Not Far
Matthew 1:5; Ruth 1-4
November 1, 2009
All Saints Day can be rather intimidating. If you are supposed to remember them all, you are in for an awfully long day. There are so many saints out there you wonder why the world isn’t holy. A simple way to start figuring out the saints is to read the very first words in the first Gospel of the New Testament - Matthew’s genealogy list of the saints of Israel. Of course, Matthew doesn’t call them saints, they are for the most part the patriarchs of Israel, beginning with Abraham and coming all the way down through history to Jesus, the son of Mary whose husband was Joseph. But as far as Israel was concerned these were the saints, God’s particular people set apart to accomplish God’s holy work.
Neither Matthew’s nor Luke’s genealogies find their way into the Lectionary, which comes as no surprise. However, there is something amazing in this list of names, in between the lines. There are five non-patriarchs recognized as important players in God’s drama. Non-patriarchs because they are women, who have kept the promise first made to Abram alive: the first being Rahab, the prostitute in Sodom who sheltered God’s messengers; then Tamar, who posed as a prostitute to her father; Ruth, our saint for today, who seduced her mother-in-law’s relative; then the wife of Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba, whose scandalous affair with King David did not go unnoticed, but she was the mother of Solomon; and finally Mary, the mother of Jesus by means of the Holy Spirit, but as far as all were concerned, she was a young girl in trouble, pregnant out of wedlock.
So with the rap against the Biblical narrative as a fundamentally patriarchal document in a mercilessly male-centred society - make no mistake - these women were the real subjects of this list. Most of the names mentioned would be unfamiliar to readers, but everybody knows these five women. In any particular age, including our own, their lives would have raised disapproving eyebrows, yet they led to Jesus when matters were in doubt. God set them apart to do something special, which is what being holy, being a saint means. Real saints are not perfect according to our human standards; God’s saints are real people who in God’s time do extraordinary things, like Ruth.
Charles Dickens was never able to write a more tragic story of personal disaster and devastation than the author of Ruth. Elimelech and Naomi take their boys south to Moab during famine time, but whatever could go wrong goes terribly wrong. Elimelech dies, but the boys are able to marry local young women and security is restored. Life was much more precarious then and lesser diseases than the swine flu could kill you and before long the two sons died leaving the two Moabite daughters-in-law widowed. This was the era of the judges in Israel, a sort of ancient Wild West, where no one knew right from wrong and no one cared about Naomi’s fate. With no husband, no male sponsor, a stranger in a strange land, she recognized that her only real option was to return home to Bethlehem and hope that someone would have compassion upon her.
Naomi knows that this will be a great risk and her foreign daughters-in-law would not be welcome in a xenophobic land. So she releases both Orpah and Ruth from their obligations and advises them to stay in their home land. Orpah tearfully accepts the option, but Ruth is stubborn and won’t leave Naomi.
A few have pointed out that despite Ruth’s valiant promise, repeated at many weddings - “where you go I will go, your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God” - she didn’t seem to understand Naomi’s situation. Ruth was going to be more of a burden to Naomi than a help - another mouth to feed, another soul to preserve while surviving herself would be hard enough. “And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.” A quiet sigh, rather than a smile.
They traveled back to Bethlehem and the whole town was astir, “Is this Naomi?” Don’t call me that now, she declares, call me Mara, which means “bitter.” And bitter she is against the Lord Almighty who has emptied her fullness, afflicted her with death and disaster, and brought catastrophe and abject poverty upon her. It was the beginning of the barley harvest and that’s all the Lectionary will let us read. We can’t stop talking now.
Israelite law had a specific provision for the poor, allowing the poor to go into the fields after the reapers had finished harvesting and glean was left behind on the ground, dogs picking up the scraps from their master’s tables, as Jesus would parabolize. Naomi still had family in Bethlehem and one was a certain Boaz who owned significant farming property. Ruth knew of the custom and went out and gleaned in Boaz’s fields from morning until dusk. Boaz was impressed by this foreigner’s devotion to her mother-in-law and gave her full permission to glean all she needed. Moreover, he told all the young men to leave her alone, not to molest her. This may have been Biblical society, but it was no better than our roughest societies.
Naomi, encouraged by Boaz’s generosity, had it quickly figured out and sent Ruth to seduce him into adopting her into his family. A lot of churches have reduced the Gospel down to acceptable sexual practices, but they never seem to read Ruth closely enough. Let’s just say that the grace of God was with Ruth and Naomi and Boaz and let us emphasize that it was God’s grace, not our definition of it. And it all worked, for Ruth and Boaz were married and they had a son Obed who was the father of Jessie who had many sons, the youngest of whom was David, the greatest of all Israel’s kings, and Jesus was of the house and lineage of David.
I would not recommend imitating Ruth at home, but she was God’s special one, a saint, set apart for God’s promise, a foreigner who had no place, but whom God opened up a place. Saint Ruth does not let you and me off the hook. In the early church when Matthew and Mark were writing their Gospels all the members of the church were called “saints,” just as many churches call one another “brother” or “sister.” Hey, the office, the job, often transforms the office-holder. Over the millennia that’s a lot of saints, and you and I are counted in their number. As we gather around the Lord’s Table, keep in mind that we eat and drink with all the saints, past and present. Better watch out, you might find yourself doing something awfully good.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan