Twenty-fourth
Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 27
November
11, 2012
Ruth
3:1-5; 4:13-17
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.
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.
When
I was in high school I took part in the musical The Fiddler on the Roof. Probably
the most famous song from that musical is Matchmaker,
which makes sense because the musical is all about how Tevya has three
daughters all in need of husbands. We
see time after time how the women in the story go their own way, often at
Tevya’s own pain and disappointment.
Another musical/movie that has those themes within it is the Disney
movie Mulan; in it we see Mulan’s
family worrying and wondering when she is going to stop running around like a
child, settle down and find a man. It’s
amazing how the stories of women having others (parents, aunts, grandmothers)
seeking the proper man in their lives is such a popular storyline. Perhaps we like it because in some ways it
seems so much simpler than the hoops, and dates, the wining and dining that
seems to be required now in order to woo someone into a relationship or
marriage.
But
then, maybe it just seems easier. Where
I grew up in New Guinea arranged marriages were still the norm. Families would bicker and barter back and
forth about who was the best spouse for their child, eventually reaching a
decision and setting on an agreed price for the bride. Women in that culture weren’t just seen as
property (which is bad enough), they were treated as property being bought and
sold for livestock and cash. Families
would sometimes get into huge arguments about the monetary value of their
child, and what was to be expected if the match was agreed to. Imagine how the couples felt, since many
times they only met each other on the day of their marriage. Personally, I would rather have the practice
of dating and falling in love with someone rather than what was is still so
often the practice in many cultures around the world.
Regardless
of the culture, one of the basic building blocks of society is the practice of
people coming together in a marriage or covenant relationship. People come together for love, but in many
places it’s about security and being able to ensure your own survival and way
of life.
Ruth
and Naomi have returned to Bethlehem.
They are doing the best they can to survive. Thankfully one of the traditions of Judaism
at that time was the way in which they harvested the grain in the fields. “Jewish custom provided for the poor by
protecting their rights to gather grain in a field after the hired workers had
passed through. The edges of the field
were to be left for the poor to reap (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22). Widows
who were alone could survive only by gleaning or begging. Gleaning is the practice of gathering what has
been dropped in the fields or left on the vines after a harvest. In addition, gleaners were also allowed to
harvest what was left standing in the corners of the field. Hebrew law also said that landowners could not
clean up their own fields, vineyards, or orchards so that widows, orphans, and
resident aliens would be able to find enough to eat.”[1]
Ruth
being the younger and presumably more physically able of the two goes to glean
the barley fields. By chance she ends up
working in the fields of one of Naomi’s kinsmen – Wait a second, didn’t we just
hear last week in our lesson that Naomi didn’t have any kinsmen? Hmmm.
Maybe she just didn’t like him or something. Anyway, Ruth goes to the fields, Boaz sees
her and likes what he sees. But, being
an older and more mature man, he does the decent thing – nothing (other than
doting on her and treating her in a preferred way). Boaz reaches out to her, making sure that she
is safe and has plenty to eat and take home to Naomi – I’m positive not all the
gleaners went home with the equivalent of 5 gallons of barley from their
work. But, for the most part, he keeps
his distance.
Namoi
though, is losing her patience and launches into her matchmaker mode. She goes about figuring out the best plan for
getting Ruth and Boaz together. She
basically tells Ruth to get as pretty as she can, and find a way to get Boaz
alone someplace, and there convince him that she is the woman he needs in his
life. Ruth, ever devoted to Naomi,
responds, “All that you tell me I will
do." And by the end of the
story, not only have Ruth and Boaz gotten together, but Naomi has become the
nursemaid to their son who by chance is also the grandfather of the boy who
would grow up to be King David. That’s
how you spell success as a matchmaker, not only do you get the couple together,
you get to be a part of the family, and hold the fruits of your efforts.
So,
we know the story, but the real issue we need to wrestle with is what we are to
learn from Naomi, Ruth and Boaz today.
At the center of the story of Ruth is decision and separation. Ruth decides to follow Naomi, even if it
means separating herself from the country, traditions, and god that she grew up
with. Ruth goes to the fields looking
for food, and must separate the good grain that was left in the field from the
leftovers that were without value. Then,
she goes to Boaz on the threshing floor, the very place where the grain was separated
from its shell. The finale of our story
happens on the threshing floor, and I believe it is there we can find some
meaning for today.
It
is the threshing floor where we separate the desired from the undesired, the
beneficial from the detrimental. A
threshing floor only works, only functions when all that is good, all that is
bad, everything is brought and dealt with.
If you bring only what appears to be good, you miss out on a lot of
grain that might not look so good on the outside, but is of great worth once
the chaff is stripped away. When it
comes to the fruit of the threshing floor the saying, “garbage in, garbage out”
does not apply. You cannot know what the
fruit of the threshing will be based on what goes in.
Where
are the threshing floors in our lives?
Where are the places we go to examine our lives to separate the chaff from
the seed? Where do we go when we wish to
separate the chaff from the grain in the lives of people we meet? The
threshing floor is and must be a place of nurture and character development and
discernment; it must also be a place where we find acceptance, well-being and
life. For some the threshing floor may
be within their family, or in a close friendship or other relationship. For others the threshing floor might be in
school or a therapist’s office. But for
many people, the threshing floor in their life is the church.
Within
the confines of the church we are formed and reshaped, the chaff of our lives
is stripped off and the good is given the freedom to shine. The church, as the place where the message of
Jesus’ love and grace is taught, learned and experienced must also be a place
of transformation. The church is not a
place first and foremost for the holy – just as the threshing floor is not a
place for the finished grain. The church
is a place where we come to be transformed, to make that journey from sinner to
saint, from chaff to grain. The church
fails to be true to one of its purposes, one of its callings, unless it is a force for
transformation in the world, doing all it can in seeking to transform both the
people and this world into the Kingdom of God.
The church is not, and cannot be, true to itself, unless it is a church
that lives out its faith by actively working to realize the Kingdom of God here
in its words and actions. God desires us
to live in community with one another, a community of love and service, a
community that lives out its thankfulness to God by working toward the goal of
a just and loving world.
In our Gospel lesson this morning we heard
the account of the poor widow putting in her two coins, and those who had much
making a show of their giving. I heard a
story once about a young boy, years ago in a big city, who sold newspapers in
order to survive. One Sunday morning the
weather was terrible and he escaped into a church during worship to escape from
the cold outside. He sat quietly in the
back pew of the church as the service progressed. Toward the end of the service, the time came
for the offering.
The young boy watched as the ushers walked
around the church passing the plates through the congregation, working their way
back slowly toward him. When they
reached him, they held the offering plate out in front of the small boy. He looked at it with wide eyes, then asked
the usher to put it down on the floor in front of him. Then, he carefully stepped into the
plate. The usher was shocked to say the
least, and more than a little angry. “What
did you do that for?” he angrily accused
the boy. In a small quiet voice, with
tears running down his cheeks the boy replied, “Mister, I don’t have any money; I haven’t sold a single
newspaper today, but if Jesus did everything that preacher said he did just for
me, I will gladly give my life to Him.”
When we come to the
threshing floor, God wants us to bring everything we have and are. It’s about putting all our good things and all
our not so good things into God’s hands.
It’s about allowing God to take us and make us into the people we were created
to be. It’s about sacrificing all we are
because God has already sacrificed his only son that we might live. Is everything we have, everything we are,
everything we could ever be, too much to ask, or not enough? Amen.
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