Sometimes I marvel at the beauty of how certain Biblical texts and worship themes and the life of a congregation all happen to come together and speak on a Sunday morning. Way back when, when we were putting together this worship series on “The Things That Nourish” we looked ahead to May 14 and saw that it was Mother’s Day and figured that one thing that surely nourishes us is Family, so that could be the theme, and hey, for a Scripture, how about using the story of Ruth and Naomi – that is a story about family right, and not your typical story so there might be something interesting in there. We didn’t go much beyond that, leaving it then to the discoveries to be found once this Sunday’s planners delved into the story closer to the date. What a rich story this turned out to be. Miriam and I met and basically had a Bible study on the whole book of Ruth as we read it and shared our insights and stories of how the book touched us and what we all wondered about. Miriam shared with me how she has always loved this story of these strong female characters. It would be easy on a Mother’s Day Sunday on family to get all sugary sweet and Pollyanna, yet neither this text, nor the lived experiences of our own lives allow for this. We know that families and family life, whatever form that takes for us, are complex and fraught, and yet beautiful and a source of support, all at the same time and to different degrees.
It is worth sitting down and reading through the full book of Ruth, and getting caught up in the story and characters and drama and family dynamics. Miriam read the first chapter, and that already sets out so much of the story of Naomi moving to Moab with her husband and 2 sons – and life then taking such unexpected turns – family reduced to these daughter in law’s Orpah and Ruth, Ruth declaring her dedication to stay with Naomi as she returns home. The rest of the story is about life back in Bethlehem and this complicated and nuanced interaction of Ruth gleaning in the fields of relative Boaz, perseverance, sexual innuendo, an ancient tradition of inheritance and next of kin redeeming, and eventually the marriage of Boaz to this foreigner Ruth, securing both Naomi and Ruth’s future – as it says near the end, for Naomi ‘the restorer of life and nourisher in your old age.’
There is so much in this story, and it is hard to know where to start and what to say about it. So I decided to borrow a pattern developed in the last few months from the Anabaptist Bible Study a small group of us at SJMC were involved with on Wednesday afternoons. We would have a spirited Bible study together on various passages – conversation going in all sorts of directions – and then afterwards send in a 10 point summary of what we had discovered and wondered about – a kind of top 10 lists of learnings. So I want to share my sermon in the form of a top 10 list. This idea was popularized from 1982 to 2015 by late night talk show host David Letterman. In each episode he would have such a list on a whole variety of topics. For fun I Googled Top 10 list – Mothers Day, and to my dismay, all that came up were all sorts of lists of the top 10, or 44 or 51 or 60 best Mother’s Day gifts to buy your dear Mother – in all its full commercialization. That was more sappy than helpful. But then I did stumble upon a David Letterman Mother’s Day episode where he had 10 celebrity mothers, in person on stage, give a ‘top 10 pieces of advice I have given my child.’ Look it up. Martha Stuart’s mothers – ‘stop and smell the roses…then clip them and dry the petals to make a spring collage.’ Brad Pitt’s mother – ‘don’t believe all the hype you read about yourself, honey – actually you’re a short, overweight bald guy.’ And so on. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I16lo7TwoZM)
So, while not in a humour mode, here is my top 10 list of observations, learnings and wonderings emerging from the book of Ruth:
10. Family can be Clingy,
And that is a good thing. Probably the most oft quoted verse from the book of Ruth, comes right after it says that Ruth, the Moabite, choose to cling to her mother in law Naomi. ‘Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God.’ (Ruth 1:15). There is this strong loyalty and dedication to walk the road of life together. We think of clinginess as a negative trait – someone who is so needy that they don’t respect your personal space. But in this story, for Ruth to cling to Naomi, is to go against the expected norms of family obligations and ethnicity, and to offer a level of mutual support that is remarkable in its dedication and commitment. They will rely on and support each other through thick and thin. There can be this strong bond within family that supports us and helps us get through whatever life may throw at us. Family can be there for us, even if it sometimes feels too clingy.
9. Family Dynamics are Dynamic
There is no such thing as a perfect family. Every family has its family dynamics, and these keep changing and shifting and surprising us in dynamic ways. Over those years in the country of Moab, Naomi’s family shifted dramatically. We see her at a crisis moment when she decides to return to Bethlehem. I wonder what those family conversations were like between her and these 2 daughters’ in law – Orpah and Ruth. Each comes out at a different place. Were there tensions? Or acceptance of their varied choices? In later chapters, Boaz and another male relative have very different perspectives on inheritance options and on their relationship and obligations to Ruth. This is simply a part of family life – there will be all sorts of tricky dynamics, disagreements, varied perspectives, that we keep trying to figure out and navigate – sometimes successfully, and sometimes by getting ourselves into all sorts of trouble. This is normal.
8. Families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes
We know that, but still sometimes carry around an expectation of that husband, wife, 2.5 happy children, dog, and white picket fence. We need only to look to the Bible to realize how many different kinds of family relationships are found there, and seen as ‘normal.’ The shape of Naomi’s family keeps changing. She starts as a couple with a husband, and then a family that expands with 2 sons and then their wives, but all of a sudden, the men have all died and she is travelling back home with a family unit of mother and daughter in law. This is now family. People would have ‘remarked’, whispered about this strange culturally mixed pair. It changes again when Ruth marries Boaz and then has a child. Naomi is able to navigate all these shapes and sizes and survive and thrive.
A single nuclear family living on their own is a relatively new societal expectation in the West. We know that family relationships take on so many different forms – multi-generational families, single people, being widowed, blended families, divorced and re-married, same sex couples, un-related roommates or friends, relatives or siblings choosing to live together, just to name a few. Births, adoptions, moves, deaths, separations, tragedy, joy – they all keep changing our family make up, and all these forms of family are legitimate and can be a faithful expression of family life.
7. Bitterness and Trauma are Realities in Families
The most heart-rending and tragic moment in the story is Naomi, arriving in Bethlehem and lamenting – ‘Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara (which means bitterness), for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.’ These are agonizing words. This is a story of trauma. I have read Ruth over the years, and knew in my head that Naomi’s husband died, and then both sons, but it is named so matter of fact-ly, and it never really hit me in the gut how much trauma there is for Naomi. There has been so much painful loss. To prematurely lose a husband and sons. Maybe I notice it now because over the last years, we have heard much more naming of trauma, and of being trauma-informed in so many areas of life. We talk now about PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We can recognize that for Naomi, she has much trauma to work through, and of course there is bitterness and emptiness, and a sense that God has abandoned her – you take this on yourself – as she says, ‘the Lord has dealt harshly with me.’
There are many forms of trauma that families face and carry – separation, conflict, loss, accidents, death, suicide, addictions, violence. I shared in the pastoral newsletter about the Not Alone Conference I attended last week at Woodside Bible Fellowship in Elmira, a conference to equip congregations and spiritual care givers to respond to abuse and Intimate Partner Violence/Domestic Violence within families, planned by several area congregations and Woolwich Community Services. Family violence happens within church families and we were challenged as pastors to name this publically. Much of the day focused on the resulting trauma for a spouse, for any children involved, for the community and for the church. There is much that could be shared about the day, but most powerful was the opening tribute by Woodside’s Director of Care Cairine Domzella, whose best friend Valerie Ferguson was murdered by her husband 15 years ago in Elmira. She shared personally about the beauty of that friendship, her devastating shock at her death, the trauma for both her and her congregation, her coming to terms with and understanding and naming that this was an act of Intimate Partner Violence, the warning signs in hindsight, and her commitment to do something about it – part of which has been this conference.
6. Context is Everything
At the conference, Dr. Peter Jaffe, long time researcher and advocate around domestic violence and particularly domestic homicides of women, made the statement that ‘Context is Everything.’ There is a uniqueness to each story, each tragic death, to the circumstances and trauma around each person – and yet in honouring the voices of the many victims, one can also point to patterns and social structures we keep seeing that need to be addressed – the larger context. There are preventable and measurable actions and structures that can be put in place in agencies, police procedures, courts, schools, and faith communities.
When we look at the story of Naomi and Ruth, we see a very different historical and social context than our own. There is a deep patriarchy at work, where women’s very survival, security and ability to thrive are so dependant on men and marriage – but we have our own versions of patriarchy. Yet we also see tremendous agency and initiative as these strong women navigate their particular context and find ways to change their story for the good.
5. Reproductive Challenges are tough
In the story, we simply know that over the course of 10 years neither Orpah or Ruth conceived a child with their husbands, and there remained a stigma around that, only relieved at the end of the story when Ruth conceives a child with Boaz. Not much is said. We don’t hear the pain that was held. Yet this story gives us permission to name how tough reproductive challenges are – infertility, miscarriage, still birth, unwanted pregnancies. Mother’s Day can be hard for many women.
4. Letting Go is Important
In many ways, the story of Naomi and Ruth is one of letting go. Family life kept taking on totally unexpected twists and turns. Who could have predicted the deaths, the new family arrangements, the remarkable shifts in family once returned to Bethlehem? We can get into trouble if we hold on too tightly to our internal idealized vision of what are family should be. Life sometimes unfolds in unexpected ways we would never have imagined. Our family members, spouses, children, will sometimes disappoint us. We will fall short ourselves. Family is about change and adapting to that change and letting go. I love the saying Miriam shared with me from her late mother Frieda – ‘into a closed fist you can receive nothing.’ When we let go, we also open ourselves to new possibility and life.
3. Families are Resilient
It could be easy to see all the trauma and pain and challenges within the story of Ruth and Naomi and stop right there. And yet the story is ultimately one of hope and resilience. Both Naomi and Ruth, each in their own way, are remarkably adaptable and self reliant. They are persistent and make something out of their lives and their troubling situation, despite their life circumstances and the cultural limitations of their historical context. Maybe that is why so many have gravitated to the example of their story and their character. I have often been amazed within pastoral work with how resilient and resourceful certain families have been despite all the knocks against them. The Women’s Bible Commentary (Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992) points out the inclusion of Ruth at the end of the book in the genealogy of David, and later as well in the gospel of Matthew where Ruth is one of the 4 ‘unconventional women’ – joining Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba – resilient women all.
2. Family is Bigger than Biology
The family bonds of blood are strong, but at the same time, we also choose who we will be family with. Ruth was a foreign Moabite, who could easily have gone back to her birth family. Yet she chooses to join Naomi and bond together in a new form of family. This is a story of outsiders becoming family to each other. This story is a reminder to not hold our biological families too tightly and become too insular. Family are the people you choose to walk with you in life, and we are invited to open that circle wide.
1. Family Nourishes
In the end, family nourishes. Yes, families are messy, families get themselves into all sorts of trouble, families fall short of all our ideals, families hold trauma. But our lives are lived within families – in all their many and varied and diverse forms. Family is the structure around us. So often it is family that supports us, encourages us and loves us just for who we are. Families are a gift from God. As Miriam said when we met ‘We are nourished when we let go of personal and societal expectations of what family is supposed to be and act…. and in that there is freedom.’
The book of Ruth is part of our Scriptural Canon. It is not a book that overtly mentions God very much, and yet God undergirds it all. Just maybe this book is there to remind us how important and nourishing even the most unusual family can be. We can all find ourselves somewhere in the book of Ruth. And for that we give thanks to God. Amen.