November 12
Ruth 1:1-18, Mark 14:3-9
Those of you who follow the lectionary will see that this week I am not doing so. Actually the Ruth was the reading for last week, but I have paired it with the story of another extravagant act by a woman for stewardship Sunday this week. So that's the reason for the odd readings.
This Ruth reading is rich enough for many sermons, and I highly recommend you read the whole book of Ruth to get the rest of the story. The book was probably written with a single agenda in mind: to deal with the prejudice against foriegners at a specific time in the life of the nation of Israel (the period of Nehemiah). When Israel was rebuilding after exile, the leadership under Nehemiah did many great acts, but they also thought the only way to become "pure" again in God's eyes was to cast out all the foriegners among them, including the wives and children and husbands who had come from the land of exile. This story, with the ending noting that Ruth was an ancestor of David who was welcomed, though a foriegner (and a Moabite which was a hated foreigner) into the city of Bethlehem and united with an important man of Bethlehem, thus becoming great great great (etc) grandmother of the great King David.
The central thematic word of the book of Ruth, however, is "hesed," the Hebrew word which is variously translated as loving-kindness, faithfulness, compassion, loyalty and is related to the word used to describe the love of a mother for the child in her womb. The word is used repeatedly throughout the book, beginning with the blessing Naomi gives Orpah and Ruth as she prepares to leave them. In this story, the character Ruth becomes the embodiment of hesed. Her commitment to Naomi is absolutely as extravagant and impractical as the gift the woman with the alabaster jar made to Jesus in anointing him.
Just a word about the poem "where you go...." This is so often read at weddings, and I think it is critical to recover the fact that it is spoken from one woman to another, indeed from a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, a relationship often fraught with complication. This is not about romantic love, but about commitment and covenant, and if it is read at weddings, that should be what we talk about. More tomorrow. Shelly
Those of you who follow the lectionary will see that this week I am not doing so. Actually the Ruth was the reading for last week, but I have paired it with the story of another extravagant act by a woman for stewardship Sunday this week. So that's the reason for the odd readings.
This Ruth reading is rich enough for many sermons, and I highly recommend you read the whole book of Ruth to get the rest of the story. The book was probably written with a single agenda in mind: to deal with the prejudice against foriegners at a specific time in the life of the nation of Israel (the period of Nehemiah). When Israel was rebuilding after exile, the leadership under Nehemiah did many great acts, but they also thought the only way to become "pure" again in God's eyes was to cast out all the foriegners among them, including the wives and children and husbands who had come from the land of exile. This story, with the ending noting that Ruth was an ancestor of David who was welcomed, though a foriegner (and a Moabite which was a hated foreigner) into the city of Bethlehem and united with an important man of Bethlehem, thus becoming great great great (etc) grandmother of the great King David.
The central thematic word of the book of Ruth, however, is "hesed," the Hebrew word which is variously translated as loving-kindness, faithfulness, compassion, loyalty and is related to the word used to describe the love of a mother for the child in her womb. The word is used repeatedly throughout the book, beginning with the blessing Naomi gives Orpah and Ruth as she prepares to leave them. In this story, the character Ruth becomes the embodiment of hesed. Her commitment to Naomi is absolutely as extravagant and impractical as the gift the woman with the alabaster jar made to Jesus in anointing him.
Just a word about the poem "where you go...." This is so often read at weddings, and I think it is critical to recover the fact that it is spoken from one woman to another, indeed from a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, a relationship often fraught with complication. This is not about romantic love, but about commitment and covenant, and if it is read at weddings, that should be what we talk about. More tomorrow. Shelly
posted by shelly @ 9:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home