October 17/18, 2010
Seminarian Mark Reichert

Ruth 1:1-19a - Faith Unites Us
I. To God
II. To Other Believers

Ruth 1:1-19 (New International Version)

1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. 3 Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. 6 When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. 8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. 9 May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband." Then she kissed them and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people." 11 But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!" 14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her. 15 "Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her." 16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. 19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.


Most people, when they hear these words, think of one thing: weddings. Chances are good either you or someone you know had part of this text read at their wedding. What it has to say about commitment makes it a great text for that purpose. But while this lesson is most often applied to marriage, it doesn’t have to be (I am sure the irony is not lost on us that perhaps our most beautiful expression of commitment is between in-laws). These words could just as easily be applied to our other relationships. Ruth simply presents divine and human love working next to each other in perfect harmony; it showcases faithful love and the kind of selfless humility that God rewards. Here we see that faith is the bond that unites us so closely in loyalty and affection not only to God, but also to other believers.

Our story begins in the time of the Judges, which is described as a time when “Israel had no king [and] everyone did as he saw fit” (Judges 21:25). It is not unreasonable to suspect that the famine that hit Israel at this time was God’s discipline for their unfaithfulness, but here we get a dim glimpse that there were still some who stayed faithful to God and his promises in those days. A man named Elimelech, who by his own name and by his faith testified that God is king, gathered his wife and sons and headed to where they could find bread, a hundred miles away in the heathen country of Moab. And while Elimelech just wanted to go where he could feed his family until conditions in Israel improved again, God had greater things in mind for this family’s stay.

Things perhaps didn’t go as planned for Elimelech, though, as his days were cut short before he could return to the Promised Land. And with the family’s spiritual leader now gone, the sons took for themselves Moabite wives, which no doubt displeased their God. Though Moabites were distant relatives to the Israelites – the Israelites descending from Abraham, while the Moabites descended from Abraham’s nephew Lot – intermarriage between the two nations was forbidden because Moabites were idol worshippers. Nonetheless, it seems like these marriages were short-lived, since both Mahlon and Kilion also died in Moab, as far as we can tell, leaving their widows childless. So the women of the family, the mother-in-law Naomi and her daughters-in-law Ruth and Orpah, were left to fend for themselves. There were no government programs in those days to protect the needy, so these women essentially had no way to support themselves but by begging, and who knows how that would have gone in a heathen nation like Moab.

But the night is darkest just before the dawn, and before long word reached Naomi that God in his mercy had come to the aid of his people and ended the famine in Israel. Clinging to her faith that transcended her misfortunes, this news signaled time to return home for Naomi, since food was the reason she came to Moab in the first place. It’s as she sets out with her daughters-in-law that we pick up the meat of the story.

Naomi had only two things when she left Moab: her faith, and her companions. The one caused her to leave Moab; love for the other caused her to try to leave Moab alone. Faith always shows itself in love toward God and others, and she knew that she had nothing left to offer her daughters-in-law. Though time and circumstances had created a very strong bond between the three, Naomi’s dedication to their well-being caused her to encourage them to go back to their homes. Though she had already lost so much personally, her love for them was so great that she wanted them also to leave her for their own good. Naomi was old and had no other sons for them to marry; her situation was essentially hopeless. Things would hardly be better for all of them in Israel than it would have been in Moab, since all the same, their husbands were dead and they still had no one to take care of them. On top of that, even though Ruth and Orpah were still young and marriageable, they would certainly have had a hard time finding young men to marry in Israel, since no doubt such men would not have been as willing to relax the demands of their marriage laws with so many other Jews around to take notice. So Naomi tries to convince them that throwing in their lot with her would be foolishness and that it was better to return to the households of their mothers, where they would be provided for and could find another husband to take care of them long-term.

At first Ruth and Orpah didn’t take her suggestion; they remained committed. But when Naomi continued to appeal and laid out for them what a tough life it might be if they stuck around, Orpah bit on her suggestion of release, giving in and parting ways for a better life of her own.

Sadly we see here the deficiencies of not only Orpah but also Naomi herself. When Naomi sent Orpah home to her own gods, she was totally compromising the foundation of belief in the true God that she and her family had built in her. In effect Naomi was saying and Orpah was showing that belief in and commitment to the true God was only worthwhile as long as life was good. Since life would likely not be good, it was best that she return to her home and her own gods and thereby give up the life and salvation that were hers through faith in the LORD. She was a fair-weather believer, and Naomi prodded her on. But since when has God said that a believer’s life will be easy? When did Jesus or the apostles or the prophets ever say that a believer’s life will be a cakewalk? Though some televangelists would have you believe so, the Bible makes it clear that faith in the true God will bring ridicule and trouble in this life. If you, like Orpah, have such a shallow faith that plays along only as long as life is good, you will soon find yourself worshipping at the altar of other gods too, namely yourself and your own needs. If you, like Naomi, do not have the backbone to stand up for what is right in the face of trouble and opposition, then you will soon forsake our Lord Jesus, who has promised, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). You will be left standing all alone in the darkness of despair because you chose worldly comfort over the heavenly faithfulness that your Lord asks of you, and you will deserve the divine punishment reserved for such a choice.

And in her moment of weakness, Naomi’s regrettable actions continue as she encourages Ruth down the same path. To Naomi’s shame and God’s glory, though, this fledgling believer Ruth stands as an example of what it means to conform one’s life to the will of God. Ruth firmly refuses Naomi’s appeal to return. Ruth holds her faith in God as something that transcends nationalities and physical circumstances. She voices that for Naomi with the immortal words that have exemplified commitment for so many over the years. And what do they all hang on? “Your God will be my God.” Since Ruth connected with this family of believers, faith grew in her heart and the LORD became everything to her, as He was to them. Now it was her turn to return the favor to Naomi, refocusing her on her true source of providence and comfort. Though Naomi had told her to go home and find rest in the home of another husband, Ruth replies that she already had rest – real, lasting rest – in the loving arms of our God, and she could find it nowhere else. Ruth’s actions spoke for Naomi the words of Jesus in Matthew 11(:28): “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Ruth knew that her faith united her to the true God, and that unity was worth more to her than any short-lived enjoyment with another Moabite husband. She knew that God is good and that he does in fact look after his people; so she left the details up to God’s mercy, content to trust him to work everything out for their good and through it all to bind them more securely to himself, and how right she was!

Maybe you had some bells going off in your head when I read v. 2 before. It says that Elimelech and his family were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. Some of you might remember from Christmases past a passage from the prophet Micah (5:2) that says, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” If it were not enough that through her contact with this Israelite family by a forbidden marriage Ruth became a believer and an heir of salvation, we find out later in this book that Ruth ends up being an ancestor of King David. And who was the foremost descendant of King David? It’s a guy you’ve probably heard of – his name was Jesus! That means this Moabite Ruth was the great, great, great, and so on grandmother of our Lord! Talk about God working the best out of a bad situation! I am not sure Ruth ever would have imagined that she would be so blessed as to be grafted into the line of the Savior, but she had faith in God’s grace. Nor should we expect such an outstanding gift from God, but we should expect (because he has promised it) that God is watching out for us with our best interests in mind, and if he did such a great thing for Ruth, he can also do great things for us. Whatever you’re going through right now, be assured that God knows, he sympathizes, his heart aches with yours, and he’s going to bring you through it stronger and closer to him. Have faith that he will take care of you in every situation, and know that that same unity God had with Ruth and Naomi he also shares with you. He created it at the cost of his own body and blood that Jesus sacrificed for you on the cross. He assures you of it with his Word and Sacraments, and wants you to know that his love for you will never fail. Nothing can rip you out of his hands. There you have security, peace, and contentment – a true place of rest.
Transition: And among the greatest blessings of our unity with God through faith is our unity with other believers; it’s a unity so close that it can only be compared to the unity of the Father and the Son, just as Jesus prays in John 17 for all believers, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

But sadly, we all know how common the unity displayed between Naomi and Ruth is these days. Unless you’re seeing things a whole lot differently than I am, often “unity” might not be the word I would use to describe a Christian congregation. Sinful people that we are, our own preferences and opinions tend to divide us, rather than unify us in love. When other things get in the way and make us forget that we are truly brothers and sisters in Christ, closer even, not only can we destroy our unity between believers but it can also lead to destruction of our unity with God. The two go hand in hand, and if our sin so clouds our thinking that we cannot get over ourselves enough to appreciate our brothers and sisters as fellow blood-bought children of God who as such deserve our loyalty and affection, if we even for a moment think that others aren’t worthy of a spot in God’s Kingdom, then our equally undeserved spot in that kingdom is at risk of forfeiture as well.

But the fact that Jesus did pray for it and because it is held in such high esteem as shown between Naomi and Ruth tells us that our Christian fellowship is a gift of God that we should treasure. In Scripture, the bond between believers is compared to the bond between siblings. This is among the closest bonds that exists in this world, and yet the same verb that is translated here “Ruth clung to Naomi” is also used in Proverbs 18:24, which says even that “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” As close as we are to our blood brothers and sisters, as much as we love them and cherish them, we should cherish our relationship with each other that much more, since ours is a blood relationship as well –that formed by the blood of Christ that was shed to take away our sins. Ruth said to Naomi “Your God will be my God,” and that resulted in “your people will be my people.” Just as Jesus warned might have to happen in Matthew 10, Ruth broke from her national and familial loyalties for the sake of the Gospel, to testify to its truth. She may have left her family and people in Moab, but in so doing, in remaining true to the Gospel, she gained a new family – a spiritual one, a lasting one, one that finds its head in Christ. She became a true Israelite, a welcome member of the family of all believers of all times – that same family that you belong to even now by faith in Jesus.

Conclusion: A gentleman at the Sem told me recently about the vows he spoke at his wedding. He recited them for me and when he got to the end, he said, “…most important of all,” and it is most important of all, “I vow to walk with God with you for the rest of my life. I thank God for you; I love you.” He captured the spirit of Ruth’s total commitment to Naomi perfectly. It is an unshakeable unity that comes only with a common faith in Jesus. Most often Ruth’s words are used to describe a God-pleasing marriage relationship, and rightly so - “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). But more generally, the same goes for our whole lives in this world. After all, Ruth and Naomi were not married – they were just two believers united in spirit by their mutual faith. Treasure your fellowship with other believers, build each other up, because the times are evil. Appreciate that “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). Take comfort that, as the apostle Paul reminds us, believers are a body – many parts, many functions, but one unified body – and that our head is Christ, who rules over everything in love for the good of his Church. And relish God’s undying loyalty to us that sent his Son to die on the cross to preserve our unity for all time. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Holy Supper that unites us to God and each other. Thank God for all these blessings we have through faith. Amen.