Come Follow Me: Ruth; 1 Samuel 1-3

Intro question: There are two books in the Bible named after women. Today we’ll be looking at one of them. What are they?

Our focus today is the book of Ruth. This is a beautiful intimate story of family relationships and love that go beyond duty and obligation. My goal is that we read this story and discuss what we can learn from these characters and how we can take this story and apply it to our lives today.

Background: This book is set in the time of the judges. Not sure when this book was written. It could be quite old, but some scholars think it was written in the post-exhilic period, the time when Ezra and Nehemiah books were being produced. Interestingly, the Ezra book condemns marriage to foreign women and the prophet there advises Israelites who have married foreign women to divorce these women. The book of Ruth might have been produced, some scholars think, as a counterpoint to that kind of thinking, since it highlights Ruth the foreigner as an honorable person who engages is two marriages with Israelite men and who becomes the great-grandmother of the beloved King David. So in this way, the book forms the basis for a more universal understanding of the covenant and for Yahweh’s concern for all people of the earth.

Qualities of Ruth and Naomi

• Ruth I: 1-5. We learn very early on that Ruth is not an Israelite.  She is from Moab. Does anyone remember anything about Moabites?  Biblical tradition prohibited intermarriage with Moabites (Deut. 23). They were hated for their ill treatment of the Israelites en route to Canaan. Also supposed to have come from incestuous union of Lot and his daughter.  Yet, this story begins with a matter of fact report of a Bethlehemite family going to Moab and intermarrying. This would have been surprising – perhaps shocking — to a Judean audience.
  • Crafting of this story: very carefully put together, names are all important. Chilion means death. Machlon means sickness. Naomi means pleasant. Elimelech means God is my king. Orpah means “back of the neck.” Ruth means “friend” or “companion.”
  • This story begins with famine and loss. It’s a low point for Naomi, who emerges as a central character. Now she is left with no financial support. No sons. She is in a very precarious position with no close male relatives alive.
• Naomi decides to return to her homeland and tells her two daughters-in-law to return to their homes. As we read, think of the characteristics of Ruth and Naomi that are emerging.  Read vs 8-11. What do we learn about Naomi? (survival instinct, openness to people of different cultures and races, gratitude, selflessness) Poignant exchange. Relationships of affection and love.
• 1:8 – she mentions the Hebrew word “hesed.”  Which is loyalty and faithfulness arising from commitment. Says may God show you “hesed,” as you have shown me and my family “hesed.” So uses these foreign women as models for what God ought to do.  1:9 she shows us the content of hesed for women in a man’s world – finding a place to rest in the home of her husband.
• Look for qualities of Ruth emerging here. Read 14-17. “clave” is same word in Genesis where God says that man will leave his home and cleave unto his wife. Strong language. All of this has been set up for this moment. Climactic, beautiful statement of love and friendship.
  • What qualities of Ruth are emerging so far? (Ruth: tenacious loyalty, bravery, strength, unafraid of commitment.) One scholar wrote that Ruth stands in tension with her culture. She has married outside her people, disavowed solidarity with them, renounced her religion. This scholar points out that only Abraham comes close to this level of radicalness, and she didn’t have a call from God like he did. Ruth stands pretty much alone—the text gives us no sense that God or angels are interacting with her. And she commits herself to a woman in a world where survival depends on being linked to men.
• Naomi stops telling her to go home, and they travel to Bethlehem. The women of the town come out and say, are you Naomi?
• 1:20-21. Naomi blames God for her affliction. These verses are important because they highlight how devastated she is. The story begins with her feeling that God has taken everything away from her. Over the course of the story, we will see how her sense of God changes, and how she goes from being receiver of affliction to agent of change. How do you feel about her blaming God for her sons’ and husband’s deaths? Do you attribute it to God when horrible things happen to you? Why or why not?) Chieko Okazaki says this about adversity and illness, “. Illness and adversity are not punishments …; they are natural accompaniments of life.” Another one from Chieko: “Adversity is frequently a call to do something great with our lives.” Another one from Chieko: “I don’t believe that faith means God will remove all tragedies from our path or solve all of our problems for us. I believe it means that he will be with us, suffering with us and grieving with us and working with us as we deal with our own tragedies and work our way through those problems.” (p.119 in Aloha.)
• What lessons are we to take from this first chapter?  What insights can we find here to apply to our lives? (openness to foreign people, loving across lines of race and ethnicity, willingness to dive in, commitment in the face of major obstacles.)
  • This story reminds me of the beginning of the book of Exodus when women of different nationalities work together to save the life of Moses. Love this theme of reaching out across cultural divides and in this case, even developing an intensely loving and devoted relationship across these cultural divides.)
  • Hesed is a theme here. Which means steadfast faithfulness and loyalty; so there is an emphasis on fostering relationships that go beyond duty. Relationships of choice. Relationships of “hesed.” Ruth’s legal obligation is over. But through sheer force of will and conviction she links herself to the people of her mother-in-law for life. She chooses to stay and to enter a foreign land with no husband, no way of making money, in order to stay with Naomi.

Going Beyond the Minimum

• They go to Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest. 2:1 introduces us to Boaz, a mighty man of wealth. Ruth says in 2:2 that she’s going to become a gleaner. A gleaner is someone who follows after the harvesters and picks up the remnants of grain that are left. Israelite law mandated that people let the poor and the resident aliens glean after the harvesters – it was a way to provide the poor. Turns out that she is a gleaner in Boaz’s field, a kinsman of Naomi. Boaz means “in him is strength.”
• What strikes you in his response to Ruth? What characteristics do we see emerging in him? 2: 5-12.  (gracious, extends water privileges to her – goes beyond legal requirement, protects her from young men, acknowledges her for her brave decision). Note that in 2:11, his language echoes the call of Abraham. He goes on to invite her to eat with him and then says that she can glean even among the sheaves and leaves some extra for her – basically, he’s letting her be a harvester, and she ends up with a lot of barley.  Theme: once again – someone going beyond the minimum of legal obligation.
• Question: I want to think about this theme of going beyond the minimum, which I think is often part of developing relationships of “hesed” that are relationships of loyalty that go beyond legal obligation.
  • Have any of you experienced relationships of “hesed”? Where you have by choice formed a relationship of loyalty and kindness with someone you’re not related to? Is this common in our culture today? Or is this just one of those things we see in the Bible? Like taking someone into your family, on an extreme level. Or being that person that the elderly neighbor turns to when he or she needs something. Could be lots of relationships, but it’s where you go above and beyond the minimum required by law or society.  Please share.
  • While you are thinking about that, I’ll tell you my experience with hesed. I think of my mom as a Ruth figure. My father died when I was a toddler, and she would have liked to move back to her home town and be near her parents and sister. But instead, she stayed in her house, one mile away from my father’s parents for the next 20 years until they died. My brother and I were these grandparents’ only grandchildren, and mom could not bring herself to take us away from them. So she stayed with them and took care of them in their old age. So Ruth’s devotion to her mother in law has a personal resonance for me.
• What traditions, organizations, practices, scriptures, role models in your life inspire you to go beyond the minimum, to reach out and show kindness to people you may not otherwise have gotten to know? Are there particular practices or ideas that have helped you reach out? (I know for me, I’ m not proactive about developing friendships. Don’t want to intrude or put people in awkward positions, so I don’t reach out too much to new people. But that’s one reason why I really like visiting teaching/ministering. It gives me a reason to reach out, and ask to come into people’s homes, and go beyond what I would normally do. That’s a program that helps me get out of myself.)
• Note that Naomi’s relationship with God seems to be changing a bit. 2:20. Invokes the blessing of God on Boaz for being so kind to Ruth. Her relationship with God is changing.

 Proactivity

• Naomi comes up with a plan. And what a plan it is. What do you think of this plan? Shady? Ruth 3: 1-5. Naomi has Ruth dress up, go to the sleeping Boaz and uncover his feet. What do you make of this?  Is this shady/manipulative? Why didn’t ruth just go and propose marriage to him in the field one day? Why this dangerous, compromising plan?  Note: uncovering feet – scholars mixed on what this means, but certainly this appears to be a way to propose marriage. I think Naomi’s clever – she’s poor, impoverished, and she knows that for them to have any type of security, Ruth has got to marry a man of substance. She knows the system, knows the right moment to strike.
• She does this. Read 3: 8-13. “spread thy skirt”. That word that is translated skirt is actually same word as wing in last chapter. “spread thy wing”. He had said before, may Yahweh spread his wing over you. She says, you spread your wing over me. Calling him to direct action, proposing marriage – parallels his statement about god spreading his wings over Ruth. See more of characters emerging: Ruth and Naomi: fearless initiative and proactivity.  Boaz: gracious, measured reaction.
• 3:11 “thou art a virtuous woman.” When you hear the term virtuous, what comes to mind? Usually it’s chastity, that’s what virtuous has come to mean over the last several decades. But, the Hebrew word is chayil. Means woman of valor, woman of power, woman of worth – just as Boaz was described as a chayil man in 2:1 – “mighty”
• Interesting how proactive the women are here. I’m struck by how these women are doers. They don’t sit back and let life happen. They are women of action and strategy. I was interested, as I thought about this story, in the theme of proactivity that we see here. These are women “making a way out of no way” (as womanist theologians like Delores Williams say). I think as Mormons we tend to admire proactivity. Mormons are doers. But is it possible to be too proactive? Is this Naomi being too proactive? Are there times when it is best to sit back and trust that God is going to take care of this situation?  In your life, what has been the ideal balance between proactivity and sitting back and seeing what God has in store for you?
• Boaz talks to kinsman, he says, that’s ok I’ll pass. So Boaz is free to marry Ruth.
• 4: 13-17. This is the result. Naomi, who is devastated and feeling betrayed by God is in the end lifted up, along with Ruth. She even has a new son according to the women, who will be a restorer of her life and a nourisher of her old age. So the story ends on the triumphant theme of restoration.
• 4:15-17 – Ruth– foreigner, female — is better than 7 sons, which was considered the ideal number of sons. Ruth leaves the story totally exalted, and we find out that Ruth is great-grandmother of the beloved king David.

Conclusion:

• Grateful for this story that encourages us to go beyond minimal obligations and create relationships of hesed, of loyalty and faithfulness. Makes me pause and wonder what people are near me that if I reached out and went beyond myself a little, might turn out to be people that impact my life in important ways.
• I love the inclusive, loving theme of this story, which reminds me that those that are commonly considered outsiders and marginal, those we often perhaps dismiss and ignore, might actually be central to God’s plan. This story is pushback against the tendency to prefer people like ourselves. This book says people we think of as outcasts can be important in God’s plan and in our individual lives. I’m inspired in reading this story to think about how I can develop relationships with those considered outsiders and be sensitive to their importance.
• Finally, I appreciate the theme of restoration. Life isn’t great all the time – we suffer devastating losses. But I see in this story that we can often find restoration through the creation of relationships of love and loyalty. And it is through these relationships that we become the people that our Heavenly Parents want us to be.