Better Than Seven Sons

Ruth 1:6-18

December 17, 2023 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Our youth sometimes play a game called “Bigger and Better;” maybe some of you have been involved in that. It works like this: each group are given a paperclip and they are supposed to go out into the community and trade it for something, well, bigger and better. The group that comes back with the biggest and best thing is the winner, I think. They’ve ended up with some interesting trades over the years. This past year one group came back with a dining room table that featured in Youth Sunday worship this last time, but by far the best winner overall, in the years I have been here, was when they came back with a puppy. That is how Jess became the owner of Cooper, and why he is called the paperclip puppy sometimes. Bigger and better, indeed.

This morning, as we continue our journey through the women of Jesus’ genealogy, these “Daughters of Promise,” we come to a story that takes place just a short time after the story of Rahab that we looked at last week. And it’s a story of, if not bigger, then at least better, because God is doing a work that led to something unimagined in the beginning. The story of Ruth is a reminder that just when it seems to be the darkest, God is still at work bringing bigger and better things along.

Ruth’s story is told almost like a novel, and the first five verses of the book cover about ten years worth of background (cf. Driesbach, “Ruth,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 513). There is a famine going on in Bethlehem, and the city whose name means “House of Bread” has been reduced to barrenness (DeMuth, The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible, pg. 83). Famines unfortunately aren’t unusual in that part of the country. It seems they are always just one bad harvest or one missed rainfall away from it (cf. Goldingay, Joshua, Judges & Ruth for Everyone, pg. 163). Sometimes when the rainfall comes in from the Mediterranean Sea, because of the way the land lays, the rain just passes over Israel and falls in modern Jordan instead (cf. Driesbach 513). I was there one summer where every field was full of burnt-up crops because the rain simply hadn’t come. It was heartbreaking. So apparently such a year has come to Bethlehem during the time of the judges, and Naomi’s family runs out of resources. But because the rain has fallen in Moab (which is part of modern Jordan), the family decides to move there. And when they get established there, both of their sons marry Moabite women. While Moabites were not allowed into Hebrew worship at the time, there were no prohibitions against marrying them like there were with other people groups. So both boys marry, and then tragedy strikes. The father dies, and both sons die. And while some interpreters have seen God’s judgment at work here for some reason, there is no indication in the text that such a thing is happening. We don’t know what brought about their deaths; we only know that these three woman are left alone in a world that did not treat women kindly (Driesbach 514).

Can you feel the trauma of change in this story? Lots of changes happen all of a sudden to these women. Research shows that the top five stress-inducing events in a person’s life are the death of a loved one, divorce, moving, major illness or injury and job loss. At least three of these five have happened to this family in a relatively short time! So when we come into the story with our Scripture reading today, Naomi, matriarch of the family, is considering a restart. She’s heard that there is food now in Bethlehem, that God has “come to the aid of his people” (1:6)—which is, by the way, the first mention of God in the story and one of the few times God is referred to directly (Goldingay 164). And since there is nothing keeping her in Moab (she has no family there), she decides she will go back home. At least there she might have some family members who will take care of her. But Naomi also knows that her daughters-in-law will not necessarily be welcome in Bethlehem; they are Moabites, outsiders, even though they have married into her family. So she tells the two of them they should go back to their “mother’s home” (1:8), and hope to find another husband each. They both protest, and one of them (Orpah) eventually agrees and leaves. But Ruth has another plan, another outlook.

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you,” she tells Naomi. “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (1:16). Now, you talk about a step of faith! Naomi, of course, is returning home; she knows what Bethlehem is like and what to anticipate. Or at least she knows what it was like ten years ago. But Ruth has never been there. She’s never lived in Bethlehem or Israel, and, again, she is an outsider to that country, to those people. But in this simple statement, Ruth is turning her back on everything she has known—her family, her heritage, her country, her people—and throwing her lot in with Naomi, moving to an unfamiliar land with unfamiliar people and an uncertain future. She tells Naomi, “Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me” (1:17). And I don’t know that there is a better picture from the genealogy of Jesus to capture the idea of this week’s word for Advent: love.

There are lots of ways we experience love in our lifetimes. Certainly the first place we experience it is from a parent, and later from a spouse and from a child back to us. We experience the love of a good friend, and the love of siblings, and the love of brothers and sisters in Christ through the church. And all of those experiences are wonderful and important, but when the Bible describes love, it’s of a much higher and deeper order. The New Testament’s word for love is agape, which describes the kind of love God has for us. It’s no-strings-attached, unconditional, without limits type of love. It’s the kind of love Jesus came to bring us, the kind of love he demonstrated from the manger to the cross, the kind of love that is willing to give its life for the beloved. That’s the kind of love this week’s Advent candle points us to: the love that God has for us, demonstrated by sending Jesus and embodied in Ruth: the kind of love that will not go away, no matter what. “Where you go I will go.”

And she does go. Hopefully you read the rest of the story in the Scripture readings this past week because it’s a beautiful story, one in which love is a central theme, though not in the conventional sense as we think of it. Think of “love” here as “loyalty” or “unconditional commitment.” When they get back to Bethlehem, Naomi insists on changing her name to Mara, which means “bitter.” Renaming yourself is unusual in the Bible; usually new names come from God or from someone else. But Naomi is deep in the throes of grief at this point, and grief sometimes (or maybe often) prevents you from seeing what is good (cf. DeMuth 82). It’s interesting that the narrator never stops calling her Naomi, though. In the eyes of the storyteller, she never is really Mara.

Naomi and Ruth settle down in Bethlehem, and since they have to survive, Naomi sends her daughter-in-law out to glean food from the fields. This is a practice that is still carried out today, that those in need can come along behind the harvesters ad pick up what is missed or dropped at edge of the fields. So Ruth goes, ends up in the field of a relative named Boaz (son, by the way, of Rahab the prostitute whom we talked about last week). Boaz notices her and tells his harvesters to “accidentally” leave some extra along the field where she is gleaning. He offers her food and drink and is especially kind to her. He tells her she can always glean in this field and she will be safe. When she goes home and Naomi sees how much she has brought, and she learns whose field Ruth was in, Naomi hatches a plan. And after the barley and wheat harvest are over, she puts her plan into action.

One night, after the harvest was over but while there was still work being done near the field, Naomi sends Ruth to see Boaz. She tells her to get dressed up, put on perfume, and go find him at the threshing floor. Once there, Ruth is to wait until he lies down and goes to sleep, then she is to go, uncover his feet and lie down at his feet. Then she is to wait to see what Boaz does. This all sounds rather strange to us, because it’s way out of our set of customs, but in its time, this was a pretty forward thing to do. There is a lot of discussion among scholars as to what Ruth is doing when she uncovers Boaz’s feet. There are even some who believe she’s uncovering more than just his feet, but the text really doesn’t allow for that daring of an action on Ruth’s part. However, she is putting herself in view for Boaz; when she uncovers her feet, she’s doing a couple of things. First, she’s waking him up; I mean, if your feet get cold, you want to know what’s going on. So likely he looks down toward his feet and he sees Ruth, dressed in her best clothes and smelling good. And then he knows why his feet are uncovered. She’s symbolically asking him to “spread his garment” over her, to offer her the protection that marriage would offer in that culture. Ruth is proposing to Boaz in a subtle and striking way (cf. Goldingay 180; Driesbach 531). Boaz then compliments her by saying, “You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor…I will do for you all you ask” (3:10-11). In other words, I will marry you and take care of you.

There’s just one little problem. The custom that we talked about a couple of weeks ago—levirate marriage—stipulates that the brother of a man who has died must marry the widow to carry on the family line. Except Ruth’s brother-in-law is also dead. So that responsibility then falls to the next of kin, and there is a relative who is closer to Naomi’s family than Boaz. Interestingly, that man does not merit being named in the text, which is kind of funny because he turns down the opportunity in order to protect his own family name. And yet it’s Boaz’s name that is remembered, not his. Once this man has said no to Ruth, Boaz immediately announces his intention to marry Ruth and to carry on Naomi’s family line. And when a baby boy is born, the women of the town tell Naomi that Ruth has been better to her than seven sons (4:15). Better than seven sons—why is that significant? This would have been a shocking statement to ancient readers (Bream, The Women of the Bible Speak, pg. 73). For them, sons were the most desired thing to have. What woman—an outcast, a foreign woman no less—would be better than seven sons? In the Bible, seven is the number of completion, and those who have many sons are promised support in their old age and a guaranteed continuation of the family line (cf. Huey, “Ruth,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 546). So this is huge. Not only is this an affirmation of Ruth’s importance in taking care of her mother-in-law more than even seven sons could have done, I think it’s also a witness to Naomi’s full and complete life now that a son has been born to the family. I believe this is why the text never calls her Mara or “Bitter,” because even though Naomi has been in the depths of grief, that grief was not the last word. There was still hope, seen through Ruth. And in the end, the hope in the birth of a baby boy eventually leads to another baby born in Bethlehem, a baby whose birth we are still celebrating two thousand years later. And that’s why Ruth is included in the genealogy of that baby, whose name is Jesus.

We may not think of Ruth & Boaz’s story as particularly romantic. There’s no dating, no long walks on the beach, no dinner and a movie, and no trip to meet the relatives. This is not “The Ancient Israel Bachelor” and it’s not a Hallmark Christmas movie. This is a different love; this is love on a much deeper level. This is agape. Not only is Ruth an ancestor to Jesus, her story is a witness to the kind of love God is going to show to humanity through Jesus. Think about it. Ruth is an outsider who is welcomed in and made part of the family. Regardless of where she has come from, she is welcomed and no one even questions her presence with Naomi through the whole story. When we come to know Jesus as our savior and friend, he welcomes us without question, without reserve. He welcomes you without asking where you’ve been or what you’ve done (because he already knows, but that’s not that point). There is nothing you have done or ever will do that can ever make him love you less than he does right now. And there’s nothing you have done or ever can do that will make him love you more than he does right now. You can’t earn a place in his family. You already have it if you accept it.

And how do you do that? Well, again, Ruth shows us the way. Remember what she said to Naomi? “Where you go I will go. Your God will be my God.” It’s the same thing. When we become a follower of Jesus, that’s our same promise, our same pledge: “Where you go I will go. I will follow you, be your disciple and go where you lead me.” And here’s the thing I love the most. Ruth tells Naomi: “Not even death will separate us.” That’s Gospel. Do you remember what Paul wrote to the Romans? “ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Not even death itself will separate us from the love of Jesus, and that’s good news in these days when we have had several funerals. It is powerful to be able to stand with a family and declare the truth that not even death itself can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Where he goes, I will go. Jesus even promised that on his last night with his disciples: “I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3).

Because he has promised to be our redeemer. He has promised to be your redeemer. He has promised to be my redeemer. What does a redeemer do? He buys back what belongs to the family, and that’s what Jesus does for us. All who are lost, all who are away from God, all who have separated themselves from God, Jesus was born to redeem, to bring back to his Father. That’s why he was born. That’s why he went to the cross, to pay the price that was needed for our redemption. I can’t explain how that transaction happens or happened; I don’t understand it all myself. I just know this: what Jesus did on the cross he did so that I could be redeemed. He is my redeemer. He bought me back.

The negotiation between the unnamed man and Boaz might seem a little archaic. Okay, a lot archaic. Negotiating to buy land and in the process you get a new wife? And you have children in the name of a dead man’s family? What kind of crazy negotiation is this? No wonder the unnamed man said no. But for Naomi and Ruth, this was about more than marriage. Boaz had spoken for Ruth, and as Naomi says, he wouldn’t stop until he had finished the matter (3:18). And just like Boaz had spoken for Ruth, God has spoken for you. You are his. You belong to him. There is not something bigger or better he is looking for. God has chosen you for his own. You are not abandoned, you are desired. You are not forgotten. On your worst days, you are not forgotten. You are redeemed. This is the story of the Gospel. This is the story of Advent. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do and anywhere he wouldn’t go to buy you back. Just when we think our story might be at an end and there is no hope, then our redeemer shows up and changes everything. You are spoken for. And your story is not done yet (cf. LeRoy, “You Are Spoken For,” Seedbed Wake-Up Call, December 6, 2023). Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.