The story of Naomi and Ruth comes to us as a refreshing breeze after having encounter a more complex and difficult interaction between two other Biblical women, Rachel and Leah from whom we learned a great deal couple weeks ago. No story in the Bible is useless or just
there to fill in a gap, but to show universal human weakness and God’s even greater love and mercy for humanity.
How many times in our own lives we have faced situations where we are so focus on the here and now, that we are unable to look at the bigger picture. Then after some time or maybe after many years, when we looked back at the events, we understand that God who always has the bigger picture in mind, was at work all along and that indeed “...all things work together for
good for those who love God” as Romans 8:28 says. So we have the advantage to have this powerful story in the book of Ruth of the beautiful relationship between Naomi and her daughter in-law, recorded with such detail so that we can learn and be inspired by it. Our all
powerful and mighty God, is also a very personal loving Father who desires to show us his love even in the smallest details of our lives as we will see in this story. Last week we looked at a specific jewish family whose circumstances (famine) prompted their departure from
Bethlehem to the country of Moab. Lilian introduced us to their story and beautifully portrayed to us the character of Naomi; the kind of mother in-law she was, and the extraordinary relationship she had with Ruth.
Today, we will focused on Ruth. There are indeed so many things we can learn from her, but I will like to focus on couple of them: true friendship-mentor relationship and obedience and how it applies to us.
Her very name, Ruth, means in Hebrew FRIENDSHIP. In the book of Sirach ch 6:14-17 we find a beautiful description of a True Friendship and reads: “Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter whoever finds one finds a treasure.Faithful friends are beyond price, no amount can
balance their worth. Faithful friends are life-saving medicine; those who fear God will find them. Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable friendship, for as they are, so will their neighbors
be.”
The relationship that Ruth had with Naomi began through association. She had married one of Naomi’s
sons. By then, Naomi was already a widow as we see on ch 1:3, her husband Elimelech had died, v.4-5 tells us that then, her sons married Moabite wives and “when they had lived there about 10 years”, both sons die as well. So Ruth becomes a widow herself. As we continue to read the story on v.6-14 to the point where Naomi decides to go back to Bethlehem and tries to persuade both daughters in-law to return to their families, you can just feel the emotions they are dealing with: sorrow, agony, turmoil, but also love, deep love for one another. However, we see a difference in the way each daughter in-law responded. Orpah, who also loved Naomi, decides to “go back to her people and to her gods..” v15. But Ruth goes on to declare her final decision to go with Naomi back to Bethlehem. She will be now, the one to leave not only
her people and country, but her gods. I will like to stop here and ponder for a moment on
those 10 years that Ruth spent been part of Naomi’s family. At that time, families lived together sharing the same roof, and been foreigners in a new land, they probably sticked together even more. So those must have been some good years that helped Ruth to find in Naomi, that kind of friend the book of Sirach mentions and viceversa. I will suggest that Naomi probably became a mentor to Ruth teaching her about the jewish traditions and expectations of being a wife etc,
in spite of her own sorrow of seen her son marrying a foreigner which was not the custom.
During those years, Ruth not only began to feel part of the family, but she might have also experienced a deep conversion of heart towards Yahweh, the jewish God. How did this happen? Well, we can only speculate, for we don’t have details of those 10 years, but we do
have Ruth’s powerful words and behavior that testifies to that conversion that allowed her to leave behind her family, people and gods:* v. 16-17“Do not press me to go back and abandon you! Wherever you go I will go,wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die I will die,and there be buried. May the LORD do thus to me, and more, if even death separates me from you!” These strong words, are not just a poetic phrase or loving wishes, but express a deep conviction of a conversion that might had been going on for a while and now was confirmed through her decision. Ruth’s words echo God’s own words and desire for us as Jeremiah says in ch 31:33b “I will be their God, and
they shall be my people”. In 1 Peter 2:10 says: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people…”
I’ll like to reaffirm what Lilian mentioned last week that Naomi was the bridge that helped Ruth to come to know God by her own personal daily witness. I will add, that her own husband’s love for her might have had something to do with it as well. The way he must have treated her on a daily basis could have gaving her the confidence later on to go with her mother in-law
back to Bethlehem and not fear other jewish men. As Ruth’s husband dies, she now had something else in common with Naomi as well, widowhood. Their mutual
grief must have drawn them even closer to one another.
I can relate to some extent to Ruth’s situation of been married to a foreigner. I’m Mexican, and my husband is American. When you get married, there are enoughchallenges you go through by just trying to adapt to living with someone of the opposite sex, so if you add to that been of different race and culture, things can get very interesting. In my case, I had lived in the
States for some years, before I got married, that helped me get adapted to the culture. However, what made the biggest difference were the Christian relationships I had with other godly women who mentored me while I was away from home, before I got married, and my own mother’s influence and formation in my early years. Even now, I rely a lot on
the support, help, prayers and friendship of my dear Christian friends from whom I continue to learn every day.
We all have a window of opportunity each day to make a profound impact in those we meet or know, to affect their lives for the good. God wants EVERYONE to come to know him personally and we are his voice, his hands and feet. The call of the New Evangelization by our soon to be St. John Paul II, is precisely that, that we become Christ wherever we are so that we can draw all men to him. Naomi’s life did precisely that, and bore tremendous fruit in the life of Ruth.
Now, we know that obedience means following someone’s commands or directions of; or behaving in accordance with. St. Francis of Sales in his book, “The Introduction to the Devout Life”, makes some good distinctions about obedience that will help us to appreciate even more Ruth’s example, and will shine some light into our own lives and how are we doing in regards to obedience. He begins by saying: “Charity alone places us in perfection. But the three great means of attaining to it are obedience, chastity and poverty. Obedience consecrates our heart, chastity our body, and poverty our worldly means to the love and service of God. These are
the three branches of spiritual cross, and all have their foundation in the fourth, which is humility… Obedience may be either necessary or voluntary; by the former we obey our ecclesiastical superiors, i.e. the Pope, our bishop, parish priest and their delegates: the
civil authorities, officials, magistrates and so on: also those over us in the home, i.e.father, mother, or in the case of servants, a master or mistress. We call such obedience necessary because no one is exempt from the duty of obeying those whom God has placed in authority
over us, to direct and rule us in their own particular sphere. We must, then, of necessity, obey their commands; but to be perfect, we must also take their advice, and even fall in with their wishes, so far as charity and prudence allow. We should obey orders which are pleasing, for example, to eat or take recreation, for though obedience seems no great virtue in such circumstances, it would be wrong to disobey; we should also obey in indifferent matters,
for example with regard to what we wear, in taking one road rather than another, in singing or being silent, such obedience being very praiseworthy; but our obedience will be perfect when exercised in difficult, unpleasing and hard matters. Obey meekly without answering back; readily and without delay; cheerfully without grumbling; but above all lovingly, for Him who for our sakes became obedient even unto the death of the Cross, and who, says St. Bernard, preferred losing His life to being disobedient…. Voluntary obedience, is that to which we bind ourselves by our own choice and will…” St. Francis ends this section by saying: “Happy are those who are obedient, for God will not suffer them to go astray. In my own personal experience, specially as a teenager, obedience to my mom was hard. I had to understand the “why of everything”. At that time, I was very involved in my Parish youth group where I was one of the leaders. I loved the Lord and wanted to serve him, but I had my struggles obeying at home. So one summer, my mom decided to work with me in that area. She warned me that there will be times when I will ask her permission to do something or go out with my friends, and that she
will say NO for no reason. At first, I thought that was going to be easy, but I found out pretty soon that it was not the case. It became easier as I recognized my proudfull attitude and I began to ask the Lord to help me be content with my mom’s decision. That experience has helped me many times over throughout the years, even now in my marriage. There has been times when my husband has decided to not let me do certain things, even when they were good things, and I have had to submit and trust his judgement. As we continue with the story of Ruth, lets keep in mind what I just read about the two types of obedience and we will see that she is a good example of one who practiced both: necessary and voluntary. Lets go back to chapter 2 when they are already in Bethlehem during harvest time. We already see Ruth’s character been generous, loyal, and loving. She is also strong and serene, able to take unusual risks and
dealing actively with the consequences of their situation: they needed to eat to survive.
Naomi knew the Mosaic laws and urge Ruth to follow the harvesters and “glean”, or gather, what they left behind. So she tells Naomi: v.2 “I would like to go and glean grain in
the field of anyone who will allow me.” Naomi said to her, “Go
ahead, my daughter.” The laws of Moses directed landowners to leave some of
the harvest behind for the “poor and alien”. Ruth, as a Moabite with no one to support her, fit both categories. Harvesters were not to reap to the very edges of their fields, nor were they to go over a field a second time to pick up what was missed the first time. This grain was to
be left for the poor (Leviticus 19:9; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-22).This “welfare system,” set up by Moses, took care of the needy by encouraging the richer landowners to share their bounty with those less fortunate. However, it was not a handout. the poor still had to work for their food. Imagine the kind of questions, concerns and insecurities Ruth must have had in her mind as she approach the fields. Would they really let me gather some grain? Could the law of Moses be true? Would they put her down for been a Moabite? Whatever her concerns, we can see in Ruth’s response complete trust and there she went following the instructions given to
her. In this chapter we also see God’s loving intervention by leading Ruth to the field of Boaz who was from the clan of Naomi’s husband, Elimelech. This was no coincidence, but God at work, divinely preparing for Ruth and Naomi’s sustenance. Let us never assume that what happens in our lives is merely a matter of chance or coincidence. Remember: God is at work, divinely orchestrating events to bring about his purposes in our lives. Whatever concerns Ruth had, she put them aside and did what was told to do. She had no idea that people had already been talking about her to the extent that Boaz had been informed of what she had done for
Naomi and was very impressed by her actions, prompting him to give orders to his workers on v.15-16 “Let her glean among the sheaves themselves without scolding her,and even drop some handfuls and leave them for her to glean; do not rebuke her.” God’s provision was marvelous, providing Ruth with protection and abundance, that when she shared the news with Naomi v.19, she responded by saying: “May he be blessed by the LORD, who never fails to show kindness to the living and to the dead,” Ruth was now, beginning to experience first hand what Yahweh could do for her, and he was not done yet. On chapter 3, we see how Naomi’s desire to seek some security for her young and faithful daughter in-law, gives her specific instructions as to what to do next. In v.3-4 we read “This very night he will be winnowing barley at the threshing floor. Now, go bathe and anoint yourself; then put on your best attire and go down to the threshing floor. Do not make yourself known to the man before he has finished eating and drinking. But when he lies down, take note of the place where he lies; then go uncover a place at his feet* and you lie down. He will then tell you what to do.” Once again we see in Ruth’s response a complete and sincere obedience v.5 “I will do whatever you say,” This reminds me of the same attitude our Blessed Mother had at the Annunciation: “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word”, Lk 1:38. Ruth, also identifies herself as a “maidservant” to Boaz on ch 3:9. It is worth noting, Boaz’s character and honesty as well, all throughout the story. His actions in following the Mosaic law and later acknowledging the fact that he was not the closest relative to Elimelech, but that he will see to it that things were done right v13, gives us a glimpse into his heart and emotions. He wanted the best for this young Moabite he was starting to care for very much.
By the time we get to the end of the story on chapter 4, you must have felt relief, joy and thanksgiving to see God’s will been done in a perfect timely manner. What a happy ending, with everyone blessed beyond their own expectations. The good-hearted Boaz felt strong and young again as he married Ruth, who blessed him with a son. Was he ever grateful that Naomi and Ruth did not go their separate ways, but had such a beautiful relationship. None of them could have ever imagine how God was going to bless them and all of us as well. For their son
Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father Of David. In addition to being King David’s great-grandparents, both Boaz and Ruth are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth, who is after all, our own great Kinsman-Redeemer, uniting us to himself, healing our sorrows, and giving us, as well, a future full of hope.
Ruth’s obedience was a fertile ground for all the other beautiful virtues we saw in her throughout the story. She never tried to manipulate the circumstances or act
ahead relaying on her own wisdom, but she patiently waited and followed Naomi’s and Boaz’s directions. May God grants us a heart like Ruth’s and our Blessed Mother, full of loving trust and obedience.
