Worship at Home – Sunday 14^th June 2020 – Bible Month – Week 2 – Ruth 2

Introduction:

In Ruth 1 we accompany Naomi on her journey away from Bethlehem to Moab to seek refuge from famine and on her return with Ruth once the famine is over.  By the time she returns, she is so full of grief at the death of her husband and sons, that we might imagine that she has little appetite even though there is food now available.

As we became familiar with Naomi and Ruth as the lead characters in the story, I wonder whether we began to form opinions on the kind of people they were?  Personally, I find there is something in Naomi, beyond her grief that is unpleasant and uncomfortable.  I find myself wanting to ask Ruth, “Why did you bother?” 

Of course, as with all stories and all characters, the way we respond can give us useful insights to our own personality strength and weakness, and as we sit with the characters in Ruth, we may find ourselves praying through the way the story moves us.  My response, I think, informs the prayers of confession that I offer in this service.

Preparing for Worship – Ruth 2:4

The Lord be with you!

The Lord bless you.

Hymn – StF 565 – Only By Grace Can we Enter - https://youtu.be/sV6MJrFBkDo

Prayer of Adoration

(In this prayer there are pauses (…) where you may wish to name some of the ways in which God’s presence is made known)

Lord, sometimes I see things more from my perspective than yours.
Help me today to see beyond my natural perspective and adopt your perspective.
I praise you for your greatness and power that I see in so many ways
I praise you for your nearness and tenderness that I feel in so many ways
I pause to meditate on the things that draw me into your presence
and on your qualities that encourage me
I give you all my worship and praise today.  Amen.

(adapted from Prayers for Today – Kurt Bjorklund – 2011 – page 24) 

Prayer of Confession

Gracious and forgiving God,
your invitation to be in your presence never fails and never weakens,
but when I come into your presence, I am confronted by my own failings and weakness,
so I come to you seeking your forgiveness.

When I am tempted to ask, “Why do I bother?”
and become agitated by others’ indifference and ungratefulness
Lord forgive me.

When I am tempted to ask, “Why do I bother?”
because yet again I have tried my best but seem to have achieved little
Lord forgive me.

When I am tempted to ask, “Why do I bother?”
where others have not responded in the way I thought they should
Lord forgive me.

When I have lived in ways that make others wonder why you bothered with me.
Lord forgive me.

When I have taken for granted your goodness and grace
Lord forgive me.

Almighty God,
whose mercy is new every morning
remind us that you continue to bother to reach out to us in love and grace
and renew in us a desire for you and a love for our neighbour
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Hymn – StF 530 – To be in Your presence - https://youtu.be/Sfk2Z2aOqWU

Engaging with Scripture

There is a fair amount of dialogue in Ruth 2, and the reflection that follows draws quite heavily from Ruth’s conversation, so I have included The Voice Version

Reading – Ruth 2

Now Naomi’s deceased husband, Elimelech, had a relative in Bethlehem, an honorable, wealthy man named Boaz. One day Ruth (the foreign woman who returned with Naomi from Moab) approached Naomi with a request.

Ruth: Let me go out into the field and pick up whatever grain is left behind the harvesters. Maybe someone will be merciful to me.

Naomi: Go ahead, my daughter.

Ruth left and went into the fields to pick up the gleanings, the grain that had been left behind by the harvesters. And so it was that the portion of the field she was working in belonged to Boaz, who was a part of Elimelech’s family.

As she was working in his field, Boaz happened to arrive from Bethlehem, and he greeted the harvesters.

Boaz: The Eternal One be with you.

Harvesters: May the Eternal bless you!

Then seeing Ruth, Boaz spoke to the young man in charge of the harvesters.

Boaz: Whom does this young woman belong to?

Overseer: She is the Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from Moab. She came and asked my permission to pick up the grain our harvesters leave behind and gather it all into sheaves for herself. Except for one small break she has been here all day, working in the field from the morning until now.

Note: When God gives His law to the Israelites, He establishes a culture of generosity. Knowing there will be people such as widows, orphans, and resident aliens who will be too poor to farm for themselves, He set limits on how much each farmer should harvest from his own land. In Leviticus 19:9–10, farmers are told not to harvest the corners of their property or return to already-harvested rows to pick up any grain that may have been left. The remaining grain in the field is called gleanings, and those are left for the poor. In a similar law, Deuteronomy 24:19–22 explains that God does this to remind His people that once they were all poor and resident aliens themselves in Egypt. The gleaners face hard labor every day, so Ruth isn’t expecting the kindness Boaz shows her.

Boaz (to Ruth): Listen to me, my daughter. Do not go and glean in any other field. In fact, do not go outside my property at all but stay with the young women who work for me following the harvesters and bundling the grain into sheaves. Watch the harvesters, and see which field they are working in. Follow along behind these servants of mine. I have warned the young men not to touch you. If you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars my young men have filled for the harvesters.

Overwhelmed, Ruth bowed down before Boaz, putting her face to the ground in front of him.

Ruth: I am just a foreigner. Why have you noticed me and treated me as if I’m one of your favorites?

Boaz: I have heard your story. I know about everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your own husband died. I know you left your own mother and father, your home and your country, and you have come to live in a culture that must seem strange to you. May the Eternal repay you for your sacrifices and reward you richly for what you have done. It is under the wings of Israel’s God, the Eternal One, that you have sought shelter.

Ruth: I pray you will continue to look upon me with such favor, my lord. I am comforted by your kind words, even though I am not as worthy of them as even one of your servant girls.

Later during the meal, Boaz spoke to Ruth again.

Boaz: Come over here and have some of my food. Dip your piece of bread in the vinegar wine.

So Ruth sat down among the harvesters. Boaz also offered her some roasted grain. She ate as much as she wanted and even had some left over. When her meal was finished, she got back up and returned to work. Then Boaz pulled some of the young harvesters aside and gave them instructions about her.

Boaz: Let her pick up grain from among the sheaves. Do not reprimand or humiliate her for gleaning where it is usually forbidden. Instead, periodically pick out a stalk or two from the sheaves that have already been bound, and leave them for her to gather for herself. Make sure that no one gives her a hard time.

So Ruth worked in the field all day until the sun had nearly set. When she finished picking up the leftover ears, she beat her gathered barley grains from the stalks with a stick. All that work resulted in over 20 quarts of grain. Then she carried it back to the city where her mother-in-law saw how much she had gleaned. Ruth took out the leftover food from what she could not eat of her midday meal and gave it to Naomi.

Naomi (to Ruth): Where did you go to work today? Where did you glean all this from? May God bless the person who gave you this kind of attention.

So Ruth told Naomi the story of all that had happened to her that day and on whose land she had worked.

Ruth: The man I worked with today is named Boaz.

Naomi: May the Eternal bless this man. He has not given up showing His covenant love toward the living and the dead.

This man is closely related to us—he is a kinsman-redeemer of our family.

The kinsman-redeemer is the closest relative and has the responsibility to save his family members from any evil or hardship.

Ruth: That is not all he did. Boaz also instructed me to stay with his young workers for the remainder of his grain harvesting season.

Naomi: It is best that you do as he says. Stay with his young women who bind the sheaves. They will keep you safe from the hostility and danger of working in another’s field.

So that is what Ruth did. She kept close to Boaz’s young female servants and picked up everything they dropped. She worked hard throughout the seven weeks of the wheat and barley seasons until the harvest was complete in early summer. And this whole time she lived at her mother-in-law’s home.

Reflection

I think one of the things that irritates me about Naomi, is the underlying sense of entitlement that I pick up from her.  Her afflictions are real, but they are not unique, yet somehow she seems to come across, to me, as someone who feels that she was entitled to be protected from suffering and struggle. It is all God's fault and she expected better!

Ruth by contrast, seems to “accentuate the positive” (as the song would have it!) seeing every benefit as a sign of grace.  As this chapter opens, we see that for Naomi and Ruth, food is still not easy to come by.  Ruth volunteers to go into the fields to glean some grain, but rather than complaining at her lot, she goes in the expectation that she will find mercy (or grace).  She will be happy to survive on the gleanings she can gather, but she goes in hope that someone might look upon her with favour and provide her with more than the basic necessities.

At this point Boaz enters the story.  The narrator sets the scene for us by telling us of the family link between Naomi and Boaz, but as far as we can tell from the story, at their first encounter Ruth has no idea who he is.  What unfolds as they talk is an amazing example of how grace can shape human relationships and push us beyond the boundaries of our pre-conceptions.

Our 21^st century sensitivities may twitch at Boaz’s first question about Ruth, “Who does this woman belong to?”  I wonder if that question grates on us, especially in the light of the last two weeks of news with controversy about the national legacy of slave-trading and historical dehumanising attitudes to people of different race.

Is there something jarring to us about the Overseer’s response?  “She is the Moabite woman …”  Is he admiring her hard work or expressing surprise that the foreigner should put in so much effort?  How we hear it may depend on our own experience; possibly as victims of prejudice or as those who have discovered that we absorbed prejudicial attitudes from our own upbringing and background. 

We really can’t tell how the Overseer viewed Ruth, but it becomes clear that Boaz’s response is informed by his knowledge of her story.  He tells her, “I know everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your own husband died.”  The narrator has let us into the secret, he and Naomi are family, he knows her: I wonder whether he found her irritating (perhaps it really is just me!!)   Boaz’s message seems to be, “because you have gone to so much bother, I am going to do the little I can to help you.”

What amazing grace is being shown here!  They both offer a blessing to one that others would judge to be unworthy.  They both give without any expectation of the favour being returned.  Their generosity springs from their open-heartedness and probably catches-out those around them.  It is not hard to imagine Naomi wondering about Ruth’s persistent love and care; likewise Boaz’s employees probably wonder at his generosity to “the Moabite woman.” 

From where does this fountain of grace spring?  The hint is there in the text.  Boaz’s greeting was probably the familiar form of address in his time: “The Eternal One be with you.”  The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible suggests that the use of “greetings imploring the Lord is not unusual.”  Yet the commentary leaves open the possibility that “it may denote an element of devotion.”  Boaz’s later blessing of Ruth seems to go further than just a customary “God bless:”

May the Eternal repay you for your sacrifices and reward you richly for what you have done.  It is under the wings of Israel’s God, the Eternal One, that you have sought shelter. (v11)

We have, here, an insight into Boaz’s vision of God – you may wish to contrast it with the picture of God painted by Naomi in chapter 1:

Call me Mara … because the Highest one has treated me bitterly. … I left this place full … but the Eternal has brought me back empty … the Eternal has testified againt me and the Highest One has brought disaster upon me? (Ruth 1:20,21)

Have you ever come across people with this kind of negative view of God?  (Perhaps right now, you struggle to see God’s goodness, and it is understandable in the face of suffering and stuggle.)  When someone’s life has been so hard that they feel that even God has abandoned them there is a deeper sense of tragedy.  Living with the sense that not just nature, but the Creator have turned against you brings a sense of deep despair.  

What is it then that makes the difference for a Ruth or a Boaz, who find nothing but streams of grace and mercy new every morning in God, when someone like Naomi has only the sense that God is a god of abandonment and disapproval? 

It is not a question that can be answered in simplistic terms – every one of us is a complex being shaped and formed by many different things and, despite, my willingness to do so earlier, none of us really has grounds to judge the experience and response of another or even how God’s grace might be at work in their lives – even an ancient character in a Bible story! 

The Apostle Paul probably struggles as much as I do to resist the temptation to seek easy explanations and make snap-judgements on other people’s actions and attitudes.  But he DOES resist and he encourages us to resist too.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul is clearly stung by the criticism of the Corinthians, who have come to the view that Paul’s ministry is nowhere near as exciting and dynamic as some others. 

He tries to present an insouciance that sometimes proves to be a thin veil for the real hurt he feels:

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed I do not even judge myself.  My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.  It is the Lord who judges me.  Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes.  He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and he will expose the motives of the heart.  At that time each will receive their praise from God. (1 Corinthians 4:3-5)

Later in the same letter, he concludes, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.  No I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10)

In some people the grace of God is obviously at work – Ruth stays with Naomi despite all the urging to turn back … Boaz provides them both with good quality grain rather than the left-over gleanings … Paul works on fulfilling his ministry despite the Church’s rejection. 

In others, God’s working is happening at a hidden depth – Naomi slowly comes to realise that her image of God is distorted by her pain, Boaz’s servants’ views are challenged by their master’s generosity, the Corinthians eventually come to value the steady and stable ministry of Paul as much as the bells and whistles of the visiting preachers. 

The important thing is that God’s grace is at work.  God continues to bother with each and everyone of us and God’s love and grace transcends all of our human barriers and prejudice offering mercy and favour to each and every one.

The Lord be with you.  The Lord bless you.  Amen  

As you reflect on today's chapter, you may wish to reflect on how you have responded to the events of your life?  Where have you known God's grace to be at work?  Where have you struggled to believe that God is present at all.  

We may all have encountered people like Naomi who seem to carry a permanent bitterness.  At least she had the insight to admit it, not everyone does.  How do we respond to people who struggle to ever see anything good in their lives?  How do we cope when we go through times of feeling that there is nothing positive to say: it may be grumpy days or even a season?  

Perhaps we sometimes feel that our prayer life or our reading of scripture is a bit like Ruth's gleaning.  We set out hoping to find something of grace, mercy and favour but knowing we will be content with what we find.  Occasionally, God meets us like Boaz met Ruth, and says, "I know all about you, I've seen the kindness and generosity you have offered others - and now here is a gift of grace for you."  I pray that will be your experience in the coming days.  May God be with you to bless you and show you God's favour.  

Hymn – StF 712 Put Peace into Each others hands  -

This link is a version sung to St Colomba - https://youtu.be/Zu1xDPrwTFQ

This is a beautiful version with a tune that has a Rutter feel,  if you would prefer to listen to it https://youtu.be/YVLw3xAMKuk

Prayers of Intercession – (there are two forms of intercession offered below, both taken from Prayers for Today – Kurt Bjorklund – 2011 – page 67)

A Celtic Prayer:

I pray for all who are in depair
all who have been betrayed
all who are dismayed
all who are distressed
all who feel depressed
all whose hope has flown
all who are alone
Lord, who came down to share our plight,
lift them into your love and light.

A prayer by Ken Gire

I pray you would give me a heart for those who, for whatever reason, are not in the mainstream of life
for those who lie crumpled and cast aside.
for those who are forgotten and ignored.
for those who are in some way blinded to the fullness of life.

Help me not to turn a deaf ear when they call out.
Help me to stop, regardless of what the crowd may say.
Help me to give them my undivided attention.
Help me to give myself for them as you did – to show mercy, to do what I can.

Although I may not be able to loose them from their chains or free them from their prisons
Help me to be faithful in keeping in touch so that they may know someone cares
Help me to bring a meal so that they may be nourished
Help me to say a kind word so that they may be encouraged
Help me to give a gentle touch so they may be comforted; …
Help me to lend a listening ear so their stories may be heard.
Help me whenever, wherever, and however I can to bring light to someone who sits in darkness.  Amen

The Lord’s Prayer

Hymn – StF 440 – Amazing Grace - https://youtu.be/CDdvReNKKuk?t=50

A Biggleswade Blessing – produced by our friends at Biggleswade Baptist Church on behalf of the Churches of Biggleswade. 

https://www.facebook.com/BiggleswadeBaptistChurch/videos/606442866894201/