Steadfast Love
Pentecost 20A (NL2)
October 15, 2023
Our Savior’s, Faribault, MN
Ruth 1.1-17
This past Wednesday I asked the worshippers what made a good friend, just as I did with our young people this morning. As today, they gave several excellent responses: a good friend keeps confidences, doesn’t tell stories, is a friend no matter what you do or don’t do, gives you hugs, and is honest with you even if it’s hard to hear. I’m guessing that you could add several more characteristics to this list.
These characteristics could be summed up in the biblical term hesed, which means steadfast love, faithfulness, or loyalty. Hesed is something that is at the forefront of our reading from Ruth this morning. Since the Ten Commandments were given to the Israelites last week, they have wandered in the wilderness 40 years and finally settled in the Promised Land, grouped into 12 tribes. It’s a loose confederation with no central ruler and where disputes are settled by judges. It is in this setting that the book of Ruth finds context.
Because of a famine in the land of Israel, Naomi, her husband, and two sons travel to Moab for a better life. There the two sons take Moabite wives. Ultimately, all three men die, the two sons are sonless themselves. Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem because the famine has eased and decides to leave her daughters-in-law so they might be able to build families themselves. Orpah reluctantly goes back, but Ruth steadfastly refuses and utters that famous declaration, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there I will be buried”
We don’t know what Naomi did to stir up such steadfast love and loyalty within Ruth. Perhaps it was shared grief or that Naomi’s God was more attractive than Moab’s gods. But we do know that this relationship is remarkable because historically Moabites and Israelites were enemies. We also know that for Naomi to return as a widow in Israel was very precarious. Without a husband or sons, she would have no means of support and life would be very hard for Naomi. Perhaps Ruth saw that and was determined to help.
Another remarkable feature of the story is that Ruth would face certain discrimination in Israel for being a foreigner Now, discrimination isn’t remarkable in and of itself, given the history of Israel and Moab. We’ll learn that even when Ruth displays her incredible faithfulness to Naomi and, as we will see, her subsequent marriage to Boaz, a prominent Israelite, she’ll always be “the Moabitess.” Yet, through it all, Ruth remains steadfast, and she and Naomi find a way where there was no way.
Now, here is “The Rest of the Story” as Paul Harvey used to intone. Ruth marries Boaz, whose own mother, Tamar, was of questionable repute. They have a son, Obed, who also has a son, Jesse. Jesse will have seven sons, the youngest who is a “man after God’s own heart,” David. As we’ll see next week, it will be David who becomes king and unites the 12 tribes of Israel. And, if you read chapter 1 of Matthew, it will be David’s descendant, Jesus, who will be the Messiah. Ruth is the great-grandmother of Jesus 28 times.
The story of Ruth is not only some interesting bit of backstory to the Davidic monarchy and the Jesus story. The steadfast love and faithfulness of Ruth is a microcosm of that of the God who does the same. As we’ve seen already this fall, this is a God who makes a way where there seems to be no way. We saw God make a way by providing a son to a couple well past child-bearing age. This God made a way by freeing a people out of slavery, and making them numerous while bringing them into the Promised Land.
We still have a lot more story before we get to the Jesus story at Christmas, but through it all and beyond God will demonstrate God’s hesed, God’s steadfast love, loyalty, and faithfulness. It is this assurance that sustains us in our faith journeys, both individually and together as a community of faith. It is God’s steadfast love that carries us through this time of uncertainty, trauma, and chaos. As we gather around God’s Table, we receive God’s very self, God’s assurance that God will make a way for us where there seems to be no way. As God does so, we are not surprised when that way includes unlikely people like Ruth, me, and you. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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