INTRODUCTION
Welcome to our worship for the second Sunday in June. June is Bible moth and so we will be looking at the Old Testament book of Ruth for the next four weeks.
HYMN: StF 364 “O For a Thousand Tongues”
https://youtu.be/i289qFwVGKo
PRAYERS:
‘We will exalt you, our God the King; we will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day we will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever’
A moment of silence
Prayer of Adoration
Creator God, we glimpse your beauty
in setting sun, mountain top, eagle’s wing.
We sense your power in thunder crash,
lightning flash and ocean’s roar.
Creator God we praise you
Precious Jesus, we see your love
stretched out upon a cruel cross.
We stand in awe at your sacrifice,
pure love poured out for humankind.
Precious Jesus we praise you
Holy Spirit, we see your power
in lives transformed, hearts on fire.
We listen for your still, small voice,
comforting, guiding, calling.
Holy Spirit we praise you.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
We see your beauty, power and love
Sustaining and transforming
Each and every day.
We worship, praise and adore you
Through the precious name of your Son
Our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Loving God, as we worship you, we marvel at your greatness and are amazed by your goodness.
As we look at you, we look also at ourselves.
In your perfection, we see our imperfection.
In your love, we see our lack of love.
In your generosity, we see our meanness.
In your willingness to forgive and heal, we see the burdens we don’t want to release.
Gracious God, as we pray to you now,
We are mindful of the baggage we carry:
The worries, the fears, the guilt we long to be rid of,
Yet keep clinging on to.
Forgive us, Lord,
That although we try to let go of our burdens,
We all too readily pick them up again,
Thinking our sin is too great for your love.
We lay down before you now those things that weigh us down.
Lord Jesus, we rejoice that you came to seek the imperfect:
The sinners, the lost, the mistaken ones,
People like us.
We ask you now to cut away the burdens that weigh us down;
Cut them completely, Lord,
Let them fall away from us forever.
In your gentleness lift us up again to a new life,
Freed and renewed!
For we pray in Jesus name. Amen
READING: Ruth 2
Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.
And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, ‘Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour.’
Naomi said to her, ‘Go ahead, my daughter.’ So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.
Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, ‘The Lord be with you!’
‘The Lord bless you!’ they answered.
Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, ‘Who does that young woman belong to?’
The overseer replied, ‘She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, “Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.” She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.’
So Boaz said to Ruth, ‘My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.’
At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, ‘Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner?’
Boaz replied, ‘I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.’
‘May I continue to find favour in your eyes, my lord,’ she said. ‘You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant – though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.’
At mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.’
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, ‘Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.’
So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
Her mother-in-law asked her, ‘Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!’
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. ‘The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,’ she said.
‘The Lord bless him!’ Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. ‘He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.’ She added, ‘That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.’
Then Ruth the Moabite said, ‘He even said to me, “Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.”’
Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, ‘It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.’
So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
HYMN: StF 338 “There is a Redeemer”
https://youtu.be/ldRcFz7rK7w
REFLECTION: (by Rev Christine Leech)
One of my hobbies is reading and I really enjoy detective stories. I like to try and find the solution to the crime by finding and following the clues.I'm not all that good at it but I enjoy the challenge. Quite often the writer leaves it to near the end ofthe story before revealing a clue or secret which is the key which unlocks the solving of the crime.
In today's chapter of the book of Ruth the writer reveals to us as readers in the first sentence something that Ruth is unaware of. The writer tells us about Boaz, a kinsman of Elimelech, Naomi's late husband and that he is a prominent rich man. So when Ruth meets Boaz in what seems to be a purely accidental way we are in the know. We never know when what we see as a chance encounter with someone as we go about our daily lives, that this is God , showing his care and grace to us, through a chance encounter with a stranger.
We have been told that Boaz is a kinsman of Elimalech, a member of the family. In the Old Testament family means a much wider network of relations than our quite often small families today. The family was the basic unit of Israelite society and the ownership of land was also very important. All the land was God's who gave it to families as an inheritance.
Family solidarity was very strong in Israel and members of the family had obligations to help and protect one another. Boaz was wealthy. He was a man of worth, of means, of integrity and influence. All these attributes along with his family connections are important in the role he will play in the continuing story of Ruth. There is a growing relationship between Ruth a poor widowed girl from Moab, a foreigner, and Boaz the influential wealthy man who was related to Elimelech.
Ruth seeks Naomi's permission to go to the harvest field to glean. She obviously knows about the law concerning gleaning. This is explained in Leviticus 19:9-10:
"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest, you shall leave them for the poor and the alien."
Enshrined in the law is concern for the needy, the helpless and the foreigner. God is a God who rescues slaves and cares for the poor, helpless and needy and so God's people should behave in the same way, they should reflect the nature of God.
What does that mean for us? To what extent then should we help the underprivileged and poor? Surely this should be a major part of our mission. In our Circuit we have Food Banks to help those in need and the ARC to help the refugees and asylum seekers who come to our country as Ruth came to Israel. But will this be enough in the coming months of hardship and unemployment? Should each church be now thinking and planning how we can help? Helping the needy is not an option it's an obligation, part of belonging to
God's family.
Ruth sees the generous provision for the poor but knows this depended on the goodwill of the owner of the field. Here, at this point in the story we have Boaz as a generous provider and Ruth as a needy person who is dependent on another's gracious giving. Ruth's request, Naomi's encouragement, Ruth's choice of field, Boaz's decision to harvest his field at this time all come together and are used by God to demonstrate his care. God uses our choices, our decisions, our responsibilities to bring about his purposes.
Ruth understands herself as a foreigner. Boaz welcomes her as a member of the family of God who has come to seek refuge under the wings of God. Here we see grace is to do with the provision of personal needs. God not only governs his world, he sustains and provides for it. His gracious provision for us often comes through the gracious generosity of others - we have seen and learned of many examples of this during lockdown. Boaz's kind words and deeds possibly showed Ruth that there was light and hope after her pain and suffering.
We need in our Christian life to be accountable to God and care for others, to be open to God's direction and grace and open to the claim on us of the needs of others. Our lives and relationships are meant to mirror God's
Our prayer should be how in this situation we find ourselves in can we as churches and individuals show God's love and care to those in need?
Amen.
HYMN: StF 471 “Lord I Come to You”
https://youtu.be/H9_0jiO5ZRM
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
Lord Jesus Christ,
Whose death and resurrection brought the possibility of healing and wholeness to a broken world;
Hear us now as we pray.
Living Lord Jesus,
Bring healing and wholeness to our broken world.
We pray for the church throughout the world,
thinking particularly of our brothers and sisters who are struggling with not being able to gather physically together for worship, those who are missing sharing in Holy Communion and in fellowship over tea and coffee.
We pray for West Pennine Moors Methodist Circuit, for our Ministers and Local Preachers, that in faith and unity we may be constantly renewed by your Holy Spirit for mission and service.
Living Lord Jesus,
Bring healing and wholeness to our broken world.
We pray for the peoples of the world, for those who are suffering under brutal regimes, for those who have little or nothing to eat, for those who suffer prejudice because of the colour of their skin, their religious convictions, their sexuality or their gender and for those for whom life seems hopeless.
Lord, we pray that all people on this earth would know justice, freedom and peace
Living Lord Jesus,
Bring healing and wholeness to our broken world.
We pray for our own country and for those who have authority and influence. We pray that injustice and suffering in our own country would be addressed and ask that you would guide our leaders to serve us with wisdom, honesty and compassion.
Living Lord Jesus,
Bring healing and wholeness to our broken world.
We pray for those among whom we live and work. We know so many people who do not know you, who do not understand what you did for them on that Calvary cross, who do not know the power of resurrection and the Holy Spirit and of your love in their lives. Help us to use the gifts you have given us to love them and give them a good Christian witness so that the love we have in our lives would draw them to your eternal love.
Living Lord Jesus,
Bring healing and wholeness to our broken world.
We pray for all who are in sorrow, need, anxiety or sickness. This morning we pray especially for Kath Heyworth and her family following the death of her mother Sheila: that in their pain and suffering they may know your comforting and healing presence, and in despair find hope.
Living Lord Jesus,
Bring healing and wholeness to our broken world.
In you, Lord Jesus Christ, we are one family in earth and heaven. We remember in your presence those whose earthly lives are ended and we give you thanks for those who have revealed your love to us.
Help us to follow the example of your saints in light and bring us with them to the fullness of your eternal joy and love.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught us when we pray to say….
The Lord’s Prayer
HYMN: H&P “Lord Thy Church on Earth is Seeking”
https://youtu.be/iujyEnur7M4
BLESSING
May the blessing of God Almighty,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
be with us all, with those we love;
and with those who, for the sake of Christ
we ought to love.
This day and forever more. Amen.
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