Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Turn Back Now: A Sermon Preached by Rob Lee

"Ruth and Naomi" by He Qi
Ruth 1:1-18
Edenton Street United Methodist Church
February 24th, 2016

I must confess that this sermon’s title is dedicated to the Reverend Ned Hill, Ned you’re welcome to turn back now and not retire, and we’d all be fine with that. But, if you insist that July 1 is your last day, I’d like to start today with a prayer by the great Langston Hughes. 

Will you pray with me?
            Oh God of dust and rainbows, help us to see that without the dust, the rainbow would not be. Amen.

Let me take you on a Lenten journey if you will permit me. Let’s go to Disney World. I’m sure you’ve heard of the ride Splash Mountain, but if you haven’t let me paint a picture for you. This ride centers around Bre’r Rabbit and his adventure through the world of the cartoon southern United States where Bre’r Rabbit’s story is set. As the ride continues, Bre’r Rabbit is not aware of the danger ahead, until two vultures wearing top hats tell Bre’r Rabbit to turn back now, turn back now. But unfortunately, as with most rides in theme parks, there is no turning back. You are taken up the path that leads to a 50-foot drop down into water. You return from the ride, soaking wet somewhat wishing that you could have turned back. Hold on to that image for a moment, and we’ll get back to that.
            Today we hear words from Ruth. These words that we hear are not meant for Lent, they are not prescribed in the lectionary for Lent, nor are they found to be particularly meaningful on a cursory outlook for a time of penitence and despair. In fact, the only time I’ve heard this text used beyond an occasional Sunday in year B of the lectionary is weddings. But let us dive into the text to see the Lenten connections that can be made. For even at the very first verse, we see that Israel, specifically Bethlehem is dealing with famine. Right off the bat we could easily make a Lenten connection there. We are fasting from alleluias and chocolate and soda, a famine for some if we’re honest with ourselves. But that’s just the beginning of Lent for Ruth.
            If Lent was a lifestyle, Naomi and Ruth would be living it in the first chapter of their book. Naomi loses Elimelech, her beloved husband, and was left, as was custom to the care of her sons. They take wives by the name of Orpah and Ruth, and things seem to be headed toward Easter. But Lent strikes again ten years later, both of her sons die and she is left with two daughter-in-laws in a time of famine. That’s a pretty awful season of life if you ask me.
            Naomi finds that there is food, life-giving food in the land of Judah, the home of her beloved husband, so she sets out on a journey toward her husband’s home. She tells her daughter-in-laws to return home and seek security in the house of another husband. Orpah decides the risk is too great, the cost too high, and kisses her mother-in-law goodbye.
            Ruth on the other hand, the text says she clung to her mother-in-law and said some of the most profound words in all of Scripture: “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”
            Now before you get all fuzzy and warm inside let me remind you that we are in the middle of Lent, and while we all would love to be the Ruth of this story, I believe we all end up being Orpah in one form or fashion. Think about it this way: How have you failed to follow Naomi? How have you failed to follow Jesus? How have you failed to love God and one another? How have you listened to the vultures with top hats and turned back? If we’re honest with ourselves in this space for grace then we can say with contrite hearts that we are more Orpah than Ruth, we are more failure than success, we are more death than life. But that is precisely where Jesus intends to meet us this Lent.
            Sam Wells, my favorite theologian puts it this way, “After all, the symbol of Christianity is a man dying alone in agony, rejected by the great many and abandoned by the close few. Christianity is founded above all on the forgiveness of sins, which is something you only get to discover the day you have the courage and the humility to say “I realize I’ve been wrong and I’ve failed and I’m sorry.” Christianity is like a 12-step program: you only get to be part of it if you’re prepared to say the terrifying words “I have failed.””[1]
            How has the creeping failure of Lent come to meet you this year? How have you tried to follow Jesus, and how have you failed? How have you looked for rainbows only to find dust? How have you been told to turn back, and like Orpah you regretfully complied?
            The reality is that I don’t have an answer to these questions. But I’m starting to realize something: Lent is not a time for answers; Lent is a time for lingering questions. Lent is a time for nagging doubt. Lent is a time to realize how deeply we have failed and how deeply we are in need for the hope of Easter.
On Ash Wednesday I was sitting with a friend and we were talking about the ashes on our foreheads, and we pondered how we could get the ashes off of us before our next commitment. You see it wasn’t the fact that we are ashamed of our faith, but none of us really want to sit in Lent. We don’t want to sit in repentance, penitence, and confession. But the prophet Joel challenges us when the prophet says, “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near-a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come. Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;” But listen dear friends for the prophet doesn’t end there, the prophet continues, “rend your hearts and not your clothing. Turn to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”[2]
You see we are called this Lent not to turn around to safety but instead turn our faces toward the cross. It is much more holy to turn toward something than to turn away. Think about it, in Scripture we know that Jesus turned toward Jerusalem after the transfiguration. Or in our own lives, when we see issues of social justice, what is more holy, to turn toward the suffering of justice or turn away from it? Let me be clear, it is much more holy to turn toward something than to turn away. So when you hear the vultures with top hats, or read the story of Ruth, two stories that juxtapose themselves between turning back and turning toward, we have the choice. Which way will you turn?
Will you be like Orpah or the vultures with top hats and turn back toward the life you have always known? It would be easy for us to do that especially now after hearing our fearless leader Ned Hill is retiring. Or will you be like Ruth or Jesus or even Ned and turn toward your meeting with destiny? If you’re not scared you should turn back now, then you might be naïve. But I know you people of Edenton Street Church and I know you are not naïve. So this scary maneuver toward their destiny, whether it is toward Bethlehem in Ruth’s case or Jerusalem in Jesus’ or retirement in Ned’s case, each of these maneuvers have implications for our destiny as well. For as the great prophet James Taylor wrote in one of his famous songs, “We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead we are bound and we are bound.”[3] You see it took Ruth turning toward Bethlehem to get to Jesus being able to turn toward Jerusalem. For Ruth is bound up in Jesus’ lineage as we see in the first chapter of Matthew.
But be careful as you make your decision, for the implications of such are devastatingly beautiful. For if you decide to follow Jesus, there is no turning back, there is no turning back. You cannot un-taste that which you have tasted, you cannot un-see what you have come to know with your eyes. Friends we are bound this Lent. We have the opportunity to walk out the doors of Edenton Street’s chapel and turn back now, Ned we could beg you not to retire, and you could be like Orpah and turn back and we can just forget about all this. We have the potential to be the Orpah and vultures who knows what lie ahead and face our realities with fear. Or we can choose to be like Jesus and turn toward our destinies, both the destiny of our lives and the destiny of our church. We can let Ned retire and face our future with faith. Because if there is one thing Ned Hill has taught me it’s faithfulness. We can face fear with faith and go out early in the morning on the first day of the week, for that is when resurrection happens. Thanks be to God. Amen.



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