Ruth 1:1-18

November 4, 2018

Sojourners UCC, Charlottesville, VA

When I was 17 years old, I became rather suddenly afraid of the dark. I started sleeping with a nightlight, listening to music as I fell asleep (a lot of Sarah McLaughlan and Enya), doing whatever I could to ease this newfound fear.

What I didn’t know then, was that grief can express itself in so many surprising ways. My mother had died about 6 months before. Of course I was having trouble sleeping!  Eventually, to fall asleep I started to envision an angel wrapping itself around me and giving me comfort. Night after night, I would see this angel in my mind’s eye holding me, and it began to help me calm and relax. So much so that after a while I didn’t even need to work to envision it, I could just feel the presence with me.

I don’t know if I made up an angel, or if God’s loving presence was indeed wrapped around me— probably both. But after walking with this story from the Bible this week and remembering those nights when I was young, I think that from now on, I will call that angel, “Ruth,” because she showed up in the darkest hour of grief.

Certainly, Naomi, at the start of this story, is just in the thick of it herself— and I could not hear her story this week without also hearing echoes of the present. The first line of this story tells us that Naomi’s life took place in the time of the Judges. The Book of Judges which ends just before that line, ends with the sentence, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” Little justice was to be found for anyone. Let alone a woman, a widow, a foreigner, an immigrant. 3,000 years ago this was written. Time of the Judges, indeed.

So she’s in rather dire straights, Naomi, and when she hears there is food in the country her family is from, she does what people have done throughout history when there is little hope for food and safety where they live: she leaves in hope of finding it elsewhere. Make no mistake, this is a radical act of hope and faith and Naomi is also under no illusions that it will be easy.

Bill Wilson, who was the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote “hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.” I have probably shared that with you before, but I don’t think we can hear it enough, certainly I can’t. It’s exactly what Naomi was doing— “hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.” She didn’t know what was coming, but still she went forward anyway. She turned her face to the light.

And in Naomi’s incredible act of hope, something happens— it opens up enough room that the story becomes not just about her but in the cracks of her hope enters Ruth.

Let us all recall at this moment that Ruth, Orpah and Naomi are in-laws. They are not bound together. They are not inextricably connected as family after all of the men have died. They are re-creating a family by necessity, by desire, and on the fly, even if it might not make sense. Again, for a story written 3,000 years ago, nothing could feel more assuredly modern. It’s the Golden Girls storyline of antiquity.

Why Ruth and Orpah decide to follow Naomi is never fully explained. Because It doesn’t really make sense for either of the daughters-in-law to travel to a land where they will become the foreigners and immigrants, with no assurance of safety, food or starting over. It’s a little crazy. We can imagine that Naomi was just that inspiring or the homes Ruth and Orpah were leaving were just that terrible. We don’t know. It’s a space with plenty of room for imagination and for us to fill with our own lives and stories.

But Ruth and Orpah accompany Naomi on this path of hope. I sometimes imagine Naomi walking along lost in her grief, just like we all sometimes do— unaware of the pain outside of her own experience, consumed in her memories and her grief— when she looks up and  is startled to find that she isn’t alone.

Naomi does her best to dissuade Ruth and Orpah from joining her. Maybe she’s worried about them and just sees herself as dragging them down with her. Whatever the reason, she tries to push away the love being offered to her in her life.

But that angel, Ruth. She just won’t let go.

I hear that hymn– Oh Love that Will Not Let me Go– would anyone be willing to sing the first few lines? If not, you get my half-rendition…

Naomi tries to push away that love that has shown up, but it won’t let her go.

I didn’t realize until this week that the most classic Christian wedding vow— ‘til death do us part,’ comes from Ruth’s speech we heard today.

Ruth ‘clings’ to Naomi. She vows to follow her, to be her family, to stand by her side even when she is devastated and grieving and lost. Ruth says, ‘I won’t leave you, even in this valley of a shadow that may lead to nowhere.”

What a gift. What a powerful act. That this small kindness between two unrelated women was written down, saved and savored for thousands of years, canonized in between all of the stories of huge deeds of men and men and more men in the Bible. But that we still have this small story of a small act of love is a miracle.

Because love is a miracle.

If any of you ever want to experience me fully nerding-out, come and talk to me about Harry Potter books. I read the series years ago, and am now reading them aloud to my girls— we’re on book 6 (though I edit as we read the more scary bits). One of my favorite things about these books (if you haven’t read them, I’m not giving anything away and also, if you haven’t read them, you should), anyhow one of my favorite things in the insistence that love is stronger than evil.

In a passage my family read only a couple of days ago, there’s this wonderful exchange between young Harry and the old and wise wizard, Dumbledore, in which Harry argues with Dumbledore and complains about his inability to fight dark powers saying to him, “But I haven’t got uncommon skill and power.”

And Dumbledore replies firmly, “Yes you have. You can—“

“I know!” Harry says impatiently interrupting. “I can love!” It was only with difficulty, the narrator notes, that he stopped himself adding, “Big deal!”

I love how true this feels. In the series, Harry is faced with true evil, with a war outside the walls and grief in his heart. In the story of Naomi, the women are surrounded by powerlessness, loss and hunger. Here we sit today, holding our grief and our fear about the present and future. How could something so small as being able to love change any of that?

Dumbledore says to Harry, “Yes Harry you can love… which given everything that has happened, is a great and remarkable thing.”

We don’t consider our power to love as just that: a power, but I think this story is telling us that we ought to. Ruth clung to Naomi and refused to let go, even though she could have let Naomi go it alone and worried about herself as everyone else did in the time of Judges. But she knew that her ability to love was stronger than all of that.

Small love in a big world— that is the Good News today. This small love will redeem us if we let it. When we refuse to hate, when we insist on loving each other, insist on getting closer to one another, we use our power to change the big world.

It reminds me of the Buddhist image of the lotus flower— something beautiful that grows from roots that are deep down in the muck. What will grow up from your roots? Are you roots in grief, in fear, in hate? What can grow out of that even in a time of Judges, when everyone does what is right for themselves?

We can choose the small love. Whether you are Ruth, reaching out and insisting on clinging to someone who you know is in need. Whether you are Naomi, accepting the love that insists of working its way into your life— choose it. Choose the small love in the big world.

This week, as we move forward in hope— as we remember and take with us those we loved, as we vote in hope for change, as we work for a better world, let us remember to choose the small love in the big world. This week, let us insist on being kind when we could be harsh. Let us reach out to someone, even if it means dropping a kind text or buying a cup of coffee for a stranger or friend. This week, let us choose small love and let someone in– let someone buy that coffee, or may we allow ourselves to hear a compliment and let it touch our hearts. Whatever small thing it is, remember Ruth’s small love in the big world and that it was a powerful miracle and choose it. May we follow Naomi and let God’s spirit wrap around us.

May it be so.