I found this article by Steve Kneale very thought provoking. Steve picks up on two things which we can miss. First, I think we can so sanitise Bible accounts (it’s true of the life of Abraham and the account of Esther too), in order to make them fit for Sunday School and so we iron out the bumps and remove the shock factor. I think that Steve is right. Naomi isn’t sending Ruth off for a nice, innocent cup of tea with Boaz, she sends her at night, the language is euphemistic perhaps but the sense is that Ruth is meant to seduce, to entrap Boaz. It’s not the kind of incident we want to be talking about. It’s not the kind of message we want to convey when teaching young people about relationships. So, we tidy up the story and make it into something genteel.
Secondly, we perhaps only give passing reference to a really crucial verse in the story: Naomi on her return from Moab asks the people not to call her Naomi anymore because she is not pleasant, she is bitter. She believes that bitterness has come upon her life. Understandably so! She has experienced exile to a foreign land, the loss of her husband and sons and a shameful return. We may well sympathise with her bitterness.
I wonder if we see this bitterness outworking in other ways. Naomi believes that it is God who has “dealt bitterly” with her. She believes it is him who has caused her to lose her fullness, to be brought back empty. And of course, God is sovereign over our lives. However, we need to see his character and purposes rightly when we look to that sovereignty. So, if she carries a bitterness and blames God, then we may not be surprised that on the journey she sends Orpah back and attempts to get Ruth to return to Moab as well. It may be her duty to return to home. She may even have some hope for herself. However, does she really want the reminder of her loss and bitterness with her? Does she really want to bring Moab home given that Moab means disease and death to her? And can she really expect God to provide for them? Can she entrust them to her God?
This makes Ruth’s response all the more remarkable:
“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. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”
Ruth has not yet been given the opportunity to taste the goodness of God and yet she entrusts her life to the Lord. She has not yet seen the blessing of being part of God’s people, yet she unites herself with Naomi’s people. There is real faith at work there and God blesses and rewards that faith.
Faithroots 