Emptiness & Fullness

Proper 23, Year C | Ruth 1:1-19a

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The story of Ruth is our story.  Ruth’s story is your story.  And I hope to help you find yourself in our OT reading for today.

One thing that is necessary for finding yourself in Ruth’s story is to understand our OT reading in its full context.  And unfortunately, whoever chose the lectionary readings ended our OT reading too soon.  There are 3 and a half more verses after our OT reading, and would you believe that those 3 and a half verses contain the key for understanding Ruth chapter 1?  Since 3 and a half verses is not very much, I would like to read those for you now, before we really dive in.  On the back of your bulletin, the OT reading ends with, “So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.”  Ruth chapter 1 continues:

“And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ She said to them, ‘Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.  I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?’  So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.”

Now, part of the key to understanding this story requires me to remind you that the covenant that God made with Israel on Mt. Sinai was very different than the New Covenant that Jesus made with us.  The NC is pure grace – it is pure gift.  God freely forgives us because Jesus died on the cross for us, and God gives you Jesus’s righteousness as a free gift so that you are considered to be as righteous as Jesus.  But the Sinai covenant was conditional.  IF Israel obeyed, God would bless them.  And IF Israel disobeyed, God would curse them.  In Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter 28, God told Israel that if they obeyed, one of their blessings would be that they would have big, fat, healthy, and abundant crops – same with their livestock.  But he also told them that if they disobeyed, their crops would wither up and die, and their livestock would wither up and die, also.

So as Ruth chapter 1 opens, there was a famine in the land of Israel.  If you are tracking with me so far, and if you are sitting there thinking, “I’ll bet that the famine in Ruth 1:1 was because Israel was stubbornly disobedient to God,” – YOU. ARE. CORRECT.  But another piece of background that is closely related to the Sinai covenant being a conditional covenant, is that God had told Israel that the actual, physical land of Israel was holy.  Everything IN it was holy.  Government was holy, culture was holy, obviously the tabernacle was holy – EVERYTHING was holy.  Everything OUTSIDE of the land of Israel was common or non-holy – and God wanted his people, Israel, to be holy, and not to go into non-holy countries (normally).

And that is important because as Ruth chapter 1 opens, an Israelite man and his family LEAVE the holy land of Israel to go to try to find food in a wicked country called Moab (which is just on the other side of the Dead Sea from Israel).  Now perhaps I am being too hard on this family for leaving God’s holy land to look for food.  After all, they were starving.  But it IS an important detail.

But the other key to understanding this story is that Hebrew names almost always mean something.  And the names in Ruth chapter 1 practically do all of the storytelling.  There was a famine in Israel, but our story is focused on the city of Bethlehem – which means “House of Bread.”  So the House of Bread had no bread.  The man who led his family out of Israel and into Moab to find food – his name was Elimelech – which means, “My God is King.”  Now you can work out for yourself whether you think Elimelech is acting like God is his king – but I think that Elimelech would act differently if God were truly his king.

Elimelech’s wife was named Naomi – which means “My Pleasantness.”  One of their sons was named Mahlon (meaning “Weakness”), and the other son was named Chilion (meaning “Pining” or “Yearning”).  Mahlon and Chilion each married a Moabite woman – one was named Orpah, and the other was named Ruth.

Well, after the man named “My God is King” led his entire family away from God’s country, he died.  And his two sons died.  So Naomi (“My Pleasantness”) was left with only her two daughters-in-law.  Naomi (“My Pleasantness”) tried to persuade Orpah and Ruth to go back to their Moabite families.  When they refused, we see that Namoi is not Pleasant – she is Bitter – because the hand of God has gone out against her.

So Orpah turned and went back to her family in Moab.  But Ruth clung to Naomi.  And Ruth said to Naomi, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. 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.  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.”  Now that sounds like what God says to his people in the OT over and over again: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”  So Ruth is confessing her faith – not in the words of the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed – but in God’s own words to his people.  Ruth is confessing her faith in the One, True God.

So Ruth and Naomi returned to Bethlehem – the House of Bread that had been empty – only to find that the famine was over, because it was the beginning of the barley harvest.  When they arrived, all of the women of Bethlehem came out and said, “Is this Naomi (“My Pleasantness”)?  But Naomi said, “Do not call me Naomi (“My Pleasantness”); Call me Mara (which means “Bitterness”), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.  I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.  Why call me Naomi (“My Pleasantness”) when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

At the beginning of the story, Bethlehem – the House of Bread – had been empty.  But now it was barley harvest in Bethlehem, and so there would be abundant bread in the House of Bread again.  Ruth had started out empty – without faith in the One, True God – but thanks to Naomi, Ruth wants Yahweh to be her God, and she trusts God’s promises – even his promises about the Messiah.  So Ruth is now full of faith in Jesus.  Noami left Bethlehem – empty of food, but full of family – with her husband and her two sons.  But when her husband and two sons died, Naomi was empty of food, empty of her husband and two sons, and empty of faith in God.  But Ruth – who was full of faith in God – clung to Naomi.  Bitter Naomi wanted to push everyone and everything away in her bitterness – including God.  But Ruth – who was full of faith in God – refused to let Naomi push her away.

So this story is about emptiness and fullness.  In terms of the highs and lows of life, we all know what it is like to feel empty, and to feel full.  But people loved by God – we are all born spiritually empty – because Adam removed righteousness from the human race.  Adam’s sin is counted as your sin, and my sin.  But just as Bethlehem – the House of Bread – was not empty, without bread, forever – so Adam is not the end of the story for us.  Jesus is the Second Adam – the Last Adam – who died on the cross to pay for Adam’s sin, and for all the sins of all people, of all times, and all places.  That, by itself, would still leave us empty of righteousness.  But Jesus, as the Second Adam – the Last Adam – kept God’s law perfectly in your place (and in my place) – so that God counts you and me as if we had been as completely and perfectly obedient as Jesus.

Your feelings will betray you.  The devil will accuse you.  The world will hate you.  They will all scream at you that you are empty.  But if you have Jesus – by believing in him – by being baptized into him – and by receiving his true body and his true blood into you – then you can lose the whole world, and still be full.  Amen.

Now may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.