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