Things Have a Way of Working Out

Ruth 1:13-17

Robert M Watkins

September 16, 2007

There is no more grievous opening to a story than the opening chapter of Ruth. Everyone dies. We meet Naomi who has traveled to Moab with her husband and sons to flee a famine. They jump straight from the frying pan into the fire, for soon after they are settled, her husband dies, forcing Naomi to live with her sons and new daughters-in-law, but then both boys die, leaving Naomi in a complete lurch. Widows without family were on their own. No one had to take responsibility for them and no one was required to see that they were cared for. She tells her daughters-in-law to return home where they will be seen after by their families and prepares for a lonely life of need. One girl does so, but Ruth will not abandon Naomi. Off they go to survive or die, as God allows.

Talk about grim!

A quick turn through the Scriptures, though, reveals an interesting pattern--the Bible is strewn with hopeless causes. One after another, we encounter human beings thrown into awful predicaments without the skills or the resources to see their way through them. Adam and Eve are cast from the garden to fend for themselves. Newborn Ishmael and his mother Hagar are cast into the wilderness. Job lies atop his ash heap in abject misery looking for relief. Even the followers of Jesus find themselves in the pits of despair and all the world ranged against them. One of the most pitiable scenes in the New Testament is Stephen preaching away even as the stones fly to pound him into death. There seems no end to the cast of the overmatched within the canon.

Even though we are loathe to admit it, there is actually a strong resonance for us in this arrangement within the biblical storyline.

All of us go through times and periods when we feel like hopeless causes. A student can feel it when she is overwhelmed by her coursework and is struggling to keep her grades out of the red. Math or literature or a language remain so many runes on a page, completely indecipherable and seemingly laughing at her inability to master them. A person can feel it in the face of the challenges of everyday life. A stack of bills sits on the kitchen table demanding attention that the checkbook loudly declares cannot be given. A person can feel it in the face of lifestyle choices. There is an absolute tragedy in the ongoing tales of young celebrities gone wild. They bring to light the painful truth that if a human being falls into chemical or alcohol abuse, finding an escape route can be nigh on impossible. We know all too well that it isn’t just spoiled stars who struggle with addiction. Sometimes a person can feel it simply in trying to find some sense of direction for life. He sits at a desk in a job that brings nothing but a paycheck and dreams of something else, something fulfilling, and yet knows the cost of pursuing such a dream is prohibitive if not ruinous. He feels cemented in place.

Naomi returns home with Ruth and changes her name--she now will be called Bitter, a living, breathing personification of all that can go wrong in one human life.

However, this is not the end of the story.

Ruth undertakes the work of their survival and, by luck, winds up in the presence of a long lost relative of Naomi’s. She gleans the fields after harvest, and one of the fields happens to belong to Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s husband. He takes an interest in this young woman who is working, hears her story, and is amazed that she would care for Naomi in such a way. Ruth has undertaken an incredible task and she had no obligation to do so. She simply does it.

Chris Terry commented in our Wednesday night book class that sometimes one does the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do.

That is Ruth.

Here we encounter something else that we have access to, though we may not recognize it. People come to church for many things and many reasons. One of those is often the need to find help making it. Again, we all fall into pits and valleys where life rears up and threatens to wash us away. We come here seeking comfort and assistance, but we are not really sure where we should look. We don’t see immediately that the church is full of people like Ruth.

The further truth is that sometimes the church itself forgets about Ruth. Churches settle into routines and patterns of life just like the people within them. Like Boaz, the church can be blessed with a full life and little need. Congregants come to worship, study, and share covered dish dinners. The real power of belonging slips into the background. Then comes a cry for help and all at once somebody appears to offer it. A Ruth suddenly appears, someone we never really noticed before.

We do not realize it, but we are seeing the hand of God.

God gets very little play in the book of Ruth, other than to get blamed by Naomi when she comes back from Moab. But God is surely present as the story unfolds. Invisibly, the pieces that comprise redemption fall into place. Ruth stays with Naomi; Boaz notices Ruth; Naomi brings the two together; and--voila!--salvation comes. God does not always act with flaming fire and flashing lights and angelic choirs. In fact, most often, God acts offstage. Things fall into place. People act and become present, following an inner voice to do so. Most often, this is how we experience the presence of God in our lives--a still, small voice within the storms; a whispered assurance that all will be well; and the gentle touch of a friendly hand upon our shoulders.

Every week, crises come within the lives of the people within the church. Someone falls ill; someone has an accident; someone gets hit with a bill they did not foresee; someone falls out with someone else; and so on through the wide range of human predicaments. And every week, someone responds. Someone prays, someone visits, someone makes a phone call, someone writes a check--someone does something.

We begin to glimpse the unimaginable mind of God.

One of the great human questions has always been the persistence of suffering in the presence of a benign God. Why does God do nothing? Why does God not intervene? The truth is we are not looking in the right place. Naomi renames herself Bitter because God has done nothing. Yet as she does so, Ruth stands at her side; Ruth goes into the fields; and Ruth finds lasting help in Boaz. God is right there. This is the subtle work of redemption--God works through real human beings, quickening spirits and hearts to respond in love to anyone in need of any kind. It may not be flashy, but it works.

We have gathered ourselves in the name of Christ the Lord, Redeemer of all. To sit here and to do nothing is not an option. We have come to respond to Christ’s call to serve. Someone needs us. Someone needs us right now. Someone needs to know the presence of God’s redeeming grace. It is in our hands.

Ruth saved Naomi. And so began the salvation of all the world. Look who her great-grandson is--David, from whose house shall come a savior, who is Christ the Lord. Her simple kindness changed the course of all creation. That’s a pretty amazing moment of things working out.