Hilton Head Island, SC – November 29, 2020
The Chapel Without Walls
Ruth 1:1-10,16-17; 2:1-3,8-9,17-20
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – They lived there about ten years; and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband. – Ruth 1:4b-5 (RSV)
In biblical times, the role of women was difficult, tenuous, and sometimes even dangerous. Women’s lives were determined almost exclusively by men. Normally they had no independent existence whatever. From the time of Abraham in the 18th century BCE to the time of John of Patmos, who wrote the Book of Revelation in the early second century CE, for anyone to talk about an independent woman would have been like talking about a round square or a rectangular sphere. Those are oxymorons, contradictions in terms, as the term “independent woman” would be to the people of the Bible. There were almost none, as we understand that term now.
The Book of Ruth is one of the most interesting and intriguing stories in the whole Bible. It begins by telling us about Naomi, who was a woman of Bethlehem, the town which Jesus was born a thousand years later. She was given in marriage to a man named Elimelech. Naomi and Elimelech had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. I know a man named Mahlon, who married high school classmate, but he goes by “Pat,” which maybe makes sense. Unfamiliar biblical names can pose problems for those thus named. For example, Naomi was destined to have a daughter-in-law whose name was Orpah. Oprah Winfrey’s mother named her daughter after the biblical Orpah, except that she misspelled it as O-p-r-a-h rather than O-r-p-a-h. Biblical names can be tricky if you aren’t careful.
It happened that a famine hit the area around Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Elimelech heard that there was no famine in Moab, which was east of the Dead Sea in what is now southern Jordan, so Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons moved to Moab in order to keep from starving to death. So far, so good.
Years after they got there, however, Elimelech died. This is when Naomi’s story potentially becomes tragic. In that culture, a widow without a husband was in a very tenuous state. But presumably Naomi’s sons were old enough to farm or to tend sheep, so all three managed to survive. Then, when they were old enough, Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth.
The Bible says in many places that God forbade Israelite men to marry Gentile women. But the family of Elimelech had lived in Moab a sufficient length of time that they considered themselves semi-Moabites, I guess. Besides, they had made many friends among the Moabites. Then both Mahlon and Chilion died, and here is where the story takes a disastrous turn. Now there are three widows, an Israelite and two Moabites, and if they are not going to become destitute or prostitutes or who knows what they are going to have to reconnect with male family members from their past: uncles, brothers, male cousins, or some kind and welcoming soul of the male persuasion who will allow them to come to live with them, giving them food, shelter, and most of all, protection. A woman by herself in that type of culture was in an untenable situation.
So what is Naomi to do? She figures her two daughters-in-law can go back to their families of origin in Moab, but Naomi sees no solution other than for her to go back to Bethlehem and throw herself on the mercy of male relatives still living there. Orpah quickly concludes she has no other option than to do that. She is, after all, a widow with no means to support herself. However Ruth has become very attached to her mother-in-law, and she knows it is a great risk after all those years for Naomi to return to a community which might not accept her by herself. So she says something memorable to Naomi. These words were sung fairly frequently in wedding ceremonies when I was a young minister three centuries ago. They were recorded in the King James Version of the Bible, which was virtually the only translation used three centuries ago. They beautifully declare, “Entreat me not to leave thee or to refrain from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Ruth is a uniquely courageous and exemplary biblical woman.
Naomi is also one strong lady, but she is severely compromised by having no husband or sons, and having lived in Moab for two or three decades. Now she feels compelled to return to Bethlehem and throw herself on the mercy of whatever male relative might take her in, but she has no idea who that might be. Ruth is a strong lady as well, and a younger and therefore perhaps more resilient one, but she too is a widow, and thus is also in a jeopardized condition.
The name “Ruth” is a Hebrew name, not a Moabite name. It means Friendship, but it also means Mercy or Sympathy or Empathy. Anyone who is “ruthless” is unfriendly and has no mercy or empathy or compassion. But the biblical Moabite woman Ruth is the very essence of mercy, empathy, compassion, and friendship. She refuses to abandon her beloved mother-in-law to whatever unknown situation might await her when she goes back to Bethlehem. So she insists on accompanying Naomi and a journey into the unknown.
When Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem, Naomi tells Ruth to go into a field and to glean some grain for them to eat. And here we need to know that the Bible had a law which was included in several different places that said farmers were not to harvest all the grain in their fields. They were to leave some grain standing in the corners of the fields for marginalized people, for those who were so poor they could not make it in life without assistance. The grain in the corners was for the “gleaners,” the people who were encouraged to take grain to feed themselves. The French artist Millet has a famous painting called The Gleaners. Noble and advanced societies provide for such folks; that is what makes them noble and advanced.
Elimelech’s kinsman Boaz (who was Naomi’s kinsman by marriage, which was just as binding a relationship) saw Ruth in one of his fields, and he told her to continue gleaning his fields. He ordered his servants always to save some grain for her. At this point he did not realize she was Noami’s daughter-in-law. He further charged his young workers not “to molest” her.
Now are you getting the picture? There was no guarantee that going to Bethlehem would work out for Naomi or her daughter-in-law. Furthermore, lusty young men might take a terrible advantage of these two women anywhere along the way, and who knows what might happen to them then? Sixty years ago Sophia Loren starred in a movie entitled Two Women. In the movie she and her young daughter were Italians raped by American soldiers during World War II, and theirs is the story of what happened after that. Ms. Loren won the Academy Award as Best Actress in 1961 for her role as the mother in the story. What happened to the movie mother and daughter might have happened to Ruth, but Boaz makes it clear to his farmhands that Ruth is not to be violated.
You see, this story could have ended up in a disaster. Widows were defenseless without the protection of male relatives. Boaz will turn out to be their male protector.
Ruth tells Naomi she had been gleaning in the field of a man whose name was Boaz. Naomi instantly recognizes how blessed that she and Ruth have become because of her wealthy kinsman Boaz. She also has instantly deduced that Boaz may have fallen in love at first sight with Ruth, and that is why he is so solicitous for her safety. What can I say? Jewish mothers – or Jewish mothers-in-law – don’t miss much. “Blessed be he by the Lord whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead! The man is a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin” (Ruth 1:20) Naomi now considers the Moabite Ruth to be her closest relative. Both she and Ruth have been blessed by the astonishing benevolence of this kinsman whom she once knew well and now is destined to know again.
You’ll have to come next week to hear the rest of the story, because I’m not going to divulge its ending now. You could sit down between now and then and read the Book of Ruth for yourself. It’s only four chapters in length, and it’s a great story. The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, has oodles of great stories, although some are also awful. The Greek Bible, the New Testament, has good stories too, but they are not filled with nearly as much detail, intrigue, and romance as many of the episodes in the Old Testament.
Here’s the point of today’s sermon. Sometimes life can toss us a terrible curve ball. We’re sailing along smoothly, and suddenly the bottom seems to fall out. Someone gets really sick, a lot of money is lost --- or is never earned ---, a grown child makes a calamitous decision, a spouse is hurled into a tailspin, a grandchild is killed in a car accident, we ourselves encounter a situation for which we are convinced there is no happy solution.
Everybody has a story. Everybody has a sad story. Nobody’s story is entirely sad, but everyone has some sadness in their life’s story.
In The New York Times there was a recent editorial by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, she is the wife of Prince Harry. In other words, she is Mrs. Harry Windsor, although no one would ever call her that. She was urging her readers to take close note of people they encounter who are in distress. She recalled being in a New York taxi when she was a late teenager. She saw a woman on a street corner weeping copiously with her cell phone in her hand. She asked the taxi driver if they should stop to see if they could help. He assured her that in Manhattan there is much public display of emotion, and that someone would stop to help that lady in deep distress. Of course there was no guarantee of that, however.
One day over three thousand years ago, a kind and wealthy man saw what looked like a poor immigrant woman gleaning grain in one his many fields. Taking pity on her, he told her to come to his fields anytime she wanted, and he strictly ordered his farm workers not to harm her in any way. We also are called upon to do things like that, but do we do it? Later he learned that she was the daughter-in-law of one of his relatives by marriage.
Life for Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons was coming up roses in Bethlehem. Then a famine struck, and the bottom fell out. So they left for Moab, where there was no famine, and it all went well, until Elimelech died, and life collapsed again. Then Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite wives, and things were going fine, and then both sons died. And there were Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth, suddenly with a bleak future in a world which had little pity for women without a man to protect them and keep them safe.
Attached to the sanctuary of the church I served in Morristown, New Jersey was a quaint old chapel. To each side of the wall surrounding the chancel area were two bas-reliefs. The one on the right showed Naomi and Ruth, with the best known verses in the Book of Ruth etched into the wall below the sculpture: “Whither thou goest I will go; whither though lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” In the century and a half that chapel has stood there, many scores of couples have been married in that beautiful location. It is outstanding advice for them as they begin their life together.
When life gives us lemons, God gives us lemonade, if we are wise enough to perceive it and to receive it. Next week we will learn more about how that shall come to pass for Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.