November 4, 2012
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Ruth 1:1-18
“Was Ruth and Illegal Immigrant?”
When we take scripture out of
context we can make is say what we want.
We can take a single passage, divorce it from the passages around it,
and turn it into something strange and unrecognizable to the original text. This has always been a problem for the
followers of Jesus. And while I am aware that it happens in other faiths and with the rise
of new atheism, that is a topic for another day. I want to focus on Christianity
particularly in the political season that has seen an explosion of ignorant
fundamentalism. But this error is not
limited to fundamentalist interpretations.
This beautiful passage from the beginning of the book of Ruth has been
used for marriage ceremonies and commitment ceremonies. But this passage does not express that sort
of love and frankly is not appropriate for a marriage ceremony, unless you hack
off the rest of the book. So, let’s find
out why that is the case.
The book of Ruth is a story about
famine. It is set in a time of
insecurity, dislocation, despair and death.
It is a story about immigration, economic migration, and how the people
of God are called to respond to those events.
Naomi has lost her husband and all her sons. She is left with two daughter-in-laws and no
way to support herself in a foreign land.
And, she is not only in a foreign land; she is in an enemy land.
The Moabites have a low reputation in
Israel. Even the name Moab indicates the
scandal of their founding. Moab means “of
the father.” It is meant to remind us
that the people of Moab came into being through the union of Lot and his two
daughters during a drunken stupor.[1] But despite this reputation, the famine was
so bad in Israel that the land of Moab offered the only hope for Naomi and her
family. But now things have
changed. Her sole means of support – her
husband and sons – are dead. So Naomi
changes her name to “bitter” and decides to head back to Israel.
When faced with dislocation and
devastation the natural reaction is to return to your own kind. But this turn for Naomi is deeper than xenophobia. She turns back to Israel because she knows
that in a time of nation crisis, famine and economic struggle, the followers of
God will not choose the way of austerity.
At least in Israel, the poor, the widow, and the immigrant alien, will not
become a national scapegoat but instead have enough to survive.
Throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
the law is very clear.[2] When the harvest comes in, you are not to
take everything from the olive trees and fields. God demands that enough of the harvest be
left so that the poor, the widow, and the immigrant alien, be able to eat. There is no conversation about creating a
culture of dependency. There is no
tirade about taking away initiative if you provide for those people. No, in fact, God
does not suggest, or say it would be a ‘nice thing to do.’ God DEMANDS that the people of God leave
enough so that those who do not have enough will have enough. PERIOD!
And this is not conditional on whether or not there is a famine in the
land.
In times of national struggle and
financial difficulty we have been told everyone, with the exception of the
richest one percent, has to tighten their belts. God says that is hogwash. So it might mean that those who lounge on
ivory couches will have to give up weekend home in the Galilean mountains.[3] You may have to check the book of Amos on
that one if you think I am making this up.
But let me get back to Ruth.
Naomi knows that she can find food,
so she returns home. But now with Ruth
by her side, pledging fidelity to her and to God, she has a problem on her hands. She has to explain why she left Israel for
Moab, the enemy territory, why she allowed her sons to take foreign wives and
why she brought one of those people, home,
not just to dinner, but for good. And
yet, despite this expectation from this reader, Naomi does none of that. She does not do it, because Naomi knows that
people who follow God protect the vulnerable.
She goes, and will eventually arrange for a leading citizen, a relative,
to marry this Moabite woman. And this
Moabite woman becomes the great-grandmother to the great King David. It is a scandal that needs no explanation to
those who first heard this story.
About the same time that the story
of Ruth was put into its final form, a couple of other books came into
being. Those books are those of Ezra and
Nehemiah. This is important because they
have a very different take on what to do with outsiders. In Ezra and Nehemiah the leaders – the
politicians and priests – seem to know well what had caused all their
trouble. They know why the economy is
bad and the standing in the world has fallen.
They know – but God never actually agrees with them in the book. The issue was purity. If they could just remove the impurity, God
would surely be on their side once again.
So they did everything in their power to purify the land. And in this great scapegoating it was decided
the cancer was foreign women and their children. So in a national move to please God they
expel them all. But God never says this
is what I want. It is always the people
of God putting words in God’s mouth when it comes to such things.
So, in many ways Ruth is a protest
against the expulsion of foreign women.
Ruth, an enemy, a foreign woman, a Moabite is the model of faithfulness
to God. It is this woman who shows all
of Israel what faith in action looks like.
It is this woman who reminds even Naomi that bitterness is not God’s
last word. It is a story that needs a
retelling anytime the national mood becomes exclusivist or begins to bang the
drums for purity or suggests that the poor, the widow, or the alien immigrant
are the problem that can be solved with austerity.
So is Ruth an illegal alien? After all, that was the title of the
sermon. Well, the answer to that is
quite simple. In the bible, no people
are illegal. In the bible God isn’t
concerned about green cards and proper identification. In the bible God isn’t concerned about the
taking of jobs. God is concerned that
all people have enough to eat and to survive.
This is not to suggest national policy, but to put the whole
conversation in a different light. And
to say, those who wish to talk policy with the bible better be prepared to find
out . . . that God isn’t on their side. I
am not suggesting that I have a plan for our nation’s leaders. That is way above my pay grade. However, it is a simple truth that God is
always on the side of the most vulnerable.
God is always on the side of the silenced. God is always on the side of those we call
enemy. God is always calling us to do
the same. This is the way of our
faith. Amen!
