Advent series 2: restoring Ruth

Transcript for episode 2.

To listen to this episode: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/askingforme

Introduction to the Advent series on women in Jesus’ genealogy
Rob introduces an early start to the Advent series, focusing on the women in Jesus’ genealogy. He emphasizes the relevance of this topic, pointing out that even in modern times, women are often not given the respect they deserve, and Jesus changes this dynamic.

— SERMON TRANSCRIPT BEGINS HERE —

In some ways I feel like this is perhaps one of the most important sermon series that I’ve done.

I haven’t done this Advent series before, and leading up to understanding who Jesus is and what He came to do, it’s so clearly intentional how He has included women in that story, and that’s something that we don’t hear enough about.

This morning we’ll be looking at Ruth, and before we get to that, I want to just mention a couple about the previous two mothers of Jesus. One is Tamar, and we saw about her story with Judah, and her cry for justice, and Judah’s inability to his unwillingness to provide that until confronted.

And one of the things that we saw in that is that even in an awful story full of brokenness and pain, that Jesus doesn’t just redeem those stories, our stories, that He aligns himself with us in them, that He says that these are my people, these people who have ugly, broken, messy lives like mine, like yours, that Jesus aligns himself with these people. He aligns himself with the weak, with the foolish.

And then we go on to Rahab, and I just mention one thing about Rahab, which we’ll see in this book of Ruth, is that the spies entering into the lane of Canaan to figure out how they could go into the land God promised in Jericho, they just happened to come to Rahab’s house.

Just happened by chance, right? And we’ll see that in this story of Ruth as well. A couple of quick sort of background information to get us into the book. This is in the time of the Judges, and that time of Judges is highlighted in the book of Judges by the way from God, to do whatever was right in their own eyes.

And so if you’ve been in church, you’ve probably heard that phrase, they did what was ever right in their own eyes, and that’s what happened. And the story of the book of Ruth, it opens with this Jewish man, Elimelech.

Elimelech means God is king, but Elimelech didn’t live up to his namesake. He didn’t trust that God was king, and so when a famine and a drought came into the land, he decided to do what was right in his own eyes, and he went to Moab, not three hours south, the place from where it got his name.

Actually I thought about like getting a Moab shirt or a Moabite shirt to preach in, and you’ll see why in a minute. So he goes to Moab, and Moab was one of essentially the sworn enemies of the Jewish people, and the reason that if you want more terrible stories, go read the story of Lot, who was Abraham’s nephew, and what Lot and his Moabites are the people who came from Lot and his incestuous relationship with his daughters.

So broken stories, but that’s not the only reason why the Moabites were sworn enemies to the Jewish people. They worship another God, and that worship included, amongst other awful things, child sacrifice.

And so there’s real evil, and so God said, God tells us in Deuteronomy, it’s like have nothing to do with Moabites, that they cannot be included in the assembly of God. So if you’re from Moab, I’m gonna ask you to go ahead and leave, just kidding of course, but we’ll see why that’s not the case in a minute, but it’s important for us to understand the animosity between the people of God and Moab as we go into the story.

So because I’m preaching through a whole book today, it’s gonna take about two and a half hours. So now I hope to be done in the 30 minutes, so why should you pay attention in the next 30 minutes?

I think one of the things that we see is that, like I mentioned in the call to worship, is that we believe functionally, even if our faith is clear on who God is and how He works, functionally, our functional belief system makes it so that we think we have to make our lives work. We are the ones who are going to make life work. We’re also gonna get at that question of how can a good God allow suffering and evil? How can a good God allow so much pain and brokenness and sin? How can evil continue if God is so good?

So because we’re looking at the whole book, I’m gonna bring up the passages or John’s gonna bring them up for us as we go through it, and so please do pay attention as we go. I’m gonna read the first five verses and then pray.

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in a land and a man of Bethlehem and Judah went to Sozier in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi.

Heh, sorry.

I knew this was going to happen. My daughter’s name is Naomi. So, and so where was I? They, and the names of the two sons were Malhan and Chillion. They were Epaphrophytes from Bethlehem and Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.

But, but Elimelech, the husband of Naomi died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other, Ruth. They lived there about 10 years, and both Malhan and Chillion died, so that the woman who was, the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

Let’s pray together. Jesus, this is your word, and you promised to teach us through it, and so come do that now. Holy Spirit, open eyes and hearts and minds and ears. Open us to hear the redemption that you have provided for us. That’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

When was the time where you have felt the most vulnerable? Where you have had an experience in your life where something about your inability to do what you needed to do, or to protect yourself, or to provide for yourself.

Do you, do you have that moment that you can think of where you felt incredibly vulnerable? Probably the most vulnerable moment for me came while I was going through divorce, and I lost my job, and I didn’t know how I was going to provide for my kids, my older kids when they were little, and I ended up in the social services office, and to get government assistance for putting food on the table.

And when I was sitting there and, you know, going through the application and sitting, talking to the woman in front of me, I, I just started breaking down. I, like, I, I just wept in front of her. I went from a household income of over $100,000 to, in a case space of six months to nothing, and it was so bad, like, I, what I found myself doing is, like, how am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to make it to the next week? And I did get some part-time work, and what I, one of the things that I did was I would, I would write a check at the grocery store that I knew I didn’t have money for, and, and because I knew the money would, would come in in a few days, and I hoped that, that the check wouldn’t clear until that money came in, and, and I would write the check, I would write it over for, to get some cash as well to help me get through to the next paycheck. And, like, it, it was an incredibly desperate and emotional time, and one of the things about people in that situation that is just, is clear is that more often not, they’re women.

More often than not, women are placed in these vulnerable situations where they’re trying to provide for their families and they don’t, their children, and they don’t know how to do it. There is a hugely disproportional amount of women who are applying for government assistance.

And in the story of Ruth, we see women who are in the same plight that have the same issues, how am I gonna provide? Incredibly vulnerable situation. And of course, around 1300 BC, when the book of Ruth happens, the plight of women there is an even greater vulnerability.

And they didn’t have the opportunities for education and work the way that we do today. They didn’t have the opportunities to provide without their family, the way that women have today. And so Naomi found herself in this situation.

So her husband took them to Moab, not trusting God. He took his family to Moab. And then he and the two sons died. And that leaves Naomi completely destitute. Her options at that point are not good. And they are slim.

And then of course, the same is true for Orpah and for Ruth. And this is why the Bible is clear about caring for those people who can’t care for themselves. That that’s not only God’s heart, that it needs to be the heart of his church as well.

Throughout scripture, we see God saying, care for the widows, care for the orphans, care for the poor, that if we have the resources to care for widows, orphans, poor, and anyone who cannot care for themselves, and if we have those resources and we don’t, we are no longer on the side of justice.

We are no longer on the side of God. And so Naomi finds herself in this position. And so she says to her daughters-in-law, go back to your families. They were Moabite women. And he’s like, go back to your family.

Go back to your household. And in verses eight and nine, which I don’t have slides for, but it says, but Naomi said to her two daughters-in-laws, go return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. And the way this is phrased again, highlights the reality that women’s security was found in their husbands, and then in their sons’ ability to provide for them.

That was the nature of it. And so when Naomi tells this to Orpah and Ruth, initially both said, no, we’re gonna stay. But Naomi pleaded with Orpah and Ruth to go, and Orpah decided to do that. But Ruth, verse 16, I think we have this up on the slides.

So Naomi says, and she said, see your sister-in-law’s gone back to her people and their gods, return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth, when I read this, I immediately thought of Ephesians two, chapter four, and that beautiful section that tells us about a God’s grace in response to our sin, our brokenness, our pain.

It says, but God, being rich in mercy. And in a book like Ruth, that doesn’t give us any specific teaching on how we’re supposed to think, believe, or interact with God to see what Ruth does here. But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or return from following you.

And then we get this passage that you probably have heard in a wedding, or maybe you had it in your wedding, right? It says, for where you go, I will go. And where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people. And your God, my God, you’ve had that rope for. Maybe in your wedding, if you included this, you included this next line that says, where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Maybe you had that.

I bet you haven’t heard the next sentence in a marriage scripture reading. May the Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death, parse me from you. You know, so in these marriage vows, it’s like, all right, if I don’t live up to those vows, then I am saying to God, put me to death.

You know, that’s not a happy kind of ceremony, is it? Yeah, what was striking here is not just Ruth’s loyalty, it is that her loyalty is striking, but also how she calls the very name of God, she calls on the very name of God.

You may know that whenever you’re reading in the Old Testament and you see the capital L-O-R-D, and usually it’s in lowercase capitals, and you see it here in verse 17, that this is the personal name of God.

This is the name of God that he gave to Moses when Moses said, who shall I say is sending me? And he says, I am, he says Yahweh. And Ruth uses this name. She uses the personal name of God, and so whether it has something to do with what she saw in Naomi, which I think is the case, or it has to do with how God has interacted with Ruth, she calls on the personal name of God at this point.

She makes her loyalty known not just to Naomi, but to God as well. And so at this point, Naomi and Ruth then do go back to Bethlehem where Naomi was from and where her family was from. And as they go back to Bethlehem, I’m sorry, Naomi ends up talking to the people that she knew in Bethlehem, and they were surprised to see her.

It had been years, at least a decade. She probably has changed in appearance. She’s had a difficult life. And so she’s in verse 20, in chapter one, verse 20, she said to them, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara.

For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, which means pleasant or beautiful? Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?

This might kind of be an aside, but what Naomi does here is absolutely right and beautiful. What Naomi does here is impressive because she doesn’t say, I don’t want nothing to do with God anymore.

What she says is, this has been so hard. This has been so painful. And I’m bitter. And it’s a lament. It’s a lament. It’s similar to what we read in the Psalm, Psalm 39 in particular, where David says remove your hand from me so that I can smile again. This is like, God, why? Why have you allowed this? Why have you done this? Why have you let such suffering and evil come into my life? And Naomi is honest about it. She’s honest about her pain. It’s not weakness on her part. In the midst of her vulnerability, in the midst of her despair, she exhibits real strength by being honest about the pain that life has brought her.

So they’re back in Bethlehem, and who knows where they found to live? They have nothing. And so, if we look at chapter two, and we’re gonna go quickly through the whole passage, but I have it up on the screen for you, and it says, now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of a lemon neck, whose name was Boaz.

Now this is a commentary note in the story, because what we’ll see in a second is neither Naomi nor Ruth knew that she was gonna end up where she does with Boaz, or in his field. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, and I also wanna point out again in a second, Ruth is always identified as a Moabite in this.

And so Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him and whose sight I shall found favor. They don’t know who it is at this point. And she said to her, Naomi said to Ruth, go my daughter.

And one of the ways that the people of God, as you see in the Old Testament, would provide for the poor is that when the harvest came, they were not to harvest every last thing. They were to leave some to be left for those who are in need to come and pick up what was left over so that they could have food to eat.

Verse three, so that she sent out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers and she happened to come. Again, she just happened to come. She just happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was the clan of Elimelech.

And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. Again, it’s the personal name of God. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this?

And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, she is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. Like the repetition here is not only interesting, but it’s also a way that we read in Hebrew literature of emphasizing something.

They are emphasizing here that Ruth is a Moabite, that Ruth is of the people who should not be associated with. She is of the people who worshiped a God that required child sacrifice. So Ruth, the Moabite from Moab, in case you missed it.

And so in verse seven, Ruth had said to Boaz’s hired men, says, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers that they came. And she continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.

Then Boaz said to Ruth, now listen my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them.

Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? What Boaz does at this point is recognizes Ruth’s vulnerability, recognize the position that she is of not only a 13th century BC woman who cannot provide for herself, but also as a woman that she is in danger, as a Moabite woman that she is in danger.

In fact, in verse 22 later on, we’ll see that Naomi encourages Ruth to stick with Boaz and in his field, unless she’s assaulted, says it out plainly, this vulnerability is clear. And so, continuing in verse nine, have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink the young men have drunk. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother in your native land, and came to a people that you did not know before.

So, little town of Bethlehem, right? Little town of Bethlehem, the news gets around, right? And so, and I imagine that not all of the news was good, right? Did you hear about Naomi, who came back with Ruth, the Moabite from Moab, and how God has abandoned them?

But there also was, I don’t know, you call it good gossip, right? There was this sharing of what was good and right about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, and her willingness to leave behind what she’s known and seek after the Lord and what he can do.

And so, verse 12, the Lord will pay you for what you have done. And that’s in a good way, right? A lot of times we read that and we’re like, oh no, but this is a good, may the Lord repay you for all the good that you have done.

A full reward be given to you by the Lord, by Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, to find rest, to find hope, find peace in Yahweh, the personal God of the universe.

Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants. And at mealtime Boaz said to her, come here and eat some of the bread and dip your morsel in the wine.

So she sat back, she sat beside the reapers, and he passed her a roasted grain, and she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over, and when she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his men, saying, let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her, saying, let her have some of even the best parts, and also pulled out some from the bundles for her, and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening, then she came, then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an eath of barley, about seven two liter bottles, 11, sorry, and she took it up and went into the city, her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, she also brought out and gave her what food was left after being satisfied, and her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today, and where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, the man’s name with whom I work today is Boaz, and Naomi said to her, daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead.

Naomi also said to her, the man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers. The word in Hebrew here, go’al, is a term for, sometimes you may have heard it said, kinsmen redeemer, we can read in Leviticus about the go’al, and the redeemer is someone who can purchase a field, or property, any property, livestock, animals, et cetera, when the family who owned that property could no longer take care of it, provide for it if they had debt, and a kinsmen redeemer is someone who could return that property, and return hope, and life, and provision to a destitute family, and so a kinsmen redeemer is someone who, at cost to themself, not insignificant, because they were also required to pay, to pay the people who had that field, greater than what it was valued, I think it was a fifth grader, so there was a cost for the kinsmen redeemer,

and so Naomi all of a sudden sees hope, Naomi says, oh this man can provide for us in ways that we never could have been provided for. And Ruth the Moabite said, besides he said to me, you shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.

And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law is good my daughter, that you go with this young woman, lest in another field you be assaulted. So she kept close to the young woman of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests, and she lived with her mother-in-law.

We see a picture of Boaz’s character. We see a picture of a man who is doing what Judah wouldn’t do for Tamar. Remember the story in Judah and Tamar. Tamar was a widow, and Judah was required by the law of God to give his other son to Tamar so that she would be provided for, and he wouldn’t do that.

The parallels between the stories are significant, and in some ways we see in this kinsman redeemer, in this story, we see a redemption of that story. Go back and listen to the other sermon. It’ll help make sense of that.

So we come now to Naomi’s plan. Naomi’s plan is for Ruth to go in the dark of night to the threshing floor, and to ask of Boaz to provide for him, for them, to provide for their family. Now, the interpretations of this in the past have alluded to some sexual impropriety.

There’s nothing to suggest that in the text, the way that we read the words there. It also is contrary to the character of Boaz that we have seen so far, and it’s likely that they went in the dark of night to give Boaz an out.

So when Ruth goes to Boaz in the dark of night, and she says to him, so she shows up in the dark of night, and he says, who are you? This is chapter three, verse nine. She answered, I’m Ruth, your servant.

It says, spread your garment, or spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer. And like Tamar, Ruth is calling out, saying, do what’s right. Do what’s just, do what’s good. And there’s no mistaking that what she’s saying is, will you marry me?

Will you marry me and provide for me and Naomi? It’s the same, it’s that same language, it’s the same word that Boaz used when he said, when he says, you have come to find refuge under the wings of God our Lord.

It’s a picture of the beauty that we find here, the beauty of redemption. And so Boaz says, chapter three, verse 11, and now my daughter do not fear, I will do for you all that you ask, I will redeem.

Have you seen the movie, The Big Sick? Couple people nodding their heads. Really beautiful movie, it’s Kumailanan, Kumail, sorry. Sorry, Kumail Nanjiani, he recently rose to fame in the Marvel movie, The Eternals. He’s a Pakistani guy and then the movie, The Big Sick, Robin and I watched it, I don’t know, a year, two years ago and the movie’s been out for a while and it was his first movies, first, and he basically wrote the movie as well.

And it’s a story of a couple that starts dating. So they lived in New York, they were dating, he was a standup comedian. She was a writer. They dated for a couple of months, and then she gets sick and goes into a coma and in the hospital they’re like we he he goes he actually had a Comedy set like he did a set.

He said it went terrible and and then he gets a call from his girlfriend who’s in the hospital And so he rushes over there, and she’s deteriorating quickly And so the the doctors come in and they say we need to intubate her right now But we can’t do that without permission because she had become unresponsive And and then he says are are you married to this woman and he’s like no We’ve only been dating for a few months and and they said you need to lie You need to lie and sign this form so we can do this or she’s gonna die and so he did Her her family was in North Carolina, and so he lied sign this form she got intubated was in a coma For for eight days and during this time the family comes in and She meets his family for the first time under these circumstances I lied saying that I was your daughter’s husband so that she could be saved and and and she does start to get better her her health improves they They’re able to to treat her and so she was in hospital for seven months And and so it was a story of a relationship that had just begun and then dealt with Terrible tragedy And with the possibility of worse and and it ends up being an absolutely beautiful story of this Relationship and this this couple that that came together in the midst of something tragic Is it it’s a redemptive story?

It’s it’s a story of of how brokenness Is undone by the beauty of love and marriage and so I was I watched this this movie a few years ago I liked it. It’s good movie. I recommend it and then I was listening to a podcast where Kumail Nanjani was interviewed and it’s all true It’s absolutely a true story and and listening to Kumail talk about his wife Emily Like he got choked up.

They’ve been married for 15 years now. He’s talking about how much he loves his wife. He’s talking about how amazing she is. It’s it is a beautiful story of Redemption and that’s the story of redemption that we have here in this story a beautiful story of redemption.

so let’s look now at this last section in chapter four and so and starting in verse 11, so Boas has agreed to to marry Ruth and redeem her family. And this is all made public and it was a beautiful public Expression of what’s good and right. It says here verse 11 Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said we are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of the Lord you may may you act worthily and Ephratath and be renowned in Bethlehem and may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamara bore to Judah because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman. So Boas took Ruth and she became his wife and he went into her and the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son. Then the woman said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life.

When you read the genealogies, you find them in the Old Testament, and then of course at the beginning of the gospel stories in Matthew and Luke, you read those genealogies and you’re just like, ugh, can we just get on with it? Because, I mean, have you had that? You’ve been in like a Christmas Eve service and someone reads through that whole genealogy and your eyes glaze over and you think, what is going on, why is this important?

Now, I think about how this story was told. How this story was told to the people of God. And maybe it was something like, you know the story of David, right? He was the king. You know the story of David, but do you know about David’s, do you know about his great, great grandparents?

Do you know about David’s great, great grandparents and how the life of his great grandmother was restored? Do you know about the redemption that happened in the lives of David’s line, and Rahab was one of them?

Do you know the story about how the spies of Canaan just happened to show up at Rahab’s door? And do you know the story about how Ruth just happened to show up in Boaz’s field? And do you know who Rahab’s son was?

Do you know the name of Rahab’s son?

It’s Boaz!

Boaz was Rahab’s son. Boaz was a man who grew up with a mom who had been a prostitute. Boaz, this is speculation on my part, but when a man grows up knowing about how his mother made life work, it can create an astounding character.

The character of a man who is willing to redeem. The character of a man who looks like Ruth the Moabite from Moab and says, I am not repulsed by you. The character of a man who says, I will redeem. This didn’t just happen. This didn’t just happen. It was the work of God. And what Judah would not do for Tamar, Boaz did for Ruth.

Mother, sister, daughter, what Boaz did for Ruth, Jesus will do for you. He is the Redeemer. And I promise, I promise, I know, and if you struggle to know, rest on me knowing that your story will be redeemed, that your life will be restored.

All that’s broken, all that hurts, all the sin, all that you struggle to believe is promised restoration from Jesus, the restorer of life. I wish I knew when it would happen for you. I wish I could say, in this many years, you will see the beauty of your Redeemer.

But I know that it will happen, and it may be at the end, but it will happen, and your life will be restored, because Jesus is our Redeemer. Let’s pray together.

Father, as we wait, and we long for you to come back to redeem, as we, in this season of Advent, wait for the promise, give us hope, give us peace, remind us even when things are the darkest, that we can rest in you.

We can rest in our Redeemer. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

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