"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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