The Book of Ruth is a family story. It is an old story, possibly over three thousand years old. It is a story about a family in trouble. Let me briefly summarize the story. Elimelech flees with his wife and two sons from the famine in Israel and heads for Moab because they heard that things were better there. In desperation they move to Moab, an out-of-the-way sort of place. You would have to be desperate, really hungry to move your family to Moab. Soon after their arrival Naomi's husband dies and she is left with two sons in a foreign land. Her sons, Mahon and Chilion, took Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. Ten years after their arrival in Moab Naomi's sons die. She again is in a desperate situation, but this time she has no one to fall back on. She is alone with her two daughters-in-law.
Naomi feels like she has no choice but to return to Bethlehem. She says to her two daughters-in-law, "I am going back home to Bethlehem, back to my people, back to my roots. I am a single woman with no marketable skills, no hope of ever marrying again, no future. You need to go back to Moab and your people. You should not be hanging around an old lady like me. Go back to your people where you belong. Go to your people where there is some hope for you. It is hopeless if you follow me to Bethlehem. You are Moabites not Israelites." Orpah leaves and returns to Moab, but Ruth "clings" to Naomi. In one of the most beloved speeches in the Bible she says to Naomi, "Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you, for where you go I will go. Where you lodge I will lodge. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God." They leave together for Israel. William Willimon reminds us, "To be in any family is to venture forth like Naomi and Ruth, without guarantees for the future, with only the confidence that the future, even the worst of futures, is bearable when we bear it with one another."
The most remarkable part of this story is yet to be told. Ruth finally gets to Israel, thanks to Naomi. Ruth, by a strange set of circumstances, meets a man named Boaz. Ruth marries Boaz and they have a son. The son's name is Obed, and lo and behold, this son born of a non-Israelite Moab woman is to become the grandfather of King David of Israel. Thus, Ruth, a foreign, Moabite woman, through the twisting and turning of providence, is in the blood line, the genealogy, leading up to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
In this story we discover how, in all of the mundane struggles of ordinary day-to-day life, Ruth, the Moabite, plays an important role in keeping the promise and the covenant of God to Israel alive, thus bringing it to eventual fruition. Ruth, through her loyalty and faithfulness to Naomi, finds a surprisingly open future. Is God active in the ordinary, mundane everyday happening? Undoubtedly, the writer wants us to ask ourselves this question as we encounter the story of Ruth.
We discover in the genealogy in Matthew 1:5-6 "that Obed, Ruth's son, is an ancestor of King David who is an ancestor of King Jesus." Is there any significance to Ruth's name being included in Matthew's genealogy? Bible scholars believe there is great significance to be found in the inclusion of Ruth's name. It has been pointed out that the most surprising thing about Matthew's genealogy is that it should even contain the names of women. Women never appeared in Jewish genealogies. Why should they? Women had no rights; they were at the disposal of their husbands. Women were not regarded as persons but possessions. In the morning prayers it was common for a Jewish man to thank God that he was not made a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.
William Barclay states that it is not only remarkable that women should appear in Matthew's genealogy, but also one should look at who these woman happened to be. Rahab was the harlot of Jericho (Joshua 2:1-7). Ruth was not even a Jewess, but a Moabite (Ruth 1:4), even though the law states in Deuteronomy 23:3 that "a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation they shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever." Ruth belonged to a hated and alien people. Tamar was a deliberate seducer and an adulteress (Genesis 38). Bathsheba was the woman that David seduced from Uriah, her husband, with an unforgivable cruelty (2 Samuel 11, 12). Barclay concludes, "If Matthew had ransacked the pages of the Old Testament for improbable candidates he could not have discovered four more incredible ancestors for Jesus Christ."[1]
At the very beginning of his Gospel, Matthew shows us, in a very symbolic manner, that in the gospel of Jesus Christ barriers are coming down. This is not business as usual; in the coming of Christ there is something new and revolutionary taking place. Matthew, at the very beginning, is stating in graphic terms that the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ are universal -- for everyone. The old, contemptible barriers between men and women are gone; each is equally dear to God and to God's purpose. The remarkable thing is that Ruth, so unconscious of her role in history, through the ordinary and mundane happenings of everyday life, is able to contribute to the universal aspects of the grace of God. A non-Israelite woman, considered to be foreign, unclean, and ungodly, helps to make it possible for the boundaries of God's kingdom to be expanded so as to include all people.
There are no territorial boundaries to God's love and concern. Jacob, after he awakens from his dream of the ladder, looks back on his experience and declares, "Surely God is in this place and I did not know it." He had narrowed the limits on the territory where God could care for him and now God pushes the boundaries out further and further. Peter had some strange ideas as to who was and was not in the kingdom. Then one day at the home of Cornelius he had a dream regarding animals that were let down in a sheet before him. In that dream he discovered that in God's creation all that God has made is good, and Peter's boundaries were expanded to include all people.
The presence of Ruth's name in Matthew's genealogy at the beginning of the New Testament symbolically impresses on our minds that God is ever expanding our boundaries. But, our world is ever seeking to classify, limit, divide, restrict, confine, and belittle individuals. In our nation there is grave concern about the increase in the number of hate crimes, especially those resulting from race and sexual orientation. We must never forget that the work of the Kingdom of God is to expand the boundaries and obliterate the barriers. One of the great lessons in Paul's life was his discovery that in Jesus Christ there are no boundaries. The apostle asserts that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus, heirs according to the promise. In Christ men and women have entered into the freedom of becoming sons and daughters of God.
The apostle reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:18 that God "has given us this ministry of reconciliation." The stretching of our hands to our brothers and sisters in Christ will of necessity cross over every human barrier and obstacle. Jesus is cosmic; he is not the private possession of any people. The gospel is global, not the possession of any nation or culture. In Christ the barriers are gone because the fears are gone. It is fear that erects barriers and builds walls of hostility. Are we as Christians contributing to the world's divisiveness or to its healing? Are we building barriers instead of removing them? Are we providing answers to the world's problems, or have we become part of the problem? Sometimes it causes me to wonder. I cannot help but think about all of our brothers and sisters, in all parts of the world today, who are giving their lives to the tearing down and removal of barriers. The tragedy is that many church people through their behavior and actions are perpetuating the very walls that others are giving their lives to eradicate.
Expanding boundaries, removing barriers, being involved in the "ministry of reconciliation," that is our God-given task. But it is risky and serious business. It got Jesus into serious trouble that led all the way to Golgotha. When Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, passed legislation giving the government the power to forbid interracial services, the Anglican Dean in Cape Town placed on the door of St. George's Cathedral a notice bearing these words: This Cathedral is open to all men and women, of all races, to all services, at all times. The Dean of the cathedral was arrested, convicted, and placed in prison. Removing barriers got him into serious trouble. Just think of it, Jesus drew a circle so wide that it included you and me. God accepts us for what we are -- sinners in need of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. We need to make sure that our circles are wide enough to include all of God's children.
This has been driven home to us once again in the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard. He was tied to a fence post on a Wyoming farm and pistol-whipped to death by two men because he was gay. There was a great outpouring of grief, pain, and anger across the country as massive numbers of people gathered in vigils and memorial services to comfort one another and to express their outrage at this heinous crime of hate. Tom Troeger, Professor of Preaching at the United Methodist Iliff School of Theology in Denver, preaching a resurrection service in the Episcopal tradition for Matthew Shepard, told about a poignant event that took place when he was in second grade. He said they had played the children's game, "You're out, you're out, you can't come in." He said he was always on the outside, but one day Louise, one of the girls who was always in, gave him a big wink, dropped the hand of the boy next to her and invited him in. He said he ran as fast as he could and made it in. The game stopped dead, when the boy whose hand she dropped said to her, "You can't do that. If you do that everyone will come in." Sporting a big grin Louise answered, "I know." Troeger ended his sermon by saying, "God is like Louise."
Ruth, the young woman who came from the despised Moabites, was included in the genealogy of Jesus, thus symbolically contributing to the universality of God's love and grace. She contributed to the expanding of the boundaries and the tearing down of the barriers. It is said of Florence Nightingale that she would cross the Crimean battlefield at night carrying her lantern seeking to care for the wounded and dying. Whomever she came upon, friend or foe, she stopped to minister to his needs. As she was tending to a dying soldier he said to her, "You are Jesus to me." Let us go through our community being Jesus to other people.
1. William Barclay, Commentary on Matthew, Volume 1, p. 7."