There is a Collect Prayer in our hymnal with the title “guidance in our calling.” It goes like this: Lord God, You have called Your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that Your hand is leading us and Your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is a timely prayer for us today so that we can recognize that God’s hand is leading us. No matter the uncertain outcome, no matter the danger- Jesus is leading us, and supporting us with his love. Our Old Testament reading from Ruth gives us a beautiful picture of God’s hand leading us. A picture that points us to Jesus’ steadfast and perfect love, which endures all sorrow and hardship and leads us out of the valley of tears to the way of everlasting life.
Before getting into the reading from Ruth let us also hear the words of Luther’s explanation to the Catechism about the Father’s guiding and supporting hand: Our Father who art in heaven: What does this mean? With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that we are his true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask him as dear children ask their dear Father.
Ruth is a woman from Moab. A land that refused to give Israel bread in their wanderings to the promised land. Yet she is still God’s child too. She came from people whose family line started with incest, a people who worshipped false gods. Yet the Lord called Ruth to know Him through her marriage to Naomi’s son Chilion.
God the Father provided Ruth with a family through which she came to know God and rightly count herself as part of the nation of Israel. The Father provided her with a family and part of her family was lost to death, her father in law, her brother in law and her husband. When Ruth and Naomi returned to Bethlehem the scripture tells us this caused quite a stir in the town.
As the townspeople become reacquainted with Ruth and Naomi, Naomi insists that she should be called a different name: She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”
This is the bitterness we all experience in this fallen world, we can go from being full to being empty so quickly. We know the sorrow that losses bring. In times of loss we can wonder if God is taking a break from caring for us as Father in such hardships.
This is the emptiness that Naomi is describing- to have fullness at one time only to see it turn to emptiness.
Our own congregation has known losses in recent years. We have seen those once with us go before us in death, chronic illness and other unplanned for changes in life take others away. We have seen others fall away from attending with us because of spiritual warfare and the apathy and indifference for attending worship. We see the emptiness before us and it is a bitter thing to see that the Lord’s church not filled as it is intended to be.
In her state of loss and bitterness Naomi wants to look out for her daughter in laws. By the laws of Israel a widow is only to remarry if there is a brother of the deceased who can carry on the family name. Naomi would rather they go back to their own people in Moab where remarrying is much easier.
Orpah accepts this release, but it comes with a scary cost. She will not only be going back to her people but she will be going back to the gods of her people and the false worship of these gods.
Ruth shows loyalty to her mother in law, but more importantly she shows loyalty to her Lord and God. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.
Ruth realizes that no matter the hardship or bleak outlook for her own future she will continually call on her Heavenly Father in all times of need. Ruth was willing to follow the Lord in ventures of which she could not see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. She did this with courage knowing the Lord’s hand is guiding her and the Lord’s love supporting her.
Now we can live in faith with the same trust in our Heavenly Father to support us in an unknown future. We know that sorrow will follow us as part of our journey. Sorrow and loss remain in our lives as the consequences of sin that ever stand before us. These hardships almost make you want to hibernate away and no longer face the things in life that can bring sorrow- as if you cannot bear anymore the pain that our callings in life bring.
Is this Naomi’s intent in insisting to be called Mara? It’s all that I can bear, I might as well just rename myself defeated and bitter, then it cannot get any worse than that.
Yet there is another way to deal with sorrow and loss and brokenness- there is the appeal to the Lord’s Mercy. We heard in the Introit: 4I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is merciful to us even as we are on a journey through hardships or famines in life. In hardships our faith helps us to see that we are not abandoned, we are not cursed.
The ten lepers could have felt that they were cursed in their affliction, but they asked the Lord for mercy nonetheless and they were healed. Jesus healed them and forgave them their sins.
The Lord’s mercy is so abundant that no matter how great our sins there is forgiveness. No matter how great our sense of personal failure, we are blessed in Christ with an abundant forgiveness- as our Heavenly Father freely gives to His beloved children.
We heard this exact word of forgiveness in our Confession and Absolution at the start of the service. Through the mercy of Christ we have received full pardon for our sins- a new start to life. By his forgiveness and by his perfect love our fears are stilled. Our unknown future no longer scary but instead a privileged calling given to us by the Lord.
Ruth experienced this same new start to life as her sins were forgiven and as she was rescued from a life of poverty by Boaz her kinsmen Redeemer. This redemption from her bondage to poverty pointed to the eternal redemption the LORD has prepared for her. We hear from Matthew chapter 1: and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.
Ruth became the great grandmother of King David and in the fulness of time her name was included in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ruth a woman of Moabite descent who faced much sorrow and hardship and vulnerability now is remembered as a Godly woman of Israel who received the Lord’s mercy in abundance, even to life everlasting.
The Lord Jesus brings this same mercy to you. Go out in courage knowing your name is written in the book of life. Confess your faith with courage through the ministry of Christ Lutheran, confess your faith knowing that in the church you will always be with your people, the new Israel and the Lord Jesus will always be your God. Live as a beloved child of our heavenly Father until the time when the Lord brings you to Himself. Amen.