I don’t think there’s a more beautiful story in the Bible than the story of Ruth.
Boaz and Ruth, Gustav Dore, 1865
We begin with Naomi, who with her husband moves to a distant foreign land for business. They have two sons, who grow and are married to young women of that country. In time, many years pass, and a disaster strikes. The business is wiped out, and in short order Naomi’s husband and both her two sons die. Now a tragically impoverished widow, Naomi resolves to return to the land of her ancestors, perhaps to throw herself upon the charity of her distant relatives, if any of them still remember her. She tells her two daughters-in-law to go back to their families—and the first does, though with tears of sorrow. But the second, Ruth, says no. This astonishing act of personal loyalty and commitment, cutting against all the social norms and expectations of the day. “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.” Just breathtaking.
And so the two return together, without resources, connections, hope of any kind. Two women alone—what a risk: in that society the most profound vulnerability imaginable, destined almost certainly for a life of poverty, begging in the streets, prostitution. Survival itself an issue.
All a dramatic story, as we missed the first part with our observance of All Saints Day last Sunday, but of course I’d encourage you to go home and read it on your own. And in any case with that summary, this week coming to the comedic happy ending as we’ve heard read this morning. The result of Ruth’s faithfulness, a new beginning.
What seemed a story that could only be a progression from darkness into deeper darkness is suddenly a story of life and hope and joy, restoration, redemption, transformation, and renewal. And of course as we would know at the end of the story, that Ruth and her kind and generous new husband Boaz are to be the great-grandparents of King David, and so, also, we would know this morning, ancestors of David’s greater son, Jesus. What a story for the family tree!
And the moral of the story is that this is a young girl who had nothing going for her. A foreigner! And that was perhaps the editorial edge intended by the storyteller, as the story of Ruth is written in the context of Israel after the exile, when a deep theological anxiety about gentiles and intermarriage was sweeping through the returning Jewish community.
Here Ruth: a gentile indeed. No wealth, power, position, prestige. No diploma on the wall. No bank account. No father to be sure she would be treated with dignity and to provide a dowry so that she could be married to a respectable man. All she had going for her—all she had going for her, was the goodness of her heart. Her faithfulness. Her love.
And the good news of the story, the message for us, is that that turns out to be enough, and more than enough. In fact the only thing that would really count. The only treasure that would open the heart of Boaz.
Ruth makes herself entirely vulnerable, first in following Naomi, and then in following Naomi’s instructions and lying down at the feet of Boaz. Without resources, without defense. And in that vulnerability, it is her goodness and love, the purity of her heart and her intention, that end the long night of suffering and will make possible the dawning of a new day.
In the same way that all the intention of God for the healing of creation and the renewal of life will hinge on the answer that young Mary will one day give to the Angel Gabriel. It’s up to her to decide, yes or no. So here, it all depends on Ruth, willing to risk everything to follow the direction that God is whispering in her heart. She is free to choose, and she chooses the way not of safety and security, but the way of love.
I guess that’s all connected, the story of Ruth, with the parable of the Widow’s Mite in the reading from Mark. The Pharisees in their flowing robes make a great show of their religiosity, but in truth they put nothing at risk. We might say, they only put at risk their “discretionary income.”
But the Widow—she just puts it all out there. What she has, she gives. And whatever might happen next—well, that will be up to God, because she has nothing left of her own. This is what love is. Not calculating, but letting go.
Some can talk a good game. Wear the right clothes. Put on the impressive show. But what matters is the heart. Who we are when nobody else is around.
One young woman, long ago and in a land far away. One elderly widow, alone in the Temple. What it’s about when we say, with Psalm 96, “O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” And it’s all about love.
Not about keeping of rules, duty, standards—a grudging obedience. An effort to meet the minimum standard. Not about impressing others with an outward show.
All about love turning the heart, filling the sails, holding nothing back, without personal agendas or clinging to grievances.
That these two would be icons for us of Christian life, what we would pray to begin to see as we look in the mirror in the morning. Why we are drawn to be followers of Jesus, to be members of his family. Imperfect as we all are in this along the way. The kind of people God made us to be. Faithful love as a way of life. Faithful love as a state of being. As thanksgiving and generosity and sacrifice and devotion without restraint, and in abundance. Love as the secret to unfold the mystery of the Cross. Love as the air we would breathe all together in the new life of Easter. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
Bruce Robison
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