True Religion

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:9–10

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers . . . . Ruth 2:2–3

Two women, two widows, broken and poor (and in the case of Ruth, an alien) returned to Bethlehem knowing only that the chance of starvation, attack or worse was less there than where they traveled from. All appears hopeless, bitter. That is how the book of Ruth begins. But before the hopelessness can fully sink in, Chapter 2 of Ruth crashes into Chapter 19 of Leviticus and Ruth who is literally grasping at straws in an attempt to survive experiences the grace of God through the actions of a follower of God -- Boaz. Through Boaz and to Ruth, we see God’s love and care for the foreigner, the outcast and the disenfranchised. “

To paraphrase the passage in Leviticus, “I am God. I am merciful. I provide you with all you have. So, you need to be merciful to those who don’t have. So when I give you a harvest, don’t think it is all yours, because it is all mine. But, you can have most of it. Just leave enough so the people who don’t have, can have some of my stuff too. ‘Cause it’s all mine, remember? I am the Lord your God, this is what I’m about, this is the way I roll.”

God has a heart for the poor and the needy. And to the extent that we become like him, we will have a heart for the poor and the needy too. And when we see that need, and when we begin to meet that need, we not only are in line with God’s heart, we are actually allowing his Kingdom to break into the darkness of a fallen and broken world. Light breaks into the darkness of the world and into the darkness of our hearts.

Meant to be a People

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth 1:16–18

God is good even when we can't feel his goodness, even when all of the evidence in our lives seems to say he is not. God is good. And often, his goodness comes through those who stand beside us – especially in those times.

In the first chapter of the book of Ruth, we meet Naomi (Ruth's mother in law). By any definition, hers was a hard life, harder I would venture to guess than any of ours ever will be. A small town girl, Naomi flees starvation and famine in her hometown, escaping to a foreign country with her husband and her two sons. While she does not starve, she might rather have, as both her husband and then her two sons are killed by means we are not told. Returning home when the famine is over she tells the people who greet her that they should no longer call her Naomi (a name that means pleasant). She tells them, in essence, that her name no longer fits her. Pleasant? No, bitter, that’s a much better fit. Call me bitter. "I went away full," she told them, but the Lord has brought me back empty."

And yet, the Lord had not brought her back empty. Though she had indeed suffered unimaginable tragedy, she was not alone. Beside her – even as she spoke of her aloneness was Ruth, a woman who in her own right had suffered tragedy, Ruth, the widow of Naomi’s son, Ruth, Naomi’s daughter in law. You see, in the midst of understandable despair and resignation as she headed back to her hometown, Naomi had told Ruth to leave her, to go back to her own people, to let her return home alone. But Ruth did not go. Ruth stood by her, declaring that she was her people, that as for as long as she should live, Naomi would not ever be alone, Ruth would stand by her.

God uses people to heal people – body, mind and spirit. God uses community to bring out the fullness of people. God uses me to make you a better person; he uses you to make me the best I can be. Alone is not who we were created to be, we were created to be a people – together – in a way that influences and infuses who we are even when we are alone.

- Do you feel as if you are a part of a people? If so, how does that change affect your life, your choices, and your values? If not, do you wish that you felt you were a part of a people? How might it change you?

Share your thoughts with me and with others.

Pece, hope and love

Doug