Sermon from Sunday, July 24, 2016

Reading:  Ruth 3 and 4 

Theme:  Who's story is this, anyway?

In a sermon series on “Celebrating (and Listening to) the Little People in the Stories” you might wonder why this sermon is about Boaz.  In Bethlehem where he lived, Boaz was not a background character.  He was not one of the city’s little people.

He was a landowner who seemed to recover well from the famine that decimated and destroyed many others.  He was head of a prosperous household that employed a number of servants.  He was blessed, successful, and influential.

He was a good law-abiding man.  He followed the customs and expectations of the city elders, did everything right and above board, and even made sure he and his servants followed God’s law – the law of compassion for the poor and needy, instructing his servants not to be greedy in what they gathered of God’s blessings, making sure the poor had access as well to all they needed of Earth’s bounty in his fields.

He was a good, kind rich man, and it was he who stepped in when Ruth and Naomi needed a saviour.  His kindness and generosity towards them kept them alive, and kept the future open for the coming of David, the first real king of Israel who a few generations later came into the world as grandson of the man who by the grace of Boaz was born to Ruth.

It makes you wonder why the book of this story is not named The Book of Boaz.  He is an example worth holding up for all rich and well-intentioned people to follow – for all of us to follow, as we live out our privileged position today in relation to many others in Canada and most other people of the world.  So The Book of Boaz would be a really good story of how the rich and blessed can live in this world in such a way that they can be part of the story of God and of God’s kingdom on Earth.

But it’s called something else – The Book of Ruth.  It’s named after the woman Boaz helped save – a poor immigrant to Israel, an economic refugee from a foreign country and people and religious tradition, an alien woman bereft and alone in the world, known only for her sacrificial commitment to her equally poor and bereft mother-in-law.

And maybe the fact that it’s named after her – that Ruth and her desperate life are lifted up as the real story, that Boaz the successful and blessed man is made secondary to her, and that Boaz in all his privilege seems okay with being just a passing servant to her and her mother-in-law’s need – maybe all of this is part of what this story tells us about how those who are rich and powerful find their way in to the good news of God and of God’s kingdom on Earth.

There are four things I see in Boaz that speak to me and challenge me.

One is that Boaz is a good man.  He is blessed and he knows it.  So instead of thinking that the fruitfulness of his fields is his doing – that he’s earned all he has and now it’s his to enjoy as he sees fit, he sees his good fortune as God’s bounty that’s really meant for all – which is why he takes from the fields only what he needs, and leaves the rest, leaves enough for the poor to be able to come into his fields and gather what they need as well.  Beyond simple law and order, he lives and teaches others God’s law of compassion and care for the poor.

I wonder if I do as well in how I see and use what I have in life.

Second, Boaz looks beyond the simple and narrow definition of who he is to care for and care about.  With Israel still not a kingdom, still just a loose collection of twelve tribes governed by a network of judges, the question of who’s us and who’s not is important.  It would be easily for the tribes to lose their identity, for the family names to be lost, for the bloodlines and heritage to be watered down, for the sons and daughters of Israel to become so mixed with other people that they would cease to exist as God’s special people.

And that’s part of what leads Boaz’s kinsman to say no to the opportunity of helping Naomi and Ruth, because it might put him and the continuity of the community he is part of, at risk.  But Boaz doesn’t let himself worry about that.  He sees someone in need, and knows that whatever the risk to himself and his community, he has to help them.  He reaches out in love, and treats them as sisters to him.  He knows together they are citizens of the world, family of the one God of all heaven and earth.

Again, I wonder if I do as well in who I see as part of my world.

Third, when Boaz does offer help, he doesn’t try to control the situation or the people he helps.  He gives and shares with no strings attached.  Once he sees Ruth and Naomi’s plight, he marries Ruth to guarantee their safety and well-being and the continuance of Naomi’s dead husband’s line and inheritance within the community.  And he does it for their sake, not his – so they can carry on in the community as they need to and want to, not so he can bring them into his own household and make it bigger and more dominant. 

Even when a baby is born to Ruth – a son! – the one destined to be grand-father to the greatest king of Israel, Boaz lets the child and all he is destined to be, be Ruth’s and Naomi’s to claim.  He doesn’t even claim naming rights.  The women around Naomi decide the boy’s name, and Boaz is okay with that.  He lets go of control.  He doesn't need to have his name all over the kingdom of God; it can have a foreign name, as long as it's the kingdom of God.  He gives and shares with others what God has blessed him with, and then leaves it for God and the others to work out as they see fit.

Again, do I do as well?

And finally, how does Boaz get started on this saving journey of love and blessing?  How does he find his way in to the story of God and the unfolding of God’s kingdom on Earth?

He does it by falling in love.  By being seduced.  By letting his heart be captured by someone in need.  Beyond just his general goodness, kindness and faithfulness he starts to feel a passion for some very particular need that is laid at his feet, that he wakes up to and sees right before him, and that he does not hesitate to embrace.

I think of how, when we chose the Syrian family we are helping to sponsor as this year’s Summer Day Camp mission project, instead of just talking to the children and their parents about the refugee crisis in general and about the one family in some nameless way, we showed them their pictures and we told them their names – Loay, the young father; Israa, the young mom; Sham, the 3-year-old daughter; Zain, the one-and-a-half year-old-son.  We really hoped they would come to care about them and take them to heart as individual persons.

I think of the effect on Barb McMullen six or seven years ago when she took an actual tour of the City Kidz facility and saw the whole set-up and the people first-hand; of the VanDuzers going as a family to the Dominican to help build homes; of Suzanne Boyce going to Haiti a few years ago and Robyn Hunt going to the Galapagos soon on medical missions where because that’s where their passion takes them; of Canadians who take the time to actually listen to or read the First-Nations stories that have surfaced through the process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and be moved and changed by them.

Boaz is a basically good rich man who goes the one step further of letting his heart be captured by some particular need right at his feet, that he wakes up to one day and sees right in front of him.

I wonder -- even at this stage of my life, what will catch me?  If some need and story that I see someday right in front of me might capture my heart, seduce me into action, and draw me in a focused, passionate, saving way into the story of God and God’s kingdom on Earth today?