“In those days, there was no king in Israel. Each did whatever looked right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). So reveals the last verse in the book of Judges, before the book of Ruth begins. Why? Famine struck the land, and the pangs of hunger controlled too many a man. Life became chaotic, and the fabric of society began to tear. Some fled to foreign lands in search of food and livelihood.
Elimelech also traveled to a distant land. He immigrated to Moab, with his wife, Naomi, and their two sons. They settled in, for the famine endured for some ten years. During that time, Elimelech died. Naomi, his wife, now finished the task of raising her two sons in the ways of the Lord—while they were still strangers in a strange land.
Moab: such an unlikely place for an Israelite to live. Years before, while still a struggling, ragtag people, Moab impeded Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land. Israel wandered for 40 years, now with the faith to live out what God promised to them.
“Not so fast,” Balak, the King of Moab, scowled. He hired the sorcerer named Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam’s effort failed—but not his “plan B.” The Moabite women would allure and arouse the men of Israel with their sexual advances. What happened? The men thought with the wrong parts of their bodies, looking forward to getting caught in their trap (Numbers 25:1-2, 31:16).
So, what happened? God commanded no Moabite male to “enter the assembly of the Lord, to the tenth generation” (Deuteronomy 23:3). For the Moabite woman, different rules applied. A foreign woman who married an Israelite became an Israelite (Numbers 31:18, Deuteronomy 21:11.) What does this mean? God held the men responsible for what happened. God called them to be spiritual leaders, meant to reflect His leadership for His people.
Naomi’s sons grew up and married young Moabite women: Orpah and Ruth. Within a few years, her sons also died. No husband and no sons, the most devastating news for a woman back then.
Word then reached Naomi the famine in Israel had finished its course. Both of her daughters-in-law planned to move back to Bethlehem with Naomi. She wouldn’t accept it. They would fare far better if they went back to their family homes and found new husbands.
Orpah relented, but not Ruth. Ruth refused to leave Naomi. “Stop urging me to leave you or abandon you. Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16). Those words reveal Ruth’s faith in the promised Messiah. Her faith caused her to want to live and be in communion with God’s people.
Ruth grew up believing in the Moabite gods, including the god, Chemosh, who demanded the sacrifice of children (2 Kings 3:27). The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a loving and self-giving God. Yes, He demanded animal sacrifices, but they pointed to THE sacrifice of His only Son for the sin of the world.
Now, Ruth didn’t understand the precise details of Christ’s work. God did not yet reveal everything His promise entailed, but Ruth did know this: God would intercede for a fallen humanity and save even the Gentile.
Such self-sacrificing love moved Ruth to sacrifice. She didn’t realize it, but she chose to live her life as the Apostle Paul would later write, “as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). She would sacrifice, face probable privation by leaving her homeland, and go with Naomi. Together, they would travel to a place where Ruth never lived. The only person she would know in Bethlehem was Naomi.
Why should Ruth expect others in Bethlehem to receive her with arms open wide? She was a foreigner and would speak Hebrew with an accent all the rest of her days. She could never hide that she was not foreign born.
Ruth understood something that many today fail to get when they allow every movement of life to keep them from God’s presence in the worship service. Ruth realized: trusting in the Lord is not a singular, solo act. Though no one can believe for another, one never lives out the faith alone—if he can do otherwise. God brings someone into His Church, which is a community, a collective of believers.
Now, if Naomi left Ruth behind in Moab, how would Ruth continue to receive the Lord? With whom could Ruth ponder and meditate on the Torah, God’s written Word, or pray? So, Ruth risked all and left her homeland because she wanted to continue receiving life from the only true God. How? She needed to be where God’s Word came to her—and she would move to be there!
Faith lived and breathed within Ruth, passed on to her through Naomi’s spoken word. Before her late husband and brother-in-law died, she also received it through them. We find no official prophet or priest within the Book of Ruth. The priests went about their God-given tasks in Israel while Naomi and her family lived in the land of Moab.
In their case, they passed on the faith when they spoke the Lord to others, within their family circle. Through Moses, the Lord directed:
“These words I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Speak them as you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you are lying down and when you are getting up.” [Deut 6:6-7]
What does this mean? Today, when you read even a summary of God’s Word, say, in the Small Catechism, something remarkable takes place. The Holy Spirit is present, revealing the light of faith, putting the devil to flight, subduing our sinful flesh.
Today, so many around us are doing what is right in their own eyes, but we can do what is right in God’s eyes. For Naomi, the famine ran its course. She now needed, not only to say the right word but to do it. Ruth’s ears earlier received the words of the Lord from Naomi. Now, her eyes would take in Naomi’s works of the Lord. Such two remarkable women of faith!
Naomi’s love reached its peak when she urged her daughters-in-law to leave her. Naomi suffered the loss of love and care from her husband and sons. She, no doubt, found it tempting to keep the two younger women around as long as possible. They could provide some measure of security as she aged.
Naomi would not entertain such thoughts: she chose to give up her security for their well-being. As large a risk as Ruth was ready to take, Naomi prepared herself to make an even bigger sacrifice. She decided to release her two daughters-in-law and let them go back to their family homes. In faith, Naomi lived out the self-giving, self-sacrificing love of God. Naomi’s life pointed to what Christ would one day do for us all! Ruth experienced this life lived out, and she did not want to leave it.
When you look at what people report about why they now believe in Christ, you find some interesting answers. Sometimes, people are brought to faith and into the Church without any significant connection to a church member. Why? Isn’t God’s Word powerful in itself? Yes! It needs no boost from personal associations.
Still, some report that they did have a connection to a church member. Most of the time, it is a family member. What did the family member do? Tell them of Jesus. Invite them to church. How can someone believe without receiving Jesus? You are, as the Apostle Peter writes, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood.” What does that mean? You “proclaim the wonderful deeds of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
You speak such words to a particular person in a place and setting. Because of Jesus, those “spiritual sacrifices,” what you speak to others, are acceptable to God (1 Peter 2:5). Like Ruth and Naomi, you offer yourself as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).
When you live your life in such a way, others will take note. They will ask why you do what you do. Scripture then encourages you to “be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you to explain the hope within you” (1 Peter 3:15).
Doctrine and practice go together like word and deed. Love and reaching out to those who do believe in Christ also go together. A second-century pastor, Tertullian, wrote: “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, which brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘How they love one another!’” (Tertullian, Apology 39).
We should not find this as anything new or novel. In Tertullian’s time, it was nothing new. Such love goes all the way back to God, the source of our love for others. We find it in Naomi and Ruth during the terrible time of the judges. We find it back, further still, for our Lord Jesus Christ is “the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).
In Christ Jesus, God shows us His love from the start—and we love the One who first loved us. We can only share the self-giving, self-sacrificing love of God because He shared it with us in His Son. Doctrine and practice, word and deed, and love and outreach go together like the Father and the Son. And we can only believe this, and do this, in the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to us through His Son. Amen.
