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 BetterRuth 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.
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