In the Lap of a Widow

Where you go, I will go.

Where you lodge, I will lodge.

Your people will be my people.

Your God, my God.

In the Lap of a Widow by Ruth MacKenzie

Psalm 146; Ruth 1:1-18

I must say, it is rather ironic that the first time I stand before this faith community, I preach on the book of Ruth, my namesake. It was this passage, that I would console myself with as a girl, bemoaning the fact that I had been given such a peculiar name. “Nobody is named Ruth. Nobody in my third grade class, anyway. The only person I know, named Ruth, is the church organist, and she’s old!” So, I would go back to the book of Ruth, chapter 1, verse 16: “Wither thou goest, I will go.” I loved the King James Version. Even if I found my name rather odd, at least I could get behind this passage and what I thought it meant.

But as I return to this book, as an adult and a theologian, I have to ask myself: Why is the book of Ruth in the Bible, at all? If indeed the Bible is the revealed word of God, why is it that this book, in which God never speaks, in fact, seems so inconsequential as to be irrelevant in the story, included in the Biblical canon?

Bible scholars believe Ruth was written in the fifth century BCE, as a challenge to policies of governance and a strident interpretation of what it was to be a Hebrew, what it was to be part of God’s chosen people. Exiles returning from Babylon endeavored to bring cohesion between themselves and those who had remained behind in Judah. It was an understandable response as the nation of Israel tried to rebuild itself, with very painful ramifications. Long–standing marriages between Jews and their foreign wives were rejected. Strong demarcations were drawn between Jews and Samaritans. All this being said, I am still left with the same question: “How does God speak in this story?”

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assert that this well crafted novella is in fact, how most of us experience God speaking in our lives, how most of us experience the holy coursing through creation. I don’t know about you, but I have never heard God speak.

The beauty of this story is not in God’s explicit revelation, but in the implicit nature of God revealed in the human drama of relationship.

And when we move into the story we begin to discern aspects of relationship that bring about the holy restoration, the holy transformation of a broken life into a blessed life, a barren world into a world of fullness and wellbeing. In the book of Ruth, relationship is characterized by diversity, chance and openness. Diversity is strength, trust it. Chance encounters are important, so pay attention. Openness within systems, within relationships can lead to a greater order, so be bold.

The book of Ruth might as easily be called the book of Naomi, for it is Naomi’s life that must be redeemed, that must be restored. Naomi returns to her homeland “empty.” She is a widow. She has no husband, no sons. She is near the end of her child bearing years. Naomi is stripped of all identity in the Hebrew social structure and she renames herself, Mara, meaning bitterness. All that is left her is a rash young woman, named Ruth, her daughter in law, a relationship that means next to nothing in the traditional patterning of her culture. In fact, when Ruth expresses this beautiful soliloquy that we all love so dearly, Naomi turns her back on Ruth and refuses to talk to her. Ruth is foreign. She is a Moabite. She is not a daughter but a daughter-in-law. She is not male, someone who can provide for Naomi in her old age, in the traditional manner, but a female, who places the widow even further from some semblance of a life. Yet, in the story, it is Ruth’s difference, her novel response to the pattern of life laid out before her that will be the central axis of God’s blessing. In the traditional pattern, Ruth should go home to her own mother. She refuses to leave. Ruth should commit herself to a new husband. She commits herself to the well being of another woman. Ruth should be with her own people. She adopts a new people, a new ethnicity, a new god. This is unheard of in the ancient world. In this story, diversity is strength. It is the novel response within the pattern that will ultimately bring about abundance and flourishing.

The holy restoration emerges from the chance encounter. Chance is that code word for the divine afoot in the world. Ruth goes out to find food for her mother-in-law and herself. “As it happened, she came to the part of the field belonging to Boaz (Ruth 2:3).” Chance encounters are important. As a creating and performing artist, I know full well that chance is often the pivotal component that transforms an artwork from serviceable to transcendent. Naomi and Ruth see this “chance encounter” for what it is and like all great artists, they use it. They don’t know where it will lead them, they just know, to pay attention.

In several points in the narrative, the main characters are bold with their open hearts and make room for the holy within their relationships. Ruth comes home to Naomi one day from her gleaning in the fields, and speaks of the kindness shown to her by a landowner, Boaz. Naomi sees the events as God’s creative work and proposes a bold plan of seduction to secure a new life for Ruth and herself. Ruth is to find Boaz on the threshing floor and lie beside him. Naomi says: “He’ll tell you what to do.” But instead, when Boaz awakes to a woman lying at his feet, he steps outside the traditional role of the male in his culture. He does not tell her what to do. He listens. Room is made within the relationship and Ruth challenges him to not only speak blessing, but be blessing.

Through diversity, chance, and openness, a new union emerges, a child is born, and Naomi’s life is redeemed. The women of the neighborhood sing out, “A son has been born to Naomi (Ruth 4:17),” meaning: hope is born out, even in bitterness, even in barrenness. This is God speaking. This is God’s implicit nature revealed, and cradled in the lap of a widow. For Naomi is part of the intricate root system from which a new world order emerges. It is the family tree of David that Naomi suckles, and as Christians profess, the tree from which the life of Jesus flowers.

When we come together each Sunday, seeking out the implicit nature of what is divine and endeavor to live into that seeking, then we make a covenant with God and with one another to restore the world, to be agents of redemption. We would do well to listen and take to heart, this small jewel of a story. The holy moves in and through relationship. Diversity is strength, trust it. Chance encounters are important, so pay attention. Openness within systems, within relationships can lead to greater order. So, let us be bold with our open hearts, so that we might not only speak blessing, but be blessing. Amen.