All's Well that Ends Well (Ruth 4.1-22)

Introduction

We don’t want life to be complicated. What we’re looking for is life that is straightforward, simple and trouble-free. We want life to be like driving with nice scenery, on new tarmac, straight to your destination, with empty overtaking lanes and no Sunday drivers in the way.

But in reality, for most of us, life is more like driving on an obscure, winding lane in the middle of nowhere. The satnav, if it' snot broken, is sending you down blind alleys, there are potholes, tractors in the way, there’s fog, sometimes snow, there are uncut hedges scratching the paintwork on your car and herds of sheep stepping out in front of you every other my mile.

Yes, I have driven in Wales before...

A lot of the time, you’re getting nowhere. But for Christians, all along this narrow, winding road, there are signposts that say things like, "My grace is sufficient for you" and “I am with you always” and “those who persevere to the end will be saved.”

The book of Ruth is like a tour guide for this journey. If you are confused or weary, the message of Ruth is that, however hard the road seems, it is absolutely not a dead end. In every turn of your life, God is at work, and the final outcome is fullness of joy.

Many of you have been away for much of this series, so let’s review the three preceding chapters.

The Story So Far…

The story so far is a series of tragedies, disappointments and setbacks. In Chapter 1, Naomi, her husband and their two boys leave their home town of Bethlehem because of a famine and relocate to an unholy place called Moab. The head of the family, Elimelek, dies. The two sons meet Moabite women and marry outside of God’s people. For ten years, neither couple is able to have children. Then the two sons die, leaving Naomi with her two daughters-in-law, all three now destitute widows.

And even though Ruth loves and stands by her mother-in-law, Chapter 1 ends with Naomi saying she has become bitter and cynical. "I’m coming home empty handed” she says. “Thank you God for nothing.”

God’s Sovereignty

We’ve called this series “Ruth: The Invisible Hand of God.” All the way through the book, you can see God at work through everyday events, weaving them into the narrative of his greater purposes.

We believe that God is all-powerful. He is almighty. He can do whatever he wants. God is sovereign. Nothing takes him by surprise. We also believe that God is absolutely good. He abounds in love, is kind, compassionate and patient.

But this raises a big problem. People ask “If God can do anything, and if God is always good, why doesn’t he do something about everything that’s wrong in the world? Why does he allow evil to flourish?

People ask, “Why did God kill whole families in that earthquake in Italy this week?” But no, God is a loving Father, not an assassin. He can do anything but that doesn’t mean that everything that happens in our lives is God’s will and pleasure. The Bible shows us that he gets angry, he gets upset, he feels pain. Bad things don’t happen because he wants them to, they happen because our world is broken and messed up, ultimately because of human rebellion against God.

So how does it work that God is both sovereign and loving? It means that in the end, God works all things, even bad things that are not his will, into a greater, grander, overarching purpose which is his saving plan for the world.

Jesus has already written the last page of the book of world history. It says that everything works together in the end and he will triumph, finally defeating evil.

The Story So Far… Cont./

Anyway, in Chapter 2 Naomi begins to wonder if there is perhaps some hope after all because this kind and Godly man with a good job, who just happens to be single, called Boaz turns up and he is so kind to Ruth that Naomi begins to hope against hope that Cupid’s arrows might start to fly.

In those days, your personal significance and self-worth were secured by one thing only; ensuring your family line continued.

Naomi is now past childbearing age but Ruth isn’t, and even though she had not managed to conceive for ten years with her first husband, there’s a tiny chance that just maybe it was he that was infertile and not her. If - and it’s a big if – if Ruth could marry and have children, Naomi would have a grandchild and thus a name. That’s what she’s desperate for.

But Boaz, kind and considerate though he is, is no Casanova. There is a bit of suspense in Chapter 2. Is he, or isn’t he, going to show any interest? Has he got eyes for Ruth or not? Ruth wonders to herself, “Should I risk forcing the can-we-define-this-relationship conversation”?

But the chapter ends tantalizingly with tension and uncertainty. We don’t like that, do we? We want to know. We want answers. It’s hard to trust God when you just don’t know where you stand.

In Chapter 3, Naomi and Ruth throw caution to the wind in an audacious move that I personally wouldn’t advise any young woman to try at home.

Ruth puts on her best dress and perfume, creeps into Boaz’s room when he’s asleep at night, having had a few drinks, and she snuggles up by his feet. He wakes up. She startles him. Who’s this lovely woman lying down at the end of his bed? “I am your servant, Ruth” she says. In the circumstances, that sounds perilously like “Anything I can do for you Boaz?”

But Boaz is a godly man and he doesn’t take advantage of her at all. "Protect me as my husband” she says. “I am not asking you to marry me. That would be weird. But I am asking you to ask me to marry you." This is amazing. Even in our culture of equality, it’s usually men who initiate courtship and propose marriage. In those days, and in that culture, even more so; this was totally not done.

Then, interestingly, Boaz says to Ruth not how presumptuous she is, but how kind she is. He says, “You haven’t gone running after younger men.” So Boaz is an older man. He calls Ruth “my daughter” so he’s probably old enough to be her dad.

Why would an older man with property and a good income be unmarried? Was it just that he hadn’t yet met Miss Perfect? Did he have some physical disfigurement? Was his personal hygiene a bit iffy? Was he just not the marrying type? None of the above.

Here’s the reason; no girl wanted to marry Boaz because of who his mother was. Matthew 1.5 tells us that his mother was Rahab – that’s the same Rahab we meet in Joshua 6; a prostitute who betrayed her own people. For some reason, none of the girls in Bethlehem want a double-dealing retired sex worker as a mother-in-law!

Boaz is a nice guy, and he’s done well for himself, but he’s got baggage and no one wants to marry into his family - except Ruth, who sees his heart and accepts him, and loves him for what he is. No wonder Boaz says to Ruth in 3.10 “The Lord bless you for this kindness.”

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Many people have a poor self-image, even Christians. But the Lord looks deeper into your heart.

Here’s how special you are: when your parents conceived you, there was 1 chance in 350 million that you were the outcome, because that’s how many sperm cells race towards each unfertilized egg every time a baby is made. (On average, that is. I haven’t actually counted…)

You are chosen by the Father. You are the focus of his affection. You are the apple of his eye. You are his son, his daughter, by faith. He has lavished grace upon you. You were once cut off from mercy, but now you are part of a chosen people, a holy, treasured possession.

Shifting the Last Obstacle

But just when Ruth and Naomi see light at the end of the tunnel, just as their long and winding roads straighten at last, an almighty landslide blocks the highway.

There is someone else who, according to Jewish custom, is first in line to redeem Ruth and marry her. It’s complicated. So again chapter 3 ends with suspense and uncertainty.

But in Ruth 4.1-13 Boaz removes this last obstacle.

Here's the problem in three sentences.

1) The law said that if someone lost his land, for whatever reason, his immediate family had the right to redeem it (that is, to buy it back and keep it the family).

2) If a man who lost his property died before having children, the nearest of kin had a duty to marry his widow and have children to perpetuate the name of the deceased. The name had to be preserved at all costs.

3) If this new couple had children, it was the children who inherited the land, not the nearest of kin who had redeemed it.

So Boaz discusses the situation at the city gate, with this nearest of kin. We don’t know his name. Boaz calls him “friend” so let’s call him Mr. Friend.

Boaz tells him that Naomi is selling some land. It’s not worth much. Otherwise Ruth wouldn’t have been gleaning like a beggar in the field. Naomi needs to sell her one small asset just to have food to eat. So Boaz says “You have first refusal; it’s yours if you want it. If not, I’m next in line.”

Now, Mr. Friend is a waste of space. He is the redeemer. He has a moral obligation to look after Naomi and Ruth after their husbands’ death. This is his job. What has he done for these widows so far? Nothing. He hasn’t called round, he hasn’t provided for them, he hasn’t protected them - he doesn’t care.

In v4, it all goes pear-shaped. Mr. Friend does want to buy the land. So Ruth, this sweet, loyal, hardworking, godly woman is going to get landed with a guy who doesn’t love her and doesn’t care and Boaz is going home empty handed.

So Boaz ups his game and what he does is brilliant. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Did I mention the small print? The land comes with a Moabite woman (a foreign migrant, on benefits) whom you’ll have to marry. She’s been married before, she doesn’t seem to be able to have children. And she has a bitter mother-in-law who’d have to live in your house as well. The two of them are inseparable. Still interested?”

Mr. Friend’s jaw drops and he says, “I would love to, but I just can’t. You do it.” Boaz, under his breath, says, “Yes!” and they shake hands on the deal.

And so in v9, Boaz becomes the family guardian and redeemer. He doesn’t have to, remember. He is under no legal obligation at all. Just like Jesus didn’t have to redeem us. He chose us out of pure grace.

There are so many parallels.

Boaz was eligible to redeem Ruth - Jesus was eligible to redeem us.

Boaz was willing to redeem Ruth - Jesus was willing to redeem us.

Boaz paid a price to redeem Ruth - Jesus paid the highest price to redeem us; his own blood.

Boaz overcame obstacles to redeem Ruth - Jesus overcame the greatest obstacle to redeem us by rising again.

Boaz was under no obligation to redeem Ruth. Jesus didn’t have to redeem us either. It was pure grace.

In this part of the story, Ruth is in the background, and doesn’t say a word. Her redemption is a free gift to which she contributes nothing.

We don’t bring anything to our redemption either; no good works, no religious performance, no persuasive arguments, just ourselves, as we are.

So, v13, Ruth and Boaz marry, make love and have a child. In that order. They don’t shack up together for a couple of years to see if they’re compatible. A dozen studies from the 1970s into the early 2000s showed that, on average, couples who cohabit before marriage have a 33% higher chance of divorcing than couples who move in together after the wedding.

Ruth and Boaz commit to one another, for better, for worse, then they consummate their marriage, and then they have a little boy called Obed which means “servant worshipper.”

After all the darkness; the famine, the funerals, the poverty, the homelessness, the low-paid jobs, the misery, the bitterness - here is Naomi, tears running down her face, with a grandson in her arms; a little boy born in Bethlehem who makes everything right. Who does that remind you of?

And I love it in v15 where they say to Naomi, “your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given birth.” In other words, she has given you a name, she has made you a somebody from a nobody.

In our world, even in our day, especially in places like China and North Africa, people often say that boys are worth more than girls. In fact, we don’t even have to go abroad to find this.

In 2012, two doctors in Birmingham and Sheffield were filmed in an undercover investigation offering to abort babies because they were girls which thankfully is illegal.

The Crown Prosecution Service had sufficient evidence to prosecute these doctors, but decided it was not in the public interest to do so. So someone launched a private prosecution and the doctors were summonsed to answer charges in Manchester Crown Court. 

The CPS refused to release the footage, so the judge could not allow it as evidence. The case collapsed and the court ordered the brave young woman who brought the case to pay these doctors who offered gender-targeted terminations £36,000, plus £11,000 costs.

So in the UK we have state-sponsored abortion by healthy mothers of healthy babies because they are girls. I cannot tell you how disgusted and ashamed that makes me to be British.

God’s word says that godly and kind daughters, like Ruth, are more valuable than the perfect number of sons.

Ending

I’ve spoken about Boaz, and how, as a redeemer he foreshadows Jesus. But I want to end by looking at this young woman, Ruth, who had nothing, but through faith became the great-grandmother of King David.

You look at Ruth, and:

·       You see one who left the comfort of her father’s house to became poor in a strange place

·       You see one who loved the loveless

·       You see one who considered a man’s heart, not his background

·       You see one who gave her life for a bitter, hopeless woman and became her salvation

This laughing stock, this family tragedy who had no name, became, through faith, the ancestor of the one whose name is above every name.

Because when you look at Ruth, you see her greatest descendant, the Lord Jesus.

The invisible hand of God; may we have faith to trust that it is at work in the everyday ups and downs of our lives to bring outcomes we could scarcely dream of.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 28 August 2016

The Kindness of Grace (Ruth 2.14-23)

Introduction

So we continue our journey through the delightful book of Ruth. If you have been away for any of the last three Sundays, you’ll have missed some, or all, of the story up till now, which is why I’m going to spend the first half of this talk reviewing what we’ve looked at in the last three weeks, and the second half on today’s reading.

Ruth is set in the days when the Judges ruled in Israel, a time of national spiritual decline, when no one sought the Lord, and everyone did, not as God requires, but as they thought best.

The story begins ominously with a series of tragedies; a famine in Bethlehem, the relocation of a distressed family to a strange and godless land, the death of the breadwinner Elimelek, the intermarriage of his two sons with women who didn’t know God, and then the sons’ deaths too, leaving three destitute widows including Naomi, who now changes her name from Pleasant to Bitter.

But then one of the younger widows, Ruth, converts to faith in the God of Israel and, in an act of breathtaking devotion, holds fast to her ageing mother-in-law. They both journey to Bethlehem, which by this time has returned to agricultural abundance.

Kathryn spoke last week about how it just so happens that Ruth ends up in the field of a good man named Boaz, and she is allowed to glean (that is to say to harvest the edges of the field and gather the leftovers that everyone else missed).

This was a kind of benefits system; this was basically the equivalent of a Social Security cheque or welfare stamps or a foodbank and it was legislated for in the Bible to save widows and orphans and foreigners from starvation.

God is still at work today in foodbanks. About four years ago, a group of Christians acting on Jesus' words to feed the hungry, began a foodbank and drop-in in Halifax.

Many vulnerable people, often with chaotic lifestyles, started coming to collect a free food parcel. There were homeless people, there were destitute single parents, there were asylum seekers, there were people in debt getting ripped off by loan sharks, there were young people on drugs or already alcoholics.

And something started to happen. More and more of these people started to ask for prayer. They began to see those prayers answered, one by one, many came into a relationship with God and a new church was started called Saturday Gathering.

Their strap line is beautiful, listen to this: “We believe that everyone is significant, nothing is impossible, everything was accomplished at the cross, and we are loved with an extravagant, everlasting love.”

People keep coming to faith. They’re seeing the restoration of hope where there was no future. They’ve baptized over a hundred new believers in Jesus in the last two years. They worship noisily and exuberantly. This is Jesus, this is what he does, this is what he’s like.

Providence

You’ll notice that from 1.6 onwards, there have been several “twists of fate” as we might see it. “As it turned out” the Bible says in 2.3. It just so happened that

(1) it was harvest time when Ruth and Naomi arrived,

and that (2) Ruth ended up in Boaz’s field, and that

and that (3) he passed by that day,

and that (4) he noticed a hardworking young woman he didn’t remember hiring

and that (5) he asked about her,

and that (6) the guy he asked knew her story; that she was a penniless foreigner who had shown amazing kindness and devotion to her mother-in-law Naomi,

and that (7) he told Boaz the whole story.

And it just so happens… that Boaz is the best, kindest, most Godly boss you could work for. He comes into work with a big smile on his face and says to all his employees, “The Lord be with you!”

Remember this is the godless time of the Judges. Nobody is interested in spiritual things. Nobody wants to talk about God at work. But Boaz does. His name means “strength” and he is a spiritual giant in a time of pathetically weak faith.

He notices the new girl and he assigns good, mature, supportive women to look after her and help her settle in. He introduces the world’s first zero tolerance sexual harassment at work policy to protect her. He sees to it personally that she gets all the refreshment breaks she needs.

If you’ve got any kind of responsibility at work, learn from Boaz. Everyone wants to work in his field because he’s fair, he’s generous, he takes a personal interest in his employees, and they know he loves God.

Now then, we need to understand that divine intervention happens in two ways. Firstly, God sometimes does an amazing miracle. He gives dreams and visions, he heals the sick, he inspires accurate prophecies, he answers prayer in incredible ways, he changes the weather, he sends angels…

In many and various powerful ways God sometimes breaks into our experience and visibly changes outcomes.

But most of the time, God works invisibly; weaving the natural, unremarkable, routine circumstances of our lives into the overarching narrative of his sovereign plan and purposes. Someone has called these kinds of coincidences “God-incidences.” The story of Ruth is full of them; it shows the invisible hand of God at work and we call this providence.

On the reverse side of both realities; of miracles and providence, is prayer.

The author and pastor John Ortberg talks about his Uncle Otis who was a legend in prayer and saw many signs and wonders. He once prayed for a man who told him that he suffered from constipation. So he laid a hand on this poor man and closed his eyes and prayed earnestly, “Lord, heal this man immediately!” Thankfully, that particular prayer went unanswered…

But God does work miracles in answer to prayer. And God weaves his purposes into the fabric of our lives through prayer.

Thus far in Ruth we have encountered two prayers. The first is found in 1.8-9 and it says “May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

The second comes in 2.12; “May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

By the end of the book, both prayers are answered in every last detail.

The Story Continues…

So we pick up today in chapter 2, verse 14.

It’s lunch time and Boss of the Year Boaz is ready to tuck in. What I love about Boaz is that he notices this outsider, with a foreign accent, all on her own, without a friend in the world and invites her to his table.

It’s her first day at work, she hasn’t got a penny to her name; she hasn’t brought a packed lunch, she doesn’t know what to do. He notices – and welcomes her to join him for lunch. Look how he bestows honour on her.

I used to be a trainee manager for a large retail outfit that you will all have heard of. And I was shocked to learn on my first day that the management team and the workers ate at different tables in the canteen. So my first lunch break I put some food on my tray and went over to sit with some guys I’d been working with that morning. One of the managers came over and has a word in my ear and pointed to the management table. “This is where you belong, not with the riff-raff.” I prefer what Boaz does.

Boaz is the big cheese, remember. He owns the whole field. He hires and fires the workers. He’s a man of stature, of wherewithal. He’d expect to be waited on by servants. But look, v14! Who is serving whom? Boaz is serving Ruth, this nobody on her first day. Here is a courteous man who honours and serves a woman; he sits her down, he offers her all that’s on the table.

She eats her fill, and in fact has more than enough because there’s plenty left over to take home to Naomi. Boaz, in other words, supplies abundantly more than Ruth can ask or imagine. This looks like grace.

Is Boaz starting to remind you of anyone? Who said this? “The one at table greater is than the one who serves. But I am among you as one who serves.” Jesus. Boaz is like Jesus. There is a striking resemblance, a family resemblance in fact because, as we’ll see in two weeks’ time, Boaz is actually an ancestor of Jesus.

The book of Ruth, though written over 1000 years before Christ, is all about Jesus. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures [i.e. the Old Testament] because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” (John 5.39). In Luke 24.27 it says “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

There are shadows of Jesus here, all over the book of Ruth.

Boaz, like Jesus, sees Ruth’s heart. He sees how loyal she has been, how she pours out life for others. He sees that she’s hard working; she’s not expecting something for nothing. He sees her humility, she’s not above menial work. He sees her heart for God, how she gave up on her false gods in Moab to seek refuge under the wings of the God of Israel.

Boaz could have looked at all Ruth’s baggage instead. She’s a foreigner, she’s penniless, she’s on welfare, she’s not a virgin, she’s dirty and sweaty from working in the fields all morning, picking up the leftovers, she’s got a bitter mother-in-law…

Ruth has very little going for her. But Boaz is like Jesus. He sees past the baggage.

I heard this week a true story from about five years ago about a single mother with crippling debts whose young child had a serious illness. She lived in a large American city and health care is expensive there. She didn’t know what to do. She found her way to a church and heard the gospel and was converted and got baptized, and they helped her to get her life sorted out.

One young couple in the church, who had good jobs, and who were doing OK, heard about this woman and her son and their hearts were moved with compassion. They had just bought a nice shining 4x4 but they felt the Lord speak to them about it. So they took the car back to the showroom, cashed it in, and took this woman and her boy under their wing.

They fixed her up with somewhere to stay near the hospital and paid all the bills. They paid for her little boy’s health care. And he got better. They helped her find a job and wrote references for her and she got her life on track. This is the church. This is who we are.

When God looks at you, if you have faith in Jesus he doesn’t see your baggage at all. He doesn’t see any sin, he doesn’t see your failures, he doesn’t see your darkness, he doesn’t see your unworthiness – he sees only the perfect record of Jesus.

So Boaz (v15-16) tells his men to be kind to her, to not treat her harshly, or make her cry, and give her all the breaks she needs.

Ruth works hard until sundown (v17) and in one day, according to the commentaries, she makes the equivalent of six week’s wages. At that rate she will have earned a year’s wages by the end of the barley harvest.

She gets home (v18-19), gives Naomi the doggie bag from lunch and shows Naomi what she earned that day. Naomi can’t hide her amazement. “Wow, how did you glean all that in one day? What field were you in? Who’s the boss? This is amazing!”

I want you to notice something: Naomi, this woman who said, “Call me bitter” in chapter 1 has started to taste the sweetness of grace and her heart is warming. A smile is returning to her mouth. “The Lord bless him” she says. Not “Wow, that was lucky!” She sees the beginning of the answer to her weary prayers. Look, she’s becoming a worshipper again! “He has not stopped showing kindness” she says.

It’s the Lord’s kindness that leads us to repentance says Romans 2.4 and Naomi is starting to repent of her bitterness towards God, her hard heart, and her foolish, prayerless choices.

By the end of chapter 2 Naomi and Ruth have shelter, a good income, food and security and prayers are being answered. They haven’t got everything they hope for, but through the kindness of God’s grace they are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ending

As I close, notice this; Boaz invites Ruth to his table to eat and drink, and there was bread and wine. She has nothing to bring to the table, nothing to offer, just herself. And she sits in the presence of this kind spiritual giant, who is full of grace.

Jesus invites us to his table this morning. There is bread and wine. Like Ruth, we have nothing to bring to the table, nothing to offer, just ourselves. We can all feast on the abundance of the Lord’s grace today, and bask in the presence of the one who can change our spiritual rags to heavenly riches.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 14 August 2016