Ruth
2:1-23
When
last we left our heroes, to say things were not going well for them would be an
understatement. Naomi and Elimelech fled to Moab in search of food, where
Elimelech died. And then not long after that their two sons died as well, leaving
Naomi with two daughters-in-law and no way to take care of them. Naomi decided
to travel home to Bethlehem in search of better prospects, attempting to send
the two young ladies back to their families, so they could get on with their
lives. Ruth refused to leave, clinging to Naomi, vowing to make Naomi’s home
her home, declaring that she would convert and worship Naomi’s God, saying she
would never leave Naomi, no matter what.
Today
we find our heroes (heroines?) Naomi and Ruth back in Bethlehem, having
traveled together along a perilous journey and finally having arrived in Naomi’s
hometown. Will there be bread in the house of bread? Will they be accepted and taken care of among Naomi’s
kin, or will calamity continue to follow them where ever they go?
Upon
returning they immediately realize their journey was ill timed, they have
returned just as the Barley harvest is beginning. Calamity it is!
To
those of us who know how the story goes this seems fortuitous, but it most definitely
was not. Naomi was returning hoping to find someone who would help her plant
her husband’s abandoned field, so the two of them would have grain to sell and
food to eat, but they had mistimed their journey and returned just as the
harvest was beginning. The land had not been planted; therefore there would be
no harvest for the ladies. They would have to wait out the winter, and then continue
to hope to find ways and means to provide for themselves through both the
planting and the growing seasons. Most likely there would be no guaranteed way
to take care of themselves until this time next year. A year is long time to go
without food.
Ruth
must have asked around, seeking advice from the neighbors about what to do and
how to get food, because she comes to Naomi and asks about gleaning. Gleaning
was a specific way to provide for the poor in Israel’s society and was not
common in other lands. Anyone who was
hard up was allowed by law to go through a field after it had been harvested
and pick up anything that had been dropped or pick anything that the harvester’s
had missed. In fact land owners were forbidden to go back over a field in order
to pick up what remained. It was to be left for the poor, the orphan, foreigner
and the widow. Ruth was a foreigner and both of the ladies were a widows, so
this was exactly what they were supposed to do.
Can
you imagine what a relief it must have been to Ruth to find out that not only
had she landed in a country where there was a system in place that was meant to
provide for those who were unable to provide for themselves, but that she had also
manages to convert to a religion and had chosen to worship a God who made it a
religious obligation. A God who set up in the laws and commandments of their
religion to make sure the poor, the orphan, the widow and the foreigner were to
be taken care of and provided for? There were explicit instructions telling
land owners exactly what they were and were not supposed to do with their own
land (given to them by God) so that those who were struggling the most would be
able to have grain that would not only provide them with food but allow them to
be able to sell the grain to provide for their other needs as well.
Ruth
would not have needed to go very far or ask around very much, everyone knew
exactly what she needed to do. She needed to go glean in the fields.
So
Ruth goes to Naomi and tells her that she is going to go glean with all the other
foreigners and widows. We can only assume that Naomi was too old and frail to be
able to go in to the fields and perform this laborious task, so Ruth goes out
alone. And she works hard. In fact when Boaz inquires about who Ruth is, his
servants not only tell him who she is, she Ruth is the Moabite woman from Moab,
who returned with Naomi. But they also tell him that she has been working hard
all morning, without even stopping to take a break. She is working hard.
But
it is not Ruth’s industrious nature, or her can do attitude that saves Ruth and
Naomi, although I am sure these attributes did her no harm, but is pure
coincidence that completely changes her and Naomi’s lives forever.
You
see Ruth just so happens to choose to glean in Boaz’s field. And Boaz just so happens
to be one of Naomi’s closest relatives. Not only that Ruth just so happens to
catch Boaz’s eye. I mean perhaps it is a small town and being someone he did
not know and a foreigner, she stuck out. But he sees her and is curious about
who she is, so he asks his servants who she is, thus finding out that she just
so happens to be the widowed daughter-in-law of Naomi, a woman who just so
happens to be related to him. And he then decides that he will be generous, no
extra generous, and does several things that are above and beyond any
obligation he might have had to any gleaner who came to his field. First he
instructs her to stay close to the reapers, gleaning right behind them. This way
she would be able to catch everything that fell and would be the first to see
anything they failed to be harvested. He also tells his young men to leave her
alone, to not give her a hard time or bother her in anyway. He then instructs
her to drink from the water he provides for his workers. Then at lunch time he
calls her over and allows her to eat alongside of his workers, giving her an
extra heaping portion, so that she is satisfied and has enough to take back to
Naomi, so they both have food to eat that day. And then he instructs his
reapers to purposely drop grain for her to pick up off the ground and to even allow
her to go ahead of them into the standing grain and take whatever she likes. The
man is beyond generous and is making sure these women will not only, not
starve, but they will be able to make a livable wage by selling what Ruth was
able to glean.
At
the end of the day she has gleaned so much that Naomi asks her where in the world
did she glean all day. It is only then that Ruth finds out that she had managed
to stumble upon the field of a very close relative. Needless to say, Naomi tells
her to stay in Boaz’s field for the entirety of the harvest. The ladies may be unfamiliar
with good fortune but they still know it when they see it.
Ruth
and Naomi’s circumstances have indeed taken a turn for the better. And it is
due to three coincidences, first Ruth stumbles upon the field of a relative,
where she just so happens to catch the eye of the land owner, and lastly that
relative just so happens to be in a particularly kind and generous mood. And because of these three coincidences, the
ladies have enough to eat and plenty left over to sell, so they are able to
meet their needs, not only throughout the barley harvest, but on through the
wheat harvest as well. And the ladies whose lives seemed to be marked with nothing
but destruction and calamity are finding that things are indeed looking up.
In
chapter one there is a lot of “God talk.” Naomi instructs her daughters-in-law
to leave asking that the Lord will deal kindly with them and hoping God will
provide security and husbands for them there. Naomi laments that God has turned
away from her and does not want Orpah or Ruth to share in this fate. It is not
only to Naomi to whom Ruth chooses to cling, but to God as well. And upon
returning to Bethlehem, Naomi declares to the women of the village that God abandoned
her, dealt bitterly with her and has returned her empty to her homeland. God is
mentioned throughout the chapter, Naomi’s husband’s name is even, “God is my
king.” But when we get here to chapter two, it is almost as if God has truly
abandoned these ladies. God is scarcely mentioned, except by Boaz in his conversation with his servants. God is not mentioned nearly as much or even alluded to as God was in the previous chapter. It is almost as if God is
simply not there.
Or
is God?
We
could choose to say this was just a series of coincidences that allowed the
women to get back on their feet. We could say it was Ruth’s hard work and
industrious nature mixed with a bit of good luck that allowed the women make a
living for themselves. We could even say that Ruth must have been awfully
pretty to have caught Boaz’s eye and caused him do all those nice things for
her as a way of gaining her favor. And looking at the chain of events that
would not be an incorrect understanding of what had occurred. But I think it
was God. I think it was all God.
After
an entire season where nothing is going right in Naomi’s life, everything is
famine, destruction and death, but here in this chapter, after a rough start
over the timing of their return, everything seems to be going pretty well. If
God had abandoned Naomi when she found herself alone, where is God now that she
has industrious Ruth to go gleaning in the fields and generous Boaz looking out
for them and plenty of food on the table and a bustling side business selling the
extra grain? God must be there.
I would venture to say that the fingerprints
of God are all over this story. I mean it was God’s laws that set up the system
which allows for Ruth to go gleaning in the first place. It had to have been
God who guided Ruth to the just the right field. It had to have been God who
allowed Ruth to catch Boaz’s eye. It had to be the voice of God speaking
through Boaz’s servants praising Ruth, and therefore it was God who softened
Boaz’s heart and created in him the desire to not only be generous to Ruth, but
to go above and beyond the bounds of generosity, causing him to show exorbitant
favor. God was at work in these ladies’
lives, helping them and guiding them. As one commentator put it, a coincidence
is really just a miracle where God remains anonymous. And a series of
coincidences is a surefire way to know that God is at work in a person’s life.
Last
week we looked at the faithfulness of God in seasons of trouble, nothing was
going right for Naomi. Her life was an utter disaster. She was plagued with one
calamity after another, tragedy upon tragedy, heartache upon heartache and even
though she felt she was abandoned by God, we could see God’s faithfulness to her
in and through it all. Even when she doubted that God was faithful, God was
there working through her daughter-in-law Ruth, a woman whose name literally
means faithful, refusing to leave or abandon her; clinging to her when it
seemed that the only other things that clung to her were death and destruction.
And
here in chapter two we can see God at work in the good fortunes of these two
ladies’ lives. God is faithful in times of trouble and therefore God is of course
faithful in the good times as well.
What
is interesting is that we, like these chapters are all too ready to blame God
for the calamities in our lives, and barely even mention God when things are
going well. Perhaps we are able; almost always retrospectively of course, to
see how God was there for us when things got really tough, but then we
attribute our good fortune, to our own hard work, and industriousness, or to
good luck or coincidence. When life is at its darkest and we are unable to see
clearly at all, of course it is hard to see God at work in our lives, but when things
are going well, when we are walking in the sunshine, what is our excuse? Why
are we unable to see God at work when there is light all around by which to
see?
The
fact is God is always faithful. God is faithful when everything around us is
falling apart and God is at work when life is going pretty well. When we look
back on our lives, when we see the course of past events sometimes it is easier
to see how God sustained us, was our comfort, our strength, provided people to
help us through our dark times but when we look back at times of prosperity, when
things were going well. We tend to only see what we did to make things go well.
It is easy see how hard we worked, the long hours of labor, how diligently we
studied, we are even able to see what others did to help us, to encourage us and
when we can clearly see that something happened that we had no part in, we easy
laugh and speak of our good luck (like we had anything to do with it) or shake
our heads at the amazing coincidence. It is almost as if we are completely
unable to see God at work for the good in our lives, helping us, guiding us and
directing us. We are like these first two chapters of Ruth all to ready to
blame God for our hardships, for all the death, and destruction, we see that
God had dealt poorly with us when everything is falling apart (which by the way
is not true) and then when things are going well, we are silent when it comes
to God. We put on blinders and refuse to see the miracles God is working all
around us, calling them good luck or amazing coincidences. We see only what we
have done to better our lives and are completely unable to see the fingerprints
of God working through our lives, guiding us and directing us, giving us strength
and comfort, bringing the right people into our lives, and providing for us in
so many unseen but no less amazing ways. God is at work, the fingerprints of
God are all over our lives, we just need to pay attention and see them.
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