Stronger Than Death (Ruth)

 I have the latest copy of the Bloomington-Normal Area Official Visitor Guide. Right here at the front, there’s a “BN Bucket List.” How many of these bucket list items have you done?

Before I moved to Illinois, I received a copy of last year’s Visitor Guide, which the search committee sent to me. It was fun to look through that magazine as I counted down the days until we moved here.

I have some other visitor guides here… And this past summer, before I went with Ginger and Ethan to West Virginia for a short vacation, I read through one published by the West Virginia Department of Tourism; on the front cover it had the words, “almost heaven.”

In addition to visitor guide magazines, one can also get a preview of a place by looking online. 

I didn’t get a magazine when I went to Washington, D.C. two months ago, and I’ve never had one for Chicago, but I did find it helpful to follow several social media accounts that highlighted things to do in those cities. I still follow the Chicago ones, since Chicago’s just up the road…

Unfortunately, there is no visitor guide or social media account for a place that I will be traveling to one day, a place that we all will be traveling to one day…

I’m talking about heaven.

It would be nice if there was a visitor guide for heaven, though, wouldn’t it? Or a social media account you could follow? Something that shows you what the accommodations are like, what there is to see, who you’ll get to see? (Oh, there’s some people I want to see in heaven!) Something that lets you know that the sunsets are incredible, and that angelic choirs perform free concerts every Saturday at 7?

Wouldn’t that be nice? 

Now, some would say that heaven does have a version of a visitor guide, and that is the Bible. Well, OK. Metaphorically speaking, one could say that.

But the Bible really says very little about life after we die. It’s all very vague.

And many of the scriptures that we interpret as applying to life after death really are about things in this world. 

But there are glimpses. Hints. 

It’s not a high-quality magazine filled with beautiful color photographs. But it is just enough, I suppose, to give me faith, and hope, and confidence in that future that awaits us all.

The glimpse of heaven that I find most helpful is in the 8th chapter of Romans. In my imaginary visitor’s bureau magazine, Romans 8 gets a full, two-page spread. 

Because there, it says that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That is the assurance to me—to us—that God’s love is stronger than anything—stronger even than death—and that we will dwell in God’s love forever, even after we die.

I wish I had a more detailed picture of what exactly that will look like, but it is enough for me to know that we will dwell in God’s love forever.

I see that same assurance in the story of Naomi and Ruth.

The love that Naomi and Ruth have for each other is deep and strong and incredible. It is the love that inspired Ruth to say to Naomi, “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” 

These beautiful words have been used by a number of couples as part of their wedding vows, even though the context in the book of Ruth is that of a daughter-in-law expressing her loyalty and devotion to her mother-in-law.

But for me, the fact that this is an expression of love between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law is what makes this scene so powerful, and such a significant glimpse into the love that remains steadfast even after death.

Hear me out.

Naomi and Ruth’s love for one another came about because of a man who is now dead: Mahlon, the son of Naomi, and the husband of Ruth. Their love for each other was because of him. Their love for each other came about through him. He was what connected them to each other. He was what made them part of the same family.

They probably wouldn’t have even known each other without him. They only knew each other because he—the son of Naomi—married Ruth. He was the one who brought them together.

So, when he died…

When he and his brother died, Naomi set aside whatever emotions she was feeling, and told her two daughters-in-law—Ruth and Orpah—that they were no longer bound to her, that they were free to return to their own homes. Mahlon and Chilion, the ones who brought them all together, the ones through whom they were related, were now dead. So why should Ruth and Orpah stay with her?

Yet, even though Mahlon and Chilion were dead, the love Ruth and Orpah had for Naomi remained, and they refused to leave her.

After some more persuading, Orpah did finally agree to leave, but Ruth would not. Could not. “Don’t make me,” she said. 

Her love for Naomi and her loyalty to her would not allow her to leave. It stayed just as strong, and steadfast.

Probably some of you—maybe many of you—have experienced a love like that. You became a part of a family because of a marriage connection that you or someone else made. Then, through death, or perhaps divorce or some other circumstance, that connection was severed… the one through whom that connection was made was no longer in the picture; and yet, the love lingered, persisted, remained steadfast.

What a beautiful and holy thing! What a testament to the power of love, that it survived even the death of the one who provided the original connection on which that love was based! 

And the older I get, the more I realize how important it is to have love like that. That love takes many forms, but today I’m mostly talking about the love that we receive from those generations before us: our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, dear friends and mentors who have guided us along the way. 

The saints who we celebrate today.

And maybe their love wasn’t perfect, but no human love is. But, if we’re blessed, their love was good. 

And sometimes, “good” is even better than “perfect.” 

Again, it might have been your parents, but it might also have been someone else for you, whose love guided you, nurtured you, and was a reflection of God’s own love for you, that made the difference. 

And it is my hope that there are folks in this room today who continue to provide that same love for you, the love that was passed down to them, which they now share with you.

And our job, of course, is to pass that love that we have received on to others, sharing it, especially with those who are a part of the generations that come after us.

Living is hard, and in some ways, it seems to be getting even harder. But love will get us through. 

Especially a love like this: a love that transcends generations, a love that goes back not just one or two generations, but all the way back through all of human history, back to when God first created humanity, first breathed that breath that gave life to dust and bones. 

It was love that did that.

And all of scripture is a testimony to God’s love for humanity.

Perhaps when we die, we get to experience that love in an even greater way than is possible for us to experience in this life. It’s like, now, the love we have, the love we receive, the love we share, it is in a state of growing, developing, becoming; but when we die, it will finally be complete; whole; fully realized.

I don’t know how you could convey that in a glossy visitor magazine. Maybe that’s why there is no such magazine for heaven. 

But thank God we get to experience that love just as Ruth and Naomi and so many others have experienced it. Thank God that it is a love that does not come to an end when a person dies, but continues growing, expanding and embracing, with each generation that comes. 

In fact, the genealogies that begin the Advent stories in Matthew and Luke: aren’t they a testament to God’s love that continues from one generation to the next? The story of Christ, starting with his birth, is the story of a God who loved humanity so much, that God became one of us, dwelt among us, in human form. But the genealogies remind us that the story of God’s love really began much, much earlier than that.

And it will continue. God’s love will continue. It’s the most important message that the church has for the world: God’s love is real, and God’s love is for you, and nothing—not even death—will separate you from that love. 

Knowing that is a great comfort to me when I think back to those I have loved and who have loved me, who are no longer with me today. 

And knowing that is a great comfort to me when I become anxious about my own death.

It’s even a comfort to me when I become anxious about the election. No matter what happens, God’s love is strong, and God’s love is steadfast. No matter what happens in the darkest part of night, God’s love is renewed every morning. 

And as the story of Ruth and Naomi shows, it is a love that continues even after death. It was their love for Mahlon that brought them together, but even after Mahlon died, the love that grew out of that relationship through marriage remained steadfast. 

Nothing beats that. Because nothing is more powerful than love.

Ruth

1. Right of Redemption

Two weeks ago, when I preached about Tamar, I described what it was like for childless widows. I need to go over that again to help us understand the story of Ruth.

Ancient laws and customs dictated that family names and inheritances were to be passed down through the first-born son. But what if a married couple had no children? And what if the husband died, leaving no son to carry on the family name?

If that happened, the dead husband’s brother or next-of-kin was expected to exercise the right of redemption. In this case, it means that he would marry the dead man’s widow, so that they might have children who would then carry on the dead man’s name. Legally, those children would have all the inheritance rights and responsibilities as if they had been born to the now-deceased man himself.

An added benefit for the widow is that she would remain attached to a family, and provided for, rather than being cast to the street.

All this is important to the story of Ruth, because in this story, tragically, there are quite a few dead husbands and sons. But it will take us a few minutes to get to that point…

2. The House of Elimelech

Once upon a time there was a man named Elimelech. Elimelech had a wife named Naomi. And Elimelech and Naomi had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.

They lived in Bethlehem, but when a famine came, they became refugees, and went to live in the country of Moab.

Now, if you were an ancient Jew hearing this story for the first time, you would already sense the drama in this story. Poor Elimelech and Naomi. Poor Mahlon and Chilion. Forced to move to Moab, that awful place, that terrible, no-good land, filled with terrible, no-good people.

If you were an ancient Jew, you would have heard your political leaders describe Moabites as criminals and drug addicts. You would have heard your religious leaders describe Moabites as animals and monsters. Your leaders would have told you that associating with Moabites was forbidden, and that any Moabites living in Israel should be deported.

So to hear a story in which a family of good Israelites was forced to go and live in Moab… Your heart went out to them.

But the story gets worse.

While Elimelech and Naomi and their sons were living in Moab (that dreadful place), Elimelech died… and then the two sons married Moabite women. They married detestable Moabite women!

And then the two sons died, which meant that Naomi was left without a husband and without her sons.  Just two Moabite daughters-in-law, and no one to carry on her husband Elimelech’s name, and no one to provide for her or her Moabite daughters-in-law.

Some years later, when the famine back in Israel had ended, Naomi got ready to go back to her homeland. Her life was beyond hope, but at least she could live out her days back home. 

Her Moabite daughters-in-law started to come with her, but Naomi said to her daughters-in-law: Go back to your relatives in Moab. 

Her two daughters-in-law said no, but Naomi said: “Why would you go with me? I’m old, I’m not going to have any more sons who can become your husbands and redeem you, and I’m too old to to have a new husband myself. And even if I could find a husband and have sons, would you wait for them to be old enough to marry and redeem you? No. my life is over. Go back to Moab, perhaps you may still yet have a life there.”

One of her daughters did as Naomi said, and returned back to Moab. But the other daughter-in-law - whose name was Ruth - said to Naomi: 

“Do not force me to leave you or turn back from following you! 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.”

So the two of them - Naomi, and her Moabite daughter-in-law named Ruth - made their way back to Bethlehem. 

3. The Good Moabite

And I should point out that, even though they returned to Bethlehem, the book of Ruth never stops referring to Ruth as the Moabite. It never stops using that detestable name, that slur, to describe her. 

Near Bethlehem, Ruth the Moabite gleaned in the field of a man named Boaz. That means she followed Boaz’s own workers, and picked up whatever grain was left behind after they went through and harvested. Ancient law dictated that harvesters not go back and get what they missed the first time through, so that those who are poor and destitute may do exactly what Ruth was doing.

One day Boaz came out to the field and saw Ruth, and Boaz asked his workers: “To whom does this woman belong?”

And his workers replied, “No one. She belongs to no man. She’s the Moabite who came back with Naomi from Moab.”

So Boaz went to Ruth and said: “Don’t go to another field to glean, or leave this one. The fact that you are a young woman and a Moabite makes you especially vulnerable. Stay here. Stay close to the other young women. And I’ll order my men not to bother you.”

Ruth replied, “Why have I found favor in your sight, when I am a foreigner, a Moabite?”

And Boaz said, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been told to me, and how you left your own father and mother and your own country to come to a land and a people you did not know… May the Lord bless you for your loyalty to your mother-in-law.”

So Boaz saw the good in Ruth… even though she was a Moabite.

The question is: would the Israelites who, centuries later, heard this story told to them also see that good can come from a Moabite? Their prejudice was strong, and their anti-Moabite bigotry was rampant. And yet in this story, the Moabite is...a good person, whose love and loyalty outshines anyone else’s.

That’s a lot to take in...

But wait. There’s more.

It turns out that Boaz is actually related somehow to Naomi, and therefore has the right to redeem Ruth. In other words, he can bring her into his family, and through her have children that would carry on the name of Elimelech. 

The question is: would he? He wasn’t a close relative, so he could have easily passed on this. And perhaps he would want to, given that she is a Moabite.

But the first right of redemption doesn’t belong to Boaz. There is another, slightly closer relative who has that right. So Boaz goes to that other relative, but that other relative refuses to redeem Ruth, because if he does it will mess up his own inheritance that he plans to pass down to his own sons. (And also, probably, because she is a Moabite.)

So then Boaz claims the right to redeem, and he and Ruth marry (even though she is a Moabite).

4. A Blessing

Boaz says to the city elders gathered around: “Today you are witnesses that I have acquired from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Elimelech’s sons, including Ruth the Moabite, to be my wife, to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance, in order that the name of the dead may not be cut off from his kindred and from the gate of his native place..”

And all the elders said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.”

--And this! This is startling. The elders of the city pronounce a magnificent blessing upon Ruth the Moabite, and ask God to lift her up to a place of blessing and honor as great as Rachel and Leah, these exemplary Jewish women. Do you realize what they are saying? How radical that is?

...And the elders say to Ruth: “May you produce children and, through the children, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”

--Wait… the elders invoke the name of Tamar, that bold and audacious woman we heard about two weeks ago? Do you see what’s going on here?

And then, at the end of the book of Ruth, we have a mini geneaology, which starts with Perez, the child born to Tamar, continues through Boaz and the son born Boaz and Ruth, whose name was Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David, who became king of Israel.

And the implied message in this story to the people of Israel is: “What do you make of your anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, anti-Moabite prejudice now? Your great king - King David - had a Moabite great-grandmother on his family tree, a woman whose loyalty and goodness exceeded that of even the most loyal and good Israelite. She is to be compared to Rachel and Leah, so great is her goodness.” 

Ruth is the third woman on Jesus’ family tree, and she is the third woman who found herself in a desperate, vulnerable situation, a situation which provided no hope for the future, yet once again we have a woman who hoped against hope and never gave up, a woman who persevered against the odds, who even acted boldly at times when boldness was not a quality attributable to good, respected women.

5. A name, a home, a family

And thus far in Advent we have learned that the son of God would come into this world through a family that included women like these. The son of God comes into the world through prostitutes and foreigners and refugees. The son of God comes into the world through people who have been discarded by society.

And I don’t know about you, but by now I’m really starting to wonder if we’ve been looking for Jesus in all the wrong places. And I’m starting to wonder if we’ve been ignoring Jesus when we do see him.

Because it is clear from the stories of scripture that Jesus is the immigrant, the refugee, forced to flee from home. 

Jesus is the one who we like to slander and bear false witness against, proclaiming how terrible he is, a monster, an animal, a violent criminal and drug dealer.

Jesus is the homeless person we see on the street… the person with no family, no name, no future. 

Jesus is the woman told to go home, you don’t belong in the public arena. 

Jesus is the accused black person, unfairly sentenced to years in prison for the same offense that a white person gets only days. 

Jesus is the gay or lesbian or transgender person who still must listen to the daily arguments concerning whether or not they are entitled to the same rights and protections as everyone else; the gay or lesbian or transgender person who has had even their own family turn against them and deny them their name.

Jesus’ family tree shows us that the son of God comes to us through all those who have been oppressed because of their gender, because of their homeland, because of their family status or lack of family status. 

But for every person who has been slandered, unfairly treated, who has had hope stolen from them, who has been cut off from society… Jesus comes. Jesus is present. And Jesus has the right to redeem. 

Which means that, through Jesus, those who have no name will be given a name.

Those who have no family will be called children of God.

Those who have had lies told about them will shine in the beauty of God’s truth.

Those who have been denied justice will reclaim their rights.

Those who feel as though their lives have been cursed will find blessing.

And those whose lives have been nothing but sorrow will find joy.

Because Jesus’s power of redemption knows no bounds, and his love extends to all.

As the prophet Isaiah said: “even those who thought that love and blessings had dried up, that they were living in a desert wilderness in a time of drought, they will find that the desert will rejoice and blossom

“For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

Scripture Challenging Scripture ( 1. Deuteronomy 23:3-6 2. Nehemiah 13:1-3 3. Ruth 1:22)

Last week I started a series of sermons on parables.  I talked a lot about the Good Samaritan, and how it had been interpreted over the years. 

Some interpreted it as a riddle, in which every character, every object, and every action stood for something else, and our job in hearing the parable is to figure out what each thing stands for.

Some interpreted it as an example to follow.  The Samaritan did what was right by helping the poor, wounded traveler, setting the example that we are to follow.

Then I mentioned that John Dominic Crossan – a former priest and a New Testament scholar – points out that, if the story of the Good Samaritan were an example to follow, why did the good example have to be a Samaritan?  Because a Samaritan is the last person you’d expect to be a good example. 

Why not a good priest, or a good Levite, or a good Pharisee?  Those were people who were respected.  Those were people who would have made a good example.  But a good Samaritan?  That’s like saying a good Taliban, or a good gang member.  It’s the last person you’d expect.  If the story were being told to Rush Limbaugh, it would be the good democrat; and, if it were being told to Ralph Nader, it would be the good oil company executive.

You get the point.

So – more than a riddle to figure out, or an example to follow – this parable is a challenge to our entire way of thinking.  What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good.  The one we hate has become our neighbor who cares for us. It’s a story that completely takes us by surprise.

Except:  it really shouldn’t.  It shouldn’t take us by surprise, because it follows the pattern set by the challenge parables of the Old Testament.  John Dominic Crossan points out three of these challenge parables in particular, each of which is an entire book:  Ruth, Jonah, and Job.

I know I’ve talked about Ruth, Jonah and Job before; forgive me for repeating myself a little bit today.  But in the context of this series on parables, please allow me to present, again, these stories.

The books of Ruth, Jonah and Job were all written at about the same time in history.  The stories they describe take place at various times in the past, but the composition of all three takes place after the people of Israel had been in exile.  Captured by the Babylonians, they were set free by the Persians; the Persians figured that a re-established Israel would make a nice buffer between them and Egypt. If Egypt were going to attack Persia, it might be nice if Egypt had to go through those pesky Israelites first.

So the Israelites were back in Israel, and they were in a rebuilding mode.  The temple was being rebuilt, and the Torah was being rediscovered. It was a time of strong national identity, of patriotism (to use a modern term), a time to restore the nation.  And therefore, it was also a time of conservative ideology and theology, and a back-to-basics, “Israel first” mentality became the norm.

This is the attitude reflected in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was one of the readings we heard, and perhaps you’ve been wondering about that particular scripture.  Nehemiah describes the dedication of the newly rebuilt walls surrounding Jerusalem, and how – at that dedication – the Torah was read.

And what was read from the book of Torah was the command which forbids Ammonites or Moabites from ever – ever – entering the assembly of God. 

We find this prohibition against Ammonites and Moabites in the book of Deuteronomy.

During the time of exile, the Torah, the law of Moses, had been lost and forgotten, and the people had associated with Ammonites and Moabites.  They had even intermarried with them.  Now, at the rededication of the capital city, it is discovered that the ancient law forbids such a thing.  But with new pride in Israel and desire to return to their roots, this particular law sounded good to the people of Israel, and so they kicked out from among them all those of foreign descent. 

The book of Ezra describes the same thing.  Even those Ammonites or Moabites who had married into Israel were forced to divorce themselves from their families and leave.  In this time of rebuilding, Israel was circling the wagons and securing the borders against any and all foreigners.

The book of Nahum also condemns foreigners, particularly those from Assyria.

And the book of Jeremiah does the same, singling out those from Uz and Edom.

So this is the historical background, the context in which Ruth, Jonah and Job were written.  And each of those books presents a huge challenge to the prevailing attitude of the time.

We are tempted to read the story of Ruth as an example of how we are to act.  Ruth’s loyalty and devotion are examples of how we should behave.  But there is more to it than that.

Ruth is a Moabite.  If the point of the story was simply to portray an example of behavior for us to follow, she could have been anyone.  But the author is very insistent that we recognize that she is a Moabite.  Did you notice the redundancy in the one verse from Ruth that was read for us?  In one single verse, this fact is mentioned twice.  “Naomi returned with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab.”

And then there’s the whole story about how, after immigrating from Moab to Israel, Ruth finds an Israelite husband, and becomes the great-grandmother of – wait for it – David, the greatest king in Israel’s history.

Unh?

So in the midst of all this pro-Israel, anti-everyone else fervor, the parable of Ruth dares to ask:  What does it mean that King David is descended from a Moabite, that he himself is a Moabite-Israelite?

Or, to put it another way, the parable of Ruth asks, “What would have happened to Israel’s history if Boaz, Ruth’s husband, obeyed Ezra and Nehemiah and Deuteronomy, and all the rest who insisted that marrying foreign wives was a sin?”

In a society with such a strong anti-Moabite, anti-foreigner attitude, the story of Ruth would have been very difficult, very challenging, to hear.

Well, if Ruth challenged one assumption that was commonly held, Jonah challenged two commonly held assumptions.

For one thing, it was commonly assumed that prophets were good, and did what was right.  But poor Jonah; when God told him to go one way, Jonah went the other way. 

But that’s because where God told Jonah to go violated the law of Moses, by requiring Jonah to mingle with – you guessed it – hated foreigners. 

In this case it was the Assyrians who lived in the city of Ninevah. 

Listen to what the prophet Nahum has to say concerning Ninevah: 

“Ah! City of bloodshed, utterly deceitful!... I am against you, says the Lord of hosts.  I will throw filth at you [and that’s the nice translation] and treat you with contempt, and make you a spectacle.  Then all who see you will shrink from you and say, ‘Ninevah is devastated; who will bemoan her?’”

Those who listened to the story of Jonah, when he ran away from Ninevah, they probably thought, “Good! Those evil foreigners don’t deserve any compassion or pity.  Even scripture condemns them!”

And then, in the story, when Jonah does end up in Ninevah, the people listening to the story probably thought to themselves, “Well, he can preach, but they aren’t going to listen.  This is just a set up to their great destruction!”

But what happens?  Jonah preaches the shortest sermon in the history of sermons; just one sentence long.  “Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!”  And then…

Ninevah repents.  Completely!  It is the most amazing turn from evil to good ever!  It is – well – it’s hyperbole, is what it is, because this is a parable, and things can be exaggerated.  And they are exaggerated to bring out the meaning.  Even Jonah’s pouting, and his being swallowed by a giant fish; it’s ridiculous, really.  But the most ridiculous thing of all is that a prophet was disobedient to God, while the people of a foreign nation listed on the “axis of evil” so completely does what is right.

And all anyone listening to this story could say was, “Unh?”

For the people who lived in Israel at the time of rebuilding, a time when trust for foreign nations was at an all-time low… this was a difficult, and very challenging, story to hear, because it uprooted all their assumptions and undermined all their prejudices.

Then we come to the parable of Job. 

Perhaps you’ve been wondering about my use of the word parable in regards to Ruth, Jonah, and Job.  Well, come on, when a story begins with the words, “Long ago, in a land far, far away…” you can be pretty sure that we’re not dealing with historical fact.  And yet, that of course does not mean that there isn’t deep, meaningful, and profound truth contained within the parable, and a mighty challenge for anyone who reads it.  In fact, John Dominic Crossan calls the book of Job “the most powerful parable in the Bible.”

In the story of Job, there are actually multiple challenges presented to anyone who hears it.  The first comes right away.  The far away land referred to is the land of Uz, and there we find the holiest, most righteous man who ever lived.

Uz was not where you’d expect to find the holiest, most righteous man who ever lived.  Jeremiah described the people of Uz as enemies of God.  They weren’t even Jews; they were Gentiles!  They fought against Israel when the Babylonians came in and destroyed Jerusalem and took the Israelites out of Israel.  Now that the Israelites were back in Israel, back rebuilding their city, here’s a story that begins by saying that the holiest, most righteous man was one of those people.

John Dominic Crossan points out that in all three of these Old Testament book-length parables, we see an escalation from a very good Moabite – in Ruth – through a city full of very, very good Assyrians – in Jonah – to the holiest and most righteous man as a very, very, very good Edomite from the land of Uz. 

Each one of those is a contradiction in terms.  Each one goes against expectations.  Each one was almost impossible to imagine! 

A good Moabite, a good Assyrian, a good Edomite from Uz.

And then, with Jesus, we have a good Samaritan.  After hearing Ruth, Jonah, and Job, it shouldn’t be all that surprising to hear another story like this, one that challenges society’s prejudice and phobia.

Now, believe it or not, having the most holy and righteous man come from Uz is only the first of several challenges in Job.  The story presents multiple challenges at multiple levels, which is why John Dominic Crossan is so impressed by it.

There are the debates between Job and his friends, which take up 37 chapters – most of the book.  In these debates, Job’s friends point out over and over that Job must have sinned in order to have such a calamity befall him.  And isn’t that what we hear today every time some disaster occurs?  Some evangelist preacher always makes the news by saying that this disaster or that terrorist attack is the result of a sinful nation.  They said it about the hurricane in New Orleans, the tornadoes in Oklahoma, and the September 11 attacks. 

Job’s friends do the same thing.  John Dominic Crossan calls them “deuteronomic fundamentalists,” because they know that the scriptures – Deuteronomy in particular – teach that those who do good are blessed, and those who win are cursed, and they insist on applying those scriptures to every situation.  We see the same thing among Jesus’s disciples, when they see a blind man and ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” 

And Jesus basically says, “Guys, it doesn’t work that way.  Didn’t you read Job?”

Job responds to his friends by saying, “Show me my sin.  If I have sinned, let me know, and I will repent.”  But of course, Job’s friends are wrong.  Job hasn’t sinned.  He is, after all, the most holy and righteous man on earth.

But if Job’s friends are wrong, is Deuteronomy also wrong? 

That is challenge number two.

Then, at the end of Job, God and Job have a conversation.  God gives Jonah back double for all he had lost.  His fortune is restored.  But…

God never tells Jonah the truth.  We expect God to, but God never does. 

And I don’t know about you, but for me, this is the hardest challenge of all.  It challenges the very character of Israel’s God. 

I’m still not quite sure what to make of that.  I think this challenge is saying to me, “guess what:  God isn’t anything like you think God is.  You expect God to act a certain way, but God doesn’t need to conform to your expectations.” 

And I remember how, sitting on little wooden chairs in in my kindergarten Sunday School room, singing “Jesus Loves Me,” God seemed so simple; a stern but friendly old man with a white beard who was in charge of everything. 

God, I now realize, is nothing like that.  The more I grow in faith, the more mysterious God becomes.  Once upon a time I thought I knew all about God.  Now I feel as if I know nothing, that it’s all mystery.

I believe that this is a sign of a maturing faith.  But for some people, it’s just too frightening.  It’s too much of a challenge.  So they hold on to the more comforting, more familiar image of God of an immature faith.  A God who is in charge of everything.  A God who rewards those are holy and punishes those who sin.  The God of Job’s friends, the God who behaves in predictable ways.

But the God Job encounters is not predictable.  This God is not easy to figure out.  This God doesn’t always explain why.  This God leaves many questions unanswered.

To believe in this God is to believe in something that cannot be explained.  It is to dwell in mystery, not certitude.  According to Barbara Brown Taylor, the best response to this God isn’t certainty of belief, but dumbfoundedness. 

For some people, this is a great challenge.  Some end up leaving the church, because they wake up one day and realize that they no longer have God all figured out, and they think that this must be a sign of a weak faith. 

This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Realizing that God is more mysterious than you can imagine is a sign of a maturing faith.  Realizing that you have more questions about God than answers is a sign of a growing faith.  Realizing that you don’t know everything is what it means to walk humbly with God.

A Spirit for All People (Acts 2:1-21)

The 23^rd chapter of Leviticus describes the holidays of the Jewish calendar.  There is Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread; and then, seven weeks after the Passover Sabbath, you come to another Sabbath … and the following day – the fiftieth day – a special offering is presented to the Lord for the Festival of the Weeks.

In Hebrew, the Festival of the Weeks is called Shavuot.  Shavuot is the Hebrew word that means weeks.

In Greek, the Festival of the Weeks is called Pentecost.  Pentecost comes from a Greek word that means fifty.

Whatever you call it – The Festival of Weeks, Shavuot, or Pentecost – this holiday took place around the time of the wheat harvest.  Thus the people were reminded of the bountiful gifts of God, and special offerings of gratitude were presented to God on this day.

In addition to the gift of wheat, Jews on this day also gave thanks for the gift of the Torah, the teachings God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  In gratitude for the Torah, the people would stay up all night, reading and studying the Torah, a practice that continues today in some Jewish communities; and they would also focus their attention on the story of Ruth.

Why Ruth?

Well, the story of Ruth is a very peculiar story.

You may remember that it is about young woman named Ruth, who lived in a place called Moab, which meant she was a Moabite. 

But Ruth became an immigrant when she went with her mother-in-law to Bethlehem.  There, she was an outsider.  A foreigner.

Eventually she caught the eye of a man named Boaz.  Boaz was a good man, and soon Ruth and Boaz were married.

They had children.  Their children had their own children, and then those children had children.  And one of those children was David, who eventually became the greatest king in Israel’s history.

So the story of Ruth shows how King David was the great-grandchild of an immigrant from Moab named Ruth.  In fact, the story of Ruth was written as a challenge to the anti-immigrant, anti-Moabite prejudices of the time.  After all, the greatest king in Israel’s history had a Moabite great-grandmother. 

Eventually, the story of Ruth came to be celebrated as the story of an outsider who received the gifts of the Jewish faith – received the Torah – even though she was from a foreign land.  It was a lesson to not close off the group to outsiders, but to welcome even those from different lands, people of all nationalities and ethnic groups and languages.

And so, during the celebration of Shavuot, when the people gave thanks to God for the gift of the Torah, it made sense to read the story of Ruth, an outsider to whom God had also given the gift of the Torah.

The 2^nd chapter of Acts begins by mentioning that the day of Pentecost had come.  Had Acts been written in Hebrew instead of Greek, it probably would have said that the day of Shavuot had come.

The disciples were all together in one place.  They were very devout, so perhaps they had been up all night, reading the Torah.  Perhaps they had read again the story of Ruth, committing parts of the story to memory.

Then suddenly, they found themselves able to speak in other languages. 

And then, just as suddenly, they realized that they were surrounded by a crowd of people from “every nation under heaven.”  And yet each person in that crowd could hear the one of the disciples speaking in their own native language.

It’s quite a story.  As a child, I would have been tempted to ask, “Did that really happen?” 

Well, maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t. 

At least two of the groups mentioned – the Medes and the Elamites – no longer existed as distinct ethnic groups.  They had been assimilated into other groups or wiped out completely centuries before, so there couldn’t possibly have been any Medes or Elamites present.

But I don’t think that’s really the point.

Jacob Myers is an ordained minister and PhD student at Emory University.  He asks:  “What if Luke’s intention [Luke is the author of Acts] is to break apart a theology that is wrapped up in ethnic identity?”

Every story in scripture has a purpose.  The purpose is not to get all the facts right about Medes and Elamites.  The purpose is to tell a story of deep, profound truth, full of meaning.

Just like the story of Ruth, which challenged assumptions about who could and could not receive the Torah and be a part of the faith.

In fact, maybe the point of the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 isn’t all that different from the point of the story of Ruth.  After all, there is an obvious connection between the two stories.  Maybe the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 – like the story of Ruth – is all about opening up the circle to outsiders.

The story of Ruth, the Moabite immigrant, shows how this foreigner, this outsider, was welcomed into the community by receiving the Torah.  In Hebrew, we would say she became a bat-mitzvah. 

Now, at Pentecost, the Spirit is opening up the circle even wider, enabling the story of faith to be shared in multiple languages with people from all over the known world.

The scripture asks the question:  “What does this mean?” 

But Peter, the apostle, says:  “I’ll tell you what this all means.  The prophet Joel described a day when God’s Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, all people, from all nations.  The love and the power of God won’t be limited to just the Jews.  It will be for all people.  Jews and Gentiles.  Men and women.  Slave and free…

“That day has come!”

Then Peter began to describe for them the events concerning Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus was a new type of human, a son of man, who was sent by God to usher in a new humanity, a new community, a new kingdom.  It would be a kingdom of shalom, very different from the kingdoms of the world.  The world did not like Jesus or his message, and the world killed him.  But God made him Lord and Messiah.

And the people were amazed and said, “What should we do?”

And Peter said, “Repent.” 

To repent is to turn from one way of living, and start living in a whole new way.  It is to embrace the new way of living taught by Jesus, to become a part of the new community, new kingdom. 

It is to care about the common good, not just what’s good for one self. 

It’s to achieve greatness by loving and serving others, instead of seeking to have people serve you. 

It’s to realize that joy doesn’t come from physical beauty or wealth or possessions or having the latest gadgets and gizmos, but from living in community with your brothers and sisters, working for peace and goodwill for all people.

This is the work that we as Christians are called to do.  We’re called to share what we have with others. 

We’re called to care as much about our neighbor and his family as we do about ourselves and our own family. 

We’re called to use what we have, our money, our talents, to help establish and maintain this new community of God.

And perhaps most of all, we’re called to welcome all people into God’s presence.  The foreigner.  The immigrant.  The rich and the poor.  Even those who worship God differently than we do.

Remember the story of Jesus and the woman at the well.  He didn’t tell her that the way the Jews in Jerusalem worship is the only right way.  Instead, he told her that while some worship God in Samaria, and others in Jerusalem, true worship is not localized like that.  There are many paths to God, but one Spirit, and one love. 

For many Jews, the celebration of Shavuot can be compared to a renewal of one’s wedding vows.  In the same way, Pentecost can be a time for us to renew our commitment to God.  It’s a day to look forward to the new humanity that God calls us to be part of, and to take our place in that new humanity, that new community of people who love and honor God and one another, no matter what race, class, gender, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation. 

It’s the opportunity to be united in a commitment to peace, justice, and equality, to help make God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. 

It’s the opportunity to re-affirm our identity as a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world, and to extend once again the invitation to all people to the Lord’s Table, welcoming them just as God has welcomed us.