Sermon 67 - Ruth 2
Ruth 2:2
And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor."
Leviticus 19:9
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.
Naomi and Ruth return to Naomi's home, in Bethlehem. They are in straightened circumstances. They have no way to make money. Ruth suggests to Naomi that she, Ruth, go into the fields and pick up leftover grain.
This is a reference to a very interesting command that God has given in the law. God says not to reap the harvest right to the edge of the field, or to go back and pick up anything that you dropped when you harvested the field. As a matter of fact, this specific command is given not just once in the law, but twice in Leviticus, and then, again, in Deuteronomy there is an interesting reference to the fact that anybody who is walking in your field is allowed to pluck individual grain that is growing in your field, as long as they don't actually cut the growing grain stalks.
Most people say, in interpreting these types of commands (and there are additional commands about not beating branches of olive trees twice, that seem to amount to the same thing), that this is an early version of social welfare that God is setting up for the poor among his people. After all, in one of the mentions in Leviticus, it specifically says to leave them for the poor and for foreigners.
But I think that these commands, and certain other references, go further than that. When I first started to run across these kinds of references, when reading the Old Testament, what struck me was that God doesn't seem very interested in efficiency. When you are harvesting a field of grain, it would probably be more efficient to reap right to the edges of the field. And, in harvesting up all that grain, it would probably be more efficient to go back over the field and pick up anything that you have left behind. God doesn't really seem to care about efficiency.
At least, not in the way that we perceive efficiency. If you get to know how God has created the world, you start to find all kinds of really complicated ways to do things, that are built into God's creation. Yes, it's interesting. Sometimes it's really beautiful, but efficient? No, definitely not in the way that we think efficiency is important.
But then, you start to learn even more about creation, and how the natural world works, and you realize that God has reasons for many of the very complicated ways that the natural world works. And that they are a lot better then the ways we think the world should work.
But let's get back to this thing about efficiency. Yes, when mentioning wheat and olive trees, there are mentions of the poor and foreigners. But then there are some other commands that don't seem to have anything to do with simply leaving grain behind for people to pick up. There is, for example, the sabbatical year.
Every seven years, you are supposed to not plant your fields. You are not supposed to do any work. You are not supposed to plant, and you are not supposed to harvest. You are supposed to use up what God has given you in the preceding six years. Not only that, if anybody owes you any money, you are supposed to forgive the debt. If you hold a mortgage on anybody's property, you are supposed to forgive the debt.
That's not very efficient. It's not an efficient way to run a business. How can you run a business if, every few years, you are supposed to just forgive the debt of anybody who hasn't paid you what they owe you! I mean, how can you run a capitalist system with that kind of ridiculous requirement? It's not efficient!
Capitalism is very big on efficiency. As a matter of fact, an awful lot of the businesses, the really, really big businesses that we have these days, run on efficiency. They have found ways to shave this, and trim that, and outsource this type of work to somebody else, so that they can be just one or two or three percent more efficient than other businesses. And that's how they got to be so big. Capitalism is a way of making sure that you make the most possible money out of any situation. And it works really well. It makes sure that some people make a lot of money, and that creates wealth. And there's nothing wrong with wealth is there?
Well, see, there's that point that Jesus made, one time, that you are either going to serve God, or you are going to serve money. And there was that first commandment, in the ten commandments, that you should have no other gods before God. And, right now, there are an awful lot of people in our society, and even an awful lot of people in our Christian churches, who feel that there is nothing wrong with money, and God never said that there was anything specifically wrong with money, and money is really useful. Even the churches need money. And, really, it's better to rely on having money in your bank account than it is to rely on God.
Think about that.
Capitalism is our new God.
Capitalism is our new false idol.
And while you're thinking about that, think about all the times that God said that you don't *need* to be efficient with your harvesting, because I am going to give you so much that you won't need it.
Who are you going to trust: God, or money?
But we seem to have drifted pretty far from Ruth. Ruth is out in the field, picking up after the harvesters. Ruth's work is not very efficient. She is picking up leftover stalks of grain. Individual stalks, lying on the ground. She has to bend over and pick each one up. She has to carry them with her, as she goes through the field picking them up. After all, it's not her field. If she puts a bundle of the stalks of grain down someplace, the people who are harvesting the field have every right to believe that it's their bundle, and come along and take it. Then, when she gets too tired from all this stoop labor picking up individual stalks of grain, she probably needs to find some place to beat the stalks of grain, and separate out the actual grain seeds, which are, after all, the part that you want to eat. (The straw from stalks of wheat has pretty much no nutritional value.) When she gets home, she's going to have to spread all the wheat seeds out, all over again, because, in order to store them for any length of time, you have to make sure that they are dry enough so that they won't either sprout, or get moldy. It's not very efficient.
Boaz's operation is probably much more efficient. He has, either as part of his household, or has hired, harvesters. The scythe probably hasn't been invented yet, but they have sickles to cut down the standing grain. Then he has a group of women, once again, either from his own household, or hired, to pick up the cut stalks of grain, and tie them into bundles or sheaves. These sheaves are probably left standing in the field for a few days, so that so that the bundles of grain on the tops of the sheaves will dry out, and the grain will be dry enough, when they do the actual threshing, to be ready to store for the rest of the year.
Boaz has a fairly big operation. It really seems like Boaz is pretty rich. He has enough money not only to hire harvesters and extra staff, but he's hired enough extra staff that he needs to have an overseer for the whole operation.
And, when Boaz comes out to see how the harvest is going, he asks about this lone woman, who is not part of his harvesting crew. And the overseer reports that the woman has asked permission, and is being a hard worker, and that this is the woman who came back from away with Naomi.
And we get the first strong indication that Boaz is a really decent guy. He goes and talks to Ruth. He doesn't have to. This isn't somebody who is a part of his household, and it's not one of his workers. But he tells Ruth to glean in his field during the harvest. He tells her how to identify which fields are his, and tells her to follow along after his female employees, so that she is safer. He informs Ruth that he has talked to his harvesting employees, and that they are not to harass her, which must be a significant danger when you are a single, lone woman, during a mass harvesting operation in widespread fields. He even tells her that she has permission going to go and drink from the water that is provided for his workers.
He tells her that he is aware of what she has done for Naomi. He knows that she has left her people, to accompany and support Naomi.
He says, May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
At lunch time, he makes sure that she comes, sits down, and gives her bread, and roasted grain, and even some condiments for her lunch. Separately, he instructs his employees not to harass her, not even to shoo her away if she starts harvesting too close to the standing sheaves. He even tells his people not to be too efficient in gathering up the sheaves: in fact to pull some stalks of wheat out to leave for her to glean.
Ruth's returns home to Naomi, at the end of the day, with at least thirty pounds of wheat. This is a heavy burden to carry home, but it is also obviously a good deal more than you would normally expect to gather from the inefficient stoop labor of gathering up leftover cut grain. She has some leftovers from her lunch. That's probably what they have for dinner that night. Naomi asks where she worked, and Ruth explains. Naomi tells Ruth to stick with Boaz, and introduces this concept of the guardian redeemer, which will become more important in chapter four.
So, after the disaster of chapter one, we get a little glimmer of hope in chapter two. And it's nice to close chapter two with a vision of Naomi and Ruth having a hopeful conversation, and a nicer dinner than they expected to have.
Boaz is going home to a bigger house, with more things around him, and with storerooms, or probably out buildings, because he seems rich enough, which guarantee that he's going to be able to have meals for some time to come. After all, he is running an efficient operation, and, from the facts we are given about his employees, his female employees and, and even the fact that he needs an overseer to manage all of this, Boaz is wealthy. And there's nothing wrong with that. We also have indications that Boaz, for all his wealth, is a nice guy who is looking out for other people. But he's going home to eat dinner alone.
Ruth and Naomi are not wealthy. Wherever they are living, it's probably one room. After they have dinner, they are going to have to move away everything that they set up to have dinner, so they can spread out their bedding, to have a place to sleep tonight. But they are together, and talking over the events of the day. They are eating a dinner, probably better than they expected, that has been provided by the hand of God. Just for that day. There is a little extra food around, the harvest of the grain, but they will have to spend some time spreading that out and drying it, because they don't have any guarantee of how much more they are going to get. God has provided this dinner, and they are relying on God to provide for the future.
I know which dinner I'd rather be at.
Ruth sermon series
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