomi had a further idea which she pressed upon Ruth. Ruth faithfully carried it through in order to secure a place for herself in the Bethlehem family of Elimelech and Boaz. There’s no sense mincing words, Ruth seduced Boaz. She slept to the top! Perhaps given that culture it was a dangerous tactic, but it worked marvelously. I think she did it nicely! Boaz took her as his wife eventually and she gave birth to a son Obed, the father of Jesse and grandfather of David. Ruth then, a foreign woman who scarcely had heard of the God of Israel, is the great-great-great and then great-some-more grandmother of Jesus. Gee, they sure did things differently back then, didn’t they?

I believe it is profoundly amazing and meaningful that Ruth is the Lectionary reading for this Sunday before the American congressional elections - an election in which religion and Christianity have been prostituted like no other? Every good Sunday School Christian knows the story about Ruth, hums to him or herself about her delicate task securing Boaz’s favour. So here we have a true Biblical heroine - “I will go where you will go” is used in a lot of weddings down there - and she becomes one of the mothers of Jesus Christ our Saviour by means of sexual impropriety. My goodness, I hope they have the courage to read Ruth today. No wonder Ted Haggard has his problems with everyone else’s sexuality. Ruth walked the long way into the kingdom of God, and Ted Haggard is perhaps not far from the kingdom, but only because of his many many supposedly pious words. God’s love works in mysterious ways!

And that is the Gospel, because God does not require you to talk in a certain way with particular vocabulary. God loves to hear your words when they are an authentic reflection of what is in your heart. God does not even care if you are a formal card carrying member of a specific institutional form of religion, or not. God just wants you to walk daily on the road towards the kingdom. Some day you can say it’s not far now, and before you know it, you are there.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan