But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.
Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.
Your people will be my people and your God my God.
Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.
May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
Ruth 1:16-17
Can we learn from her?
Can we learn from her what Jesus looks like?
Can we learn from an unlikely? From an outsider? From one who is the least?
From one so desperate, even though she has every reason to be?
All that ensured safety, security, and hope for the future was gone.
The protection of marriage and family had been tragically lost to death.
How could there be hope? How could there be a future?
Naomi doesn’t see it…but Ruth does.
Yes, Ruth is desperate…but not for herself.
Not for her needs, not for her wants.
Ruth is desperate to stay…
to be with…
to be faithful in love…a love that even death, she says, can’t destroy.
Can we learn from her?
Can we learn from Ruth what Jesus looks like?
Jesus, the unlikely. Jesus the outsider. Jesus the least.
A carpenter’s son with little means,
from a place where it is doubted that anything good can come.
Jesus Who is desperate too.
Desperate with a desperation even death can’t destroy.
Desperate not for Himself, but for us.
Desperate to be faithful in love…even if that love means going to hell and back.
Christ Jesus Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:6-8
Yes, we can see Jesus in Ruth.
Ruth who abandons all that defines her – country, family, religion –
to remain faithful in love…for another.
Perhaps we should call her Saint Ruth as we approach this All Saint’s Sunday.
What about us?
What about us as we travel the road of the saints?
When was the last time we were willing to leave it all, to risk it all
for God…for another?
When was the last time we were that desperate in love?
We make the promise.
We promise God and one another.
In our baptismal vows, we promise the unconditional “go”.
To walk our journey of faith faithfully with God and together.
To bear one another’s burdens, to forgive one another’s faults, to take the risk of standing against evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
To love each other and others as desperately as we have been loved by God.
Wither Thou goest…we promise God…
Yes, we can see Jesus in Ruth.
What about us?
With you and thankful for you,
Dena
If you would like to view past editions of Grace for the Journey, follow this link: https://fairwaydistrictnc.org/category/from-the-ds/