...a stewardship sermon?

based on the book of Ruth,
particularly the passages that appear below


"Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge I will lodge.
Your people will be my people, and your God my God."

How many times had Naomi heard Ruth’s words echoing in her mind since that day? Even after all this time, the scene was etched in her memory, engraved on her heart with a love so deep it actually hurt sometimes.

Naomi’s husband had died. Her sons had died. It was time for her to go home to Judah, to Bethlehem. The famine was over. And as much as she dreaded the thought of being on her own—alone in her bitterness and her grief—she had to let her daughters-in-law go.

They needed security—security that she could not provide. She wanted that for them, at least. If she couldn’t give them that, she could at least release them, set them free just to go home, go back to Moab, to their own village, to the familiar. Surely there were people who would take care of them there. She didn’t know the customs of Moab, whether they had extended family, cousins, men who would marry Orpah and Ruth and provide for them, but she hoped that they would. It was in their best interest to leave her.

So she asked them.

And then she begged them.

And then she drew her tired body up to its full height and she ordered them, with as much authority as a mother-in-law could muster, and that’s quite a bit of authority indeed.

“Go home,” she said.

And one daughter-in-law said, “Goodbye.”

And the other daughter-in-law said, “I am home.”

Why did she do it? Naomi often wondered. Why did Ruth cling to her so? Did she feel sorry for Naomi, who was older and didn’t have much chance of marrying? Was Ruth foolish enough to think that she could somehow take care of her in Bethlehem? …Ruth, a native of Moab, a stranger in the land of Judah?

Why would Ruth forfeit her own security for the sake of someone else?

Naomi often shook her head at the memory of the two of them on the dusty road so long ago. A bitter old widow and a naïve young foreigner, they made quite a pair as they made their slow, halting journey toward Bethlehem.

~

Ruth, for her part, didn’t think much about that day, about her decision. There was too much to do. Reflection was a luxury she could ill afford. Gleaning was grueling work, a dawn-‘til-dusk undertaking—the reapers going before her often didn’t leave much, even though they’d been told by Boaz to look out for her.

Occasionally under the punishing sun, the brown fields of grain would flutter before her eyes and she would see again the drab parched road out of Moab… but she always dismissed the memory in a hurry, as if brushing a gnat from her face. What’s done is done, she would tell herself as she filled her baskets with the remnants of corn, barley.

Security! Security! That’s what Naomi had wanted for her. She went on and on about it.

What did security even mean? What difference did security make?

Ruth had had security. And what good had it done her?

She’d married a good man, from a good family. She’d been a good spouse, a good daughter to Naomi.

When the famine came to Judah, they did the sensible thing: they packed up their things and moved to Moab. Built a new life there. A secure life.

And still her husband had died.

They had run from misfortune, but misfortune had pursued them, found them, overtaken them anyway.

And so when Naomi told her to go back to Moab, Ruth knew it was the right and sensible thing to do, once again.

But what was the point of doing the sensible thing? The secure thing?

Standing that day on the road between nowhere and nowhere, Ruth decided, to hell with the secure thing—she would do the right thing.

And in her case, “the right thing” meant salvaging leftover crops for herself and for Naomi. It meant that she, a stranger in a strange land, would take care of a woman to whom she had no legal obligation. It didn’t make a lot of sense, and it certainly wasn’t glamorous. She didn’t feel noble, her hands hard with calluses, her eyes stinging with the sweat of hard work, or were they tears? It was sometimes hard to tell, but love was like that.

Now see…! Ruth berated herself. She had let herself think about it all over again.

~

Lately, Naomi has been talking security again. This time she’s got a plan for Ruth, a proposal. Actually if everything works according to Naomi’s hopes, it will be Boaz’s proposal—a proposal of marriage to Ruth.

Naomi says, “I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.” Ruth wants to say, “It is well with me.” The famine is over; they are managing just fine. This is what she agreed to when she said, “Where you go I will go.”

Yet Ruth knows that part of love is receiving what others have to give. Others look at Naomi and see the sun setting on an old woman’s life, her stooped body casting a long shadow of grief against a sky filled with fading color. But Ruth sees differently.

Even after Naomi’s lifetime of sadness, while others have married and had children and known prosperity, while others have filled their storehouses with every ripe blessing under the sun, Naomi has been gleaning herself, walking along behind the others, harvesting a little of this, a bit of that, enough to share with her daughter-in-law: “Here Ruth, I can offer you a little hope, a little wisdom. Here’s a handful of risk, a bit of daring. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”

And so Ruth follows Naomi’s instructions. She goes to Boaz, and he receives her and blesses her. And in the fullness of time, they are married. And a child is born.

The child is a gift for the future. But he is also a gift to his forebears, to Naomi. It is she who becomes his nurse, who takes care of him. Her life has purpose. Her journey is far from over—it is only just beginning! As she cradles that new life, she vows to nurture the next generation. It is not her child, yet she is responsible for that child. “Your people will be my people,” said Ruth so long ago, and now Naomi holds the best expression of that promise. But she realizes, it was so much more than a promise. It was a lifetime’s responsibility, for both of them.


Naomi remembers once again that day when Ruth said those life-changing words. And she wonders, whatever happened to the other daughter-in-law? Whatever happened to Orpah?

Naomi had sent her home to be safe. Naomi had sent her home to be secure. And for all we know, she is. For all we know, she went back to her family, as she had been told to, and in time, she married again, as she had been expected to. For all we know, she was a perfectly good person, living her life, quietly, safe in the security of home; safe, also, in obscurity.

She was never heard from again.

Her story was not told.

But as for Ruth, she has Naomi, and Boaz. And all of them have this child. Is this what true security looks like? A child? Or was it really hope that they’d been seeking, a sign that this was not the end of the story?

They could not know, cradling the baby, that their story would be told.

They could not know that the child would be father to countless generations, including a man after God’s own heart, a king, named David.

They could not know that fourteen generations after David, their descendants would be thrust into exile, forced to find their way back to God, and God to them… and that they would find strength in their ancestors, including the memory of the woman from Moab whose audacity still coursed through their veins.

And they could not know that fourteen generations after that, another son would be born, a man who embodies all that came before and so much more that would come after, who also says to hell with the sensible thing, watch me do the right thing—now go and do likewise; a man who provides not security, but purpose, and bold, outrageous hope.

Ruth 1:8-17
But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.’ Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. They said to her, ‘No, we will return with you to your people.’ But Naomi said, ‘Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.’ Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

So she said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’
But Ruth said,
‘Do not press me to leave you or to 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 will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!’

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do."
Ruth said to her, "All that you tell me I will do."

…So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel!
He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him."

Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi." They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.