04/29/2020 GETTING THROUGH IT –
(Lessons from Ruth)
Ruth 4:13,18-22 So Boaz married Ruth, and when he slept with her, the LORD gave her a son. This is the family tree of Boaz, beginning with his ancestor Perez:
Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nashon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David. [Living Bible translation]
Matthew 1:1, 5 These are the ancestors of JESUS CHRIST, a descendant of King David and of Abraham…Salmon was the father of Boaz (Rahab was his mother); Boaz was the father of Obed (Ruth was his mother); Obed was the father of Jesse….
[Living Bible translation]
RUTH
Life Before the Trial –
My name is Ruth. You can probably tell I am a foreigner. Perhaps it is my accent, the way I say words, or the way I talk. Perhaps it is the way I look, the texture of my hair, the shape of my eyes or nose, or my mannerisms. Yes, I am different. I am from Moab. I am a foreigner.
It's sort of interesting that whether you are a foreigner depends on where you are at the time. If you are in the land of Moab, you are the foreigner and I am not. When I first met my husband and my husband’s mother Naomi, they were foreigners living in my land, Moab. I married my husband in Moab. My father-in-law, Elimelech, had already passed away. (Ruth 1:3) My mother-in-law had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. They are all Ephrathites, originally from Bethlehem in Judah. Perhaps I should have been more cautious when I married my foreign husband, Mahlon because his name in Hebrew means “sickly.” Chilion’s name in Hebrew means “destruction.”1 Chilion is the husband of my sister-in-law, Orpah also a Moabite woman, like me. Perhaps our husbands’ names should have warned me and Orpah about what was to come but when you marry someone or you’re in love, those kinds of things are not important, even if the person was prone to sickness. In any case, both brothers died. So, I, Orpah, and our mother-in-law were three widows, with no one in sight to take care of us.
I am very close to my mother-in-law Naomi. She is a woman of GOD. She is kind. I have watched her pray. A praying mother-in-law is a powerful thing. I consider Naomi “my mother.”
Naomi told us that she could not offer me or Orpah another son, who under the Hebrew tradition, would be obligated to take us all in and care for all of us. Under Hebrew law, that person is called the “kinsman-redeemer.” But, Naomi is too old to bear children. (Ruth 1:11-12) So, she told me and Orpah to return to our own mothers’ houses and offered up a prayer of blessing and protection for each of us to her GOD. (Ruth1:3). Orpah returned home. I did not. Naomi tried to force me to leave her side, but I am stubborn. I refused. I told Naomi that “she was my people.” Her GOD was my GOD. I told her “We are family.” I told her we would live and die together. I made a vow to GOD to not let anything separate us. (Ruth 1:16-17). So, when my mother-in-law decided to return to Bethlehem, I went with her. And, my journey as a foreigner, an immigrant began.
My Trials –
We cross the border into Bethlehem. We walked. It was a long, long journey. My mother-in-law had a kinsman, Boaz, who she said was kind. She suggested I go into his fields and glean for food. Gleaning is a way of feeding the poor. It is sort of like “leaving the scraps for the dogs.” When a field was being harvested, poor field workers, like me, walk-behind and pick up any left-over wheat or grain or the leftovers of whatever the reapers were cutting. Lots of immigrants and foreigners like me end up in the fields. It’s common. But working in a field around a lot of rough men can be a dangerous place for a foreign, immigrant woman, like me. I was very, very afraid. But Naomi and I needed to eat, so I went.
It turned out, I had nothing to worry about, Boaz told the men not to bother me and he even instructed me to work right alongside the women of his own household, so I wouldn’t be easy prey, harassed or molested. (Ruth 2:22) I gleaned in Boaz’s field through the barley harvest and the wheat harvest too! GOD is GOOD!
My mother-in-law decided that I needed to marry and she mentioned Boaz, her kinsman. She left it up to me to approach Boaz, which I did. I basically asked him to make me his wife, according to GOD’s law, since he was a kinsman. I wanted him to be my kinsman-redeemer. Thank GOD Boaz did not spurn me. In fact, he thanked GOD for a girl like me. (Ruth 3:10). But we had a problem, Boaz was not Naomi’s closest relative. There was another relative who basically had the first rights to marry me. In other words, I could be married off to this other relative and neither Boaz nor I could do a thing about it. Another man had the first right of kinsman redeeming. And, it turned out that this other kinsman was not as nice as Boaz. This other man was racist. He didn’t like foreign women, like me.