Naomi's Prayer

Midweek Worship

The Twenty-Fourth Week after Pentecost

A Reading from the Book of Ruth:

Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do.”

She said to her, “All that you tell me I will do.”

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the LORD made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.”

Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week we talked about the purpose of the Book of Ruth, of when and why it was written. Why would our unknown author pen for us a story of King David’s heretofore unheard-of great-grandmother, some 500 years after David’s reign? And why would he then consciously employ archaic-sounding language to make his tale seem older than it really is? It could be, of course, that the book as we have it is a reworking of older legends, older materials.

But likely Ruth was given this false patina in order that it might be taken more seriously, read with more weight. Ruth is an early post-Exilic book, which means that it was written as the Jewish people were returning home to Israel from their long decades of Exile scattered throughout the Babylonian and Persian empires. Leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah were telling the returnees not to intermarry with other peoples, not to dilute their bloodlines. They feared that Israel, that the Jewish people, were risking absorption and assimilation into the surrounding cultures. And this led them to sound more than a bit xenophobic.

It hadn’t always been this way. When the Exile had begun, the major Prophets of the Bible encouraged the Jewish people to build homes, to marry, to have families in foreign lands, and to pray for the cities in which they found themselves. They were not to lose their own cultural identity—they were not to cease living as people of God—but they needn’t fear their neighbors. They needn’t fear intermarriage. They could still be Israel in a foreign land, by staying brave and true to their faith.

Ruth, then, is a refutation of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, a refutation even of Deuteronomy. What makes a person part of God’s family isn’t the old paganism of blood-and-soil, but faithfulness, selflessness, goodness and truth and beauty. The character of Ruth was born into one of Israel’s oldest enemies; yet she becomes, in the course of this story, the very exemplar of faithful loving-kindness, and thus enters into the pantheon of Israel’s royal family—the ancestress of King David.

Love over fear, openness over exclusion. It’s no wonder that Ruth proved itself an instant classic text, soon included even into the canons of sacred Scripture. Its message is timeless, pertinent to every generation, and thus bears repeating.

But there’s another theme within the Book of Ruth on which I’d like to touch tonight. And it likewise stands in contrast to the worldview of its day. Books like Deuteronomy, prevalent when Ruth was written, assume that faithfulness is rewarded while violations of God’s Law merit punishment. “Do good, get good; do bad, get bad,” right? And this should sound familiar because it’s the same sort of mechanistic moralism from last month that vexed poor old Job.

There are no evil characters within the Book of Ruth, just varying degrees of decency. When Naomi’s husband and sons all die, there is no hint of sin. There is no sense that this was somehow their just desserts, let alone Naomi’s. She didn’t deserve to be widowed. She didn’t deserve to outlive her children. God has turned against her, she says. Senseless sorrows have snuffed out her joy.

And the author of Ruth makes no attempt to mitigate this or explain it all away. Bad things happen to good people, he seems to be saying. That is just the way of it. And so Naomi’s faith in God is challenged by questions and by doubts. There’s even a certain irony in her voice when she refers to God as el Shaddai, “the Almighty”—for this is an appellation of fertility from a woman whose life has now become tragically infertile: no more husband, no more sons, no more hope.

How then are her prayers answered? Where is God within Naomi’s unexplained and undeserved suffering? Does she receive a miracle, her children returned to her from the dead? I’m afraid not. But God does reply through other means. In the Book of Ruth, we see no clear distinction between the supernatural and the natural. Indeed, human agency is presented to us as a theological response.

Who is it who answers Naomi’s prayers? Who is it who restores to her both her faith and her hope? Is it not Ruth, her daughter-in-law, who sticks with her when all seems lost, who refuses to abandon her despite her darkest hours? Is it not Boaz, her kinsman, who cares for Ruth and Naomi, not because they have anything to offer to him, but because he can clearly witness this love that they show one another, their obvious goodness of heart?

And is it not Obed, the child born unto Boaz and Ruth, for whom Naomi becomes nurse, and in whom she finds a bright and joyful future? God answers Naomi’s prayers through other people: through the love that they share and the loyalties they live. Yes, it is God who answers prayers, and He answers them through us. He answers them through neighbors, relatives, strangers, beggars, foreigners, immigrants, the least, the last, and the lost. He answers them in community, in selfless self-giving love.

That is where you find the work of God: in people; in that divine spark within, that flash of consciousness, being, and bliss, which is at root the Image and Spirit of God. That is what it is to be Christ for the world: to incarnate God’s love for your neighbor.

God answers our prayers through others—and in Jesus, He answers all of their prayers through us.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.