Sermon Notes Ruth 3, 4, Mk. 12:38-44 Nov. 11

November 11, Ruth 3, 4 Mk. 12:38-44 Our readings touch on being widowed. One sign of breaking out of a depression is the capacity to plan for the future.Naomi and Ruth hatch a dangerous plan. it is mostly dangerous because it trusts a male with matters of sexual seduction. In Rabbit is Rich, John Updike sets a scene with a couple surrounded by gold coins. Here Ruth who has been gathering the tailing of the grain on the ground is in a storage facility of grain at the barley harvest. Boaz has the great male name, pillar of strength. It will become the name of one of the pillars of the temple. That means that his descendant will build it.He has grown older, and we do not know how old, but when he thanks her for ignoring the younger men, I would guess he has moved into that terrible age range where he has become invisible to the interests of younger women.She is risking that Boaz will do the right thing and not use Ruth as a mere foreign object to release his desires. Even when Boaz offers to marry her, obstacles appear to make it a binding marriage. Boaz follows the system and gets the go-ahead to marry Ruth. Remember she is from Moab. After the exile, Israel will desperately try to protects its religion and culture, even to the point of breaking up mixed marriages. Phyllis Trible speaks of the bible having love’s lyrics redeemed, and that certainly applies to the story of Ruth. The last person most could imagine is a model of loyalty, the model of trying something daring, and is the ancestor of the great king David. Ruth and Naomi get the salvation of a fresh start. The child is a sign of the fresh start,as Ruth doesn’t have a child mentioned before.Naomi even becomes young again. An empty belly led Naomi and family into Moab. Then she has to return, empty of pockets and empty-hearted. Economic lack marks our other readings as well. The God whom Naomi blames for her plight si the same God who allows her to be young again. Her empty heart can be filled again. She will need no more worry about an empty belly. In her old age she has found abundance. ruth has found a family in a strange land, no more a stranger but a member of it.. Since Ruth has a descendant named King David, then she has a later descendant named Jesus.Since Joseph disappears from the narrative of Jesus, let’s assume that Mary was widowed. Jesus notices a poor widow with particular interest as he looks at the offering from a different perspective. the widow gives all she has left as a sign of her spiritual abundance. Even though others give much more, it does not have nearly the spiritual impact of the widow’s decision.While others would sneer at her tiny offering,Jesus sees it in the immensity of her meager possessions.I wish Jesus would have said more about a system that left a widow in such dire straits, but maybe Jesus and Mark both figure that we readers are sharp enough to question that ourselves. I was raised by a widow, and she poured a lot of herself into that identity and spent much of her life mourning her loss. At the same time, we do not deal with the widowed very well. We quickly tired of their struggles, and we are clumsy in re-integrating them into social settings.the story of Naomi and Ruth is one where God is with the widowed as well as the married, the newborn, the middle aged, and the elderly.God aims always at restoration, toward a happy ending.