October 18, 2015: Ruth

Ruth 1:1-17

During the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. A man with his wife and two sons went from Bethlehem of Judah to dwell in the territory of Moab. ² The name of that man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the territory of Moab and settled there.

³ But Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died. Then only she was left, along with her two sons. ⁴ They took wives for themselves, Moabite women; the name of the first was Orpah and the name of the second was Ruth. And they lived there for about ten years.

⁵ But both of the sons, Mahlon and Chilion, also died. Only the woman was left, without her two children and without her husband.

⁶ Then she arose along with her daughters-in-law to return from the field of Moab, because while in the territory of Moab she had heard that the Lord had paid attention to his people by providing food for them. ⁷ She left the place where she had been, and her two daughters-in-law went with her. They went along the road to return to the land of Judah.

⁸ Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, “Go, turn back, each of you to the household of your mother. May the Lord deal faithfully with you, just as you have done with the dead and with me. ⁹ May the Lord provide for you so that you may find security, each woman in the household of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.

¹⁰ But they replied to her, “No, instead we will return with you, to your people.”

¹¹ Naomi replied, “Turn back, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Will there again be sons in my womb, that they would be husbands for you? ¹² Turn back, my daughters. Go. I am too old for a husband. If I were to say that I have hope, even if I had a husband tonight, and even more, if I were to bear sons— ¹³ would you wait until they grew up? Would you refrain from having a husband? No, my daughters. This is more bitter for me than for you, since the Lord’s will has come out against me.”

¹⁴ Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stayed with her. ¹⁵ Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her gods. Turn back after your sister-in-law.”

¹⁶ But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to abandon you, to turn back from following after you. Wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. ¹⁷ Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do this to me and more so if even death separates me from you.”

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Introduction:

While living in Boston, Massachusetts during Graduate School I was able to get a part-time job in an office in order to help pay the bills.  When many of my fellow office workers discovered that I was a married Midwesterner they immediately began to make some rather sweeping assumptions about my identity. Because I was married they assumed had to be in my 30s (I was actually 23) because “no one” got married at such a young age in their experience and when they discovered I was a Christian they immediately assumed that I was like all of the other Christians they had seen on the news or in other forms of media: judgmental and superior. As a life-long Midwesterner I had my own assumptions of what these East Coast people would be like: brusque and rude, direct and impersonal.

The original audience of the Book of Ruth had similar assumptions about the people living around Israel.  The Israelites did not always get along with their neighbors and many wars were fought over the centuries between the Moabites and the Israelites.  Israelites simply did not like Moabites and vice versa.  As our story begins today, a family from the tribe of Judah has moved to Moab due to a severe famine and the two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, married Moabite women. Right away alarm bells must have been ringing: what are these fine Israelite men doing? Marrying Moabites? Goodness!

And, as if the story wasn’t scandalous enough already, when all of the men of the family have died and Naomi decides to head back to her homeland, one of those Moabite women decides to stay with her. This woman, named Ruth, expresses strong loyalty; something a Moabite woman wouldn’t do…would she? This story gets below nationality and ethnicity and speaks about human relationships and the struggle for survival that can seem daunting. 

The Technical Stuff:

The Bible gives ample evidence of the Israelites’ extremely negative impression of Moab and the Moabites.  Genesis 19 says that the Moabites are descended from Moab, the offspring of Lot’s drunken, incestuous relationship with his eldest daughter.  In Numbers 22-24, King Balak of Moab hires the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites, only to have the request backfire.  In Numbers 25 the Israelites get on the wrong side of the LORD by having sexual relations with Moabite women and worshiping the Moabite god. Deuteronomy 23:3 forbids any Moabite person from being admitted to the assembly of the LORD, even ten generations along.  In the Book of Judges, King Eglon of Moab subjugates the Israelite tribe of Benjamin, only to be assassinated by a left-handed Benjaminite named Ehud. Later both King Saul and King David of Israel will fight and ultimately defeat Moab.

What’s more, other parts of scripture strictly prohibit (or at least strongly frown on) Israelite men marrying foreign women.  Deuteronomy 7 contains commands against marrying any Canaanite women because they will lead their husbands away from the LORD. Marriage to [many] foreign women is one of the things that gets King Solomon in trouble with the LORD in 1 Kings 11. The Book of Nehemiah is very stringent about Jewish men marrying foreign women from many different places, including Moab (Neh. 13:23-31) The Book of Ezra dedicates two chapters (Chapters 9 and 10) to the issue of intermarriage (including Moabites in 9:1) and ultimately culminates with the separation of Judean Exiles from their foreign wives in order to avoid the wrath of the LORD.

And yet, not only is Ruth portrayed positively in this book, she becomes the heroine of the story!  Her faithfulness, resourcefulness, courage and downright tenacity turn a very sad looking story into something else entirely.  Ruth will not only serve as this story’s heroine, two of her descendants will be David and Solomon, the greatest kings Israel ever had. This also means that Jesus of Nazareth is a descendant of Ruth and she is included in his genealogy, found in Matthew 1:5.  Ruth, the outsider, is very much on the inside of God’s salvation story.

It is important to remember that the bible was not written by one, single author and that the different books found within the Old and New Testament take different views of the same subject. It’s as if the book of Ruth is having a conversation or debate with Ezra and Nehemiah. How should the people of Israel relate to the people of other nations?  “Be careful!” Ezra might say, “They will lead us away from our relationship with the LORD!” Ruth might answer, “Perhaps, but God can work through them and be present with them in ways we cannot expect.” 

What Does This Say to Us?

Many writers, scholars, and commentators have noted that Ruth is an extremely “human” story. We can almost feel the sadness and desperation of Naomi, Orpah and Ruth as they mourn the loss of their husbands and look at an extremely uncertain future. It is certainly hard to blame Orpah for eventually turning back to Moab. Ruth’s devotion to Naomi is heartwarming and impressive. Women in biblical times had almost no economic possibilities if they were unmarried or not a part of a man’s household and it quite possible that they will starve to death.

We humans do an all-to-effective job at drawing lines between groups of people whether those demarcations are made over race, religion, nationality or any other categories. Ruth reminds us that these are lines of our own making and that the LORD smiles on those who reach over these boundaries with kindness and compassion.  I began this devotion by talking about the assumptions present in my part-time office job in Boston.  As the weeks, months and years passed by, however, we all began to realize that we were so much more than the stereotypes we had for one another and many of us became very close indeed. Even ten years and many states later, I am still good friends with people I met at that job and I feel blessed by the experience.

The Book of Ruth reminds us that goodness, compassion and the love of God are greater than the boundaries we build. Thanks be to God!

October 11, 2015: Hear O Israel

Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9

Moses called out to all Israel, saying to them: “Israel! Listen to the regulations and the case laws that I’m recounting in your hearing right now. Learn them and carefully do them. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Mount Horeb. ³ The Lord didn’t make this covenant with our ancestors but with us—all of us who are here and alive right now. ⁴ The Lord spoke with you face-to-face on the mountain from the very fire itself. ⁵ At that time, I was standing between the Lord and you, declaring to you the Lord’s word, because you were terrified of the fire and didn’t go up on the mountain.”

The Lord said:

⁶ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁷ You must have no other gods before^[a] me. ⁸ Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. ⁹ Do not bow down to them or worship them because I, the Lord your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents’ sins—even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. ¹⁰ But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation^[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹ Do not use the Lord your God’s name as if it were of no significance; the Lord won’t forgive anyone who uses his name that way.

¹² Keep the Sabbath day and treat it as holy, exactly as the Lord your God commanded: ¹³ Six days you may work and do all your tasks, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Don’t do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your oxen or donkeys or any of your animals, or the immigrant who is living among you—so that your male and female servants can rest just like you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That’s why the Lord your God commands you to keep the Sabbath day.

¹⁶ Honor your father and your mother, exactly as the Lord your God requires, so that your life will be long and so that things will go well for you on the fertile land that the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁷ Do not kill.^[c]

¹⁸ Do not commit adultery.

¹⁹ Do not steal.

²⁰ Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.

²¹ Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s wife.

Do not crave your neighbor’s house, field, male or female servant, ox, donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

6 ⁴ Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord!^[a]

⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength. ⁶ These words that I am commanding you today must always be on your minds. ⁷ Recite them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting around your house and when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are getting up. ⁸ Tie them on your hand as a sign. They should be on your forehead as a symbol.^{[b] 9} Write them on your house’s door-frames and on your city’s gates.

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Introduction:

There are many individuals who have been wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Thankfully, due to DNA evidence, many of these men and women are able to be vindicated and released.  Imagine being such a person, spending years “inside” and now, suddenly, you are back into the world, a free person. But the challenges are certainly not at an end.  Even with the help and support of family and friends, the drastic changes that freedom brings could also create terrifying challenges. Imagine if a released prisoner had no support system or community?

In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, a film set inside a prison in Maine, an inmate named “Red” and his friends talk about a fellow prisoner who committed suicide after being on “the outside” for a short amount of time after his release. The others can’t understand it, but Red tries to explain to them how freedom could be so terrifying: “These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. After long enough, you get so you depend on 'em. That's 'institutionalized.'”

Freedom can be terrifying, uncharted territory for someone who has known only servitude. 

The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for many generations. Last week’s lesson from Exodus said that the Egyptians “made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.” (Ex. 1:14) God has liberated them from slavery through the leadership of Moses and his brother Aaron but freedom was a huge challenge for these former slaves.  They complain often about the lack of food, the lack of water and the danger that comes from other nations.

God knew that the people of Israel not only needed to be saved from slavery, they needed to be saved for a purpose.  They needed direction, meaning and support.  The “regulations” that Moses brings to the people from God are not meant to be another form of slavery; they are meant to provide a way of life that will help the people make the most of their freedom.

The Technical Stuff:

The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years after their liberation from slavery. There were many hardships, escapades and “scrapes” along the way and on more than one occasion either Moses or God grew exasperated with the Israelites’ lack of faith and/or grumbling. Finally, God prepared to lead them into the “Promised Land” of Canaan. Deuteronomy is Moses’ “farewell address.” The title of the book (as we have it today) comes from the Greek expression deuteros nomos, which means “second law,” and hence “Deuteronomy.” Moses gave the “law” or “Torah” to the people in the Book of Exodus, which says this took place on Mount Sinai. Deuteronomy recalls this, but calls the location “Mount Horeb.” This is one of the confusing aspects of Scripture: it’s the same mountain with two different names.

“Torah,” or “Law” can also be translated as “instruction” or “teaching” and it is an extremely important, but complicated concept. There is not time to go into detail here, but “Torah” became a way of life for the Israelites, whose descendants will be named “the Jews.”  There is also the very important concept of a “covenant” between God and the people.  A covenant is “a solemn commitment guaranteeing promises or obligations undertaken by one or both covenanting parties.” (Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, 139) In our own lives, one of the best example of a “covenant” is marriage, where two people make a commitment based on promises and obligations. Again and again the LORD has made ‘covenants’ with the ancestors of the Israelites: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now the LORD is making a covenant with the people before they enter the “Promised Land.”

The “law” or “instruction” is prefaced with this statement from the LORD: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” All of God’s “requirements” come out of the fact that the LORD is the one who has given them freedom and a new life. In other words, the LORD answers the question, “Why should we listen to you?” before it can be asked. Many will ask if there is “grace” in the Old Testament, usually after they have read about the LORD’s wrath against “sinners.”  It is important to remember, however, that “Israel understood its own life as a community to be in response to God’s saving activity” according to Professor Bruce Birch (Let Justice Roll Down, 174). The relationship that the people had with God all started with God’s saving act, with God’s grace.

Then come the two sets of “laws” in our lesson for today. The first will look very familiar: it is the second recitation of the “Ten Commandments” (also called the “Decalogue”). It was first given to the people by Moses in Exodus after the people had reached Mount Sinai, and now Moses is giving it again, before they enter the Promised Land. “Its stipulations provide the foundational definition of an appropriate relationship between the Israelites and God and among individual Israelites under the terms of the covenant.” (Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, 171) In other words, now that the people are free, they need to know how to live out their freedom. The Ten Commandments gives them the foundation they need.

The second section of our lesson is centered around one of the most important verses of the Old Testament: “Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord!” (Deut. 6:4) This verse is called “the Shema” (after the Hebrew “Sh’ma Yisrael” or “Hear, O Israel!”) and it is a prime example Israel’s relationship with the LORD). To this day, observant Jews consider this to be the most important part of the prayer service and say it twice daily. As an observant Jew, Jesus prayed this along with his disciples. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of this verse.

Jesus was also asked to give the greatest commandment, and he replied with Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38) He goes on to say, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:39-40) When you look at the commandments found either in Exodus or Deuteronomy, you’ll find that the ten are divided into ways to treat God, and ways to treat the people around you. In other words, Jesus was absolutely right.

What Does This Say to Us?

Just like the Israelites and so many other people before us, we need to have freedom for something, not just freedom from something.  As Christians we are reminded that “For by grace you have been saved by faith, and this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Galatians 2:8) Just as the Israelites were saved from slavery by God (and not from anything they did), we are saved by God through Jesus Christ while we were still sinners. But the question comes up, “Now what? Now that I am saved, how should I live my life?” In other words, “How do I look at the commands of God, now that I’m saved?”

Christians have many different ways of describing this, but I prefer to use something called “The Three Uses of the Law” that comes from the Lutheran Book of Concord (although, to be clear, not all LUTHERANS agree on this…and it’s found in other theologies too, but I’m a Lutheran so that’s where I’m starting). The Law of God has three different uses: the first is the usual, everyday use. The Law keeps people in line and orders society so that there isn’t chaos. Non-Christians and non-religious people follow the Law to some extent. With the second use, the Law is like a mirror which shows us our sin. The Law shows us that we cannot satisfy God’s requirements on our own. In other words, the Law shows us that we need grace, that we need Jesus Christ. The third use involves how we live, now that we are saved. Like the people of Israel, we need a guide, a way of life, that will help us to live as God intended for us to live. We’ll follow it imperfectly, we’ll continually need God’s grace, but we can use the Law as a way of life. So, in shorthand, the three uses are: a curb that keeps our bad behavior under-check, a mirror that shows us how messed up we are and our need of grace, and a guide that shows us how to live in a way that pleases God.

Freedom can be terrifying, uncharted territory for someone who has known only servitude. That servitude can be physical or spiritual, or BOTH, but thanks be to God that we have been given freedom for a purpose, not just freedom from evil.