Over the last few weeks Brad and Samuel took us from the Days of Moses, into the Days of Joshua, into the Days of the Judges. Whenever I take a few Sundays away from Lakeside people think maybe I'm out looking for a new church. What I'm not sure about is whether that is an unrealized hope or unrealized fear. Maybe it depends on who you talk to! The bottom line is I'm Baaack. Deal with it!
In this series we've been looking at ways we wrestle with God. In your Bible you'll find a short book called “Ruth”, that's set during the days of the Judges. Once upon a time, in the city of Bethlehem, in Judah, in Israel, lived a wife, a mother, named Naomi. Her husband's name was Elimelech. They had two sons Mahon and Chilion, they would marry two Moabite women.
Their marriage and family were a picture of normalcy and stability. By the way, our country ‘s economic engine is fueled by discontentment. If you have a happy marriage, and family, and a good life you are a target. Every soap opera, lifetime movie, novel, sitcom, or commercial screams, “Don't you want more? There is something better out there for you!” So many men and women blow up their marriages and families because good isn't good enough.
One guy I’ve known blew up his marriage because one day his wife was sitting on the couch making a quilt. She suddenly looked old in his eyes, like she was some grandma, and he realized he was getting old himself! So, he had an affair with a neighbor lady! The relationship lasted not a New York second. But in the aftermath, for years and years, were divorce courts, attorneys, personal and financial ruin… an angry, bitter, distrusting wife, hurt friends, family, and children… bouts of depression and anxiety, shame, spiritual and relational isolation. But hey, at least life wasn't normal and boring anymore! Help me get back to normal Pastor!
The Bible describes how we as a fallen people, already have to navigate the dark forces of cruelty and calamity. Cruelty is the fact that we live among evil people whose only inclination is evil itself. Calamity is the fact that we live in a world where there is already ENOUGH drama. There is disease, natural disasters, death. Why add STUPIDITY into the mix? Stupidity is when you nuke normal because normal just isn't enough! A weird thing I find myself saying to people is “Normal is good! Boring is good! It means you have peace, stability, happiness!” You don't have to destroy something in order to learn how good something was!
Naomi and Elimelech faced CALAMITY. A severe famine came to Bethlehem. It forces them to leave everything and move to Moab. Elimelech suddenly dies, leaving Noami a widow, with two sons. Life wrecked her normal!
In time Noami's two sons find Moabite wives. Their wives’ names are Orpah and Ruth. But again, calamity strikes. After about ten years Noami’s sons both die. It’s really hard to live alone as a widow. If you are a widow, there is a lot you can do for yourself—but there are even more things you cannot do anymore. If you are a widow, and you have kids, it’s like of like an insurance policy. There is peace knowing that someone will look after you. But if your kids are rotten, and don't want to repay you… if worse, your only sons (your posterity) all die… then who do you call upon? And if your sons married foreign women, and you find yourself in a foreign land with no roots, whatever are you to do?
Circumstances always change. The famine ends, and rumor has it that Bethlehem in Judah has food! Noami was just seeking food security! How basic. Look what the Bible tells us about Naomi's faith… Ruth 1:6, “She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people’s need by providing them food.”
This is not an insignificant detail. Because of the human cruelty, or because of the everyday calamity of life, or maybe because of your own folly… have you ever found yourself desperately in need? Have you ever wondered, “Does God see me? Is God paying any attention at all? Does God give “special attention” to his own people, to those who love him, who are called by his name?” “Lord, give us today our daily bread" is about as profoundly destitute as you can be. Does the Lord give daily bread? Does he really look after the sparrow, and even more, his children? “My husband has died, my sons have died, I left everything and everyone I knew, I thought I'd find security in Moab, but now I'm back in Bethlehem.”
For Noami, would faith come naturally? How many times in the Bible did God's people find themselves hungry, thirsty, facing famine, fleeing to a foreign land? Too many times to count. But every time God's people returned to him, and called upon God in faith, God provided. Does anyone in this room have a testimony of how God provided for you in a time of crisis? How many of you have come to know God as PROVIDER?
In Ruth 1:8-9, Noami says to her daughter-in-laws, “Each of you go back to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to the dead and to me. May the Lord grant each of you rest in the house of a new husband.” She kissed them, and they wept loudly.” Naomi was trying to push away the only people in her life who still cared for her. It’s not just humbling, it can be humiliating to depend upon other people (even family) with our daily needs!
Her daughter-in-laws insist upon returning with her to Bethlehem, but Noami is a stubborn-old bird. Ruth 1:11-13, “But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, 13 would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me.”
When I read those words I hear a mixture of loss. Am I able to have more sons? I hear self-pity. Even if I thought there were still hope for me… My life is too bitter for you to share. But what I most hear is a faith struggle! “…the Lord's hand has turned against me!” Back in Exodus we saw how the Israelites struggled to believe Moses' testimony about the goodness of God. And why? Because of their hardships.
In every way Naomi is a portrait of what it looks like for a person to Find God. To FIND GOD, you have to bring all your hopes, all your fears, all your needs, all your loss, all your self-pity, all your envy and resentment, all your grief, all of your struggle and put it before God. How do you know that a person has FOUND GOD? I think you've found God when you realize he isn't just “God”… God is a rather vague, impersonal noun. You’re successful when you realize not just the fact “that” there is a God of creation… it’s when you realize that God is first and foremost a Heavenly Father who pays attention, and sees your faith struggle.
This was the brilliance of Jesus concept of God. Which of you if his son asks for bread gives him a snake? No good earthly father would trick his own children. How must greater, how much more good, is the Father in heaven? Why not pray, “Our Father in Heaven… give us today our daily bread.” Why not trust this God with your tangible needs and come to know him as Provider! Inflation is insane. Times are really hard. Why not trust God? Not just prayer but giving (tithing) is a tangible demonstration of faith, that you see God as Provider.
If Naomi is a picture of a person trying to FIND God, her daughter-in-law, Ruth, is a picture of a person FOLLOWING God. The Bible says in Ruth 1:14, “Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.” Orpah kissed Noami goodbye but Ruth clung to Naomi. And then Ruth sets Naomi straight! Ruth 1:16-17, “Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” That is nothing short of the Love of Christ, the Love of the Father manifest. And you gotta love Ruth 1:18, “When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped talking to her.”
As I read this my mind is flooded with conviction. First of all, I always remind myself that kindness is costly. It was costly for God, he sent his son Jesus to die for our sins. It is costly for us. Kindness is inconvenient. It costs time and energy and money. Kindness disrupts our schedules, our to-do lists. Kindness suspends our dreams and ambitions, and sometimes it completely sabotages them. Kindness doesn't feel fair. Why did Ruth cling to Noami while Orpah got to go chase her dreams? Why does one person (one sibling, one child) get burdened with caregiving while another is cut free? Kindness is anything but transactional. Kindness stubbornly sits in the presence of another person’s self-pity, loss, grief, doubt and encourages faith. Kindness stays, it remains, it’s faithful, it’s like Superglue. Kindness weathers annoyance, it perseveres through frustration, it never fails. Kindness is of God!
I’ll tell you something else about Kindness. Kindness clears the way for faith. When a person experiences other worldly kindness, it makes belief in the goodness of a Heavenly Father all the more plausible. Romans 2:4 says that “God's kindness leads us toward repentance.” Kindness melts away unbelief and doubt. We see it in Ruth. We see it in Acts, early Church. 1 John 4:7-12, “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.”
We sing about God’s love enough… but how do we love? Do we cling. Not do we cry. Not do we have empathy, feelings. Not do we feel sad and shed tears. Do we cling? Orpah and Ruth both cried but only one loved. Are we stubbornly kind like Ruth to those struggling in faith? Is God’s love coming full circle, is it being made complete in us? Jesus said, “By this all men will know you are my disciples “if" you love one another. If there is no loving kindness of God manifest in us, if the love of God dies in his people it also then dies in the world. We can't let it die!
Let me conclude this message this way. There is a third person in the story of Ruth. There is Naomi who is trying to find faith and know God as Father. There is Ruth who is essentially following God, demonstrating Christ-like love. But in the story of Ruth there is a guy named Boaz—and it’s Boaz that is a picture of God the Father.
It's Boaz who like God sees Naomi and Ruth in their need.
It's Boaz who like God welcomes, and shows kindness, and is generous to strangers, outcasts, refugees, illegals, homeless, undocumented. Boaz directs his workers to leave margin at edges of fields, so Ruth and Naomi could glean grain for their needs.
It's Boaz who owns the field, and a thousand cattle, and provides.
It's Boaz who like God protects and defends the cause of widow and orphan
It's Boaz who like God rewards the faithfulness of Ruth. In Ruth 2:11-12, Boaz tells Ruth, “Everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband’s death has been fully reported to me: how you left your father and mother and your native land, and how you came to a people you didn’t previously know. 12 May the Lord reward you for what you have done, and may you receive a full reward from the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.”
It's Boaz who marries (betroths) Ruth—he makes a binding commitment to her, pledging his loving faithfulness and kindness to her. In ancient Israel, God the Father betroths Israel. In the New Testament, Christ Jesus is the groom who betroths the Church, the Bride of Christ. By faith, the Spirit marries (becomes “One”) with us.
It's Boaz who effectively redeems Ruth in regard to her worldly affairs… but of course for us it’s Christ Jesus our groom who redeems us in regard to our spiritual estate.
One of the paradoxes of the story of Ruth is that in the end, it’s Naomi who mentors, shepherds, and guides Ruth to love Boaz. It might just be that those who demand the greatest amount of time, energy might be the very ones who help us more deeply and profoundly connect with God. God's kindness doesn't just change the heart of the care-receivers but of care-giving church and people.