Sunday, November 24, 2013

A Worthy Man ... Learns to be Better

reflective monologue in two parts by Torin Eikler

A Worthy Man
Ruth 2:1-13




I have seen many things in my long life, and I have tried many of the pleasures and luxuries that are out there for a wealthy and upright man to sample.  I mean … Bethlehem is not one of those huge cities filled with exotic people and strange sights.  Still I have wonderful memories from the years that I have lived here, … but all of them pale next to the day when I met Ruth….


I’m getting ahead of myself, I suppose.  (That tends to happen to me more and more lately,) I should introduce myself.  I’m Boaz.  You may have heard of me if you’ve been around here for a while, but I’m not as “famous” as I once was.  Back then, I had a farm outside of the city … a big farm that earned me wealth, respect, and power, and I tried to use my position and my money in a way that was worthy of a Jew of my standing.  You might say that I was a pillar of the community.

At the time, I had a respectable household with a good number of servants, and I hired others to help me in the fields during the busier seasons, especially at harvest time.  During those two months, there was just so much to do that we all had to be out there working from dawn to dusk just to get the grain onto the threshing floor where we could keep working for a couple of hours with lamps.  Hard to believe how much we got done in such a short time ….

One year, when I was going out to the barley fields at the beginning of the harvest – just to make sure, you know, that the new workers knew what they were doing and were following my instructions – I got out there and I noticed a new woman among the gleaners.
 

I don’t know how things work where you live, but in Bethlehem there are always gleaners.  They’re mostly widows and orphans from town although there are some foreigners every once in a while. They stay around the edges of the fields, of course, in the standing grain that we leave around the edges (just like Moses told us to).  Sometimes they come into the fields to pick up some of the grain that we have dropped or forgotten.  It’s not that any trouble, though, and they know better than to get in the way of the harvesters or try to steal grain from the middle of the fields.  We even set up a shelter so that they can rest out of the sun when they get tired.


Anyway, there was a stranger among the gleaners when I got to the field that day, and she caught my eye.  After greeting everyone and making sure things were going well, I went to the foreman and asked who she was.  He must have noticed her, too, because he knew right off that she was a Moabite woman who had come back to the area with her mother-in-law after both of their husbands had died.

I had heard about her in town, of course.  Everyone knows everyone else around here, and strangers stick out.  When they all found out that she was a Moabite, that opened a whole other can of worms because we have a history with Moabites around here. 

When our ancestors were still in the wilderness, they tried to attack us, and when that didn’t work, their women led many of our men to worship their false idols.  Even after we settled here in the Promised Land, they kept on harassing us.  Plus I’ve heard that they had “questionable” beginnings (let’s just say their family tree looks more like a bush) and everyone knows they’re generally pretty crude (though the ones that I have met have been nice enough)…. 


Normally, I didn’t pay much attention to the gleaners, and I certainly wouldn’t have associated with a Moabite like her.  (You know how it is, I’m sure.  You may not have Moabites around here, but there’s always someone like that around, am I right?)  So, like I said, I wouldn’t usually pay any more attention to her, but was pretty good looking, and I remembered hearing that she was taking very good care of my cousin Naomi, and the harvest was looking good enough that I was feeling generous.  So, I made an exception.  I went over and told her that she was welcome to stay here in my fields.  I showed her where the water was, and I assured her that my workers would not bother her.  Then, I offered a blessing to her and Naomi, and why not?  It didn’t cost me anything, and it sounded good.
                 
I’ll always remember what she said back to me: “May I continue to find favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, even though I am not even one of your handmaids.”  I know it doesn’t sound like much, but you remember words that change your life, and those words did….


Learns to be Better
Ruth 2:14-23       Leviticus 23:9-11, 21-23        




So how did Ruth’s words change my life?  It’s an excellent question.  Like I said, they weren’t really all that different from what I would have expected.  Nothing fancy or unusual.  Just what any gleaner might say to such a noteworthy man who took special notice of her.


No, it wasn’t what she said.  It was how she said it… or the way her face looked … or maybe the set of her shoulders or how she fell down on the ground at my feet.  I don’t know what it was, but her words kicked around in my head and I had the nagging feeling that I hadn’t quite gotten the message.

 
So, I invited her to eat lunch with us.  It was a little bit risky – socially speaking, and some of my workers raised their eyebrows.  Others whispered together, and I could imagine the speculations they were making.  But, her mother-in-law was a cousin of mine.  So, I figured I could pass it off as gratitude for the care Ruth had given her.  Besides, I needed to figure out what I had missed earlier.
 

As we ate, I thought about what she had said earlier, and it came to me that she had been just a little bit sardonic.  She had been mocking me despite the generosity that I had shown her which should have made me angry.  But as I watched her and listened to her conversations with the harvesters, she didn’t seem to be an ungrateful or mean-spirited woman.  “So,” I wondered, “why did she take that tone with me?”

After I spent the whole meal stewing on the question, the answer hit me.  Yes, I had offered for her to continue gleaning in my field … told her to get water when she was thirsty … and ordered my workers not to bother her, and that was all well and good.  I’m sure that she really was grateful – especially that I had said those words in front of the others, but none of that went beyond the requirements written in the Law of Moses. 

I had been all “magnanimous” when I offered her to take what was hers by right.  I had offered her protection that should already have been hers either as a widow or as a foreigner in the land.  I had stood there proud of myself and expected gratitude and praise for my words and actions even though I hadn’t really given her anything … even though my generosity had been empty and my words hollow … even though I had failed to embrace the spirit of compassion and hospitality that the law implied entirely.

 
I have to admit that I felt angry and ashamed.  To have a foreigner … a woman who had not been raised as a Jew … a Moabite even… to have her teach me about my own faith and our traditions took me down a peg, and I had to come to terms with my own inflated view of myself.  Boaz the great, generous, righteous man had some things to learn about real greatness, true generosity, and how to follow the heart of our covenant with God.

As I was struggling with this new understanding of my place in the world, I noticed that Ruth was getting up to go back to gleaning.  I was still a bit upset – with myself and with her for bursting my bubble and showing me my shortcomings.  But, I also felt like I wanted to talk with her more … to get to know this intriguing woman a little better.  So after she left our group, I told my workers to let her glean wherever she wanted to – even in the part of the field we hadn’t cut yet, and to leave some extra grain from our harvest on the ground so that she could gather that as well.  I hoped that would be enough to bring her back to my fields the next day.

It worked.  Ruth came back each day for the rest of the harvest season, and that meant that I got to see her and chat with her a little bit almost every day for about seven weeks.  It doesn’t seem like that long a time, but it was enough for me to know that I was interested in this woman… very interested.

 
If you haven’t guessed yet, I married her in the end.  Some people thought it was just because I was a close relative, and it was my responsibility to take care of her and Naomi.  But I didn’t have to do that.  In fact, I had to convince one of my other cousins who was a closer relative to let me have the privilege.  Even then, I wouldn’t have had to marry her.

But why wouldn’t I have married her.  She was beautiful.  She was witty.  She knew more of the world than I did … had experienced so much more grief and hardship in her life, and she still had the kindness and compassion to open my eyes gently when she could have thrown it in my face.

So, of course I married her, Moabite though she was.  I married her and I have never regretted it.  She still lets me know about my failings (more often than I might like to admit).  That hasn’t changed, but I see more easily now, and thanks to her, I have learned so much about how God really wants us to live. 

 
I think that we all need someone like that in our lives.  Someone who loves us enough to shine a gentle light on our failings.  Someone who can show us the way to change.  Someone to redeem us, to make us whole, and to help us become the best people we can be.  Someone who shows us the face … and the heart of God.

I thank God every day for all the blessings he has granted to me, but especially Ruth.  She may have come to our faith from outside, but she understands it better than I do sometimes.  Thanks to her, I have become a better Jew … and a better person.

 
Maybe… one day … I can do the same thing … shine the same light … for someone else.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

The Faith of Job

sermon by Torin Eikler
Job 19:23-27a             Psalm 17:1-9



“Job is the most useless book in the Bible!” …

I was surprised to hear that sentence from my father about a month ago.  We were talking about the series on forgiveness that we have just finished up, and he suggested that we should have a Sunday on forgiving God.  He went on to recognize that there aren’t really any scriptures that talk about forgiving God.  “There’s just Job,” he said, “and I don’t like what it has to say … just, basically, that we have to accept whatever God sends our way and live with it.”

I think that is a common misunderstanding in our culture.  Thanks to the saying, “the patience of Job,” we have a sense that the book of Job is all about enduring the suffering that comes our way.  We may feel that it is unjust.  We may feel that it flies in the face of what the rest of the scriptures teach us about God’s compassion and care.  But we have come to believe (we may even have been taught) that this story shows us that we must just endure the unendurable without complaint.

That is most certainly not what Job is about, and a little background might be helpful in understanding what its message to us really is….
 

The book begins almost as if it was a folktale:
“There once was a man in the land of Uz….  That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.  There was born to him sever sons and three daughters.  He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.  His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn, and … when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them …; for Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.”

The scene is set.  Job was a pious man who kept the law scrupulously, taking care even to offer sacrifices on behalf of his family.  He was also a very, very rich man.  He had everything that he could possibly desire, yet he had resisted the corruption and decadence that often come with wealth and power.

From there, things get a little strange….  Satan challenges God to accept a little bet.  Take away everything from that upright man, and he won’t be so confident.  Instead of blessing and praising you, he will curse in your face.  God accepts and places Job and everything he has in Satan’s power to do with as he will – the one exception being that he cannot take his life.

And so the suffering begins.  Job’s flocks are plundered or killed.  His servants are killed.  His children perish in a freak wind storm that pushed the house down on their heads.  Then, Satan sends painful sores to cover the poor man, and his wife leaves him in disgust.  And despite all of this, Job remains steadfast in praising God.


Okay … that’s the first two chapters of Job, and if that’s all you read, then you have the image of the pious, enduring Job that gave birth to the saying.  But there are forty more chapters to go.  So, it seems like this picture must have been painted order to set the stage for something else, and as the story continues a very different Job comes out – Job the rebel.

This man rails against the unfairness of his experience.  When three of his friends come along and preach to him that suffering comes from wickedness and blessing from righteousness and, then, encourage him to repent his sinfulness so that he may return to God’s good graces, he debunks their false piety and flawed theology.  He even goes so far as to accuse God of injustice.  Even as he sits among the ashes of his life, he is, in spirit, rattling the cell bars of his fate.

 
For centuries, Jewish and Christian interpreters alike often seemed embarrassed by this transformed character with his anger and unrestrained blasphemy.  More recently, many people have been drawn to Job’s anger as a voice of moral outrage against a God who could condone his fate, let alone the atrocities of the 20th century.[1]  But this story isn’t as straightforward as that either. 

At the very end of the book, God comes to Job in a great whirlwind and speaks words that are neither a comfort nor an apology.  Instead they are a simple statement that God is beyond the reach of humanity and shall not be judged by such a limited being, and while they might feel like a rebuke, Job responds by withdrawing his words against God and replacing them with praise and a reaffirmation of his faith.
 

It’s a strange book, I’ll admit.  Even knowing that Biblical scholars and theologians have come to the conclusion that Job was probably included to correct a misunderstanding of wisdom theology by making it clear that suffering is not punishment for sin, it is still hard to make sense of the story itself.  And I don’t blame anyone for wanting to throw it out altogether.  But I love it, and I am grateful that it has made its way into the Bible.

I love it because in all its complexity, it touches on many of the issues that are so important to our faith lives and our understanding.  It speaks to the reasons why we should try to live virtuous lives, the meaning of suffering, the nature of God, the place of justice in the world, and the relationship of order and chaos in God’s creation.[2]  But even beyond all those things, I treasure it because it gives me permission to have a faith like Job’s.

Everywhere else in the Bible – at least as far as I have found … everywhere else the scriptures give me the feeling that I should be praising God … that I should be thanking God … that I should be blessing the goodness and wisdom of the One who created me, redeemed my imperfection, and sustains my physical and spiritual life.  Even in the book of Psalms, where fully a third of the hymns are laments like the one we heard earlier, almost all the texts end with a return to praise.  Psalm 88 alone holds to lament until the end, and it certainly does not curse God.  It, like the others, only proclaims the feeling that God has abandoned us in the hour of our need.

Only Job … dear, pious, angry, blasphemous Job throws curses at God while his fists and his oozing wounds scream his anger at the injustice he suffers.

And it’s not just that he gets away with it – which he does.  No lightning bolt from the clouds.  No angel of death.  No poisonous snake or tormenting thirst comes to usher him into death and damnation.  In the end, after he heaps all of his anger and his suffering on God’s head in such a vicious fashion he gets exactly what he wanted and more.  God comes down to meet him face to face … well … face to whirlwind at least, and he gets it all back: new flocks, a new wife, seven more sons and three more daughters….

He gets away with it, yes, but what I find fascinating … what touches my heart is that in the midst of all his ranting and his rage, he still holds onto his faith.  He still has the space within himself to say “I know that my Redeemer lives…,” and to wish so fervently that his praise will be remembered.  If nothing else remains of his good and righteous life or his horrible suffering, he wants his words of praise and thanksgiving to be etched with iron into a rock to live forever.

 
On my bad days … or my bad weeks … when nothing seems to be going right … when my life seems to be falling apart despite everything that I try to accomplish and all my good intentions, that is the part of Job’s story that gives me hope.

It gives me hope because someone else has been there before.  I knew that of course.  All of us have been there before.  But here is someone whose story has been written down.  Here is someone whose experience has been made holy by having it inscribed in the scriptures.  And that makes my own experience holy … at least a little.

It gives me hope because it tells me that I am allowed to curse the injustice of my life.  I don’t have to sit there and take it, patiently claiming that I deserve it or that it must be for my own good.  I can scream at God.  I can let it all come out, and that doesn’t mean that I have a weak faith or that I can’t feel grateful at the same time.  It doesn’t mean that I am turning away from my Redeemer.  It doesn’t mean that I will be punished or that I am going to hell.

It gives me hope because it shows me that it’s okay.  It’s okay to feel abandoned.  It’s okay to feel persecuted.  It’s okay to demand that God come and answer for the injustices and the suffering of my life and yours.  And, … it is okay to let all that pour out instead of holding it inside.

 
God loves us all.  God cares about us all.  God moves through our lives and lives within our very souls.  And whatever we feel … whatever we need to say or shout or scream at God, it’s okay because she understands.

God will still care for us. 
God will still welcome us into her saving, soothing embrace. 
Even when we writhe in her arms and beat on her chest in our anger and our pain
            and our frustration, God will still love us.



[1] Newsom, Carol A. “The Book of Job: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume IV (Abingdon Press, Nashville) 1996.  319.
[2] ibid.