In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.2
The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.3
But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4
These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5
and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Certain movie lines seem to live on. For example, we all know the line: You can’t handle the truth…or…Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. And I would guess
that most of you know the line: You keep using the word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
In the movie it was funny. But as we listen to discourse in our culture, the words that are used over and over again, justice, equality, fairness and most egregiously, love, we find ourselves saying the same thing….You use the words, but you don’t know
what they mean. Only…this time it’s not funny.
Paul Miller has written a book entitled A Loving Life in a World of Broken Relationships. It is a study in the book of Ruth. I am going to use Miller’s work
as well as the work of many others as we move through our devotions on the book of Ruth.
Ruth is the story of love…of what we call hesed, or covenant love. Hesed is the love of God for sinners. So, we could say we are going to spend a number of weeks studying
what love looks like in real life.
Miller starts his book talking about George, who said he was good at starting to love, but really bad at following through…bad at persevering in love…like the seed
that is sown and believes but after a while falls away…there is no perseverance.
The pastor said to him: “George, at the heart of love is incarnation that leads to death. Death is at the center of love. It happened to Jesus, it happens to us.”
That is profound. At the center of the greatest love that the world could know…is death…is the giving of life for the sake of those who are loved. Perhaps, that will
be the most important thing that is said in our devotions on Ruth.
You have been loved by God to the point that death was welcomed…embraced for your sake…So, what do you think that means for us?
If we look at the Spirit of the Age with regard to love we of course, see immediately, that things are a mess. How does our culture view “love”?
It seems that love is simple the way one feels. I heard wedding vows that said: “I vow to love you as long as our love shall last…” So, how do you think that
went?
Or what about the slogan that Las Vegas championed: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. That is absolute nonsense! Vegas changes you; you bring it back with
you in your mind, your heart and your affections. We know this, that what we do, creates and forms us into certain kinds of persons…it molds and shapes us into the person we are becoming. This is why we talk so often about the power of formation!
It is the lie of our culture: “you deserve your dream life…you deserve the American Dream”…and because our entitlement culture has formed us, because we have
listened and bought into the propaganda…we, to varying degrees, find ourselves discontent because OUR dreams haven’t come true.
We think we should be able to sit down and sketch out how life is supposed to go and by golly it better go that way! And sadly, it is not all that different in the
church. Paul Miller in his book intentionally wrote, for all his audience to read: “Christianity without Jesus just doesn’t work.” Think about that. Christianity without Jesus doesn’t work. Why would anyone have to write or say such a thing? “Christianity
without Jesus” is an oxymoron and yet is it not true that we have thousands of professing Christianss whose lives are in no way centered around Jesus nor do many of these folks see that as a problem.
I remember a fellow at a Christian men’s group telling us he is engaged. We were all surprised as none of us knew he was seeing someone. One of the brothers asked,
is she a Christian? He responded, “Well yes, but not a Jesus type of Christian.” What in the world does that even mean?
We could spend hours discussing the modern views of love but the one thing that is clear is that the love that has been and continues to be promoted has left us broken,
cynical, and in many cases doubting the possibility of ever knowing let alone experiencing real love at least of anything remotely close to what our God and Savior calls love.
“The new American journey is from naivete to cynicism. The result? We feel abused, betrayed and bitter and for many the conclusion has been: “It would have
been better not to have dreamed at all.”
Flanner O’Conner is noted as saying that the culture of the south she grew up in, although not Christ centered, was Christ-haunted. Jesus still lingered
in the darkness and on the edges creating some kind of morality that usually ended up in some form of hypocrisy.
Today, I think it is fair to say that our culture is no longer even Christ-haunted…He is not even on the fringes and so we are moving to paganism, the world
before Christianity or the world without Christianity. Or as the book of Judges says, “Where everyone does what is right in their own eyes.” That is as apt a description of our culture as it was in the day it was written. And then, look at how the book
of Ruth begins: In the days when the judges ruled.
Now if in the day of the judges everyone did what was right in his own eyes and that is the setting for Ruth, you can see just how contemporary the book of Ruth is
going to be!
In the days when feelings rule and there is nothing stable, sure or true. We do not want to become stoics and say that feelings do not matter, or are not real…they
are real but they must be governed by truth. Truth must govern our feelings…not feelings dictating what is true.
In the days when my being happy ruled…When it comes to living life as God’s children given our call to live and proclaim the Christ, with all due respect, what
does your happiness have to do with it?
And yet this is what almost all parents say is their desire for their children, that they do not have to suffer for their convictions and that above all else they
are happy. I too want my children and grandchildren to be happy, but that is not and cannot be what rules.
When being all that I can be ruled…The lie we tell our children, you can be anything you want to be, is just simply not true. There are many things your
children cannot do and could never be. But why would we let the truth get in the way of their dreams? And we are back to where we started.
Prayer: Father, You are a God of compassion and mercy. Forgive me for forgetting or acting as though You were stingy and uncaring. My wicked heart cries out often,
“Savior, don’t you care?” I am ashamed of myself to doubt Your love when all I need to do is look to Calvary and to fix my gaze there. Father, I submit myself and my circumstances to Your Fatherly care and providence and I praise the compassion that my God
has for sinners! Through Jesus Christ and in His name, I pray, Amen.
Hymn: Lord with Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee