What (the book of ) Ruth teaches us about faith in God

Ruth 1: 1-18

What does it mean to be faithful? The story of Ruth has a lot to teach us about being faithful despite difficult situations – continuing to be faithful to people and to God.

 

I’m guessing this is a story most of us know fairly well. 

It won’t surprise you to learn that, as a Ruth, it’s always been one of my favourite Bible stories – Ruth is the hero, the faithful one, the good friend. So much so that we don’t really know what the Moabite parents of Ruth meant when they named their daughter ‘Ruth’ – what meaning it originally had, because we now know the meaning as ‘friend’ or ‘companion’. 

 

Ruth says what, to me, are some of the greatest words in scripture “where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, your God my God..”. 

At its most straightforward this is a story that teaches us what it means to be faithful: we could read this story and simply conclude that we should all be more like Ruth. 

 

But wait a moment – there is the faithfulness of Ruth, but there is also the faithfulness of Orpah (the other daughter in law).

Naomi tells her daughters in law to go back to their own family in Moab, while she goes back to the land of Israel. We know the way of faithfulness chosen by Ruth  - she reacts by staying with Naomi. 

But there is also the way of faithfulness chosen by Orpah – who obeys Naomi and returns to her own mother and home. Both daughters in law are faithful in their own ways. 

There is not just one route to faithfulness. We have to find the right way for us to be faithful, and accept it might not be the same route for everyone.

 

And we might also wonder to whom we should be faithful. God doesn’t get to do much in the story of Ruth – he doesn’t even get mentioned very much, apart from prayers and oaths – certainly there are no still small voices or fiery pillars. But as the story unfolds we see that Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi and to Boaz also allows her to be faithful to God and God’s purposes. I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the slaves looking after the talents, where at the end of the owner says “You have been faithful in small things, I will give you charge over larger things”.

 

The story doesn’t make Ruth choose whether to serve God or serve people – she can do both. Because of her faithfulness to Naomi & Boaz she is blessed with a son (Obed) who in turn has a son (Jesse) whose son, David, becomes the greatest King of God’s people of Israel.

So Ruth, the stranger, leads to David, the foundation stone of the nation of Israel. 

Matthew the gospel-writer picks up on this in the genealogy at the start of his gospel, when Ruth is named, as mother of Obed – and the genealogy shows how we get from king David to Jesus Christ himself. Ruth becomes part of the foundation of the Christian faith.

 

Ruth is faithful to Naomi & Boaz – but also faithful to God and serving God’s purposes.

So we see how faithfulness weaves in and out of our life’s circumstances.

 

And what does being faithful actually look like in everyday life?

 

Faithfulness is lived out both in action and in prayer.

I said God doesn’t get to do much in this story – most of the action is by people. But they do pause to pray – they just don’t stop acting while they wait for their prayer to be answered. I had a colleague in the South Western Synod who liked to quote ‘Plan as if it all depends on you – pray as if it all depends on God’. Ruth & Naomi would certainly agree with that – prayer is seen not as an alternative to planning and acting, but as the vital source of direction and success in action.

 

And faithfulness is seen both in vulnerability and in resilience.

Chapter 1 ends with Naomi changing her name – from Naomi (pleasant) to Mara (bitter) – she is clear that her life is a mess – she is not afraid to lament all she has lost and is clear about her vulnerability. Yet Naomi is also resilient. She has made the journey back to the Bethlehem, she has arrived at the start of the barley harvest, and she is prepared to trust that God will find a way for her and Ruth to have a secure future.

 

But there’s more – faithfulness helps us see God’s light in the darkness

 

There is a really dark thread running through the story of Ruth – which I don’t think we can ignore.

We heard the wonderful words of Ruth to Naomi ‘where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay…’. They could be words of love and devotion. But they could also be words which enslave Ruth to Naomi – words that sound almost like a contract. The words certainly don’t comfort Naomi at this point of the story. Why does Ruth choose to stay with Naomi and not return to her own family, as Orpah does? Perhaps she knows she wouldn’t be welcome back in her birth family. When it says right at the start of the story in chapter 1 v 4 that Naomi’s sons Mahlon & Chilion ‘took’ Moabite wives, it may be that they did just that. Perhaps they took these Moabite girls by force – maybe even forced them to marry. Maybe Ruth was seen as ‘damaged goods’ by her own family and her only choice was to be Naomi’s bonded servant.

 

I remember the first time I read an article suggesting that Ruth was actually ‘traffiked’ by Naomi, written for the World Council of Churches by Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo from Malawi. 

She pointed out that Ruth was taken back to Israel and married off to a much older relative of Naomi’s as the solution to Naomi’s poverty. When I read this I found it really hard to get my head round it. But even if the motives of some of the people in this story are not as pure or as “Sunday school” as we would like, it doesn’t stop this being a story of God’s people doing God’s will. 

 

At our communion service we remember that God’s love is supremely shown in the death of Jesus on the cross – in an act of barbarism and torture, God brings forgiveness, love and salvation to the world.

 

Even if Ruth’s story has dark undertones – of starvation, of refugees, of sexual violence – it is still a story that tells us God is with us, and that God’s purposes will, in the end, be fulfilled even in hardship, even in darkness.. even in us.

 

So I pray that in reading the story of Ruth we are challenged to think about our own faith and faithfulness, and reflect on the ways in which we can follow Jesus Christ – the light of the world -  even in the darkest of times.

So may God’s word feed us and strengthen us. Amen.