Nov 7/8 Sermon: A Place in the Family of God

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do." She said to her, "All that you tell me I will do."

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the LORD made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him." Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi." They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Psalm 127
Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives sleep to his beloved.
Sons are indeed a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the sons of one's youth.
Happy is the man who has
his quiver full of them.
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Hebrews 9:24-28
For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

The Holy Gospel according to Mark. (Mark 12:38-44)

As Jesus taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then Jesus called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
The Gospel of the Lord.

Grace and peace to you from the Living One, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We came into the Ruth story a little late today. We came in at the end. If we started at the beginning, we'd have started with Naomi, rather than with Ruth. Naomi and her husband Elimelech left Israel during a famine, taking their two sons to Moab. Moab was east of Israel, and the two countries had a mixed history - sometimes war, sometimes peace. Israelites did not consider Moabites to be a part of the family of God. But there was a famine in Israel and food in Moab, so Elimelech and Naomi settled there. Elimelech passed away, and the two sons married Moab women: Orpah and Ruth. After about ten years, the two sons also died. Naomi decided to leave her daughters-in-law in Moab and return to Israel alone. But Ruth followed her, and said, "Where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God, my God." Ruth had likely married young, like most ancient women - she might have been as young as twenty-two when she said this, when she decided to leave her own family and people and God and travel to a land she had never seen, where she would be a stranger, a foreigner, even an enemy - so great was her loyalty to Naomi.

Ruth and Naomi settled in Israel, and Ruth cared for Naomi. Israel had a welfare system, where harvesters would leave the edges of the field and scraps of the harvest uncollected. The poor and landless could then glean from what was left. A woman's value in Hebrew society was her husband, who provided for her, and children who would provide in her old age. Ruth and Naomi had no one to provide for them, and so Ruth collected the scraps of someone else's field. Ruth was a good worker. The owner of the field noticed her, and when he learned that it was Ruth, who came from Moab to care for Naomi, he was deeply moved. This was Boaz, a close relative of Elimelech. He promises Ruth a space in his field to glean, and instructed his workers to leave extra scraps specifically for her.

And so Naomi realizes that she and Ruth have been provided for. In Israelite culture, and many other ancient civilizations, if a woman's husband died before any children were born, his living brother or closest male relative was called upon to marry her. Naomi encourages Ruth to meet Boaz at the threshing floor and ask him to "act as next of kin" - to take her as his wife. It is not the most romantic proposal. But Boaz recognizes Ruth as a loyal and worthy woman.He looks past Ruth's status as a foreign enemy, past whatever whispers of a curse or bad luck that caused her tragedy. He sees her. A worthy woman, a hardworking woman, a loyal woman. A strong and faithful woman. She has crossed cultural and geographical and religious boundaries because she cares so greatly for her mother in law. And so Ruth and Boaz are married.

There are a lot of similarities between Ruth, and the widow in today's Gospel lesson. Both Ruth and the woman in the temple are widows, poor and disenfranchised. They have no husband or grown children to provide for them. To add to their vulnerability, poverty was seen as a sign of God's disfavor - God had not "blessed" these women with family or wealth. The members of Boaz's community, the people in the temple - they might have looked at Ruth and the widow and felt not compassion but self-righteousness and irritation. Boaz's family and friends might have whispered to each other: "Sure, Ruth's great, she worships our God, she cares for Naomi, but really, couldn't Boaz have picked a Hebrew wife? Did he have to marry a foreigner?"

And the widow in the temple - if Jesus saw her, others might has well. If Jesus saw how much she gave, and knew that she was a widow, and pointed to her as an example - perhaps others in the temple saw her, and saw how much she gave, and pointed to her unkindly. "Does she really have to come into the temple when the scribes are here? Couldn't she come some other time, when WE aren't here, so WE don't have to see her?"

But she would have been a hardworking woman, a woman who cared for her children, and who believed in the promises of God. She gave her offering, even though others would have looked down on its size. Because bigger is better, right? "No," Jesus says. "Don't even go there."

The widow slipping quietly in the shadows of the temple, hoping no one sees her tiny offering - that is worth far more than the great trumpets clearing the way for the largest gift. It is the faith, the trust, the love of the woman who remembers to give to God even in the midst of her troubles.

Ruth and the widow claim a place in the family of God with their strength and faith. God reaches out to them, through the whispers and glances of those who would judge - and they reach back. I am amazed by their loyalty and devotion, that even when it seems that all has been taken from them, and when those around them claim they are not members of the family of God - these women are strong enough and faithful enough to hear God's call, to see God's outstretched hand, and to reach back to God.

I do not always feel strong and faithful. In fact most of the time when I get to the end of the day, I feel worn out and ready for bed - not ready for more work tomorrow. When the human resources department at work tells me that - for the fourth year in a row - we are still not offering domestic partner benefits, I do not feel like turning to God. When organizations like WordAlone and Lutheran CORE say that, because of who I love, I am not fit to preach, I do not feel like turning to God. And when I see the oppression of my brothers and sisters - when someone somewhere decides that my friends and my family here at LCCR are not welcome because of race or country or wealth or job status or religion - I do not feel like turning to God.

I do not feel like handing over my last pennies in the temple; I do not feel like gleaning scraps in someone else's field. I feel mostly like crying, and possibly like throwing something. When I or my loved ones are excluded - when I am told there is not a place at the table for me - strength and faith do not come to mind. And when I am included - when I am praised or given a nice spot at the table - I'm less likely to give thanks for the grace of God and more likely to see how my own hard work has paid off. I look at my what I have in abundance and see my own efforts, rather than the love and mercy of God.

And like the members of Boaz' community who aren't too sure about Ruth - there are definitely some people that I am not sure about. As often as I think I am the widow, whispered about in the temple - I am just as often, if not far more so, the one doing the whispering. There are people that I do not particularly want to include in my understanding of God's family. Crummy drivers, for one thing. I do not want tailgaters in the family of God, unless they are going to buy me a new bumper.

I do not particularly want members of WordAlone and Lutheran CORE sitting next to me at the Great Feast in Heaven with all the saints. I'm not saying I don't want them there at all, but I would like them sitting at another table. A very far away one. And I think most of them feel the same way about me. I'm their Moabite, and they're mine. We come from different countries, we speak different languages, we don't understand each other, and we don't particularly trust each other as we should. We don't see how the other could possibly have a place at God's table. But humans don't get a say in who's coming to the table and who's not.

Over and over in the Bible stories, God says, "I don't care what you think. You think you know what makes people important and worthy, and you're absolutely wrong. It has nothing to do with what family you come from, or what your job is, or how much money you make - even if you come from the most important family in Israel, and even if your job is working in the Temple, and even if you're donating a lot of what you make. And it has nothing to do if you come from a foreign family, or if your job is picking up scraps in the field, or if all you have to give is two pennies. None of this matters," God says to us, when Ruth becomes the ancestor of Jesus, or when the widow in the temple gives the most when she gives the least. "I am what matters," says God. "I am reaching through all the clouds and storms in our lives to touch you, to extend a hand to you, to welcome you and everyone else into my family - that is what matters."

All are the beloved of God - even those that society or religion or preachers consider "unclean" or "cursed," the unwanted ones in the corners of the temple, the widow gathering scraps at the edge of someone else's field. And even those proudly dropping their gold coins into the collection plate at the temple, those who make themselves silly with how proud they are. They are members of God's family, too. We all are.

And because of this, we are all, as Paul says, "eagerly waiting" for Jesus. Eagerly waiting for the kingdom come, for the veil lifted, for the day we see face to face. On that day there will be no widows and no scribes, no Moabites and no Hebrews. There will be only God, with a welcoming hand outstretched and a place at the table for all.