Your People Shall Be My People

Ruth 1.1-18

Ethnicity was a big deal back in the days of Ruth. I’m sure you can’t imagine it now, that one’s ethnicity could determine the whole course of a person’s life, but in Ruth’s day, that’s how things were.

Ruth was born a Moabite. She grew up with the customs of Moab. It wasn’t something she thought about, it just was. Ruth had no concept of the mores of the Moabites until the Jews suffered a famine and began to move into Moab. Then she became aware of the differences between them and herself and her people by extension.

When she was a child she learned about the gods of the Moabites and how they were worshipped. The Moabites had many gods. There was a god who cared for them and watched over them on a daily basis. There was a god who created the world and made sure it continued to function. There was a god that protected them when they were in danger. For each activity of life, the Moabites had a god to watch over them. The Jews had only one God, and that God seemed to do it all.

The Jews also had customs that seemed odd to Ruth. At the end of the week, the Jews stopped everything that they did and just sat around their houses. They would say prayers to God and they would rest. That was all they did and they called it Sabbath. The Moabites worked every minute they could. Ruth observed that they weren’t lazy like the others and they didn’t stop to pray. The differences were all very odd to Ruth, but she took heart that she did not need to understand the Jews, she did not need to learn their customs. Ethnicity was acquired at birth and Moab had no naturalization process, no green cards. Ruth figured she was a Moabite from the day she was born and would be a Moabite until the day she died.

The family of Elimelech moved into Ruth’s neighborhood when she was still a child. Her mother told her that they were Jews who had fled the famine and had decided to reside among the people of Ruth’s town. Not long after their move, the head of the household, Elimelech died. That left his wife Naomi and her two sons. Some in Ruth’s neighborhood had thought that they might return to Judah, but they continued to live among the Moabites.

After the family of Elimelech had lived among the Moabites for some years, conversations were had and negotiations were made and Ruth and her friend Orpah were married to the sons of Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion. Even in marriage Ruth did not feel like she needed to change her ways. The thought never even occurred to her because change was impossible. One could not change one’s ethnicity any more than one could permanently change eye color or hair color. Ruth intended to teach her children about the Moabite gods and about Moabite customs. But there were no children to teach because, after the family of Elimelech had lived in Moab ten years, Mahlon and Chilion also died.

In a time and place were independence was of no value, where independence meant starvation and death, Ruth and Orpah’s new family had disintegrated and they were left with no protection, no safety . There was no social welfare system, no opportunity to work, no universal health care, no Section 8 housing, no food stamps or Maryland Food Bank or Paul’s Place. There was no one to care for them and they were unable to care for themselves because of the social system. Their father-in-law, who had become their father and protector in marriage, was gone. Their husbands, who had been their safety and livelihood, were gone. They were left with a widow of a mother-in-law and one another. They were three women – without power or claim in the world. They were like flotsam tossed about in the river of life’s circumstance. They had no control. They had been controlled by the men in their lives and, in the absence of men, they could conceive of nothing.

Ruth and Orpah, at least, were young. They could return to their fathers’ houses – to the protection and care of their childhood, eventually to remarry. But Naomi had no protection. With no male relatives alive she was a non-person, a non-entity, for whom no one was obligated to care. Awash in despair, Naomi turned to her last resort and decided to return to Judah in search of some distant relative, some distant family connection, to care for her.

Naomi was practical and realistic. She knew that her fate was likely death – due to starvation or exposure to the elements or some form of neglect. She did not want that for her daughters-in-law. She told them to return to their families, to find refuge in their fathers’ houses. As they walked toward Bethlehem, Naomi insisted that Ruth and Orpah turn back. Like a persuasive prosecutor she laid out her argument that there was no future for them with her, that there were no more sons to be their husbands that their most secure option was to be with their fathers.

Finally they stopped. The two young women had heard Naomi’s arguments. Tears of despair filled the eyes of all three women and they wept together. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and turned back to her father’s house. But Ruth turned to Naomi and clung to her. No longer did she view Naomi as other, as different, as foreign. Instead, Ruth viewed Naomi with the rule of love. Instead, she saw the two as one. “Your people shall be my people,” she told her mother-in-law.

In a time before conversion was possible, one could not change one’s born ethnicity, in a time when faith was a way of life rather than a choice, in a time before anyone was born again, Ruth adopted a new people, a new ethnic identity, and a new faith. Had she turned back to her father’s house, Ruth would have been guaranteed her safety, she would have been cared for, but, in the name of love, she forsook an easy life to go with and care for her neighbor Naomi.

When we gather around the table, like Ruth, we are proclaiming and live out the greatest commandment - that love of neighbor is an act of loving God and an act in response to God’s love. Around the table we are embodying the belief that there is no other God but God. That there is one God to whom we offer praise. That there is one God who has given us all that we have, even the Son Jesus Christ so that our sins would be forgiven and we might have life eternal.

Around the table we are embodying and practicing the love of neighbor. We are boldly proclaiming that we are one people. We are God’s people. Around the table there is no ethnicity and no division, there are no politics and no divergent theology, around this table we are one, for it is not the table of the Moabites or the Jews. It is God’s table.

And all who believe in God may find their safety, their protection, their welcome around the table in God’s love and the presence God’s community.