Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Judgment is not meant for those isolated slices of our lives. Moments don't tell stories, and this story, like yours, like mine, is not over yet. Today, we're continuing a series through the book of Ruth together, and, we started that last Sunday. Today, we're gonna push a little bit farther. But I do wanna say this, we're gonna finish chapter one today.
Jeremy Duncan:That will leave us three weeks to get through chapters two, three, and four. That will take us to the end of the book of the Ruth. It will bring us right to the beginning of Advent, and we mentioned it already today, but Christmas Eve tickets are available now. They are, of course, free, but they're also a big part of how we make sure and manage seating is handled across such a busy day. This year, we're actually running seven Christmas Eve services across our two parishes.
Jeremy Duncan:And if you and family and friends know which service time works for you, you can help us out by reserving a seat as soon as possible so that we can get to work on planning. I know Christmas is still a couple months out, but we're excited as a staff team to start working towards that direction as well. I know you probably got plans on the horizon too. That's it. Last week, we opened the book of Ruth.
Jeremy Duncan:We only got through five verses last week. Really, it was just the prologue to the book and to the series. Today, we're gonna push a little bit farther. Unsurprisingly, though, I think there was a lot to dig into last week. And, I think what was interesting for me, particularly, was to see both the historical context and the personal content come together right in the opening.
Jeremy Duncan:We spent about half the sermon last week looking at the history and the fact that this book is uniquely centered on two newly widowed women. That's a remarkably vulnerable opening act. A story where women are driving the narrative. A story where women are caring for each other. A story where women are perhaps also driving the political discourse through their storytelling.
Jeremy Duncan:This is what gets really fascinating about Ruth for me. How did such a small little outlier text find its way into the Bible in the first place? Well, one of the most compelling arguments is that this story was written in response to some overly aggressive anti foreigner political reforms that were being instituted in Israel at the time. Last week, we read from Nehemiah where people find an old story from Deuteronomy about how the Moabites weren't nice to them once. And they jump to the conclusion from that, that all foreigners should be excluded from the assembly of God.
Jeremy Duncan:Well, if you follow that story, you'll come to Ezra chapter 10. And there, you'll read this passage. One of the descendants of Elam said to Israel, we have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Let us make a covenant before God to send away all these women and their children.
Jeremy Duncan:And to be clear, that is a proposal to send away wives and mothers and sons and daughters living in the community. In fact, he goes on to say, rise up. The matter is in your hands. We will support you. Take courage and do what is right.
Jeremy Duncan:This is why a lot of scholars think that a story about an Israelite family going to Moab to find bread, about a Moabite wife turning to God and staying loyal to an Israelite widow, A story about a Moabite woman who herself becomes part of the Davidic lineage. It's more than just a cute little story. It's likely a story written perhaps by a woman, but certainly in defense of women who were being scapegoated for the challenges facing their nation. As one scholar, Catherine Dubs Senkenfeld says, the viewpoint expressed in Ruth was interpreted as a polemic against the policies of Ezra and Nehemiah that required Jewish men to divorce their non Jewish wives. Which is to say, the story of Ruth is a lot more political than it might seem on the surface.
Jeremy Duncan:It might have more to say to us today than we notice on first reading. By the way, I'm posting on Substack these days. It's mainly just ideas from sermons. So it's not new stuff. Don't worry about it.
Jeremy Duncan:But it is a space where I can include the footnotes for the research that sits behind a lot of sermons. So if that's ever interesting to you, you wanna find those references, including quotes like that one from Katherine Dubsankenfeld, you can check that out on Substack. We have a link in our resources page on the website. However, all of that history then takes a personal turn at the end of the prologue where Naomi loses her name. We touched on that last week.
Jeremy Duncan:That's where we'll pick up today. First, let's pray. God who visits with us. We come in today carrying different stories to this room. Some of us feel full, some empty.
Jeremy Duncan:Some of us are still not sure which we feel. And we confess that sometimes your goodness only seems to be a rumor. Something happening somewhere else to someone who's not us. And so for those of us who find ourselves grieving, would you keep us from feeling like we walk that road alone today? For those of us walking beside someone who grieves, who perhaps doesn't seem to see us right now, would you grant us the patience to stay with them on that journey?
Jeremy Duncan:And for all of us, would you open our eyes to see the grace that is already standing beside us? In the friend, in the neighbor, in the one we did not expect to draw near to us. And so as we return to the story of journey again this morning, may we find ourselves somewhere inside it once more, and might that help us to take the next step toward each other in kindness. In the strong name, the risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Jeremy Duncan:Chosen family and the story of Ruth. Last week, we moved through the prologue and the first five verses of Ruth. Today, we're gonna push through to the end of chapter one. And to do that, we'll cover rumors and isolation, visibility, and what we're not quite ready to see just yet. But last week, we ended on this important little omission in our English translations.
Jeremy Duncan:The opening verses, we are introduced to a lot of proper names, a lot of characters. Right? And all of those characters have names that have meaning for how the story will unfold. A man named my god is king marries a woman named pleasantness. And they have children named Sickness and Death, and lo and behold, the man and his children die.
Jeremy Duncan:So this is not the sixth sense. Okay? There's no twist ending coming. M Night Shyamalan had nothing to do with writing this tale. In fact, that woman named Pleasantness has two daughters in law, one named Companion, the other named the back of her neck.
Jeremy Duncan:And one of them will turn and walk away, the other will be loyal and journey to the end. So if you're into mysteries, this is probably not the story for you. This is boring. You know exactly how it's gonna go. My son is 13.
Jeremy Duncan:We watch movies together now sometimes. And oftentimes, you know what I mean, right at the start of the film, you know who the love interests are gonna be. And so two minutes in to every movie, I will always turn to him and say, I think he loves her. And he will say, dad, stop talking about that. He's old enough to be interested in girls, not old enough to want to talk about dad with those things.
Jeremy Duncan:Still thing is, all of this right in the prologue is telling us how to listen to the story. What's gonna happen? The tension in the narrative is not about what unfolds. We know that from the start. The tension is how the characters will respond.
Jeremy Duncan:And that means our job as listeners isn't to figure out the plot, it's to wonder. And to speculate, to try to feel what these characters are feeling. That's our job because this is, in the estimation of Herman Gunkel, a novella we are reading. And that big clue we got last week, at the end of the opening prologue, after all the characters have been introduced and most of the characters have died, is that our central character, Naomi, a woman who is introduced to us as pleasantness, well, she is now reduced to simply being known as the woman. She's lost her identity, both in the surroundings to the hiety that follows her and perhaps more poignantly, she's beginning to lose that sense for herself.
Jeremy Duncan:That is where we pick up today. Because this is verse six. When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters in law prepared to return home from there. Now, the record, the word Naomi, the name, does not appear in this verse either. She is still just the woman here.
Jeremy Duncan:She lost her name. But the woman hears that God has come to the aid of his people. And what's interesting here is this specific word that is used, that verb. It's actually something more like to visit. In fact, reads, the woman in Moab heard that the Lord had come to her people by setting bread on the table.
Jeremy Duncan:And there's a lot going on in that verse. First of all, there's a fact that she heard this. Understand, this is all just rumor at this point. She's got no real evidence to go on. What she does have though is ample evidence of just how poorly things are going where she is.
Jeremy Duncan:And maybe you have felt that one before. That place in life where even the scant possibility of good news feels like it is worth chasing down. I don't want to counsel too hard against that right now. Obviously, it works here for Naomi. Sometimes, we all have to take a chance, but I do think we should be careful about how much credence we give to the mirage on the horizon, particularly when we are feeling kind of desperate.
Jeremy Duncan:Sadly, not every rumor of greener grass is worth following. Sometimes, the real struggle is to carve a life within the hard space you find yourself right now. So sometimes, it's taking the leap. Sometimes, wisdom is staying put. There's no world in which you're always going to have all the information.
Jeremy Duncan:This time, however, the rumors are true, and God has visited bread on Bethlehem. And a couple things interesting there. First, Bethlehem is literally the house of bread. That's what the name of the city means. But also, look at all the travel imagery that's building up in this story.
Jeremy Duncan:Naomi and her husband travel to Moab in verse one. God visits Bethlehem in verse six. Now Naomi and her daughters in law are packing up to leave everything that they know behind. If you recall last week, we talked about how the story was likely written in response to a particular moment in the nation's history. There is a return to their homeland, and there's a growing distrust of people who are not like them.
Jeremy Duncan:Well, now we've got all this movement language that's driving the story. There's immigration, and there's emigration. There's God visiting different cities. There's almost this story reminding us that God's interest is not as maybe contained by borders and boundaries as we think we are at times. God goes where God wants.
Jeremy Duncan:Still, Naomi picks up her stuff and her daughters in law, and they're about to set on the road. But then, right before they leave, she turns to them. This is verse eight. Then Naomi said to her two daughters in law, actually go back each of you to your mother's home. May the Lord show you kindness as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me.
Jeremy Duncan:May the Lord grant that each of you find rest in the home of another husband, and that she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud. And they said to her, we'll go back with you, to your people. But Naomi said, no. Return my daughters. Why would you come with me?
Jeremy Duncan:Am I gonna have more sons that could become your husbands? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you because the Lord's hand has turned against me. Go home to your families. It's a really interesting moment in the narrative here.
Jeremy Duncan:Because Naomi is, I think, actually quite clear headed. And yet also maybe a little bit blind to what's happening in front of her. Let me explain that. First of all, I take Naomi at her word here. I do not think that she is trying to trick or manipulate these women.
Jeremy Duncan:I think she is genuinely very grateful for their love, for the way that maybe they did not immediately abandon her when things began to turn sideways. In fact, I think that when she says, may the Lord show kindness as you have shown me, I think that is exactly what she is feeling right now, deep gratitude. I also think her assessment of the situation is fair. If these women do follow her home, they will now be foreign women looking for husbands in a land that's foreign to them. They will now be dependent on a very dependent widow.
Jeremy Duncan:So they probably do have better chances returning to their hometowns where they can try to start over again. Although that's fair, I think it's an honest assessment of the situation. I don't think any of this is motivated by malice in the slightest. And yet, here's what concerns me. I made the argument last week that Naomi's loss of her name in the prologue is not just about social standing, it's also showing us something about how she now sees herself.
Jeremy Duncan:Now that she's lost her status as wife and mother. I think this section on the road is an interesting example of what that kind of grief can start to do to us. It presents as kindness. Look after yourself. I can't do anything for you.
Jeremy Duncan:You'd be better off without me. But, actually, what's happening is part of this instinct we have at times when we grieve to begin to push people away. Everything Naomi is doing here is sometimes things that we do when our grief begins to turn into isolation. It looks logical, and that logic presents itself as kindness. But at some level, what's being offered is actually an excuse to pull back, to draw away, and that's probably not good for any of us.
Jeremy Duncan:Now, hear me. I am not saying that if you are going through a difficult time, you need to be super social and put on a happy face and surround yourself with people all the time. That's awful. That can be the loneliest place any of us find ourselves sometimes. What I am saying though is that sometimes when we grieve, we can develop the tendency to want to pull away from those who care about us and possibly those who can even help us.
Jeremy Duncan:Maybe you don't need a crowd, and maybe you do need some space from some of your friends. Maybe you do need more time on your own right now, more than normal to process or cry and grieve well. All of that can be true, but what you do not need is to be alone in your grief. And when I watch Naomi in these verses, part of what I see is someone whose grief has become very logically structured and actually very kindly applied, but might also possibly be pushing her into an even more precarious position where she's alone. And look, maybe for you, there are very few people that you want to invite into that space with you.
Jeremy Duncan:That's fine. In fact, I'm probably gonna suggest that's good. We just... All of us need to make sure that we do invite those very few people to exist alongside us even when we grieve. Now, here's where it gets even more complex.
Jeremy Duncan:Because verse 14 says, that at this they wept aloud again, then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. Now, we've all known since the prologue, this is what was going to happen. Right? The woman named Companion would stay. The woman named the back of her neck would turn and walk away.
Jeremy Duncan:What we need to recognize here is Orpah is not the villain of this story. For one, she only does exactly what Naomi has asked her to do. Two, she does precisely what makes the most sense for her in this situation. And third, Orpah, and by extension you and I, we just can't be everything to everyone who enters into our life. As followers of Christ, do we have a responsibility to care for each other?
Jeremy Duncan:Yes. As followers of the way of Jesus, do we have an obligation to look out for each other? Yes. As those who have been chased down and found by grace, do we have an obligation to extend that grace to one another wherever we can? Of course, we do.
Jeremy Duncan:What we cannot do is be everything that everyone else needs us to be all of the time. You ever been on a plane when they do that little safety spiel, but this time you didn't have your earbuds in and you were actually paying attention? And they got to that part where they tell you to put on your own mask before you do the person beside you. I'll be honest, I always have a tough time with that. Like, if my kids are there struggling to get their mask on, I'm probably helping them before I do my own.
Jeremy Duncan:At the same time though, that's not really a good choice. There's wisdom in what they're saying because drowning people rarely make good lifeguards for anyone. You and I, we have no visibility into what Orpah is going through right here. And maybe she is just as broken up by all of this as Naomi is. Maybe she has completely lost sight of her name as well.
Jeremy Duncan:Maybe she needs someone to come alongside her just as desperately as Naomi does in this moment as she needs Ruth right now. If you and I are gonna read this story well, and if we are going to recover Naomi's identity with her throughout the journey, we better not start off by villainizing a woman whose story we are not offered the chance to follow. Ruth's response to Naomi is beautiful. That's what this story is about. That does not mean that there aren't a thousand stories that bump up against this one and then go off in different directions unnoticed by us.
Jeremy Duncan:And I'll be honest, that's a lesson that is about a lot more than just reading this story. That one will serve us well in all of our lives. Sometimes reading what's in front of us well means assuming the best about the stories we don't get to follow all the way home. Back to our story though. Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.
Jeremy Duncan:Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die. There, I will be buried with you.
Jeremy Duncan:May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me. When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her to leave. These are some of those beautiful, poetic, and heartbreaking words in the entire story right here. And first, we can talk about Ruth's vow. This is literally wedding language here.
Jeremy Duncan:Where you go, I will go. Your God will be my God. Where you die, so will I. A couple things I wanna name as we read this. First of all, there's this line, where you go, I will go.
Jeremy Duncan:Where you stay, I will stay. There's an interesting thing here in the writing where the verb that you'd expect to hear, which means to dwell, has been replaced with perhaps a more poetic verb, which means something more like to lodge for the night. And on the surface, you read this in Hebrew, it almost sounds like less of a commitment, not more. But what the poetry is going for here is that Ruth's commitment is not just to move to Bethlehem with Naomi, it's to follow her wherever she goes with absolutely no expectation of certainty. This isn't, I'll move to Bethlehem with you.
Jeremy Duncan:This is, will get up every morning and I will follow you to wherever you lay your head that night. It's just an incredibly beautiful image. Second, there's this line, your people will be my people and your God will be my God. In fact, Ruth even follows that up a verse later by using the personal name for Naomi's God. You can see that written out as all caps Lord in your bible.
Jeremy Duncan:That is a direct contrast to Orpah just a few verses ago. Right? Orpah returns to her people. Ruth now makes herself a new person for Naomi. This is one of the most striking, beautiful, poetic expressions of fidelity you'll find anywhere in the Bible.
Jeremy Duncan:And one of my favorite descriptions comes from an old Swiss theologian named Paul Humpert, who analyzed the poetic structures in the book of Ruth, and he shared that Ruth's words soar on the wings of rhythm. His point here is that this is more than just imagery. There's actually sort of a cadence in a poetry that carry the intent through this story. However, that poetry doesn't stop at the end of Ruth's words. Because next we read that when Naomi realized Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Jeremy Duncan:Now, that's the NIV translation. But for me, that is far too antiseptic. What this verse actually says is that she stopped speaking toward her. And what that means is that Ruth isn't winning her over here. This isn't Naomi finally accepting her companionship.
Jeremy Duncan:This is Naomi just overwhelmed, crumbling under, her grief pushing her to simply give up and stop fighting Ruth. In other words, it's not Ruth's kindness here that wins, at least not yet. For now, it is Naomi's exhaustion that reigns. And you see that in the next verse. The two women went on silently, one presumes, until they came to the house of bread.
Jeremy Duncan:And when they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. The women exclaimed, can this be Naomi? But she said to them, don't call me that. I've lost that name. Call me Mara now because the Almighty has made me bitter.
Jeremy Duncan:That's what that name means. I went away full, but the Lord brought me back empty. Why call me pleasant? The Lord has afflicted me and brought misfortune on me. You see what's happening here?
Jeremy Duncan:The parallel stories that the narrator is telling. In the midst of her very real grief, Naomi is also surrounded by extraordinary, almost divine kindness. And yet, she is absolutely unable to see any of it. And yet somehow, at the same time, she's also not wrong to say any of it. In fact here, she blames God for everything that has gone wrong in her life, seems to suggest that God is doing this to her on purpose.
Jeremy Duncan:The writer sets you up with the beauty of roast poetry and then smashes you in the face with Naomi's silence in the face of it. The story has her walk all the way home to her hometown only to be greeted by those who remember her, and then allows her to speak about her bitterness in that moment. That's the tension the story is building. The cognitive dissonance between what exists around us and sometimes what we're able to see. Naomi has accused God of everything that's happening to her despite the fact that she has an almost literal angel standing beside her, and the narrator just lets it hang in the air without correction.
Jeremy Duncan:Here's what I would offer. Is this kind of very suffocating, isolating grief, grief that stops her from seeing the truth that surrounds her? Is it good for Naomi? No. Does it disqualify her from the goodness of God?
Jeremy Duncan:Absolutely not. Because what we have to understand about story, storytelling, what we have to understand about our lives sometime is that individual moments do not make up our lives. They are not the measure of our journey. And so that harsh word that's shared in frustration or the cold silence grounded in grief, misplaced anger, or momentary rejections of God, relationships damaged and then eventually mended, judgment is not meant for those isolated slices of our lives. Moments don't tell stories, and this story, like yours, like mine, is not over yet.
Jeremy Duncan:Sometimes, if we are going to learn the lesson, we have to learn how to let things play out first. Maybe right now, your story feels a lot like Naomi's. You feel very alone and you are angry at God. What I would say is that God is not angry back at you for that. God is patiently waiting for as long as it takes for you to be ready to lift your eyes and see what could be next on the horizon.
Jeremy Duncan:And you don't need to rush through this chapter. You just have to hold on somewhere inside to the hope that this chapter is not the end of your story. Maybe your story right now feels a lot more like Ruth's side of the equation. And maybe you feel like you've been walking with someone, beside someone for a very long time, and maybe you feel like you've done a lot for them, invested a lot of yourself in their story, and maybe you've not heard a lot back from them. And maybe you're starting to wonder if you really did choose the right path.
Jeremy Duncan:Maybe following Orpah home would have been the better way to go. Maybe the voice of God in this story is simply the reminder that that chapter is not over yet. And simply because your kindness has not been returned yet, doesn't mean the chapter won't turn. Because here's the truth, this is a pretty heavy start to a tale. And at the end of chapter one, we are meant to feel all of that as readers.
Jeremy Duncan:But then just as it starts to feel too much, the narrator adds one last little detail, one final verse, Naomi doesn't see it. Sometimes, I'm not sure if Ruth sees it yet either, but if we're faithful readers paying attention, I think we might. And so Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, and they arrived at the house of bread just as the harvest was beginning. End of chapter one with more to come. Let's pray.
Jeremy Duncan:God, wherever we find ourselves in our stories this morning, Whether we are at the end of a chapter when things are heavy and there is not a lot of light on the horizon. We are angry or frustrated and feeling all of those things and needing space to give voice to it. I pray that somehow by your spirit, we would be held safe even in that moment. That our frustration, our confusion, our anger, and our fear would be allowed to be spoken, and yet we would know that we are held, waiting for the page to turn and the chapter to begin anew. And if we find ourselves journeying with someone, unsure if our kindness that has been expended, has been worth it, because it hasn't been returned to us the way that we thought it should.
Jeremy Duncan:Pray that that same grace that found us and held us when we found ourselves in that moment would do the same for us again. To remain true, to stick with each other, to walk the path until the page turns and the chapter begins. Because we trust that things are not over yet. Not in our own lives, not in this world that you care about, not in the story that you're telling through our choices, and our kindness, and our relationships that we invest ourselves in. If we can just hold on and believe that a new day is coming, we trust that your grace and peace will find us once again.
Jeremy Duncan:And when it does, grant us the courage to take one more step in the right direction until we find ourselves all the way home with you. In the strong name, the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing at Commons, you can head to our website anytime, commons.church, for more information.
Jeremy Duncan:You can find us on all of the socials at Commons Church, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we're posting content regularly for the community. So thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.