While Good News is putting her boots on...

“While good news is putting her boots on, bad news is already down the road.”  I’m afraid this old saying still rings true.  We just can’t wait to pass on a juicy bit of gossip and what my Mom calls facebook is sadly à propos:  “the porte-patchet,” which means “the gossip-column.”  I wonder, is that how you use facebook?  Doesn’t good news deserve a hearing?  In the book of Ruth, the sweet fruit of the Spirit-goodness- still counts!

It was around 1250 B.C. when Ruth, the Moabitess, went to draw water for her and her mother-in-law, Naomi, at the well in Bethlehem.  I can almost hear the other women: 

“There’s that woman from Moab!” 

“How dare she come to our land?  She is our enemy!”

“Her husband was Naomi’s son, and he died. She cursed the entire family!”

“She’s barren- it’s because God judged her!”

Ah, but there was someone who offered Ruth life-giving water and his name was Boaz.   Later on, out in the field where Ruth was gleaning, he said to her:

“When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw.”  

(Ruth 2:9)

Oh, the goodness of this man, Boaz!  He need not have offered Ruth water- she was, after all, a foreigner and far worse, someone from a land where their enemies dwelt.  He knew her history- it had been reported to him.  But he gleaned the wonderful parts of her story- she had honoured her mother-in-law, left her own mother and father and her country, and had come to a people whom she did not know.  Boaz knew she had left all behind to stay with Naomi and follow Naomi’s God, the God of Israel. 

He didn’t tell her to go back to town and fetch water for herself at the well, nor did he tell her to go and fetch water for the others; he told her to drink, and to drink the water drawn by his own servants.  What dignity Boaz bestowed on Ruth that day!  Such goodness he showed this young widow, who knew only one person in the entire country, namely Naomi. 

Goodness means you don’t just offer help; give a date, a time, a suggestion and follow through.

Goodness means you put yourself out to meet someone’s need.

Goodness means you humble yourself before God, remembering that you are a sinner saved by grace, and you do the unimaginable: tell a prostitute that God deeply cares about them, bring food to a home where conditions are less-than-ideal, put an ad in your local newspaper saying you are available to mow a senior’s lawn for free, take a Bible to someone in prison, sit with a drunkard or an addict while they go through the horrors of withdrawal or…

Boaz was a Kinsman-Redeemer for Naomi and Ruth; a close relative whose role was to care for these two widows.  He could have chosen not to do so; not to demonstrate goodness towards them.  Unbeknownst to him, he was pointing to someone far greater than himself, when he offered water to Ruth.  He was pointing to Jesus Christ, the epitome of goodness,  and the ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer who gave up His life; so that we might have a well of water springing up to eternal life,(John 4:14).   

Ah, may Paul’s words to the church at Rome be true of us today:

"I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness,

                     filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another."               

(Romans 15:14)

Mercy Finds Us

Naomi - a woman of courage, a woman of honesty, a woman of joy; a widow bereft of her husband and two sons.  She, along with her husband Elimelech and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, had travelled to Moab to escape the famine in Bethlehem, the town whose name means ‘House of Bread.’   (You can read their story here).  Ten years later, she returns to Bethlehem without her husband, without her two sons and with her daughter-in-law, Ruth.  It was a less-than-glorious return, for the famine had followed her to Moab – a famine of spiritual proportions that she had not expected.

Two widows, one of whom was barren, were making their way back home. It was a journey fraught with painful memories; but somehow the longed-for comfort of being home and the companionship of a God who never forsook them made the odyssey bearable.  After seven to ten days of travel, they finally entered through the gate of the town of Bethlehem.  Did she remark to Ruth, on that long journey home, that she and her family had slept at such-and-such a place, or had gotten food at that particular town?  Was there weeping as they walked, remembering the graves left behind in Moab?  Regret, perhaps; regrets about leaving Bethlehem and turmoil about a return that would only cause questions and pronouncements of “I told you so?”  Never mind the raised eyebrows over bringing a Moabite into the land of Israel.  Would Ruth be safe- this foreigner who had pledged her allegiance to Naomi and to her God?  Would she even be allowed to get water at the well?  

Famine is such a huge metaphor for the spiritual drift that can happen when we ‘do what is right in our own eyes.’  Such was the time of the Judges; such was the setting for this story of Naomi - there was a famine in the land, which served to highlight the profoundly deeper spiritual famine that was starving the people of God.  It is a sad irony indeed that they took a never-forgotten journey to what I call ‘the land of dread,’(Moab), from ‘the house of Bread,(Bethlehem).’  And while we do not have all the details, it would appear that going to Moab was not the wisest choice this little family had made.  In the Book of Ruth, Naomi states it this way:  “The hand of the Lord has gone out against me.”(1:13)  “ Do not call me Naomi,(which means pleasantness); call me Mara, (which means bitterness), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”(1:20)  “…the Almighty has afflicted me.”(1:22b)  These are difficult and terse words but Naomi has not denied God’s right to judge, nor has she rejected Him as her God; she is identifying His sovereign hand at work.

Sin takes us on a journey that is longer, more difficult and more turbulent than we had ever planned, but mercy finds us there and repentance brings us home.  Naomi has come home.

My prayer:   “Lord, may my journey home be shorter!  Thank you for the cross.”

My paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 7:9,10

Godly sorrow is a groaning that leads to true repentance and life, while worldly sorrow only moans over being caught and leads to spiritual death.”