Mary: Bringing God into the World(25 Dec 2005)

Mary M2
Bringing God into the World

(This sermon can be heard on line at:
http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Simon Birch… scene…

I remember sitting in our kitchen as a child with my siblings and radio program was playing.

The host was inviting listeners to call in and respond some to a random personal questions about the listener (usually, the listener calls and asks a question to a guest on a program, this show reversed the format and invited listener to call answer a personal question.)

So, we persuaded our youngest sister Hana (she must have been about 11 or 12 years old then to phone in). She calls and gets on the air and the host asks her, “If you could be any person in history who would you want to be? She covers up the phone and asks us what should I say, George Washington? And my brother say Mary, Mary mother of Jesus… My sister… I’d want to be marry mother of Jesus.

Of course, none of us can be Mary mother of Jesus, there’s just one of her.

Many of us wouldn’t her particular assignment.

But, each of us, by following Mary’s example, can become people who bring God into the world.

This morning as look at Mary’s we’re going to see how we can become people who bring God into the world.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Luke 2

The Birth of Jesus
1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3And everyone went to his own town to register.
4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
The Shepherds and the Angels
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Perhaps you have heard the claim that Catholics have tended to overemphasize Mary, if that is true, it may also be the case that Protestants have underemphasized her.

Mary after all is the woman whose labor brings God into the world.

And Mary serves as a model of how we can become people who bring God into our world.

Why does Mary become the “mother of God?”

Some people have pointed out the fact that Mary was an illiterate peasant girl chosen by God is a sure sign of God’s free and merciful choosing.

True…

But the angel Gabriel also says to Mary in Luke 1, vs. 30 you have found favor with God.

At various points in Scripture we hear about certain people finding favor with God: Noah, Joseph, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, Mary…

None were perfect but each walked humbly before God.

There’s a connection between finding favor with God and walking humbly before God.

In Micah 6:8 the prophet says what Lord requires of us is to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

Mary walks humbly before God…and finds favor with God…

In Mary’s song in Luke 1 she sings about how God has been mindful of the humble state of his servant and has done great things for her… she sings about how God’s mercy extends to those who fear and reverence God, but that he scatters the proud.

If we want to become people who bring God into the world, we’ll walk humbly before God…

Cherokee chiefs would say to their young braves, why do you spend time worrying? Don’t you know that you are being driven by great winds across the sky? Don’t you know that you’re part of a much bigger pattern? But you’re not in control of it, any more than you would be of great winds. You and I are a small part of a much bigger mystery.
(scene from Gladiator).

If we like Mary, realize that we are not the primary reality in the universe, but that we are part of a much bigger pattern that is being woven by God… and like Mary “surrender and let go” and allow the winds of God to direct our lives… we will become people who bring God’s breath the world…

2nd we see that Mary contemplates. Mary is humble and she contemplates…

In chapter 1 when Gabriel says to Mary Greetings you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you. The text tells us that Mary was troubled and she wondered what kind of greeting this might be….

In vs. 19 we read that Mary ponders these things….

When Jesus was 12 and he went missing, Jesus said, didn’t you know I had to be in father’s house and Luke tells us that Mary treasured these things in her heart…

Part of the way we bring God into the world is simply by becoming aware of God… part of the way become aware of God is by slowing down and simplifying our lives…

Thomas Merton says, there is a pervasive form of contemporary violence, and that is activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of this innate violence.

To be so multi-tasked and busy is to do violence to our souls.

Henri Nouwen says "When your eating, drinking, working, playing, speaking, or writing is no longer for the glory of God, you should stop it immediately, because when you no longer live for the glory of God, you begin to live for your own glory. Then you separate yourself from God and do yourself harm. Your main question should always be whether something is lived with or without God."…

My wife Sakiko has been taking drawing and painting… for its own sake and so that she will be enabled you to see, perceive…God in everything…

Is there something you can do in the coming year that will enable you to more fully contemplate God?

Or there is something you can stop to more fully contemplate God?

When the poet Southy was telling an elderly Quaker lady how he learned Portuguese grammar while he washed and something else while he dressed, how worked while he had breakfast and so… filling who whole day multi-tasking, the Quaker asked quietly, When do you have time to think?

As we, like Mary, become people who learn to dwell on God, our purpose as a child of God, we become those who bring God into the word…

Mary finds favor with God as one who walks humbly before God, as one who contemplates God, and as one who radical obeys…

When the angel Gabriel comes to her and says the Holy Spirit will come to you and the power of the most high will overshadow you, and you will give birth the Holy one, the one called son of God, Jesus…

Mary could have hesitated, turned away in fear…

After all the first pregnancy is always the scariest, to be pregnant outside of wedlock especially in her culture would have been scandalous….

But to bear the one who is the HOPE of the WORLD… that is out there….

Mary a 14 year illiterate peasant, who has never heard of the Christmas story, after all she is the Christmas the story—(a lead player in it)…

Because her humble, thoughtful and radical “yes” to God… “I am the Lord’s servant, May it be to me as you have said” she becomes the one who brings God into the world…

So we bring God to the world… as we walk humbly before, contemplate God, and radically obey we will become those who bring God into the world…

This past Tuesday we had our small group Christmas party… in a circle in our living room we talked about the new things we had experienced… some talked about how learning to sail or ski or paint, but everyone talked how God shaped them through this group… how they had learned to pray, to read the Bible and journal, learn anew how to forgive…

Sakiko in leaving the “safety” of her homeland, her secure job, family, language… to follow God’s call enable to become an instrument of God.

I have a friend who is a journalist who writes for Vancouver Magazine and other publications. Before beginning his spiritual pilgrimage, he was involved heavily party/drug scene here in the Vancouver and ended up being in a group one night where someone was killed in a drug related killing… Though innocent, he was a suspect and was put in a pre-trial holding prison… but in prison he began to take the first steps of spiritual journey…. When he got out he started coming to Tenth.

I was with him not ago to see in his temporary back in his temporary home “pre-trial” prison…and He told me had been drawn to God through his first experience in prison, but had after he had been set free he had experience some drifting from God…

He told God I was closer to you in prison than now, if takes going back to prison to be closer to you, send me back.

The very next day he was on assignment with the Vancouver Courier covering a drug dealing story on the Downtown East, to a better inside angle he bought 6 dollars or crack and was arrested and thrown into prison.

He told me say to you all be careful what you pray for! But he also told me, I’ve surrendered my life to God, I have had more time than the Bible to read the Bible and ponder God than ever before, and people are coming to me here for guidance…

This friend is has radically surrender to the call of God and he’s bringing God into the prison!
I known a pastor in LA Erwin who in Florida to speak at a youth conference and took his family along for working vacation.
One morning Erwin and his 10-year-old son Aaron walked down to the beach.
Although several hundred students were there, most seemed unaware of the physically disabled man who was awkwardly making his way out of the ocean water. The man was a double amputee with specialized crutches. As he attempted to navigate his way back up to the hotel, he fell. He pulled himself up again only to fall a second time. Erwin, pretending not to notice, directed Aaron in the opposite direction. He was fairly certain that his son, like most of the people on the beach, had not noticed the man. Erwin's son surprised him by saying, "I have to go help that man."
His son’s compassion moved him to act.
Aaron went down to help the man but was unable to lift him. Several people from the crowd came and worked as a team to get the man up to the hotel deck. Aaron walked back up to his father with tears in his eyes and said, "I couldn't help him. I wasn't strong enough."
"He couldn't see that no one would have helped the man if he hadn't taken initiative. He didn’t know he had brought the love of God into the world of that man."
When we walk humbly with God, when contemplate God, and when step in radical obedience, like Mary, we bring God into the world.

Christmas Eve Meditation (24 Dec 2005)

Christmas Eve Meditation 05 Virgin Territory


At the end of the year, at my wife’s prompting we ask each other what new things did you experience past year?

We’ve talked about how as we get older we don’t want to become ultra conservative, refusing to try something new, because we don’t want to stop growing.

My wife and I are both originally from Japan, where zen masters talk about cultivating a “beginner’s mind.”

Jesus also spoke the importance of a beginner’s mind.

Jesus said in order to grow spiritually, we must have the mind of a child: open, not presuming that we “see.”

One of the new things my wife and I did together this past year was to take a 6 day sailing course in Gulf Islands.

I experienced a lot of new things on the boat, including manually lowering and then raising the anchor in Montague Harbor and then a 2nd time lowering the anchor more slowly and trying to get it right it to catch properly and… and then raising it again and a 3rd time and lowering the even more slowly anchor…. Reversing the boat trying making sure it takes hold….

but my wife Sakiko experienced even more things…

My wife grew up a larges cities Japan---the closest experience she’s ever had to camping was staying in hotel with some shrubbery in the front with some gold fish in a marble pond in the courtyard.

Spending 6 days on a boat with no shower and a marine head for a toilet really was a new experience for her!

At our small group Christmas party this past week, my wife asked our members what new things they had experienced this past year.

Someone said, “I’ve learning to parallel ski for the first time this year” another said, I’ve new ways to paint in art classes, but each member also talked about how they had a new experience of God.

One person said, this year, I’ve learn to pray regularly for this first time. Another said this year, I’ve learned to read the Bible and journal, and another said through our study of scripture, I’ve learned anew how to forgive. ..

Experiencing something new or anew is pathway to growth…

Mary the mother of Jesus is the ultimate example of allowing something radically new in her life by saying yes to God…

Like most famous people, there was a time, of course, when Mary the mother of Jesus, wasn’t famous, a time when she’s just a 14 years old virgin, an illiterate peasant from a small town…

God comes to her through the angel Gabriel and announces to her that she is the one whom God has chosen to conceive a child, miraculously, through the Holy Spirit coming over her and that she will bear in her body the life of the son of God, Jesus Christ.

And Mary says, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said.”

In saying yes…

Mary risks ruining her reputation in a conservative, small town by becoming pregnant out of wedlock, losing her fiancé, and bearing in her body the savior of world…

And as my friend Elizabeth points out, raising a real “know it all”!

But in allowing God come into her, Mary is changed and becomes the person through which God has changed my life… perhaps yours, and countless people around the world…

Saying yes to God… involves risk… and it can be messy, giving birth in the best of circumstances is messy… but as we say yes to God we are animated by the life God and God’s life comes through us to the world…

Last year a friend of mine asked is their “virgin” territory in your life that you need to open to the life of God?

This Christmas Eve, may I ask you, “Is their virgin territory in your life?

Areas unknown, utouched, unexplored, that you would like God to enter into and bring life to?

Virgin areas… in your work, in a friendship, in area of passion for you?

Allowing God in your life to do new work in us involves risk: the risk of becoming a beginner, the risk of change, but it allows your life to be animated by the very life of God and, and like Mary, will enable you to blessing to the world…

Silent…Prayer… God Search me oh God and know my heart, test me and see if there is any part of me that has been untouched and guide me forward…

If you would a sacred birth to begin in your… join in praying…Jesus Christ, Oh Holy Child of Bethlehem… Descend on me I pray, cast out my sin and enter in be born in me today…

Mary M1 Yes (18 Dec 2005)

Mary M1 Yes

(This sermon can be heard online at:
http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

BI: We experience the birth of Christ in us by submitting to God’s call, without turning away or calculating…

Tom Wright is a respected Anglican minister and scholar in the UK.

Wright observes that if you ask a newspaper editor what will sell the most copies, the editor will say juicy stories about sex, famous people, and religion.

He says Pop diva’s love child is a good headline. Princess has an affair is better. Prime minister’s secret night with nun is best!

Thank God, the person called to record the birth of Jesus was not some newspaper editor pressured to sell as many copies as possible…

Thank God, he raised up Luke a physician and gifted historian, who to relate the greatest story ever told…

Please turn in your Bibles to Luke 1:
The Birth of Jesus Foretold
26In the sixth month (of Elizabeth’s pregnancy), God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."
29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
34"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37For nothing is impossible with God."
38"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.
In this passage, we see the angel Gabriel coming to Mary.
When we hear the name Mary, many of us immediately associate that name with the
famed mother of Jesus… as the lofty one who has been described as the “Mother of God…” the one “full of grace.”

Or perhaps we think of a face portrayed in medieval art (show powerpoint slides) or on the cover of some magazine. Mary had donned the cover of more magazines than other woman in the history world... including the late Lady Di, the pop star Madonna, and more than Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie combined…

But like most people in the world who are now famous, there was time when Mary was not famous at all.

There was a time when she was simply a 14 year girl from a poor family in Nazareth, a town of about small of about 1600-2000 inhabitants.

Like all poor peasant girls of time her, she would have been illiterate. What she would have know about the Scriptures she would have picked from hearing the Word of God read in the synagogue, not by reading it herself.

Given her social profile, we could predict that she was likely to marry humbly (someone from the working class, a blue collar person), have numerous poor children, never travel more than just a few kilometers from the place of her birth, and that she likely wouldn’t live a long life…

But, God comes to her…

Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church said, “God might have gone to Jerusalem and picked out Caiaphas’ the high priest’s daughter, who was fair, rich, clad in gold embroidered garments and attended by a host maids in waiting. But God preferred lowly maid from a poor town.”

God comes to her…

The first guests invited to the birth of Jesus were shepherds.

Shepherds in 1st century Palestine were on the bottom of the social ladder.

They smelled like sheep dung. They were considered so dishonest that their testimonies were not legally admissible in court. Some towns had laws banning shepherds from their city limits. Yet the invitation to the party day part of Jesus comes to them.

What the Christmas story tells us is that God loves to the come to humble, ordinary people…

I remember someone telling me, I killed myself researching that paper because I wanted it to be great, but I got a B- on it. I’m mediocre… I’m Joe ordinary…

God loves to come to ordinary people…

You don’t have to be rich or a Rev. or a Dr. or strikingly beautiful… for God to come to you…

God’s love does come to ordinary people… the Bible over and over shows how God’s love comes to the outsider, the invisible, the forgotten…

Oh, God also does call some of who are rich, powerful, and elite.

But, it seems he loves to come as Luke points out in his Gospel in those who are poor, humble, and on the margins.

Our Catholic sisters and brothers have coined the term God’ preferential option for the poor.

Why would God single out the poor and forgotten for special attention?

Perhaps it’s because they are more likely to receive God as God…

rather than to add God to their team as an administrative assistant or as the “help.”

“Successful” people are much more likely to see God as an instrument to help them achieve their goals, rather seeing themselves as an instrument to achieve God’s…

Humble, ordinary people are much more likely to see themselves as God’s servants and not vice verse…

So, God comes to this peasant girl named Mary…

And through the angel Gabriel and says "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."
29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wonders what kind of greeting this might be.
Mary experiences this fear in the presence of God, and wonders what of greeting could mean…

Like Aslan the Lion and Christ figure of the C.S. Lewis’ the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, God is good, but not safe…

"Do not be afraid, Mary, Gabriel the angel says you have found favor with God. 31You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

(Then the angel offers a paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:8-16 saying). The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
34"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

Nothing is impossible with God…

Mary’s world is about to experience cataclysmic change…

And though she is troubled and afraid, she resists the temptation to turn away from God in her fear…

and she resists the temptation to calculate whether this work to her personal advantage…

When we sense God may be asking us to do something, sometimes we turn away in fear or we try to calculate whether following God’s call will serve our self-interest…

We run a cost-benefit analysis…

Sometimes we think if I say yes to God in this area, I may suffer in some way or if I follow God on this, I may miss out…

If I say yes to God, I may not be able to achieve this goal…

But we cannot come to God through a cost-benefit analysis…

Because we don’t know how our life will unfold with God in the picture…

we stand behind a veil a kind of ignorance when it comes to the future

and as Lewis points out God is good, but not tame…

Mary could have tried to calculate… and weigh this scenario worked in her self-interest…

Becoming pregnant outside of wedlock…. my mom will kill me…

People will gossip… my reputation will be ruined.

My finance Joe will not believe me…

He’ll ask for us to get a divorce (being betrothed in this culture, unlike ours was basically tantamount to marriage). In a small town being divorced will cause my marriage eligibility stock to sink, like a stone tossed into the Sea of Galilee…

Then if Mary could have envisioned the anxiety and frustration of having her son at 12 years of age go missing… calling 911 and then asking for his mug shot to appear on the milk cartoon as a missing child…

If she could imagine being a 48 year old mom and seeing her 33 year whipped and then nailed to a Roman cross and feeling a sword pierce her soul…

If she might well have said, I pass….

Thank you, but no thank you…

I’ll can’t deliver, but I can recommend someone else…

But, she says “I am the Lord’s servant… May it be to me as you have said…and the life of Jesus is birthed in her through the Holy Spirit and a the savior comes into the world…

But, if Mary would have said no… what would that have meant?

Would that have no meant no savior?

No. I don’t think so. God could have found someone else…

But as my mentor Leighton Ford says…

Would not the child still been born for the world?

But what would have been still-born in her? 2x

As we look at lives of people this past year like Abraham and Sarah and Naomi and Ruth we’ve seen that when we abandoned ourselves to the call of God, God leads us into places that unknown and unfamiliar and insecure, but it is in these places of vulnerability and loss where we experience God’s life most fully.

So may I ask us in this Christmas, we will calculate and do a cost-benefit analysis when God calls us… this season or in the coming year.

Will we choose “safety” but let the work of be “still born” in us?

Or like Mary, will say…

I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said…

Ruth: Shape of Grace (11 Dec. 2005)

Ruth M3 The Shape of Grace December 11, 2005

(The sermon can be heard online at:
http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Last Sunday, one of our staff members Julie Linden shared about the opportunities and needs of our out of the cold ministry that feeds and houses the homeless here.

She was overwhelmed by the grace and generosity of the community here. She got over 200 pairs of socks, 150 underwear… $1,500 over and above the benevolent offering.

She said in her previous church in a different city, was wealthy but no-one seemed interest in giving to the homeless, I don’t believe in giving to that, she community has been over the top in generosity. Thank you for excelling in the grace of giving…

Philip Yancey in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace describes a person being in a bus, reading the M Scott Peck’s bestseller the Road Less Traveled. The person next to her said, what you are reading? The person said well I haven’t gotten very far… it’s some of life guide book and she started to flip through the chapters: discipline, love, grace… the person who asked about the book said, what’s grace? The reader said, I don’t know, I haven’t gotten to grace yet.

Grace refers to the kindness God or human being shows to another, that is not merited or undeserved.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we sometimes call the Older Testament, the word Hesed is similar to the New Testament word grace and Hesed refers to God’s covenant love, his loyal love, his compassion. This morning as we come to the final message in the book of Ruth series I want us to explore the shape of Hesed.

To recap briefly for those new to the book of Ruth, the story begins with a famine in Bethlehem. Naomi and her family move out of Bethlehem, out of land where God has led them into Moab to seek better fortunes. But things becomes become very dark for them in Moab. Naomi’s husband Elimelech dies. Her sons marry Moabite and then they die. Naomi returns to Bethlehem totally impoverished with her Moabite daughter in law Ruth (the other daughter in law has gone back home to her parents in Moab). Naomi is fragile and too old to work, so Ruth goes to work in the barley fields, to scrounge up the dropped stalks of wheat. But she “chance chances” upon the field of Boaz a wealthy, respected relative of her mother in laws deceased husband who, as person considered close enough to be what was called a kinsman (or family) redeemer IF he chose to could buy back the land that Naomi’s family had to sell when moving to Moab and can choose to marry Ruth so their family will have an heir to inherit the land.

Amazingly Ruth agrees to propose to Boaz and even more amazingly Boaz agrees to marry her and redeem the land if he can… But he says to Ruth there is one relative technically closer to your family than me and so he is line before me to redeem the land and marry you, let’s find out what he says.

Please turn to Ruth 4.
Boaz Marries Ruth
1 Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat there. When the kinsman-redeemer he had mentioned came along, Boaz said, "Come over here, my friend, and sit down." So he went over and sat down.
2 Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, "Sit here," and they did so. 3 Then he said to the kinsman-redeemer, "Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech. (explain this surrendering the right to you) 4 I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line."
"I will redeem it," he said.
5 Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess, you acquire the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property."
6 At this, the kinsman-redeemer said, "Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it."
7 (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.)
8 So the kinsman-redeemer said to Boaz, "Buy it yourself." And he removed his sandal.
9 Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, "Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, Kilion and Mahlon. 10 I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon's widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from the town records. Today you are witnesses!"
11 Then the elders and all those at the gate said, "We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. 12 Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah."
The Genealogy of David
13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
16 Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
18 This, then, is the family line of Perez:
Perez was the father of Hezron,
19 Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
20 Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon, [c]
21 Salmon the father of Boaz,
Boaz the father of Obed,
22 Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of David.
In the passage, we see that Boaz is willing to act as a kinsman (or family) redeemer for Ruth and Naomi and that he is willing to buy back their land for them. But as we saw there is a relative in the clan who is actually technically closer to Naomi’s dead husband Elimelech than Boaz is and that he has the right prior to Boaz to buy back the land.

So, Boaz tells this “brother” of Elimelech that Naomi is surrendering the right to use the land.

The NIV states that Naomi has come back from Moab to sell the land.

Given the Hebrew context and language, the way the NIV translates this seems to be somewhat misleading.

How so? It appears that Elimelech Naomi’s now dead husband has in effect “sold” the land to someone else before leaving for Moab, but according to Hebrew law Elimelech still maintains the actual “right” and “title deed” to since this land was part of his family inheritance and so even he had sold the “right to use the land” to another person before leaving for Moab, if some one in the family could come up with the money to buy back the use of the land it would return to the family.

Not long after my wife and I were married we noticed that there were homes near UBC and in the Southlands which to our surprise by Vancouver standards seemed quite reasonably priced, especially for the location, but we discovered these house were on land that you were not went so much buying outright as you were leasing from the city.

It seems to be the case that the Elimelech and his family left Bethlehem to go to Moab they sold the right to use their land, but Naomi has no money to buy back the right to use the land, but she as Elimelech’s widow still holds the title deed to the land so if a close a relative like Boaz could come buy back the right to use the land back from the person leasing the land, he could do so and the person leasing the land would have to sell back the right to use the land, whether he wanted to or not.

But as we mentioned there is a relative in the clan who is actually positionally closer to Elimelech, Noami’s dead husband, so Boaz gives him the first opportunity to redeem the land.

In the NIV Boaz refers to this other clan member as “my friend” but in the Hebrew, he’s actually referred to as Mr. so and so, or what someone we might describe as Mr. x. He described as totally anonymously because what’s he about to do is not considered very noble.

When Boaz says you are closer to Elimelech than I am, you have first the right to buy back the use of the land. It seems Mr. so and so wants to buy because he knows that Elimelech the dead husband does not have an heir, no son, and if he buys the land when his widow Naomi dies, the land will eventually become part of his own inheritance.

So he does a quick calculations and says, I’ll buy it.

Then Boaz says when you “buy back” Elimelech’s land for this family you also have the obligation to marry his dead son’s widow Ruth the Moabites, so Elimelech will have an heir…

At this point, Mr so and so backs off and says I can’t do that because I might endanger my own estate. He knows that if he marries Ruth and they have a son that son will not be considered his, but Ruth’s dead husband’s and that the child will inherit the property and so he won’t gain anything from buying the land and in fact if his own children die, then Elimelech’s son might get his estate.

So, out of self-interest Mr. so and so declines the option to buy the land since it also means he’ll have to marry Ruth, the Moabities.

Mr and so and so’s calculations of self-interest, highlights Boaz’s generosity in buying back the family’s right to use the land and marrying Ruth, the Moabities because if Ruth has a son it will be considered the dead husband’s and he will one day inherit the land.

What does this teaches us about Hesed? What does this teach us about loyal love, and God’s grace? One of the things that it teaches us is that Hesed and grace are costly for the ones giving it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his classic book the Cost of Discipleship warns against what he calls “cheap grace,” which he means “offering” people forgiveness without commitment to God or discipleship.

We could use the expression of “cheap grace” as a way of taking the gift of God’s love for granted as if cost God nothing.

Boaz in buying back the right of Elimelech’s surving family members, Naomi and Ruth to use the land and in marrying Ruth knowing that if they had a son together that son would not be considered Boaz’s but her dead husband’s and as Ruth’s deceased husband’s son, Boaz would like the surrogate father… in effect donating his seed, would inherit the land were a been a great sacrifices and voluntary sacrifices. Boaz after as a family redeemer had the right to buy back the family land and marry the widow, BUT was not obligated legally to do.

Hesed and gace always involves some kind of cost, some kind sacrifice

If someone comes to your house, stumbles and smashes a very expensive vase, and you say oh don’t worry about it and forgive the person… it not like that “debt” goes in the thin air… you absorb the cost of that.

If you’re waiting for somewhat for 45 minutes because they forget about your meeting, and you them forgive, it’s you who pays the price with the time.

Hesed is always costly to the giver…but Hesed may inspire Hesed in them.

In the book of Ruth we see this cycle of grace… After Naomi the mother in law and her daughter’s in law Orpah and Ruth have lost all lost their husbands and become widows, Naomi selflessly says to her daughters in law, go home to your families and your people where you can find another husband… and this kind of character in Naomi, seems to inspire Ruth to say, no where you go, I will go… you’re people will become my people….

The Boaz sees Ruth’s Hesed toward Naomi and is inspired to demonstrate Hesed toward to Ruth…

The Christmas story is about God in Christ demonstrating his Hesed, his loyal love to us in a way that is foreshadowed in Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, but far surpasses them. We didn’t do anything to inspire God’s love, but God became a human being in Christ and laid down his life on cross absorbing our sins in his body so our moral debts before God could be paid for, so we could be bought back to God… As we are exposed to that kind of love we are ourselves can become people of Hesed, people who love even when it costs us something, to use Mother Teresa’s expression we can love till it hurts…

A second thing we learn about God’s grace is that it reaches out to the outsider… to the alien…

Boaz demonstrates incredible grace… by marrying someone who not only is destitute, buys her family land back, absorbs her family debts, but also is a woman of a despised race…

This is not Vancouver in 2005 this is Israel in about the 12 century B.C., a time when Hebrews married Hebrews and Moabities who had been bitter enemies of the people of Israel, were considered a despised minority in a place like Bethlehem.

So this marriage is a huge step for a Hebrew…

Why Boaz able to do it? As mentioned before he sees Ruth in the field… He discovers that she has sacrificed for Naomi, laid down her life so that Naomi, and he’s impressed by her…

But as my wife pointed out to me, who was Boaz’s mother according to Matthew? Rahab. Who was Rahab?

When the Israelites first entered the promised land the first city they were going to take was Jericho…. during this invasion, a Jericho woman, a Canaanite named Rahab, who was an sex trade worker, helped the people of God so she and her family were spared.

And this Hebrew named Salmon marries this sex trade worker and worse a Canaanite… My sister was secretly dating a Greek guy when our family was living in Montreal. His parents had the attitude I’d rather have my son marry a Greek prostitute, than a Mother Teresa or Lady Di or anyone else who is not Greek…

And Hebrews parents in Boaz’s culture would have want their kids to marry a person of their race and preferably not a sex trade worker…

But Salmon marries her… we don’t any details about their marriage, but I think we can surmise that Salmon love Rahab, he marries her voluntarily (that marriage is likely not arranged) and out of being loved, Rahab apparently becomes a woman of noble character, and she becomes part of the family line of Jesus.

Consider she is one of 4 women who are identified in the genealogy of Jesus by Matthew, one of the few women honored in Hebrews chapter 11, Hall of Faith chapter in the Bible…. How does she become this kind of woman? I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that because of the Hesed of a Hebrew man name Salmon who was willing to marry her and love her as total outsider….maybe seeing that that Boaz was willing to step out… and take a risk to love way outside the mainstream…

Perhaps as much as anything seeing the grace of his father to his mother (or likely one of his great grandfathers to his one of great grand grandmothers as Matthew’s genealogy seems to at times skip generations and family history was important and remembered in this culture, in a way it’s not in ours), who was a despised minority, enabled him to show Hesed to a despised minority.

We see in Scripture God’s Hesed extends to the foreigner to the outsider, to Rahab sex trade worker, to a woman like Ruth a Moabities, and in so far as the line of Jesus is concerned to the second born who considered in the culture as inferior to the first born, to the sister who was not graced with super model looks of her sister, but physically unattractive, to a teenager a peasant who would become the bearer of his son…

We know God’s grace, Christmas grace is generous to the outsider…

If we get the Christmas story, if we receive the Christ of the Christmas, part of what that means is that is we love the outsider whether the culture, racial, or economic or moral outsider… Sociologists have pointed people aspire to connect to people of their social or standing or people slightly above them, but that’s not true of true Christian, we related who are considered by “world standards” beside us, above, but also with below us…

Christmas is a family time, for some families Christmas this is one day you of the year you can spend time with people in your immediate family and circle of blood relatives (I don’t way lay a heave on you), but if don’t have such a tradition or if possible to change that tradition, perhaps Christmas could become a time to include people outside your family…

The Hesed of God reaches is costly grace that reaches the marginalized and finally Hesed is usually not what we expect.

When the grace of God is working in our lives, we don’t always get the life we would choose, we don’t necessarily get an easy life, but we get a great life.

Naomi never expected to be a widow so young. Never expected her sons to marry women who were part of a despised culture. Never expected be completely impoverished… At the end of chapter 1 she says I have been emptied by God. The rest of the book is how she is filled by God. But she’s not filled in the way she expects.

As a young wife of two sons, she never envisions the day when her family will be an unconventional until of two poor widows: herself and a Moabite daughter in law who becomes the “barley winner” for the family.

She doesn’t expect as a young woman of two boys that she will be sonless and to have a Moab woman who married her de facto “son.”

In the Movie As Good as it Gets at one point waitress played Helen Hunt who is dating Jack Nicholson, this bigoted, obsessive compulsive author, and Helen cries why can’t I have a normal boyfriend?! I wonder if Naomi cried, Why Can’t I have a normal family!


At the end of the book of Ruth, women say to Naomi, Ruth is better to you than seven sons. Some of you have two young boys and say they have the attention of about 1/2 a nanosecond, and the last thing I would want is 7 sons! Well in this culture 7 was the perfect number and sons were considered highly prized and so 7 sons means the perfect family. Not what Naomi expected for a son, a minority widow, but better than a son, better than 7 son!

Then she kind of has a son through Ruth of course is not Naomi’s actual, biological son, but others say now Naomi has a son. According to the author, the son sustains her in her old age and a “son” who will be one a son who be part the family from whom the Messiah, Jesus Christ eventually one day comes.

Now, think ahead along that family line to Mary of mother of Jesus. She’s peasant girl, virgin, who miraculously conceives a child through the Holy Spirit who become the baby Jesus. It’s a miracle. When she’s 9 month’s pregnant she and Joseph are looking for an Inn. She’s a peasant, but she going to give birth to God’s son likely thinks that God open us an amazing place for her… Maybe the nicest motel she’s ever stayed in was a youth hostel and maybe thinking God will get them a room the Four Seasons or the Pan Pacific, Ocean view.

But none of the inns have any vacancy. They end up in a stable of animals, it’s not what she hoped for, but it’s greater than what she had hoped for…. Because, if God could show up in a stable, he could also show up here right now in Mount Pleasant and he could show up at our heart’s door and if we opened the door of our lives to Christ and say come in, become of my life, we may not get the life we’ve always expected, it will life of costly sacrifice and it be a life loving the outsider, but it will be a greater life, an eternal life that connects to the eternal story of God.
Prayer… perhaps to turn or re-turn your life over to God and pray O holy Child of Bethlehem,
descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
be born in us today.

Ruth: (4 December, 2005)

Message Ruth M2 There is a Redeemer December 4 2005

Big Idea: Even in dark and discouraging times God is unfolding HIS plan of redemption.

(This sermon can be heard on line at:
http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Charles Dicken’s famous novel: The Tale of Two Cities begins with words…“It was the best of times it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us we had nothing before us.”

Dickens’ opening of a Tale of Two Cities, of course, describes pre-revolutionary 18th century France, but could also have been used to describe the book of Ruth… as the story describes a group of people who thought they had nothing, but they had everything because God was at work behind the scenes of their lives.

Elimelech and his family in the period of the Judges are living in Bethlehem, but there is a famine in the land. So they do the “logical” thing and leave Bethlehem for Moab, southeast of Bethlehem, where apparently there is no famine.

During their 10 year sojourn in Moab, Naomi’s husband dies and her sons Mahlon and Kilion marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth and then Naomi’s son Mahlon and Kilion ending up dying as well in Moab.

Bereft of her husband and sons, Naomi sinks into a deep pit of despair…

Naomi hears that the famine has ended in Bethlehem and she and her daughters in law Orpah and Ruth begin to walk along the Dead Sea Northwest to back to Naomi’s homeland…

Naomi says God’s hand is against me and she urges her daughters in law Orpah and Ruth to go back to their country, their families, and their gods.

Orpah does the sensible thing and goes home, but Ruth clings to Naomi and utters those immortal words, “Don’t urge me to leave you, where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people will be my people, your God my God…(she leaves her gods, and takes the God of Naomi) where you die, I will die… and she travels with Naomi to Bethlehem.

As Naomi comes back into the Bethlehem she says, “I left Bethlehem full, but I have come back empty. So don’t call me Naomi (which means pleasant) call me Mara which means bitterness, for the Lord has made my life very bitter.”

Let’s turn to Ruth 2 (as you turn, I want acknowledge a pastor I know name Tim Keller who serves a church called Redeemer Presbyterian, whose helped me see all the redeemers in this passage).
Ruth Meets Boaz
1 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor."
Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter." 3 So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.
4 Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The LORD be with you!"
"The LORD bless you!" they called back.
5 Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, "Whose young woman is that?"
6 The foreman replied, "She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7 She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter."
8 So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls. 9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."
10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?"
11 Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
13 "May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord," she said. "You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls."
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar."
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, "Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don't embarrass her. 16 Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don't rebuke her."
17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. 18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
19 Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!"
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," she said.
20 "The LORD bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers."
So Naomi’s family leave Bethlehem where there is a famine and goes to Moab hoping to improve their financial lot, but they end up in poverty and so Naomi returns to Bethlehem.

It’s not like she has just failed in some internet start up company and can declare bankruptcy and start again.

Naomi is too old and physically fragile to work in the fields.

She’s lost her husband and her two sons in a culture when only males have access to power, and she’s old to re-marry and have children.

In fact her situation seems so bleak that as she comes back into Bethlehem with Ruth she says, “I left here full, but I’ve come back empty…”

I wonder what Ruth thinks as she hears her mother in-law say, “I’m empty.” I wonder if Ruth thinks, what am I—a nothing, a zero, just a flea or something?

But Ruth proves to be a lifeline for her aged mother in law, Naomi.

Ruth is a woman who has left her nation of Moab, her culture, her language, her parents, her people, potential husbands…

In a culture where family is everything, Ruth is not just willing to leave her family, but to face the rest of her days as a widow and childless… to support her mother in law…

She’s willing to become an alien, a despised minority in an unknown place for her. In this chapter 2 alone, the author brings out the fact Ruth is a Moabites 5x.

And in this chapter Boaz commands his employee not to harm Ruth, why? Because as a woman and a member of despised minority, with no man in her life Ruth is vulnerable to violence or rape…

Ruth lays down her life, so her mother-in-law would have one. She’s a redeemer figure for Naomi.

When God is in the picture for us, it is never just the “winter of despair, it is also the spring of hope.

As we see in the book of Ruth even in this seemingly bleak time, God in all kinds of ways is working quietly behind the scenes working out his redemptive purposes.

But not only is there a redeemer for Naomi in Ruth, a redeemer emerges for the both of them.

Ruth’s mother in law is too old and fragile to do the backbreaking work of gleaning in the fields, so Ruth volunteers to go into the fields and pick up the left-over grain (according to God’s law given through Moses, landowners were supposed to leave what the harvesters missed, so that the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan could eat.)

The New International Version text tells us… “As it turned out” Ruth found herself working in the fields of Boaz, who was from her same clan as her dead husband, Elimelech.

In the Hebrew the phrase translated in the NIV… “As it turned out” reads more literally “she chance chanced upon.” In Hebrew that idiom indicates much more strongly than the English that Ruth “chance chanced” to come onto the field of Boaz, under the providential guidance of God.

At first, Ruth had no idea that this was Boaz’s field and at the time she had no idea who or what Boaz was…

There are so many times when our seeming ordinary steps in life are being led by the Lord. The book Proverbs tells us a person in his or her heart may chart his or her course, but God determines their steps.

As Ruth “chance chanced” upon, Boaz’s fields, we are told that Boaz is a man of standing, which means that he is a man of wealth, status, and respected in the community.

And we know early on that he’s a man of God. Just as Ruth begins working the fields, Boaz happens to walk by and greets his workers with the words, (and remember this is in the time of the Judges when most people have turned away from God) “The Lord be With you.” Why does the author include such a seemingly trivial detail? To show us that Boaz is a man who acknowledges God.

Boaz ends up discovering through his foreman Ruth is a foreigner, a Moabites and who has come to Bethlehem to support her widowed mother-in-law, Noami.

Boaz, knowing that she is a vulnerable alien woman, tells his men, not to harm her…

He says to Ruth, “Whenever you are thirsty, please access to drink from my water jars…”

14At the lunch break, Boaz said to her, "Come over here; eat some bread. Dip it in the wine."

And he orders his men, "Let her glean where there's still plenty of grain on the ground… in fact, pull some of the good stalks of grain out and leave it for her to glean.

And when Ruth returns to her mother that night with not a few gleanings, but a lap full of grain…. Naomi, her mother in law, says whose fields did you work in today?! Ruth says, “I worked in field of a man named Boaz.” Ruth has no idea who he is.

Naomi, exclaims, “He’s one of our close relatives!”

He’s one of our “goels,” one of our kinsman-redeemers!

John Piper says this is like a bright crack in the cloud of bitterness hanging over Naomi.

We don’t have anything equivalent to a kinsman-redeemer in our culture. So, let me explain what that is.

When Israelites moved into Canaan, the promised, the land was divided and each of the families received some property.

But some families, of course, would fall into poverty and be forced to sell their land.

But there was a provision in law that allowed a close relative to buy back the land for the family. So if some other person had come to own the land, if a close a relative (a kinsman) wanted to buy back the land, on behalf of the family that had lost it, he could do so and the owner would have to sell whether he wanted to or not.

Now apparently when, Naomi’s family moved to Moab they sold their family land, and didn’t have the money buy it back….

But, Boaz is close enough of kin to buy it back.

Another role that the kinsman redeemer could play was to marry a widow of a close relative in order to carry on the name of the dead relative…

In this case ideally Boaz would both buy their land back, but would also marry Ruth so that Naomi’s family had an heir to inherit the land.

Naomi gets so excited at this prospect that not long after this she encourages Ruth to propose marriage to him, in a way that would fit the culture.

Naomi says to her daughter in law, wash, and perfume, put on your best clothes. This evening after Boaz has finished eating and drinking and he goes lies down on the threshing floor… go to him, uncover his feet and he’ll tell you what to do…

This was obviously quite forward, but nonetheless a culturally acceptable way a woman could propose to a man. Apparently, this custom is still practiced in some middle Eastern cultures…

Naomi sets up a plan, but there are great risks.

Boaz has been very kind to Ruth, protecting her from assault or rape at the plantation, allowing her to glean as much as she wants from his fields, but there’s a big difference between offering to safe environment and being generous to someone and wanting to marry them!

As a kinsman redeemer, he is does NOT have to buy the land back NOR does he have to marry her… he has the option to say no….

But Ruth she goes to the threshing floor, while Boaz is sleeping, lifts up his blanket lies down… in the middle of the night something startles Boaz and he asks, “Who are you?” I am your servant Ruth, spread the corner of your garment over me, for you are a kinsman redeemer… this was a way asking him to marry her…

At this point, Boaz could turn her away…

Perhaps Ruth in the back of her mind is thinking….

Why would he marry me a woman, who is not from his culture, a woman who is a despised minority?

Why would he want to marry me in culture where family means everything, since I was not able to have a child with my first husband? And even if I have a child that child will not be considered his, but my dead husband’s?

If he marries her me, he assumes all of our family debt, he’ll have buy back my mother-in-laws lost property, he absorbs all our debt and all his wealth transfers to us…

Why would he do that?

But the worst thing for Ruth would not to be turned down, that would hurt.

Boaz, is a male, he’s a good a male, but he is a man, and Ruth’s lifting up his blanket and asking to be covered by his garment is a marriage proposal and has sexual overtones, which could be misread. It’s dark, it’s at night, she just a vulnerable young woman, with no legal standing as a minority, no real protector, Boaz could decide to have one a night stand with her and leave her, reasoning after she sort of “owes me”…

But how does Boaz respond? He responds with total integrity… tenderness and purity… and he says you’ve done me a kindness, but not running after the younger guy… Boaz calls a daughter which suggests he’s older, but also he will treat tenderly and will purity…

He agrees to marry her, buy back the family property and to become her and Naomi’s kinsman redeemer…

What this story shows us that God can use “chancing upon a chance” our every ordinary actions that we don’t give forethought to, like Ruth coming into a field to glean, and choreograph these into his greater plan…

The story also shows us God can and does use planning and risk taking to achieve his redemptive purposes… Ruth took at big risk in proposing to Boaz.

The story shows that God can use something as earthy as an unlikely relationship to achieve his purposes.

My grandmother turns 92 years old this month… If you meet you might think she has everything in the world going for her as a 92 year old: she’s beautiful (in 92 year kind of way), she’s fit—she plays tennis, she has money and she lives in the best neighborhood.

But her life has been filled with pain. Her husband my grandfather, had money and power and was repeatedly unfaithful and at times physically abusive. But they lived in a culture and in a generation where divorce was not an option… Many times she wanted her life to end. Several years ago, she confided in me. She said, “My life was filled with suffering, but I know it wasn’t completely in vain because, your mom was born and you were born and you’re serving God… so my life wasn’t wasted after all?”

If you read on “the edges” of the book of Ruth, you’ll about the men in Noami, Ruth, and Orpah’s lives. We don’t for certain, but there are hints the men in the family were drifting from God. They leave the land God promised them to seek out wealth in Moab. The sons take on Canaanite names and they marry women who don’t share faith in the same God, yet God uses this all this drifting away from God to bring about his purposes.

Last week in our home group we were studying Joseph’s life. How God used the sin of Joseph’s brother to work in a remarkable end to save their family.

Some of us talked about God used our sins and mistakes to achieve his purposes.

Ruth shows us that God can use the ordinary, he can use planning and risk, he can use relationships, and he can even use sin to bring about his redemptive purposes.

We see in the book of Ruth there is a redeemer for Naomi, Ruth, and there is Redeemer for Naomi and Ruth, Boaz, and there is a redeemer for us…

At the end of book of Ruth, the women say to Naomi, praise God that He has not left you without a kinsman redeemer… and if you stop there. You would you think the kinsman redeemer is Boaz.

But it become clear as you read on, that it is not Boaz, it’s a child, it’s an offspring that Boaz and Ruth will have….

They have a child named Obed, Obed a child named Jesse and Jesse has a son David, who becomes a great King of Israel and many generations later there is one called the son of David, born in stable in this same Bethlehem…

That one born in Bethlehem, named Jesus Christ, is the ultimate kinsman redeemer…

Like Ruth did for Naomi, he lays down his life on the cross that we might have one…

Like Boaz he absorbs all of our debts before God, a debt comparable to a totally impoverished widow on welfare who owes billions of dollars, a debt we could not pay,

Phil 2 says, he emptiness him of all his wealth and privilege to unite to buy us back, to redeem…

Like Boaz not only does he redeem us he unites with us…

That’s why we celebrate this season of Christmas and come to this table…

On night Christ before Christ died on the cross, he said this is my body broken for you… and my blood shed for you, for the forgiveness…

Through my death on the cross, I am redeeming you, I call you by name…