INTRODUCTION
Welcome to our worship for the third Sunday in June. June is Bible month and so we continue to look at the Old Testament book of Ruth.
PRAYER
Blessèd are you, Lord our God,
Giver of life,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
At the opening of this day
you call us out of darkness
into your marvelous light.
Blessèd are you for ever and ever. Amen.
HYMN: StF 24 “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”
https://youtu.be/NPWq8eM4lu8
PRAYERS
Adoration
Loving God, ground of all our being,
we come to worship you and adore you;
Very aware of the mystery of your being,
knowing that in so many ways you are beyond our understanding,
because if we could understand you, you wouldn’t be God.
You are beyond our understanding
but You have revealed enough of yourself
for us to know that you are worthy,
worthy of all our praise, all our adoration,
and all our love.
In the universe you made, formed from your Word,
a universe so vast our human minds are stunned by its size
you created billions of blazing stars that last for billions of year,
a variety of different planets and worlds.
You created this planet we inhabit,
this beautiful Earth with its incredible variety of life,
plants, fish, birds, animals,
all formed to be beautiful, expression of your love.
You made us too, in your own image and likeness,
created by you and loved by you as your children.
You are beyond our understanding
but You have revealed enough of yourself
for us to know that you are worthy,
worthy of all our praise, all our adoration,
and all our love.
You became part of your own creation,
walking the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea,
revealing yourself in Jesus,
wonderfully and impossibly both fully human and fully God.
You showed us who you are, in your healing and miracles,
through your actions and by your teaching.
You showed us the true nature of you love and care for us
through your suffering and crucifixion,
and assured us of the reality of eternal life
by your resurrection.
You showed us enough of yourself
so that we can know it is right
to offer our praise, worship and love.
You are beyond our understanding
but You have revealed enough of yourself
for us to know that you are worthy,
worthy of all our praise, all our adoration,
and all our love.
You entered our lives as Spirit,
as our Helper, Counsellor and Guide,
speaking to us through hymns, prayers, Scripture and preaching,
and through that still small voice that we know is you.
You are beyond our understanding
but You have revealed enough of yourself
for us to know that you are worthy,
worthy of all our praise, all our adoration,
and all our love. Amen.
Confession
Loving and forgiving God,
we ask you that you would help us
to bring to mind those times when
we have failed you and each other.
Silence
We bring to mind those times in our lives when we have failed to love you.
Those times we have gone our own way, rather than yours.
Those times when we have failed to love others.
Those times when we have failed to love ourselves.
We have failed to follow the way of Christ
in our thinking, our speaking and our acting or failing to act.
We are truly sorry and ask for the assurance of your forgiveness.
In Jesus’ precious name we pray.
Amen.
READING: Ruth 3
One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, ‘My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for. Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing-floor. Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing-floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.’
‘I will do whatever you say,’ Ruth answered. So she went down to the threshing-floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.
When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down. In the middle of the night something startled the man; he turned – and there was a woman lying at his feet!
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I am your servant Ruth,’ she said. ‘Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.’
‘The Lord bless you, my daughter,’ he replied. ‘This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: you have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character. Although it is true that I am a guardian-redeemer of our family, there is another who is more closely related than I. Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to do his duty as your guardian-redeemer, good; let him redeem you. But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives I will do it. Lie here until morning.’
So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognised; and he said, ‘No one must know that a woman came to the threshing-floor.’
He also said, ‘Bring me the shawl you are wearing and hold it out.’ When she did so, he poured into it six measures of barley and placed the bundle on her. Then he went back to town.
When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, ‘How did it go, my daughter?’
Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her and added, ‘He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, “Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.”’
Then Naomi said, ‘Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.’
HYMN: StF 338 “There is a Redeemer”
https://youtu.be/ldRcFz7rK7w
SERMON
The third chapter of Ruth is often known by preachers as the “difficult chapter”, not because there is any difficult or controversial theology in it, but because, if you understand certain Biblical euphemisms, it’s definitely an adult chapter.
I said at the start of Bible month that the account of Ruth’s life in the book that bears her name is a good story. It would make a really good TV miniseries. It begins with tragedy, then there is some hope, a seduction scene and the tension of what will happen next and finally a happy ending.
Our chapter begins and end as chapter two did, with Ruth and Naomi together in the home that they shared. At this point Naomi seems to have fixed on Boaz as the solution to all their problems and basically sends Ruth off to seduce Boaz, who has already shown an attraction towards her. Noami tells Ruth to “wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes.” Her intent couldn’t be clearer.
It becomes even more clear when you realise that the threshing floor was a place where, at the end of the harvest, the wine would flow freely, and anything could happen.
In addition to the preparations Naomi instructed Ruth to make, she also told her to “go down to the threshing-floor, but don’t let Boaz know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”
It is here our euphemisms come in. “Uncover his feet” doesn’t mean his feet at all, it means something a bit higher up, and “lie down” is the equivalent of our modern expression “sleeping with somebody”. It doesn’t just mean sleeping.
Does this make us feel uncomfortable? It should. Naomi has basically commanded Ruth to use her body to secure a future with Boaz for them both. Naomi is using Ruth to secure her own future.
We can easily understand that Naomi treating Ruth in this way was wrong. But there is another problem; Naomi’s actions demonstrate a lack of faith in God and God’s perfect timing. God had been quietly and unobtrusively at work in the lives of Naomi and Ruth: first bringing them to Bethlehem as we saw in chapter one and then guiding Ruth into the field of Boaz, who was not only their relative but a potential kinsman redeemer who could give them a secure future. God had done all that, yet Naomi either couldn’t wait for God’s timing or lost faith that God would indeed secure their future.
Have we ever done the same? Have we ever lost faith in God’s love for us and God’s perfect timing and tried to move things along ourselves?
As a faithful daughter-in-law Ruth obeyed Naomi’s instructions, or at least she appeared to. A careful reading of our text suggests that Ruth interpreted Naomi’s instructions in such a way that she obeyed yet remained virtuous.
The way Ruth is portrayed throughout the book that bears her name suggests that she wouldn’t use illicit sex to secure a husband and hers and Naomi’s futures. Throughout the book Ruth behaves in a Godly and honourable way and was not a woman who would break one of the commandments of the God she had committed herself to. Boaz had been so impressed by Ruth’s conduct and character that he had pronounced God’s blessing upon her.
We are told that Ruth “went down to the threshing-floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.” This is not the only translation of the original Hebrew. Other translations have, “she did according to all that her mother-in-law commanded her.” The line could be understood to mean that Ruth did all that Naomi had commanded but not literally in the way Naomi meant it.
Biblical commentators suggest that Ruth took Naomi’s euphemisms literally, so she lay at Boaz’s actual feet and actually slept.
This is confirmed by Boaz’s reaction when he woke. He couldn’t see who Ruth was because she was lying at his feet. All Boaz could see was a woman lying at his feet, which is why he asked, “Who are you?” If Ruth had been lying closer than his feet, he would have known who she was.
Ruth then identifies herself. “I am your servant Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.”
These are very carefully chosen words. She is basically asking Boaz to marry her, to fulfil his legal obligation as “guardian-redeemer”. This is further made clear by her use of the phrase “Spread the corner of your garment over me” in which she is not only asking for Boaz’s protection but asking him to be God’s answer to her prayers as the image of wings was often used to talk about God’s protection of his people.
This is also further evidence that Ruth didn’t follow Naomi’s instructions to the letter, because if Boaz and Ruth had slept together then, by the laws of that time, they were already married.
So we see that Ruth has behaved as honourably as she could in the circumstances, caught between her duty to obey her other-in-law Naomi and her faith in God and basic decency and honesty. Boaz certainly saw nothing in Ruth’s words and deeds that would change his opinion of her: he calls her “a woman of noble character.” This was very high praise indeed.
Can the same be said of us who claim to be disciples of Jesus. Do people who know us think of us as men and women of noble character? Do people who know our words and deeds think of us as Christlike people? Do we attract people to think about following Jesus themselves?
And so we come to Boaz, the third person in our passage. Is Boaz faithless and manipulative like Naomi, or is he an honourable man; a man of noble character?
Our passage makes it clear that the impression we gained of Boaz in Ruth 2 is the correct one, he is a godly man, an honourable man of noble character.
Boaz is very much a godly man. In chapter 2 we saw him greet the harvesters with the words, “The Lord be with you.” Later we see him give a great blessing to Ruth, “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.”
Now we see his entirely honourable response to Ruth. He is happy to marry her, to act as her kinsman-redeemer and indeed acknowledges that she could have run after a younger man, but she didn’t. He is also entirely honourable in another way: Boaz acknowledges that there is another kinsman-redeemer who is closer than he and has the right to act in that role; even though it’s clear he wants to marry Ruth himself. Boaz says he must give the closer relative the opportunity to redeem Ruth. He will do it the very next morning. He is willing to give up that which he desires, Ruth, because it is the honourable thing to do, because it is the law of God.
This is a challenge to us as Christian disciples. Are we always willing to do the right thing even when it will mean we deny ourselves?
We think of Jesus in Gethsemane and his words to his Heavenly Father: ‘Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will”
Sometimes to be faithful disciples of Christ we have to be willing to deny ourselves in order to obey our Lord. Boaz was willing to deny himself the pleasure of marriage to Ruth if the closer kinsman-redeemer exercised his rights under Israelite law. Jesus was willing to give his life on the cross in order that God’s will be done.
Are we willing to deny ourselves for the sake of others and of God?
At the beginning of Ruth 3 we see Naomi lacking faith in God and using Ruth, a person who has dedicated herself to Naomi’s welfare and care, in perhaps the worst way one woman can use another. We see selfishness and a faith in God that has failed.
Then we come to Ruth, a woman of noble character who keeps her promise to obey Naomi but who does it in a way that is honourable and full of faith in God to bring about her redemption through Boaz.
Finally we have Boaz, the honourable godly man who puts the will of God and the laws of God before his own desires; the man who wants to do the right thing even though it might cost him.
Appropriately Boaz and Ruth are direct ancestors of Jesus, whose self-sacrifice brought our redemption. As Christian disciples it is their example we should follow as we seek to follow Jesus, our Saviour and Lord.
Amen.
HYMN: StF 615 “Let Love be Real”
https://youtu.be/SkBAxZw5NxU
PRAYERS: Intercession
Gracious and loving God,
beyond all time and space,
yet intimately involved in every human life,
we bring our prayers to you now,
trusting in your goodness and mercy.
We pray for our sisters and brothers in Christ,
not only in our own churches but across the world.
We think especially of those who are not able to meet
for worship and fellowship and to share Holy Communion
either because of Covid-19
or because their faith makes it very difficult in their country.
Lord hear us.
Lord graciously hear us.
We pray for the leaders of our world,
faced with difficult decisions about Covid restrictions
about how to revive deteriorating economic conditions
and about how to bring about equality for all,
whatever their race, creed, gender or sexuality.
Lord hear us.
Lord graciously hear us.
We pray for those who are in real personal need at this time:
those who have lost their jobs and income,
those who cannot afford to feed their families,
Those who cannot afford the basic necessities of life.
Lord hear us.
Lord graciously hear us.
We pray for those who are sick,
in body, mind or spirit.
For those at home, in hospital or in care homes.
We pray for those known to us who are poorly at this time……
Lord hear us.
Lord graciously hear us.
We bring all these prayers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who taught us when we pray to say….
The Lord’s Prayer
HYMN: StF 440 “Amazing Grace”
https://youtu.be/HsCp5LG_zNE
BLESSING
The love of the Father enfold us,
the wisdom of the Son enlighten us,
the fire of the Spirit enflame us;
and the blessing of God, the Three in One,
be upon us and abide with us now and for ever. Amen.
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