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Ruth 1:1-18
Hypothesis: I Go to
Church vs. We Are the Church
Risking a Journey
Rev. Nancy Gowler Johnson
Puyallup First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
November 5, 2006
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago,
back when the judges ruled over Israel,
there was a great famine in the land. There
was a man who lived in a little village,
called Bethlehem, which means the city of
bread. But the city had no bread, no one
could scrounge up enough to eat. It was a
desperate time. The man Elimelech had two
alternatives: stay in Bethlehem and face
potential starvation or venture out into a
foreign land in hopes that there might be
more food there.
He gathered up his wife and his two sons
along with a few belongings, and they left
the only home they had ever known for Moab.
A country that was no friend of the Hebrew
people. In the book of Deuteronomy the
people of Moab are condemned. They worship
foreign gods. In the book of Judges the two
people are often at odds. It was a hard
choice. Leave their home - become illegal
aliens in an unfriendly land.
With little hope, the family took what
they could and settled as refugees in Moab.
The family may have escaped the famine,
but tragedy found them even in a strange
land.
Elimelech died. And his wife Naomi was
left with only her two sons. They stayed in
Moab. The boys, grown by now, both married
Moabite girls. An intriguing detail, for in
the book of Exodus it is strictly forbidden
for Hebrew men to marry foreign women. Ten
years passed. And then tragedy struck
again. The two brothers died. And now
Naomi was completely alone. There was no
one to take care of her. No man to defend
her in a world in which a woman needed a
male protector and provider.
Naomi had no time to grieve, no options.
She had heard that things were better now,
back in Bethlehem. So she packed up only
what she could carry, together with some
provisions, and began her long journey back
to Bethlehem. Her two daughters-in-law
Orpha and Ruth, traveled with her. As they
walked along, Naomi thought about Bethlehem,
she had relatives there for sure, but no one
too close. She looked at her two
daughters-in-law - what kind of life could
she give them? She had no security; she was
hoping to rely on the help of long-lost
family.
Naomi stopped on the road. She couldn’t
take them with her, she just couldn’t do
that to them. They were still young. “Go
back,” she told them. “Go back home and
live with your mothers. And may God treat
you as graciously as you both have treated
me and my sons. Make a new beginning. A
new home with a new husband.” And with that
she kissed them, and they all began to weep.
Both Orphah and Ruth protested. “We want
to go with you.”
But Naomi was unmoved. “I can’t provide
for you. I can’t give you husbands. I can
do nothing. Please, go. Life is bitter
enough for me now.”
The women sobbed. Obediently Orphah
kissed her mother-in-law goodbye. But Ruth
would not let go of Naomi.
“Don’t make me go home,” she cried.
“Where you go, I go; and where you live,
I’ll live. Your people are my people, your
God is my god; where you die, I’ll die, and
that’s where I’ll be buried, so help me God
- not even death itself is going to come
between us!”
Nothing Naomi could say would change her
mind. And so the two of them went on their
way to Bethlehem.
It is a peculiar little story, tucked in
between the book of Judges and its tales of
the legendary chiefs who ruled over the
different Hebrew tribes and the book of
Samuel in which the beginnings of the
monarchy are explored.
A few points. First of all, the story is
not a morality story, reducing the
characters in the story to simplistic
choices in life. For as you read the story
you find that nowhere is Orphah condemned
for returning home to her people. She did
not stubbornly go to Bethlehem with Naomi,
rather she sadly turned around and headed
back home to Moab. Her journey of life was
not Ruth’s - the two of them followed
different paths. But the text does not
suggest that she made the wrong choice.
Naomi is not the picture of the perfect
quiet grieving widow either. The
circumstances of her life have made her
bitter. She is convinced that nothing good
awaits her, and that God has given her a
difficult life.
The character of Ruth is complex too. She
is under no social obligation to stay with
Naomi. If the situation had been different,
if Naomi had other sons still living, then
it would have been expected for one of those
sons to take Ruth as his wife and provide
for her. But Naomi had no more sons - she
was alone.
The text leaves Ruth’s motives hidden from
us. We are left to seek answers to those
questions for ourselves. Why would a young,
foreign woman leave her family, her culture,
her home for an unknown future? What would
await her in Bethlehem? Would the city of
bread provide for her? Or would she and her
mother-in-law continue to struggle just to
survive?
There is no sign in the text that this is
a well-thought out decision on her part.
She simply digs in her heels. Somehow the
bonds she has forged with her mother-in-law
are not easily broken. More than likely in
that day the marriage would have been an
arranged one, one in which Ruth would have
had little choice. Nevertheless for Ruth
the covenant still stands, she had joined
another family when she married Naomi’s son,
and for her there was no turning back.
The text gives us that wonderful statement
of covenant from the lips of Ruth.
“Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live.
Your people are my people,
your God is my god;
where you die, I’ll die,
and that’s where I’ll be buried, so help
me God.”
The two could have parted ways. Ruth
could have easily turned and made her way
back home with Orphah. But something inside
her would not let her return. She was
connected to Naomi, invisible bonds held
them together. A commitment, not based on a
rational assessment of the situation at
hand, but forged in the love and a profound
sense of community they had shared
together. It is an act of selflessness that
calls out to us not to be understood, but to
celebrated. Ruth stays with Naomi, seeking
to find a new place for herself. Now it
will be Ruth’s turn to be the refugee - to
live in a land and culture not her own. An
illegal alien seeking a safe place to call
home. Will they be shown mercy? Kindness?
What lies ahead down the road to Bethlehem?
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and mystic, once wrote: "My Lord
God, I have no idea where I am going. I do
not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know
for certain where it will end. The fact
that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing
so..."
"But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please
you. I hope I have that desire in all that
I am doing. I hope that I will never do
anything apart from that desire. I know
that if I do this you will lead me by the
right road, though I may know nothing about
it."
Uncertainty? Ambiguity?
The road of life holds many turns.
Who are our travel partners? What
connections keep us grounded as we make our
way in unfamiliar lands? How will we travel
along? By ourselves? With other
sojourners?
Turn to your bulletins and take a look at
the PaTH hypothesis for this week.
I Go to Church vs. We Are the
Church
Hypothesis: The church is viewed as a
place/building where religious goods are
dispensed rather than as the Body of
Christ. The pastor plays the key role. We
"go" to church rather than seeing ourselves
"as the church." The future of our church
depends on our understanding of the church
as "the Body of Christ" in which each person
has the responsibility to contribute his or
her unique gifts in ministry.
How we talk about something can give
insight into some of the assumptions and
expectations that are operating in our
behavior.
§
It is very common to talk about, “going
to church” or to ask “What church do you
go to?” In similar fashion we “go to
the store,” “go to the club,” the game,
the mall, or the movies.
§
We do not talk about “going to the
family.” In fact to use those words in
connection with family sounds awkward
and out of place. We ARE family and we
ARE church.
At first this may seem to be merely a
clever observation about the use of words.
However, it invites reflection about whether
or not some of our ways of thinking and
participating in the life of the church have
become disconnected from their biblical
roots.
I chose the story of Ruth from our
lectionary readings, because I wanted to
give a word of caution to us as we consider
this hypothesis.
§
We like to categorize things as good or
bad. It makes it easy to condemn
behavior we find objectionable.
§
The hypothesis makes it easy to do.
§
The story of Ruth and Orphah reminds us
that many major choices in life are not
always so easily labeled.
I invite you to struggle with the two ways
of imaging our church life together.
§
Many of us have lived with one primary
structure that set the way in which we
function together as the church
§
That structure was driven by the
experience of church by those who had
lived through WWII.
§
In that era the predominant experience
was that of people joining together in a
groups for a bigger cause. In the
1950’s the way church organized itself
after the war reflected that larger
social experience of salvation through
joining a larger group. We set up the
church board and functional committee
system of governing ourselves so that
people could join, be plugged into a job
in the system and the results were
tangible. Churches grew.
§
Now we have more generations for whom
that WWII understanding of the world is
something for a textbook, not a personal
experience. How we do church, how we
understand ourselves as church together
will inevitably change.
§
And that’s OK. We don’t see Jesus in
the gospels running around asking for
folks to serve a three year commitment
as worship greeters. Not that the
ministry of greeting is not an important
one, mind you. But the church has
always shaped itself according to its
context and hopefully with the gospel as
its primary guide for living.
So turn to your neighbors, in groups of
two or three, and take a look at this
hypothesis. And discuss the questions
below.
Questions for reflection:
1. With which statement do you most
identify: “I go to church” or “We are the
church?” What is the difference between the
two?
2. Where the underlying notion of church
is “I go to church,” what activities are
important? Where it is “We are the church,”
what is important? |