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We are just starting in Ruth. The Narrative Lectionary is the order of scripture that begins with creation in the fall, a gospel in the winter, and in the summer is… themes. So today, the book of Ruth.
There are lots of ways to read the Bible. It helps to read each book for what it is. the Book of Ruth, one of the few named for a woman, in a book where many women go unnamed, is a particular kind of story. Some Old Testament scholars think that it might be part of a storytelling tradition of women–which I want to believe because it’s lovely.
Did the the story of Naomi and Ruth really happen as it is written down? Consider this, the names of Naomi’s sons, Mahlon and Chilion, are closely related to the words sickness and consumption or annihilation. We could call them Sicky Sickerson and Deathy McDeathface, which seem like terrible names for children you want to live. It’s a story, a fable.
*Chillian* *Oprah*
Now, Old Testament studies have been through a lot, even in the last couple hundred years, and we can’t really go through the whole history, but, there came a time when Biblical Linguistic Studies and Biblical Theological Studies started overlapping, Probably in good and bad ways.
And part of what came out of that where some scholars who made it their task to find in German “die Mitte” or the center theme of the bible–the thing that everything in the Old Testament points back to. It makes me think like of a whirlpool, that everything falls into that theme.
There is a non-old German approach, though to hold with tradition, a German word was used to define it-Kern-seed. Instead of everything pointing to a certain theme, the whole grows from a particular theme, like maybe the whole of the Old Testament has been rooted in and grows to the light in one thing.
Jennifer Matheny, has suggested this theory of a Kern, and that this Kern is the Hebrew word “hesed.”
It has a little dot underneath it, I think it makes it a little airy, a little pflegmy.
It shows up often in the Scriptures. Like many words in ancient languages, there is no one to one word that hesed translates into. Sometimes it is: love, loving-kindness, loyalty, steadfast live, unfailing love, kindness, faithfulness.
The loyal loving-kindness that originates in God’s nature, embodying both answer ability and possibility through anticipated and creative relational endeavors and expressions among God, humanity, and creation.
Which is a lot. It’s the loving relationship and the loyalty of God that is found in relationship, revealed in the covenant, and revelations of the prophets, and the incarnation of Christ.
It is proclaimed in the psalms that God’s steadfast love, God’s hesed endures forever. Hesed is a primary characteristic of God. We say God is love it. Is this love it is hesed.
The first time we see his set in the book of Ruth, it comes from Naomi. Great loss and grief in uncertainty and destitution of the death of her husband and her sons. She had no place in society. No stability because at the time in a patriarchal society, a woman was defined and survived by the men in her life, her husband or her sons and she currently had none. When her daughters-in-law were traveling with her, she asked God’s blessing God hesed on them that they would go back to their homes to their mother’s homes that they may be able to remarry and have children and have a place in their own Society with their own people. Because Naomi could give them nothing. No stability. No resources, no life. No husband, no children, no place. No belonging
It seems like a good point to name that the text doesn’t judge Orpah for going home. Elder her mother-in-law asked her to do doing what was reasonable. The only thing at that time that looked like gave her any kind of a future. Lots of religious leaders are going to spend centuries telling us that Ruth was the one who did the right thing and orpah should have stayed. But that’s not what it says, and it says sometimes it’s okay to leave.
Hesed often involves power and what the one with power can do that is distinct for another, something that the other can’t do on their own. This is why it makes so much sense with God or what God can do for humanity for creation that we can’t do for ourselves.
And here’s the thing to remember that we are creatures of the image of God. We are made in the image of God. We are imaging God in this world. We are called to embody God so we are called to embody God’s hesed, the steadfast love, the loving kindness, the loyalty of God and image it in the world. As image bearers, we have characteristics of God.
We see it in the Bible when Joseph is a high ranking Egyptian official and offered compassion, love, and safety.
The second time her said comes up in the book of Ruth will be in a chapter or two when our male lead shows up and celebrates the things that Ruth has done to care for Naomi, which includes her speech of and then lived out commitment here in chapter 1. Despite Naomi’s pleading for Ruth to return to her family, she doesn’t promises to stay. She promises to travel with her to be with her to support her,
I want to be really careful because his set is not sacrificing everything you are no. You believe for another person, but that is what Ruth is committed to doing to forego her people and her God and her beliefs and her land for her devotion to Naomi.
But it is a unique and unusual and unexpected kind of hesed. That’s a hesed that is not coming from a place of power. And that’s hesed that is not only a non-follower of Shaddai, but a Moabite! Moabites were hated, unwelcome, it’s wild that Elemilech went to Moab at the beginning of the story, even if there was a famine.
But Ruth gave what Naomi couldn’t do for herself–gave a community, family, and eventually, hope.
It’s an unexpected story, about unexpected people, a story Jesus tells again in the Good Samaritan.
And as I thought this week about today, and about us, 2 churches coming together for a meal.
What does hesed look like? What does loving kindness look like? When has it been modeled for you? When has someone imaged God’s steadfast love for you?
How can you live and image and model God’s hesed, or loving kindness, or steadfast love to another?
What does it mean when someone can’t do it for themselves? How does Christ call to be a servant make a difference?
And how can we, as St Mary’s and Emmanuel be a force of hesed for our community? of steadfast loving kindness? How will they know that this is how we follow Christ?
Part of what we will do is share a meal together, welcome each other to table, hopefully, get to know someone new, or someone in a new way. May how we image love to our communities be part of how we grow together as the Body of Christ together, growing in hesed, in love and care for all of God’s creation.