A Work in Progress(27 Nov. 2005)
Ruth M1 Naomi’s Tapestry: A Work in Progress November 27 2005
(The sermon can be heard on line at:
http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, has also written a novel called the Five People You Meet in Heaven. The novel describes the life of Eddie, a man who works most of his whole life as a maintenance man at a sea side amusement park... He wears a work shirt with an oval patch on the chest that reads "Eddie…"
He spends his days at the seaside amusement park greasing tracks and tightening bolts and listening for strange sounds (from the rides).
Eddie believed that he lived a "nothing" life, that "required no more brains than washing a dish."
Not has Eddie’s life been dull, but it also been filled the pain of loneliness and regret.
On his 83rd birthday Eddie dies as trying to save a little girl who’s standing under an amusement ride cart that’s about to come crashing down right where she’s standing because the cable which supports the cart is breaking…
The book of Ruth among other things is a book that speaks to people who wonder if God is present in an ordinary life. It also a book that speaks to people who wonder if God is present in their pain.
As we begin Advent, I want us to take a few Sundays looking that this book of Ruth.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Ruth 1:
Ruth 1
Naomi and Ruth
1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3 Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. 9 May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."
Then she kissed them and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people."
11 But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!"
14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
15 "Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."
16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?"
20 "Don't call me Naomi, [b] " she told them. "Call me Mara, [c] because the Almighty [d] has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted [e] me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
How does the book of Ruth begin? We’re told in vs. 1 that the story takes place in the time when the judges ruled and that there was a famine in the land.
The period of the judges was about a 400 year period (roughly between 1400 B. C. to 1020 B.C.), the time after Israel entered the promised land of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership and before there were any kings in Israel.
The period of the judges was time when God’s people, the Israelites, turned their backs on God, it was a time of social anarchy and violence when, as the last verse in the books Judges points out which in our Bibles comes just before the book of Ruth, each person did whatever seemed right in their eyes.
It was a time moral darkness for God’s people.
And Ruth 1 we read that there is a famine in the land.
Bethlehem, the town known as “The House of Bread” has no bread, so and a man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi along with their two sons do the “logical” thing. They go and live in Moab, where apparently there is no famine.
While in Moab Elimelech and Naomi’s sons Mahlon and Kilion marry Moabite women, one marries a woman named Orpah (not to be confused with Oprah) and the other marries Ruth. But, during their 10 year sojourn in Moab Naomi’s husband Elimelech dies, and during that same decade Naomi’s 2 sons die (we don’t know the causes of their death).
Naomi is left a widow without husband and without any sons or biological children.
We may look and so she should have her identity bound up in her husband and kids, but in her culture this would really have been a devastating loss for her.
In our culture, if you have an education or if you have marketable skills or if you have money or striking beauty particularly if you’re a woman, you have social capital.
In this ancient culture if you had family you had social capital.
She loses her husband and her only two sons in time when family is everything, she loses her husband and her only 2 sons when only males access to power. She’s old to have living parents, too old to marry again… as far as she has knows she has no close male family member to provide financially for her or to advocate for her. In an age where they have no nursing homes, she’ll now has no one to take care of her in her old age.
She enters in dark pit of despair.
In. vs. 13 says God has turned against her.
In vs. 21, she says has gone from fullness to emptiness…
When she returns to Bethlehem, looking destitute and disheveled, people whisper, “Can that be Naomi?” Naomi whose name in Hebrew means “pleasant” but don’t call me Naomi anymore, call me “Mara” which means bitterness--because her life has become full of bitterness.
Some commentators have pointed out that the reason Naomi is suffering is because, her family by moving out of Bethlehem, out of the land of promise into Moab her family was moving out of God’s will.
Some commentators have argued that her sons died prematurely deaths because they had married women who did not share part of the Hebrew culture and did share the same faith in God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
(And this was a time when the prosperity of God’s people was more directly connected to their honoring the terms of the covenant that God had made with his people, as described in the book of Deuteronomy.) And we do know that sin has consequences.
But even with the vantage point of over 3000 years of history, we don’t know, for certainty, that in this particular case that Naomi is suffering is directly related to her family moving out of Bethlehem, and her sons marrying people who did not share the same faith.
Last week we looked at how Joseph overcame sexual temptation in Egypt, when his boss’ wife tried repeatedly to seduce him. We do know from our vantage point that Joseph was out of his homeland, but was in the will of God. We also know that walked with integrity before God, but that he was sold into slavery by his brothers, was framed for rape by a married woman whose sexual advances he resisted and was thus thrown in prison.
We know Joseph, a man favored by God, faced circumstances that looked on the surface like it was God’s judgment against him, but they part of God’s hard, but ultimately good plan for him.
What does Psalm 34 tells us that many are the afflictions of the righteous…
What the story Joseph does tells and what the story of Naomi may be to telling us is that it may be the “will of God” for us to experience affliction and pain.
In these time of suffering, much like Naomi does in vs. 13, it’s easy to conclude “God’s hand is against me.”
It’s easy to exaggerate the hopeless of our condition…
Naomi doesn’t at this point in our story doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the amazing character of her daughter in law Ruth and she seems to forget she has a close male relative in Bethlehem who may able to advocate for her…
She doesn’t seem to grasp this. Because of her affliction, Naomi thinks everything in life is against her… and out a very noble concern for daughters in law she tries to push them away…
She tries to push them away by saying, look there’s no one in my family who can marry you (even if I was married tonight and conceived and gave birth to sons would you wait for them to grow up so they could marry one of you?)… Naomi says of course not… and besides you can see I’m husbandless—and too old to re-marry, childless, that God’s hand is against me… I have bad luck written all over me, for your sake, leave me and go to your homeland, back to your families, back to your gods, and find another husband in your country Moab…
At this point, Orpah does the sensible thing, she kisses her mother in law and leaves…
But Ruth holds her mother and law… and says "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
What Ruth was saying, I’m willing to leave the comfort of my homeland, my language, my culture… never to return…. Where you die, I will die… What she was saying am I willing stay with you even if it means being a widow and childlessness for the rest of my days (as far she knows there no close relative for her to marry), she says I am willing to stay with you even though it means that I will a despised racial minority and looked down upon because of my ethnicity… (later Boaz tells his men not to harm her when she’s working in fields. Why? Because she a woman from a despised, marginalized minority group). Ruth says, I am willing to leave god of my people Moab, Chemosh, to embrace the God of your people, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…
Naomi more reasons to hope than she dared imagine. She has Ruth. She doesn’t but she have a close male relative who may be able to help them Boaz, and at the end of chapter we read the famine in Bethlehem has ended and the barley harvest is beginning.
We might ask would she have still had reason to hope in God, if let’s didn’t have daughter in law who acted so loyally…or a relative like Boaz (more on him next week) or the barley harvest to glean from.
What if Naomi didn’t have Ruth, Boaz, or the barley harvest? Could we still say God was good to her? If we have no Ruth, Boaz, or a barley harvest could we still say God is good to us?
The only answer can I give is to say look at the one the great, great “offspring” of Naomi and Ruth, the greatest King Israel has known, not David, but one called the son of David, Jesus Christ… He, like Ruth, left his the comfort of his homeland, he left his Father’s throne above so infinite and free his grace, like Ruth he was willing to become a outsider, a suffering servant, a despised minority, like Ruth who was willing to lay down her life so her mother in law could have one, Jesus Christ was willing to give up his life on cross so we could have one with God…
Ruth extend her arms around Naomi, and Christ extended his arms on a Roman cross died in our places absorbed our sins, so we could reconciled to one who made us.
When look of into the face of Jesus, we cannot say God is against us.
When things are not going well, it’s so easy for us to exaggerate our hopelessness.
We can say, with Naomi, God has afflicted me. But we cannot say with her God is against me.
We have a person, even closer and more loyal than Ruth or Boaz, we have a friend that is closer than a brother or sister…
When we look into the face of Jesus Christ, we can know for certain that God is for us and if God us, we can say Paul than who can be against us?
The book Ruth that even in affliction God is working out his loving purposes for us, and even in the ordinary God is at work in countless ways.
In the book of Ruth there are no overt miracles, no prophetic words, visions… no supernatural healings… it’s about ordinary lives, rather mundane… but God is clearly at work.
And this story tells us is that our ordinary lives, that some times as ordinary in quality as the food in our fridge—not good enough to eat, but not quite bad enough to through out, God IS working our his purposes in ways that we are not aware…
Who would have thought that God would use these 2 outsiders, 2 destitute widows, one a member of despised minority group and weave into the family tree of Jesus Christ?
Who would have though that their great, great, great grandchild the King of universe would not be born in a palace or even a hospital, but into a stable, into a manger?
Ruth shows that God works his amazing in the most ordinary and mundane things.
In Mitch Albom’s novel the Five People you Meet in Heaven Eddie the main character as mentioned earlier is a man who works his whole life as maintenance man at a sea side amusement park. His life has been filled with the dull routine of a dead-end job, regret, and loneliness. Then at 83 is killed as he tries to save a girl from being crushed by an amusement-ride cart whose supporting wire breaks…
When he goes to the afterlife, he meets 5 people who explain to him, how his life has connected in powerful ways… to all these other lives in ways that he was unaware of, how he saved the life a little girl…
Our lives can seems series of ordinary, but like Ruth’s when they are in the hands of the master, he takes seem random events and weave into a tapestry that achieve his eternal purposes.
Barbara Februar is an artist who for a number of years was active in helping to lead our early morning liturgical service and was recently married to Al Schmaltz.
This week she painted a scene that represents Naomi, Ruth and many of our lives.
The series (will show by PowerPoint a stage by stage series of images which show how the art work progressed).
It starts with am ordinary landscape, somewhat dull, but it is ok.
Then it seems that things get worse for Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth… their loves ones die.
The face famine and poverty.
Life (and the painting) gets murky and foggy.
But as the story unfolds, more and more shape takes places.
We see more color and life….
In the corner the lace represents Christ. We see shape of his head and the halo…
We see the roots all interconnect…
In end we see a picture that’s not neat and pretty, but far richer, deeper and more textured…
So the book of Ruth tells us that our ordinary, seemingly random lives are working out his purposes…
In William Cowper’s hymn he says:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense But trust him for his grace.
Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
(27 Nov. 2005)
(The sermon can be heard on line at:
http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, has also written a novel called the Five People You Meet in Heaven. The novel describes the life of Eddie, a man who works most of his whole life as a maintenance man at a sea side amusement park... He wears a work shirt with an oval patch on the chest that reads "Eddie…"
He spends his days at the seaside amusement park greasing tracks and tightening bolts and listening for strange sounds (from the rides).
Eddie believed that he lived a "nothing" life, that "required no more brains than washing a dish."
Not has Eddie’s life been dull, but it also been filled the pain of loneliness and regret.
On his 83rd birthday Eddie dies as trying to save a little girl who’s standing under an amusement ride cart that’s about to come crashing down right where she’s standing because the cable which supports the cart is breaking…
The book of Ruth among other things is a book that speaks to people who wonder if God is present in an ordinary life. It also a book that speaks to people who wonder if God is present in their pain.
As we begin Advent, I want us to take a few Sundays looking that this book of Ruth.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Ruth 1:
Ruth 1
Naomi and Ruth
1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3 Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. 9 May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."
Then she kissed them and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people."
11 But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!"
14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
15 "Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."
16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?"
20 "Don't call me Naomi, [b] " she told them. "Call me Mara, [c] because the Almighty [d] has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted [e] me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
How does the book of Ruth begin? We’re told in vs. 1 that the story takes place in the time when the judges ruled and that there was a famine in the land.
The period of the judges was about a 400 year period (roughly between 1400 B. C. to 1020 B.C.), the time after Israel entered the promised land of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership and before there were any kings in Israel.
The period of the judges was time when God’s people, the Israelites, turned their backs on God, it was a time of social anarchy and violence when, as the last verse in the books Judges points out which in our Bibles comes just before the book of Ruth, each person did whatever seemed right in their eyes.
It was a time moral darkness for God’s people.
And Ruth 1 we read that there is a famine in the land.
Bethlehem, the town known as “The House of Bread” has no bread, so and a man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi along with their two sons do the “logical” thing. They go and live in Moab, where apparently there is no famine.
While in Moab Elimelech and Naomi’s sons Mahlon and Kilion marry Moabite women, one marries a woman named Orpah (not to be confused with Oprah) and the other marries Ruth. But, during their 10 year sojourn in Moab Naomi’s husband Elimelech dies, and during that same decade Naomi’s 2 sons die (we don’t know the causes of their death).
Naomi is left a widow without husband and without any sons or biological children.
We may look and so she should have her identity bound up in her husband and kids, but in her culture this would really have been a devastating loss for her.
In our culture, if you have an education or if you have marketable skills or if you have money or striking beauty particularly if you’re a woman, you have social capital.
In this ancient culture if you had family you had social capital.
She loses her husband and her only two sons in time when family is everything, she loses her husband and her only 2 sons when only males access to power. She’s old to have living parents, too old to marry again… as far as she has knows she has no close male family member to provide financially for her or to advocate for her. In an age where they have no nursing homes, she’ll now has no one to take care of her in her old age.
She enters in dark pit of despair.
In. vs. 13 says God has turned against her.
In vs. 21, she says has gone from fullness to emptiness…
When she returns to Bethlehem, looking destitute and disheveled, people whisper, “Can that be Naomi?” Naomi whose name in Hebrew means “pleasant” but don’t call me Naomi anymore, call me “Mara” which means bitterness--because her life has become full of bitterness.
Some commentators have pointed out that the reason Naomi is suffering is because, her family by moving out of Bethlehem, out of the land of promise into Moab her family was moving out of God’s will.
Some commentators have argued that her sons died prematurely deaths because they had married women who did not share part of the Hebrew culture and did share the same faith in God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
(And this was a time when the prosperity of God’s people was more directly connected to their honoring the terms of the covenant that God had made with his people, as described in the book of Deuteronomy.) And we do know that sin has consequences.
But even with the vantage point of over 3000 years of history, we don’t know, for certainty, that in this particular case that Naomi is suffering is directly related to her family moving out of Bethlehem, and her sons marrying people who did not share the same faith.
Last week we looked at how Joseph overcame sexual temptation in Egypt, when his boss’ wife tried repeatedly to seduce him. We do know from our vantage point that Joseph was out of his homeland, but was in the will of God. We also know that walked with integrity before God, but that he was sold into slavery by his brothers, was framed for rape by a married woman whose sexual advances he resisted and was thus thrown in prison.
We know Joseph, a man favored by God, faced circumstances that looked on the surface like it was God’s judgment against him, but they part of God’s hard, but ultimately good plan for him.
What does Psalm 34 tells us that many are the afflictions of the righteous…
What the story Joseph does tells and what the story of Naomi may be to telling us is that it may be the “will of God” for us to experience affliction and pain.
In these time of suffering, much like Naomi does in vs. 13, it’s easy to conclude “God’s hand is against me.”
It’s easy to exaggerate the hopeless of our condition…
Naomi doesn’t at this point in our story doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the amazing character of her daughter in law Ruth and she seems to forget she has a close male relative in Bethlehem who may able to advocate for her…
She doesn’t seem to grasp this. Because of her affliction, Naomi thinks everything in life is against her… and out a very noble concern for daughters in law she tries to push them away…
She tries to push them away by saying, look there’s no one in my family who can marry you (even if I was married tonight and conceived and gave birth to sons would you wait for them to grow up so they could marry one of you?)… Naomi says of course not… and besides you can see I’m husbandless—and too old to re-marry, childless, that God’s hand is against me… I have bad luck written all over me, for your sake, leave me and go to your homeland, back to your families, back to your gods, and find another husband in your country Moab…
At this point, Orpah does the sensible thing, she kisses her mother in law and leaves…
But Ruth holds her mother and law… and says "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
What Ruth was saying, I’m willing to leave the comfort of my homeland, my language, my culture… never to return…. Where you die, I will die… What she was saying am I willing stay with you even if it means being a widow and childlessness for the rest of my days (as far she knows there no close relative for her to marry), she says I am willing to stay with you even though it means that I will a despised racial minority and looked down upon because of my ethnicity… (later Boaz tells his men not to harm her when she’s working in fields. Why? Because she a woman from a despised, marginalized minority group). Ruth says, I am willing to leave god of my people Moab, Chemosh, to embrace the God of your people, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…
Naomi more reasons to hope than she dared imagine. She has Ruth. She doesn’t but she have a close male relative who may be able to help them Boaz, and at the end of chapter we read the famine in Bethlehem has ended and the barley harvest is beginning.
We might ask would she have still had reason to hope in God, if let’s didn’t have daughter in law who acted so loyally…or a relative like Boaz (more on him next week) or the barley harvest to glean from.
What if Naomi didn’t have Ruth, Boaz, or the barley harvest? Could we still say God was good to her? If we have no Ruth, Boaz, or a barley harvest could we still say God is good to us?
The only answer can I give is to say look at the one the great, great “offspring” of Naomi and Ruth, the greatest King Israel has known, not David, but one called the son of David, Jesus Christ… He, like Ruth, left his the comfort of his homeland, he left his Father’s throne above so infinite and free his grace, like Ruth he was willing to become a outsider, a suffering servant, a despised minority, like Ruth who was willing to lay down her life so her mother in law could have one, Jesus Christ was willing to give up his life on cross so we could have one with God…
Ruth extend her arms around Naomi, and Christ extended his arms on a Roman cross died in our places absorbed our sins, so we could reconciled to one who made us.
When look of into the face of Jesus, we cannot say God is against us.
When things are not going well, it’s so easy for us to exaggerate our hopelessness.
We can say, with Naomi, God has afflicted me. But we cannot say with her God is against me.
We have a person, even closer and more loyal than Ruth or Boaz, we have a friend that is closer than a brother or sister…
When we look into the face of Jesus Christ, we can know for certain that God is for us and if God us, we can say Paul than who can be against us?
The book Ruth that even in affliction God is working out his loving purposes for us, and even in the ordinary God is at work in countless ways.
In the book of Ruth there are no overt miracles, no prophetic words, visions… no supernatural healings… it’s about ordinary lives, rather mundane… but God is clearly at work.
And this story tells us is that our ordinary lives, that some times as ordinary in quality as the food in our fridge—not good enough to eat, but not quite bad enough to through out, God IS working our his purposes in ways that we are not aware…
Who would have thought that God would use these 2 outsiders, 2 destitute widows, one a member of despised minority group and weave into the family tree of Jesus Christ?
Who would have though that their great, great, great grandchild the King of universe would not be born in a palace or even a hospital, but into a stable, into a manger?
Ruth shows that God works his amazing in the most ordinary and mundane things.
In Mitch Albom’s novel the Five People you Meet in Heaven Eddie the main character as mentioned earlier is a man who works his whole life as maintenance man at a sea side amusement park. His life has been filled with the dull routine of a dead-end job, regret, and loneliness. Then at 83 is killed as he tries to save a girl from being crushed by an amusement-ride cart whose supporting wire breaks…
When he goes to the afterlife, he meets 5 people who explain to him, how his life has connected in powerful ways… to all these other lives in ways that he was unaware of, how he saved the life a little girl…
Our lives can seems series of ordinary, but like Ruth’s when they are in the hands of the master, he takes seem random events and weave into a tapestry that achieve his eternal purposes.
Barbara Februar is an artist who for a number of years was active in helping to lead our early morning liturgical service and was recently married to Al Schmaltz.
This week she painted a scene that represents Naomi, Ruth and many of our lives.
The series (will show by PowerPoint a stage by stage series of images which show how the art work progressed).
It starts with am ordinary landscape, somewhat dull, but it is ok.
Then it seems that things get worse for Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth… their loves ones die.
The face famine and poverty.
Life (and the painting) gets murky and foggy.
But as the story unfolds, more and more shape takes places.
We see more color and life….
In the corner the lace represents Christ. We see shape of his head and the halo…
We see the roots all interconnect…
In end we see a picture that’s not neat and pretty, but far richer, deeper and more textured…
So the book of Ruth tells us that our ordinary, seemingly random lives are working out his purposes…
In William Cowper’s hymn he says:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense But trust him for his grace.
Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
(27 Nov. 2005)
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