A Story of Loyalty: Giving Birth to Redemption

A Story of Loyalty:
Giving Birth to Redemption
Stephen Van Kuiken
Community Congregational U.C.C.
Pullman, WA
November 6, 2022

There is a home in God, a home for the entire universe. In that home, multiplicity finally achieves unity; fragmentation is embraced in wholeness.
—Marjorie Suchocki

Ancient Witness: Ruth 4:1-17

This is the last of a series of sermons from the Book of Ruth, a story centered around the Hebrew idea of hesed—loyalty, faithfulness and kindness.  It’s about the loyalty to the afflicted; about about loyalty which goes beyond the letter of the law; it’s about God’s loyalty and affirmation and blessings toward us; it’s about how God intended humanity to live.

We can learn something about these two rather insignificant and lowly women, who clung together to each other and stuck together against all odds.  In Ruth we don’t see greatness or power or success, but rather we see a lowly immigrant widow who simply chooses to do the right thing, who chooses to be loyal to her mother-in-law no matter what.

We pick up our story from Act Three when Ruth brings home a sack of grain and some good news for Naomi.  She told Naomi how she waited until dark and then sneaked down to the threshing floor and under the covers with Boaz; how she said to Boaz when he awoke to marry her, be the provider and protector, assume the responsibilities of the nearest relative for both her and Naomi; how Boaz commended her loyalty toward Naomi when Ruth would not leave her, but bound herself to this old widow.  Boaz praises and assures Ruth that if her closer relative will not take care or them, he will.  And they wait to see how things turn out.

So here is where Act Four starts.  It begins at the city gate, the place where most business and legal transactions take place.  And when the closer relative passes by, Boaz says, “Come over here, friend, and sit down.  I have to talk with you.”  They he asks the elders of the city also, who were leading men who interpreted the Israelite law and settled disputes.  And then Boaz says, “Look, Naomi has come back from Moab and is selling that piece of land that belonged to Elimelech, her husband.  You have the first opportunity to buy and redeem the land.  If you don’t want to, I will.”

The other relative says, “Sure, I’ll redeem it.”  But Boaz says, “By the way, if you want the land, you must also marry Ruth, her daughter-in-law.”  At this the other relative says, “Wait a minute.  If I marry Ruth, and then she has a male child, then this might put in jeopardy the inheritance which I already have for my other sons.  No, Boaz, you go ahead and redeem it.”

So Boaz says, “You heard it, folks.  He turned it down, so I now claim the inheritance of Elimelech and his sons and promise to marry Ruth and to take care of them.”

And the elders say, “We are witnesses,” and then they bless the transaction.  In this blessing, it is interesting that they mention Rachel, who also is barren, but whose barrenness gave way to motherhood.  They also mention Tamar who like Ruth became a childless widow and who had to finally trick Judah in order to become pregnant and to receive the blessing of children.  These references connect directly with Ruth’s ten years of barrenness in marriage and her search and struggle for children.

Then the scene moves to a later time.  After Ruth and Boaz married, it says, “The Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son.”  This is the way that the people around them saw things.  God was at work in their lives; God was at work in their lives of loyalty and kindness—hesed; God was at work at their coming together, and so this conception was part of divine activity—it was an affirmation and blessing—a result of loyalty and love.

All the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not withheld a redeemer from you today” or “left you without next-of-kin.

Who is this redeemer they mention?  Is it Boaz?  Is it Ruth?  Is it the baby?  Is it God?  It is not entirely clear, and maybe this is deliberate.  For God’s work and human work merge in this story.

What is clear is that the child will be the one responsible for the well-being of the two widows.  He will be the one to whom the Elimelech-Mahlon inheritance will go.  He will be the sustainer and nourisher of Naomi’s old age.  He will be the one to “cause her life to return.”

The women say to Naomi in verse 15:  “He shall be to you a restorer of life and a provider in your old age for your daughter-in-law who loves you has borne him.”

Professor Johanna Bos wrote:

The mention of Ruth’s love for Naomi should be taken very seriously.  It is the only time the term love is used between women in the Bible… Ruth had not acted, in the first instance, out of self-concern, nor out of concern for her dead husband; but her actions were motivated by love for Naomi… The Hebrew word love always points directly to loyalty and allegiance as well as emotions.

And so the curtain drops with Naomi holding the child to her breast, joyfully nursing the one who will nourish her.  We don’t actually see this redemption, but its future is contained in the present moment, when the women of the neighborhood say, “A son has been born to Naomi.”

Many years later, the people would say about Jesus, “A son has been born to the world.”  One has come in whom all life is restored, one who will sustain and nourish us all in our “old age,” one in whom our redemption has come.

And it all had its start in simple kindness and humble loyalty.  It begins with hesed.

The way of living embodied by Ruth and Boaz is the seed of something beyond the human imagination.  The greatest power ever known has been quietly unleashed through this ordinary looking couple.

For the narrator concludes the story by saying that this unlikely couple turns out to be the great grandparents of kind David, himself!  Out of these insignificant acts of kindness is born the great redeemer of the nation of Israel.

Yet we cannot stop even here.

For Ruth and Boaz have become part of the line not just from Abraham to David, but from David to Jesus of Nazareth.  And Matthew lists them as the very ancestors of the Anointed One, the Christ.

The way of living embodied in this couple will not make the headlines—the world does not count it as “news.”  Yet simple acts of kindness and loyalty give way to the greatest and best news the world can know.  Ruth chose to go with Naomi, and her choice turned out to be a choice for the life of the world.

Kindness, you see, has eternal consequences.

It reminds me of that movie you all know, It’s a Wonderful Life.  George Bailey stayed home.  He gave up college and adventure to keep the family business alive.  Loyalty.  Hesed.

Later, he thought that’s life didn’t matter, that it didn’t count for much.  Then he has a dream in which it was revealed to him that it did count.  Bedford Falls became Potterville.  It was revealed to him that his kindness gave birth to more kindness than he could imagine.

Kindness leaves a great legacy because it is the very work of God.  When all is said and done, it is hesed which lives on in the memory of God.  Acts of dedication and loyalty toward each other are all that will really matter.  For these are the things which will contribute to the kingdom of God.  These are the things which will live forever.

Remember the story of Androcles, a slave who escaped from his master in North Africa.  He slept in a desert cave and awoke to a terrible roar.  He bravely took the thorn from the lion’s paw.  And they shared the cave for three years.

When he decided to go home, he was captured and sent to Rome.  He was thrown to the lions.  The lion sprang on him, but instead of killing him, licked his hand.

Deeply moved, the emperor set him free and gave him a fortune.  The world was transformed—the lion, the emperor and the crowd.

In this culture of “looking out for number one,” kindness and loyalty to others are not valued much.  People don’t think it will get them anywhere.  But it is this spirit of dedication to others, this holy spirit of loyalty, comes to us, and when it does, redemption itself is conceived.

We are like Mary in this way, a mere mortal, privileged that Christ, the Redeemer, might be born through us.  As Meister Eckhart said, “What does it avail me that this birth of God’s word in the soul if always happening, if it does not happen in me?”

One might ask, Why should I try?  What difference can my small life make?  Outwardly, maybe not much.  Inwardly, to the hidden kingdom of God, greatly!

This is how God’s redemption is unleashed:  Through small and insignificant congregations that devote themselves to the right no matter what.  Through unnoticed, ordinary people who declare their undying loyalty and who bind themselves together in love.

So it doesn’t matter Ruth what the present outward appearance of things may be.  It doesn’t matter to us how much our society is resistant to change.  The intransigence of institutions shall not deter us.  For we know we are contributing to God’s redemption of the world.

This life of dedication to others and kindness to others is possible for anyone—any age, any status, any ability.

Even the smallest trickle of this life will give way to a stream, and a stream to a river, and a river to a mighty torrent, ending in the vast ocean of God’s love and wholeness.

We can be channels of God’s grace and redemption!

The line of David and Jesus can go through us, too, as it went through Ruth.  By simple kindness and decency to others, by our devotion to justice and loyalty to each other, we can participate in the eternal kingdom of heaven and give birth to the very body of Christ.