Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Scripture | Ruth 4:13-22 (NIV)
13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.” 16 Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. 18 This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, 19 Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, 20 Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, 21 Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, 22 Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.
Now, we’ve come to the end of the Ruth Story. Today we are wrapping up as we look at chapter four, which is the last chapter of Ruth. Over the last four weeks, we’ve explored a couple of different aspects of this really incredibly story: First, we looked at loyalty and how Naomi’s loyalty inspired Ruth’s and together they show us what it means to be loyal as Christians. Second, we explored biblical generosity through the goodness of Boaz. Last week, we dove into biblical integrity by looking not just at the story of Ruth, but by exploring how we find examples of it throughout the biblical narrative. We discussed what it means to have integrity: to follow God despite if it’s popular, despite the cost, despite if someone is watching or not.
As we’ve discussed these themes, we listened to this amazing account of this woman, Ruth and her in-laws. Just as a recap, the story begins with a family from Israel leaving their homeland because of a famine. They move to Moab – an enemy of Israel – and while they are there the father and the two sons die. Before the sons die, however, they get married to two Moabite women: Orpah and Ruth. So, all that is left is Naomi, the mother of the two sons, and Orpah and Ruth. Naomi decides to travel back to Israel, to her hometown of Bethlehem and tells her two daughters-in-law that if they return with her, it will be a hard life. She tells them they can return home which Orpah does and Ruth does not. Ruth and Naomi live in Bethlehem, but life is hard. Without husbands or sons, there is no means of income or food, so Ruth is sent by Naomi to pick the fields of Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s.
Boaz shows incredible kindness to Ruth and allows her to take home large amounts of food. Naomi reveals that Boaz is her family’s guardian-redeemer, and sends Ruth to ask for him to fulfill his duty as such. She does and he reveals that he will, but that there is another who is closer in line to this duty and this person must first relinquish their rights. That’s the story up to now.
Naomi and Ruth have lost everything and now there is hope – but will this new guardian-redeemer take Ruth as his wife instead of Boaz? Because this man is closer in relation to Naomi, he is first in line. In the fourth chapter, we learn that Boaz goes and speaks with this guardian-redeemer and lets him know of the situation.
This is how it goes down, starting in verse 4, Boaz is speaking “I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.” “I will redeem it,” he said. Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.” At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”
So, the guardian-redeemer which was first in line decides that he cannot marry the Moabite woman, Ruth, so Boaz says he will. This brings us to the scripture for today, where we hear how Boaz and Ruth are married, have a son, and from this son comes a long lineage of people. At that, we have finished the story of Ruth.
Now, I hope after four weeks of reading and studying this book, you might have a few questions. But first I want to see if you noticed anything. This book is one of the only ones like it in the whole Bible. Do you know what is so unique about this story? God is surprisingly absent! – He doesn’t speak and He is barely mentioned at all! Ruth is part of a three-book collection in the Old Testament where God is barley named or speaks: Esther, Song of Solomon, and Ruth – and in Esther and Song of Solomon, God isn’t mentioned at all! It’s pretty strange to have Holy Scriptures which are the Word of God not say anything about God.
Ruth is clearly a beautiful story – it’s got all the right stuff. There’s heroes and heroines, jeopardy, uncertainty, love – it’s a classic tale. But is it worthy of being in the Bible? Well, it is in the Bible, so the real question is then, why is it in the Bible? So far, we have seen how this book has taught us about loyalty, loss, generosity, and integrity, but its greatest lesson is only found after you’ve finished the whole book. At the end of story, we find that the tragedy and death which began the story in undone. The loss of sons and husbands is replaced with Ruth gaining both a husband and a son and this means that not only does she gain those people, but she also is taken from poverty and homelessness and finds a home and a family.
The loyalty which we saw Ruth have toward the family of Naomi at the beginning of the story is the same loyalty that the family of Naomi, through Boaz, now shows toward Ruth. What is so beautiful about this story is that it shows how God moves in the world, especially amongst those who are faithful to Him and His way of life. God is not mentioned often in this story, but He is hardly absent: and this is one of the real lessons we learn from Ruth.
There are times when all people who follow God and seek to live in His ways experience horrible loss and tragedy. There are times when we look around at our situation and start to wonder how on earth we got to this place. Just like Ruth, we don’t know what the future holds. Yet, throughout our stories and through the story of Ruth, God is working, weaving together the decisions we make and those around us make to work of our betterment. God was present and working through the loyalty of Naomi which inspired faith in Ruth by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was Ruth’s loyalty which God used to move Boaz to generosity, Boaz’s generosity and Ruth’s loyalty and faithfulness helped them have integrity, and God used that integrity to bring them together and restore to them what the world had taken away. Through everything – while we work and play, through our actions, relationships, thoughts, and prayers, God is moving and working for us! As we seek Him, He is seeking us and as we live our lives, He is giving life to us through the power of His Holy Spirit.
God doesn’t stop there, nor does the story of Ruth. At the very end of the chapter and the very end of the story, we get a genealogy of the children of Ruth and Boaz. From this Moabite – who is not a native part of the chosen people – comes a family which ends with David, the son of Jesse. This is King David, the man after God’s heart. But this shows more than that: We know, as Christians, that King David is the ancestor to our own Jesus Christ and it is in David’s hometown, the town of Ruth and Boaz, that the Son of God is incarnated into creation for the salvation of all humanity.
It is incredible – almost unbelievable – what God has done through the life of this simple woman who was merely faithful in the mist of her hard life. It is hard to imagine that God would use such a person to make His will for salvation come to reality. But even then, in the time of Ruth, God was already working for the betterment of Ruth and for the betterment of humanity. When we are living as Christ calls us; when we live into our call as Christians to love God with everything we are and have, and to love those around us as ourselves; when we heed Christ’s call, we become a part of God’s movements not just to make us who we were called to be, but to make humanity who were we called to be.
Ruth had no clue how important she was to the story of humankind. She did not go in thinking, “If I just stick with Naomi now, I’ll become the ancestor to the Son of God. No, all she did was choose to be faithful. That is what we celebrate today on All Saints Sunday. None of these people who we name on this Sunday, nor any Saint who has gone before us, thought that they would be remembered as a Saint. Most probably would not think that they deserved such reverence. But this is the glory of following God – and the reason we celebrate All Saints Day. Because God uses the ordinary, everyday things of this world to do extraordinary things.
So, the question becomes, what do we do with this? First of all, this is a lesson of trusting in God’s direction and plan. There is no way that we can see a picture as big as what God sees. But what we can see is God’s movements around us. When we are attentive to the ways in which God is moving in our own lives, we are reminded of His leading, guiding, and sustaining of us and that what we do now will be used by God to do amazing things.
We don’t have to worry about if we are speaking the perfect words or taking perfect actions to share the Gospel. We don’t have to be paralyzed by the fear of not doing enough, because it is not up to our hands, but to God’s. When we trust in God, when we place our loyalty to Him, live generous lives, and live with integrity, we live in the promise that God is using us for His glory and that the work we do now will be used by Him for thousands of years to come.