Ruth
Today's sermon proved to be pretty intense. I'm not sure reading the manuscript can convey it. I was worried that I was cutting too close to the bone, talking about loss and identity this way, but... well, it was just the right thing for the moment, I think. The congregation's response was pretty overwhelming.
So, for those who are interested,
Who Are You? The Book of Ruth, esp. Ruth 1; 4:13-17; also Mark 12:38-44.
Who are you?
How do you think of yourself; how do you identify yourself?
As someone's husband, wife, parent, child, brother, sister, aunt, friend -- by your relationships? Whom we love deeply affects who we are.
Or maybe you identify yourself as teacher, doctor, preacher, office manager, engineer, business owner, musician, nanny -- by what you do, by the roles you take in the world? What we do also affects who we are.
But who are you? Because those roles aren't permanent: we change our jobs and lose them and retire from them. Who are you? Because this congregation knows only too well what it is to lose a husband, or a wife, or a parent, or a child, or a sister. What happens when our roles and our relationships are taken from us? Who are we?
Three thousand years ago there was a Judean woman who grew up in Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem near the Salt Sea. She was the daughter of parents who named her Naomi, which means Pleasant, and in time she married and became the wife of Elimelech, a good Judean man with a parcel of land and good prospects for the future. Together they had two sons. So Naomi was a daughter, and a wife, and a mother, and -- knowing something about the roles of women at the time -- seamstress and chef and housekeeper, in a time when thread was hand-spun from sheep's wool; every meal was prepared from scratch over an open flame; and water for cooking and cleaning needed to be hauled home, one bucket at a time, from the city well. She was busy and harried and competent and complete and full, and she was, more often than not, probably content, and she knew who she was.
But there was a famine in Judah, and the young family's barley field could no longer feed them, and they were forced into exile in Moab, across the Salt Sea to the east. And so they left everything that was familiar to them, all the people and the places that they loved, and they packed up and went to Moab.
In Moab, Elimelech found work to support the family, and so they had food again, and Naomi's sons, Mahlon and Chilion grew to adulthood.
But Elimelech died, and Naomi was a widow. And all of Naomi's dreams of growing old with Elimelech on their little plot of land in Judea died with him.
And a few years later Mahlon died, and Naomi buried her son.
And then the thing beyond bearing: Chilion died also, and Naomi was no longer a mother of living children.
And so left with nothing but a fallow field in Judea, Naomi sets out after ten years in exile for the home of her childhood, followed only by one tenacious daughter-in-law. But nothing much seemed to matter any more, because Naomi had no children, and no hope for children, and what was the point of striving when there was noone to strive for?
"I went away full," she laments, "but the LORD has brought me back empty."
Who are we when all our roles and relationships are taken from us? Who are we when we no longer are what we were? Who are we when the future that we imagined for ourselves is no longer possible?
The Bible does offer an answer to that question.
We all have one relationship which can never be taken from us, one role which is unfailingly ours to fulfill. We are God's beloved children. Nothing in creation can separate us from God's abundant and eternal love. And Jesus tells us that we are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength. And tied up with this first and greatest commandment is a second: we are to love our neighbour as ourselves.
We know almost nothing about the poor widow in the temple in Jerusalem whom Jesus spotted one morning putting her last two copper coins into an alms receptacle there. We know she was a widow; we know she had no more money, so she probably had no children to support her. But we do know that in her commitment to God, as poor as she was, she gave all she had to feed God's poor. She knew whom she loved and whom she served, and whom we serve says a lot about who we are. She knew who she was.
Naomi mourns her almost unbearable losses and sets her mind to caring for her daughter-in-law; Ruth the Moabite mourns her own loss and then sets her mind to providing for Naomi. Ruth marries Boaz, a good Judean man with a parcel of land and good prospects for the future. Together they have a son, whom they present to Naomi: Obed, who will become the father of Jesse, who will become the father of King David.
We all have one identity which cannot be taken from us -- we are Christians, children of God, children of God's promise, children of the resurrection.
Believe in that promise. Believe in the power of the resurrection.
God is stronger than all our losses.
"God is stronger than all our deaths." [Joan Chittister]
Whom do you love?
Whom do you serve?
Who are you?
So, for those who are interested,
Who Are You? The Book of Ruth, esp. Ruth 1; 4:13-17; also Mark 12:38-44.
Who are you?
How do you think of yourself; how do you identify yourself?
As someone's husband, wife, parent, child, brother, sister, aunt, friend -- by your relationships? Whom we love deeply affects who we are.
Or maybe you identify yourself as teacher, doctor, preacher, office manager, engineer, business owner, musician, nanny -- by what you do, by the roles you take in the world? What we do also affects who we are.
But who are you? Because those roles aren't permanent: we change our jobs and lose them and retire from them. Who are you? Because this congregation knows only too well what it is to lose a husband, or a wife, or a parent, or a child, or a sister. What happens when our roles and our relationships are taken from us? Who are we?
Three thousand years ago there was a Judean woman who grew up in Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem near the Salt Sea. She was the daughter of parents who named her Naomi, which means Pleasant, and in time she married and became the wife of Elimelech, a good Judean man with a parcel of land and good prospects for the future. Together they had two sons. So Naomi was a daughter, and a wife, and a mother, and -- knowing something about the roles of women at the time -- seamstress and chef and housekeeper, in a time when thread was hand-spun from sheep's wool; every meal was prepared from scratch over an open flame; and water for cooking and cleaning needed to be hauled home, one bucket at a time, from the city well. She was busy and harried and competent and complete and full, and she was, more often than not, probably content, and she knew who she was.
But there was a famine in Judah, and the young family's barley field could no longer feed them, and they were forced into exile in Moab, across the Salt Sea to the east. And so they left everything that was familiar to them, all the people and the places that they loved, and they packed up and went to Moab.
In Moab, Elimelech found work to support the family, and so they had food again, and Naomi's sons, Mahlon and Chilion grew to adulthood.
But Elimelech died, and Naomi was a widow. And all of Naomi's dreams of growing old with Elimelech on their little plot of land in Judea died with him.
And a few years later Mahlon died, and Naomi buried her son.
And then the thing beyond bearing: Chilion died also, and Naomi was no longer a mother of living children.
And so left with nothing but a fallow field in Judea, Naomi sets out after ten years in exile for the home of her childhood, followed only by one tenacious daughter-in-law. But nothing much seemed to matter any more, because Naomi had no children, and no hope for children, and what was the point of striving when there was noone to strive for?
"I went away full," she laments, "but the LORD has brought me back empty."
Who are we when all our roles and relationships are taken from us? Who are we when we no longer are what we were? Who are we when the future that we imagined for ourselves is no longer possible?
The Bible does offer an answer to that question.
We all have one relationship which can never be taken from us, one role which is unfailingly ours to fulfill. We are God's beloved children. Nothing in creation can separate us from God's abundant and eternal love. And Jesus tells us that we are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength. And tied up with this first and greatest commandment is a second: we are to love our neighbour as ourselves.
We know almost nothing about the poor widow in the temple in Jerusalem whom Jesus spotted one morning putting her last two copper coins into an alms receptacle there. We know she was a widow; we know she had no more money, so she probably had no children to support her. But we do know that in her commitment to God, as poor as she was, she gave all she had to feed God's poor. She knew whom she loved and whom she served, and whom we serve says a lot about who we are. She knew who she was.
Naomi mourns her almost unbearable losses and sets her mind to caring for her daughter-in-law; Ruth the Moabite mourns her own loss and then sets her mind to providing for Naomi. Ruth marries Boaz, a good Judean man with a parcel of land and good prospects for the future. Together they have a son, whom they present to Naomi: Obed, who will become the father of Jesse, who will become the father of King David.
We all have one identity which cannot be taken from us -- we are Christians, children of God, children of God's promise, children of the resurrection.
Believe in that promise. Believe in the power of the resurrection.
God is stronger than all our losses.
"God is stronger than all our deaths." [Joan Chittister]
Whom do you love?
Whom do you serve?
Who are you?