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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
October 14, 2024
“Bonhoeffer helps us see that a youth minister is not someone who heaves theology onto young people, getting them to know stuff, but is rather a minister of the gospel that stands near the concrete humanity of young people, sharing in their experience, helping them wrestle with God’s action in and through their concrete lives.”
― Andrew Root, Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker: A Theological Vision for Discipleship and Life Together
Reading: Ruth 1:11-18 and 2:10-12
Ruth 1:11-18
But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”
At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Ruth 2:10-12
At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
This is one of the most endearing pieces of text in the Bible. The love and loyalty is chilling when read in its full context. This is a widowed Moabite daughter in law leaving everything she knows to stay with her widowed Israelite mother in law, whatever it costs her. The love she has for Naomi transcends people, country and religion. It is full of goodness, and self emptying, giving love. Ruth is not concerned with how this choice will avail her, nor is she concerned with what it will cost her. She understands that she is called to serve Naomi in whatever way she can. She chooses hope and love over fear, and she is rewarded for it; not because she tried to earn it or to achieve some sort of recognition; but because she allowed God to work in, and through, her. This was the text our young people explored yesterday in Church School.
We have talked a lot these last couple of weeks in Church, through our meditations, and in our classrooms, about the tendency for humans to think they can “work” their way into God’s good accounting. The young man in yesterday’s Gospel reading also wanted to know how he could earn his eternal life. We often do things because we think we ought to, or we read the bible to get some sort of lesson on how to live our lives so we can be in accordance when we reach the pearly gates. Church School explored the book of Ruth yesterday not to be able to teach some neat lesson, but to begin to understand the many ways love is expressed in the bible, through God and through people; and how it transforms us.
God is only mentioned a couple of times throughout this story and yet you feel the presence of divine action-in Ruth, in Naomi and in Boaz. Ruth demonstrates the kind of love we will come to see in Jesus, of the lineage of Jesse, her grandson. She surrenders to God’s grace and love for her, and becomes a vehicle of that love for her mother in law and eventually for Boaz too. This story exists outside the constraints of “religions”. It is not just about the Israelites and their covenant with God; it reflects the goodness God desires for all people.
This transforming love is a theme throughout all levels of formation here at Redeemer. As the confirmation class studies world religions, both Abrahamic and non, we begin to understand how religion has been used to divide. The story of Ruth is a reminder that God’s love extends to all people, and it is not for us to say who will be rewarded for their loving devotion, and who will be excluded. In Youth Group we have been talking about the process of separating from our families through more independent activity, transforming, and then reintegrating as changed people. We can only hope to encourage our young people to keep an open heart to God’s activity in them. In effect helping them to be vehicles of God’s transforming love in the growing network they develop outside of their own families.
It was only recently that I read this text considering the mother in law/daughter in law relationship. This is not an easy relationship, typically. Most mother in laws, consciously or not, feel their sons have been stolen by the new woman-and most daughter in laws remain in a state of vexation as a result of their mother in laws activity in their lives. This is the moderate version, the severe version can be…well, very severe. Yet this story remains one of the most poignant love stories in the Bible. Accident?
If two people who are destined to be pitted against each other can love this deeply, this sacrificially, shouldn’t we all be able to? This story is a reminder to all of us in our lives today to choose love over fear, self sacrifice over self gain. When we choose to allow God to work through us the focus of all our energies changes, and we are liberated from this paralyzing need to “work” the system. This is not a promise of prosperity or good fortune, but in this story, as with so many in the Bible, when we surrender to God, good things happen. When we cease to put ourselves first, we find that God does that “work” for us.
Franciscan Blessing
May God bless you with a rootless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears, to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe you really can make a difference in this world so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done. Amen
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