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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, dear Christians, this morning, we get to hear from the book of Ruth, and I think we ought to take advantage of this opportunity because it is the one and only time that we get to hear from Ruth in our current cycle of lessons. And there are several many things we hear in Ruth that we want to think about, and so we’re going to spend some time there. But we also hear kind of the same themes in our other readings as well, so we’ll take a quick look at those. So a lot of ground to cover this morning.
First, there is kind of this theme or this idea of suffering in the life of faith for the example that it gives to others who also suffer. There’s, of course, the gift of faith itself. Particularly the gift of faith that comes to those who maybe are the least likely to have it, to those who are considered foreigners, to those who are the outcasts and the unclean, to those who are the contemptible. And there is this idea of blessing and redemption by the wondrous works and mercy and grace of God. And then altogether, how all of this, despite maybe not being apparent at the time and to all people, how this accomplishes God’s will in his plan for salvation.
So in the very first verse of Ruth, we hear that things aren’t going well. It is the time of the judges when there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And seemingly the faith of God’s people was really at a low point. To make matters worse, this famine has been cast now upon the land of Judah. And it is in Judah where we hear that there is a man named Limelech in this backwater town of Bethlehem. Well, he has decided to do whatever it takes. He’s going to do what he must to make sure that his family is going to live through this famine. So what does he do? He heads east. Right. He takes his wife Naomi and he takes his two sons, and they head to the land of Moab.
Now this was no small thing. This was an extreme measure, first of all, that he would leave this land of his inheritance, of his forefathers, this land that the Lord had given to him. And again, what’s more, they’re headed for Moab. Now the Moabites are historical enemies of the Israelites. You may recall that the Moabite king Balak had asked Balaam to prophesy and to curse the Israelites during their time in the wilderness. And so we hear and we see that Alemulak and his family, well, they’re going into this hostile land that has a completely different culture and is filled with pagan religions.
And once they are there and they’ve settled in to some point, to some extent, well, we hear that Alemulak dies. And so now he leaves Naomi as a widow to care for these two sons. And how is it exactly that these sons then honored their father and mother? Why, they marry Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. Now, there’s some debate about whether this type of intermarriage was expressly forbidden by the law, but it certainly wasn’t encouraged, and it certainly wasn’t condoned because, most importantly, there was this risk that these sons, by marrying these Moabite women, would then fall themselves into idolatry, that they would adopt the pagan gods of their wives.
So here we have this poor woman Naomi. She already has this mark of being a stranger in a strange land. She’s without a husband, a widow, and now she has these two sons who’ve married Moabite women. If that’s not bad enough, it goes from bad to worse for her. The sons die also. So after investing about 10 years of life in Moab, Naomi finds herself essentially alone in this foreign land. And she must have thought that this was then some kind of punishment from God because she’s been afflicted with the death of her husband. She’s been embarrassed by this marriage of her sons to Moabite women, and now they have had an untimely death themselves.
So she had to be thinking, well, maybe we should have just stayed in Judah and tried to survive. But at least if I died there, it would have been in my homeland. But we hear that the Lord is faithful, and she receives news that this famine in the land of Judah has been lifted. And we know she believes it. She believes it because she knows that the Lord has promised to take care of her, just as he had promised to take care of her ancestors, who had also had to leave the promised land at some point, only to return to it later.
And now, if she returns home to Bethlehem, even with the shame of what has happened to her, she can at least go home. She still has faith in God, the God of Israel, despite all this suffering that has happened to her. Even if she did believe that this was somehow God’s judgment on her, her faith didn’t falter. And so we know with this that obviously and undoubtedly this had made an impression on her daughters-in-law. Because as she prepares to go back to Judah, they seem fully prepared to go with her. It is because they are a family now. They have this bond.
But Naomi is thinking about what life will be like for these two Moabite women in Bethlehem. And she insists that they stay there, that they stay where they are. She even wants to leave them with a blessing and hopes that the Lord may deal kindly with them. Perhaps they will have the opportunity to remarry and have children, something that would be inherently harder for them in Bethlehem. It’s going to be hard enough for Naomi to remarry, given her age and all the requirements and constraints of the law, but in her great love for her daughters-in-law, she desires to release them from this bond.
At first, it seems that this family bond and the obligation for the two daughters-in-law are stronger than their desire to stay there in Moab and have an easier life, because they do initially insist on going with her. But Naomi is just as stubborn. And so she is insistent that they will have a much better deal if they stay there. Somebody has to crack, and it’s Orpah. She is the one who breaks the bond, who decides to let go. And it is here where we really see this distinction of faith between Orpah and Ruth.
Orpah takes this easier path to walk away and to go back to her people and to her gods. Most likely because her desire for assurance, comfort, security, and perhaps even some self-reliance means that she can build her life there on her own, which now means that she is going to turn away from her mother-in-law Naomi. And beyond that, she is turning her back now on the God of Israel. But it’s different for Ruth. She confesses her faith when she says to Naomi, where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.
So while we shouldn’t doubt that there is obviously this familial bond and there is this love for Naomi from Ruth because of who she is, because of being family, we don’t want to neglect that last part: that this is Ruth’s confession of God, of Yahweh as God. And so Ruth now is holding steadfastly to this faith that she’s been given. That’s why she returns with Naomi and goes to Bethlehem. She turns her back also on her pagan past, though. And instead, she places her trust and indeed her entire life in the Lord’s hands.
And it would be quite a life that he had in store for her because her future is as one in the line of the Messiah. Now, we don’t really get to hear the rest of the story. Kind of a shame that we don’t get more from the book of Ruth. If we did, we would hear how Ruth goes to Bethlehem and she really struggles at first. She has to toil in her work. She has to be kind of happy with going in behind the reapers who are in the fields, and she gets to glean what’s left, gather what’s left, kind of the scraps. But in her toil, this is when Alemulak’s relative Boaz notices her.
He gives her protection, and he even gives her status among the other young ladies. And then beyond that, the kindness that he extends to her, how he feeds her, how he then elevates her among his own servants. And then more so, how he eventually comes to redeem the land of Alemulak. In doing so, he has resumed the responsibility as heir, and in that, there is this obligation to marry Ruth. With her, he would have a son, Obad. And Obad would be the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.
And so all the women of Bethlehem, it says, rejoiced with Ruth and Naomi, saying, blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer. And may his name be renowned in Israel. Now, maybe they were talking about Boaz, but I think the prophetic words for this son of David, this son of Bethlehem, would indeed redeem his people, Israel. And it is around 1,200 years after this that this son of David, this son of Bethlehem, is himself traveling to Jerusalem to accomplish that very redemption.
As he passes through this village, he hears this group of lepers cry out to him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” And this cry, “Have mercy,” yeah, it’s a plea for physical healing. But more than that, it is a cry for salvation, for spiritual healing. Because not only did they have this physical affliction, but they were forbidden from worship. They were forbidden from attending worship in the temple or in the synagogue with the others. So it is a cry for spiritual healing.
And Jesus says to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And we hear that the healing is accomplished on the way there. But only one of the ten then turns around to thank Jesus for this gift that has come to him by his faith. And what was special about this one man? He was a Samaritan, hated by the Jews, probably hated by the nine other men who were in this little cohort of lepers with him. They probably only tolerated him because of the misery they shared together.
And so Jesus now praises this one man, the Samaritan, the faith of the Samaritan because it is what has healed him. It is what has saved him. Because he has endured all this suffering just for the hope of Christ’s mercy. It has now turned him into a very improbable disciple and follower of Christ. We hear from one other person, an unimaginable and improbable disciple and apostle, St. Paul, formerly an enemy of the church, who was himself no stranger to suffering. He was, in fact, imprisoned in Rome when he was writing this letter to Timothy in which he writes, “Share in suffering,” basically, “share in my suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
In this, Paul likes to use these analogies of vocations that everyone would be familiar with. The first he uses is that of a soldier. The one who enlists as a soldier ought to do everything in his duties with a focused mindset, that he will be ready to fight, and if necessary die for others, and that he will do everything under the command of the one he serves.
And the athlete. The athlete has to train with discipline, and he cannot win if he doesn’t do that, and he can’t win if he doesn’t follow the rules. And the third, this industrious farmer who deserves the first of the harvest because of his hard work and dedication. So he’s telling Timothy to have this singular focus in this calling that you now have. And in his encouragement, he commends Christ to it. “Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead.” This is so that Timothy may proclaim this word with certainty, that it will accomplish not what he sets it out to do, but what the Lord sets out to do. Paul says this much when he says the word of God is not bound. It does not return empty. But there will be suffering. And when it comes, Timothy must not despair and think that all this work of his is in vain.
We know that Paul himself experienced this, the uncertainty, the perhaps faltering faith, the physical attacks. And so he reminds Timothy that Christ remains faithful, even when our faith dims, when his faith dims, if he only clings to his promises. So in these lessons today, we see that God brings perhaps the unlikeliest of people to faith and how he then can use that example of faith, and maybe especially some suffering in faith, to accomplish his will and to give hope to others.
And I think we really have some good words of comfort and assurance here. Because from Ruth, we hear, “Where you go, I will go. Your God is my God.” These words that Ruth spoke as her confession of faith in the God of Israel and how God used Naomi’s example of love and her own enduring faith through all the hardships and suffering that she experienced to help bring Ruth to a faith, with a willingness to trust in God to the point of leaving everything behind that was familiar to her.
And how could Ruth have known that enduring this shame of being a Moabite woman in the land of Judah that she would herself be one day redeemed? Redeemed in marriage and how she would have a son who was the forbearer of Christ. More comforting words from our Lord Jesus who says, “Rise, go your way, your faith has made you well.” The words that he spoke to this Samaritan leper whose faith had healed him, in fact saved him.
How Jesus uses this outsider, this anathema to the Jews, to show how true, abiding faith is one of thankfulness and how the kingdom of God is now for all people. And this was as much for those around, especially his disciples, to see. They were really seeing right in front of them the fulfillment of this parable of the sower from Luke 8. The Samaritan leper was the example of the good seed that fell in the good soil because he heard the word and he held fast to it. But the other lepers, they were the seeds in the rock who believed for a while but then fell away.
And last, we’ve got comforting words from St. Paul, once himself a persecutor of Christians, once despised and feared by them, when he says, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” The words that he spoke to Timothy to make sure that he would be ready for these hardships to come. That Timothy wouldn’t shirk; that he wouldn’t back away from the obligations of being one of the sons of God in faith. Because the life of an evangelist will not be easy. But Paul doesn’t write it as a warning; it’s encouragement for Timothy. And so that the strength to withstand all this, for the sake of the gospel, will come from that very gospel. It will come from the certainty of grace that is in Christ.
So brothers and sisters in Christ, we think about this, and we want always, and perhaps not at any time, to understand how it is exactly that God is working to accomplish his will. In our own lives, we might especially question things during times of suffering, wondering what exactly it is that God intends to accomplish. And, you know, honestly, our faith may falter. We may and will often be forgetful to be thankful for the blessings we do have. But we hear that God is faithful even when we aren’t. We know he promises never to leave or forsake us.
And now they’re hard words to hear when we don’t want to hear them, when we’re not ready to hear them, and when you’re questioning what is happening to you, why is God putting me through this, what did I do to deserve this? And I hope this is when we can kind of look at today’s examples of faith and maybe be comforted with the assurance of God’s purpose and timing at trial. We have to remember that all our self-interest are secondary and they’re really unnecessary.
Because as we’ve heard in the hymn, there’s only one thing necessary and needful, and that is the Word of God. And so when we wonder if that particular family member or one of our friends or maybe one of our coworkers is ever going to come to know the love of Christ, then we ought to be encouraged by the examples that we are now seeing among those who are coming to faith in Christ from complete unbelief and those who are returning to the faith of their youth. They’re coming not by their own power or their own desire, but by the work of the Holy Spirit in them, the Spirit who comes by the Word.
So stop—never stop preaching the word. Don’t stop sharing the word with them. Keep encouraging them to come to church. God is working in the world despite what we see and despite what anyone thinks he has limited himself to. Because today we see he brings this pagan Moabite woman, Ruth, to faith and brings her to be in the line of Christ. He healed this Samaritan leper, not just of his disease but of his spiritual death. And we see that by the apostles, he has caused the word to go out into the world. It is accomplishing both what he has willed and what he has ordained.
And it is this that we can be certain: that God’s word does stand forever and that he is faithful. Because we have our own redeemer in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who covered all our sin and death on the cross.
So with the psalmist, we should praise the Lord and give thanks with our whole heart. For he has sent redemption to his people. He has commanded his covenant forever, and holy and awesome is his name. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.