Joan Chittister said life is made up of a series of defining moments. Some of the moments are shared experiences: the great depression, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 – these are a few of the big ones that come to mind. All of us experience them together and, not only do they contribute to the formation of who we are personally, they shape the culture we are all a part of.
But other experiences are personal: an illness you experienced, a conversation you had with someone, a marriage, a job, a child – things that become part of the story of who you are. And that is what it is – a story.
I think one of the defining features of being human is the search for meaning. It is important for our lives to have meaning, and so we look for it in our experiences, we make meaning out of the pieces of our lives. This is what we are doing when we tell our stories.
The book of Ruth in the Old Testament is such a story. It takes pieces from life experience, puts them together in a meaningful way, and tells something true. I don’t know that all the characters in Ruth really existed. I don’t know if the events actually happened just as they are written. What I do know is that the story of Ruth tells deep and meaningful truths about life, truths that connect with our own experiences of loss and hope, despair and fulfillment.
The story begins long, long ago – in the time when the judges ruled, a period of time early in Israel’s history. When the people settled in the land God had led them to, there was no king. There was, instead, a series of individuals anointed to serve as judge over the people on sort of an ad hoc basis. It was a time of erratic, inconsistent governance.
And during this time, there was a famine in the land. Famines, even today, are periods of great migration, because people who have no food need to go in search of food. If they live in places where the systems of government are not functioning well, they are on their own to find a way. It so happened that during this famine, a man of Bethlehem took his wife and two sons and migrated to the land of Moab – a foreign land – because in Bethlehem there was no way for them to make a way.
The man’s name was Elimelech and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth.
Some of us have been given names that have special meaning, but in the book of Ruth, the names of the characters we have just been introduced to are surprisingly blunt in their meaning. Elimelech literally means “My God is king,” and by this we know Elimelech was a righteous man. Naomi means “pleasant,” so I guess she was pleasant.
But their sons’ names are a bit disturbing. Mahlon means sickly and Chilion means frail. Imagine: I’d like you to meet my son, sickly, and my other son, frail. Obviously, we don’t expect much of them. You might as well name your child He gonna die soon.
And they did – die soon. As did the patriarch, Elimelech. And we are left with three widows.
In ancient Israel a woman whose husband died was not necessarily called a widow. It was only if she had no living sons to care for her. In ancient Israel, to be a widow was to be utterly and completely vulnerable. Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah were widows.
Now on her own, Naomi decided that it was time for her to go back to Bethlehem. She had heard that the famine was over, so she knew it made the most sense for her to make the difficult journey back to her homeland. She told her daughters-in-law what she intended to do, but that she had no expectation that they would come with her. Ruth’s and Orpah’s families were in Moab. The thing that made sense for them was to go back home to their parents’ houses and hopefully be remarried.
Here is where names are important again. The name Orpah actually means “the back of the neck.” And the name Ruth is an allusion to the word friendship.
So, after some initial protestation, Miss Back-of-the-neck turns her back on Naomi. But Friendship stays. Then Pleasant and Friendship make their way to Bethlehem. Only, when they get there Naomi tells the people, “Call me no longer Naomi; call me Mara, for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me.” Mara means bitter.
The story of Ruth is a story of loss, of finding oneself empty. The place where this family began was Bethlehem, which literally means “house of bread.” But the house of bread became empty of bread, and so the family was forced to emigrate. Moab is a place where there is food, but in every other way may feel empty to them. The two sons marry, but they have no children, and then all three of the men die, leaving the women in complete emptiness. Naomi even speaks of the emptiness of her womb, her inability to provide husbands for Orpah and Ruth.
These women were in a state of emptiness because the world they lived in left them this way. Just like the widow in the Gospel of Mark who gives her two small copper coins to the temple treasury. Naomi had nothing. The widow in Mark’s gospel had nothing. But they were not poor because they were lazy, or because they had made bad choices in life. They were poor because the system they lived in was designed to deprive them of any good choices. The system they lived in was designed to keep all the power in some hands and out of the hands of others.
And somehow, this widow Jesus observes was expected to give all she had so the ones in power don’t have to feel the pinch in any way. How does that even happen? Who decides this is a system that makes sense?
You might feel that the story of Ruth and Naomi bears some similarities to your own story. If there is a part of your story where you had nowhere to turn, no one who would help you unless you handed over your dignity; if there is a part of your story when you begged for someone to understand what you needed, but they all just smiled sadly and shook their heads; if there is anything like this in your story, then you know.
And even if you don’t, all you need to do is think about the men, women, and children who come through the doors of H.O.P.E. every Tuesday and Thursday. All those who step up to our kitchen door Tuesdays and Thursdays for a wholesome meal, because they are hungry.
Sometimes I think of that saying, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” And it frustrates me that so much of what we do as a church is handing out fish, one fish at a time, one day at a time. And I wish we could, instead, hand people the power to fish for themselves, the freedom to provide for themselves.
But there are so many obstacles all along that way. Sometimes the change that the system needs is bigger than people are willing to risk. A kind of change we can’t imagine.
The system that left Naomi empty felt perfectly normal to them. The system that left the widow in the temple destitute felt righteous and just. And I wonder what we feel is normal, is just, and still leaves people with no way to make a way.
At times like this I feel we are far from the kingdom of God.
I don’t know for sure what it will take to bring us closer to the kingdom of God, closer to the love of neighbor that Jesus teaches. Until then it will be necessary to keep handing out fish, every day. Until then, the Naomis of the world, the ones who don’t have any good options, will continue to struggle in a world that beats hard against them.
But perhaps there is a word of hope coming from Ruth, when she says to Naomi, where you go I will go.
I will go with you.
My prayer for us today is that –
until the day comes that this world looks like the kingdom of God, no matter how long that takes;
until the day when we can stop handing out sandwiches at our kitchen door and we can stop packing up bags of food for little children to take home for the weekend;
until the day when the Ruths and Naomis don’t have to walk that lonely road searching for a way when it feels like there is no way;
my prayer is that, every day until then, we make them the promise Ruth made: I will go with you. I will be there with you.
May it be so.
Photo: ChurchArt.com
