For a week at least, the animals have been
trampling the gathered grain and the threshing floor has hummed with activity. Tossing
up the harvest, so the grain falls to the ground, but the wind carries the
chaff away. No one keeps the chaff, no one wants it. And in the world each in
some way, Ruth and Naomi and even Boaz carry something of the chaff about them.
They are not desired- Ruth, carries the chaff of
being a foreigner whose marriage must not have been blessed since she had no
sons; Naomi, the chaff of the widow whose husband and sons are gone, not
blessed. Boaz, the chaff of being older and alone-without a companion, and
hardly the object of the eyes of the young.
But God is on a rescue mission.
Even for the people of Bethlehem who this year are
blessed. On average, out of a ten year harvest cycle, seven of those years, one
could hope to have enough to get through the winter, and into the spring. In
two or three of those years, one could count on drought or famine. And they
knew those times. But this year, this year was blessed- a harvest of abundance!
And they’d all worked to bring it in, and to thresh that grain and scatter the
chaff. To praise God’s faithfulness. Because it is God’s hand that has done
this.
And then they celebrate.
For in Deuteronomy, after the harvest was a week long festival. In fact, God
commanded it- “Rejoice during your festival, you and your sons and daughters,
your male and female slaves, as well as the Levites, the strangers, the
orphans, and the widows residing in your towns. Seven days…you shall surely
celebrate…with whatever you desire.” And so of course there was eating and
drinking, and the settling in of pleasant fatigue- the kind you know when you
have worked hard, but good has come. Where you know you are blessed.
And it’s a great thing
to see that God loves the people enough to bless them with the harvest, and
with a command to celebrate together- everyone. Which makes sense in light of
God’s command to leave part of the harvest for the foreigner, the orphan and
the widow. And God’s command to love the stranger, “for once you were strangers
in Egypt.”
How often perhaps we
forget the love in these laws of God. The beauty of the story of Ruth is what
happens when God’s loving faithfulness reaches out through people rather than
staying stuck on a page. Where we see God’s never ending rescue mission come to
life.
So there we are, and
the party was great and the last of the revelers are finally asleep. There on
the floor with all that grain. Which at first makes no sense in our silo world,
but in the day, it was first important to harvest, and then to celebrate, and
thank God, but at the end of the celebrating, the men slept there with the
grain. Each in a different spot, forming a circle round it, to protect it for
everyone. Sleeping head in, feet out just in case thieves came.
That’s how it is. No
wonder Naomi told her to Ruth to look for where Boaz laid down if you had to
wander around in the dark looking at feet. She’s cleaned up and looking her
best and she has come and laid down and she touches him. And at some point her presence startles him. And
he could have mistaken her for an intruder. Or a prostitute. Neither of which
end well. There she is at the very edge of the harvest, just reaching out,
hoping for something. But what follows is not what we expect.
He wakes up startled
asking, “Who are you?” And she tells him they are kin. When really he wakes up,
she proposes marriage! Suggesting she is not chaff that should just blow away
in the wind of no concern. She proposes that she instead be gathered. “Spread
your cloak over your servant-you are next of kin.” If she as a foreigner has
married an Israelite, she has become kin. When she became a widow, there was no
obligation to still see her as such.
But she bound herself
to Naomi, and now asks Boaz to honor her with the same treatment a daughter of
Israel could expect. Don’t cast me off like chaff. I ask to be treated like the
law demands.
Because God’s law provided that a widow be married
to another member of the family in order that she be provided for. That too was
the law. So widows would be rescued. “Spreading a cloak was not only an
invitation to a marriage bed, but a symbol of being gathered under the
protection of his wings. And Boaz said yes. And there on that threshing floor,
they exchanged the equivalent of marriage promises.” (Rolf Jacobsen)
And God’s love was at work as Ruth was gathered in,
not cast to the wind.
At each turn in this story, the question is – will
she be scattered or gathered? “Through Boaz living out the law, God was at
work, rescuing Ruth from a marginal life of gleaning as a foreigner. But
through Ruth, God was at work rescuing Boaz, who apparently was alone, as love
moved into his home. Boaz recognized that Ruth could have approached a younger
member of the relation. But by choosing the older, and more loyal Boaz, Ruth
also secured a future that rescued Naomi. God’s steadfast loving kindness shows
up in everyday ordinary, even unremarkable people. As Ruth leaves at dawn,
returning home perhaps wondering whether that promise in the night will hold up
in the light of day. With yet more steps of faith to come.
Would Boaz honor his promise? Would the community
live as God intended? Would God still be faithful?”
When she comes back to Naomi, we hear the question
“What happened?” But in the Hebrew, it is the same question Boaz asked her-
“Who are you?” Who are you now? Ruth responds by showing what she has received- grain for today
and a promise she hopes is true- that she is rescued.
The chaff does blow away but it is the chaff of the
labels- widow, foreigner. But the grain- the heart of who she truly is as God’s
child remains.
There we are too. We who wonder if the labels of
our world define us, we who are those who have received the promise that is not
yet fulfilled. Wondering whether the hope is for real, whether the promises
will last.
We too walk by faith in the promise that Christ is
not only risen but returning again. That we share in the greater feast to come.
That we will be gathered not scattered. That God’s abundance, faithfulness,
overflowing love are for us. We are not only rescued, but desired by God who
promises not only salvation, but more to the story.
Until then, we, just as unlikely people, gather and
share in the grain of the meal of this day, believing it is a foretaste of the
feast to come. When the celebration has no end and that God’s desire is to
gather us in until all are fed.
