Scripture: Ruth 1:1-18; 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Naomi, the woman who becomes a widow in Ruth chapter 1, has two daughters-in-law who also become widows, Ruth and Orpah. Fairly or not, we preachers don’t talk much about Orpah. And when it comes to naming children after Bible heroes, not many people name their children “Orpah.” But I can think of one very famous exception… although you probably know the the misspelled and mispronounced version of the name: Oprah…
As in Winfrey… She’s, of course, one of those celebrities like Cher or Beyoncé who needs no last name: everyone knows exactly who we’re talking about! She’s also one of the most successful, famous, and wealthiest people in the world—and a famously gifted interviewer and talk-show host, as everyone knows.
But even though she’s become Oprah,her parents did, in fact, name her Orpah—after this other, less famous daughter-in-law in the story. As Oprah has explained, so many people mispronounced the name “Orpah” by transposing the R and the P that she and her parents eventually just gave in and started calling her Oprah along with everyone else! But the name she was born with was “Orpah.”
If poor Orpah has been unjustly maligned over the centuries as “the bad daughter-in-law”—even though, truthfully, she did nothing wrong—the “Orpah” whose last name is Winfrey has certainly played her part in redeeming Orpah’s good name.
But let’s be clear: When Ruth follows her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem, in Israel, her name—every bit as much as Orpah’s name—also needed to be redeemed… At least in the eyes of the Israelites.
Why? Because Ruth was a Moabite… The people of Moab had been enemies of Israel for hundreds of years at this point. This was that period in Israel’s history, please remember, in which Israel had no king… Well, no king but God, but they weren’t listening to him very well. Instead of being faithful to Israel’s God, Yahweh, the Israelites would fall into idolatry with the gods of the people groups who still lived in the land of Israel. God would then allow them to suffer the consequences for their sin until they repented, cried out for God’s help, and God would intervene by sending them a mighty warrior, called a “judge,” to drive out enemy armies and rulers. There would be peace in the land for some period of time and then the cycle would repeat itself. And it seems to get worse and worse as time passes. You can read the Book of Judges for all the gory details.
But today, all you need to know is that the events of the Book of Ruth take place during the time of the judges. And a time when Moab was a hated enemy. In fact, not too long before the events in today’s scripture took place, the nation of Moab had ruled over and oppressed Israel for 18 long years.
So… Let’s review what’s going on at the beginning of the story… How did we get here?
Years earlier, a famine struck Bethlehem. Naomi’s husband, Elimelech, was a farmer, and he felt as if he couldn’t support his family, including his two sons. So he moved them to Moab. These two sons marry Moabite wives. Then Elimelech dies. Then both sons die. We don’t know how any of them died. But then we read, in verses 6 and 7:
Then she [Naomi] arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. [In other words, the Lord ended the famine.]So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.
Her two daughters-in-law intend to go with Naomi, including Orpah—again, Orpah isn’t a bad person! Maybe the three of them think, “If we all stick together as a family, we’ll find a way to survive.” But survival was hardly guaranteed at this point.
Naomi, keep in mind, no longer has a home to return to. We’re not told what happened to the farm that her husband owned, but without a son—without a male heir or someone else in the family to buy it back for Naomi—Naomi no longer has access to it.
Anyway, before they travel home to Bethlehem, Naomi has second thoughts about Ruth and Orpah coming with her. She insists that they stay in Moab—and return to their families of origin. And it’s hard to argue with her logic: She tells her daughters-in-law that even if Naomi met and married a man and got pregnant with sons today, what are they supposed to do? Wait around until the boys grow up, so she can give them new husbands? And without husbands to support them, they will have an exceedingly difficult time making ends meet—whether they live in Moab or in Israel.
Get the picture? Naomi loves her daughters-in-law; she wants them to stay with her… But she believes she’s looking out for their best interests by sending them away.
So reluctantly, Orpah agrees to leave… but not Ruth.
In fact, Ruth speaks the following words to Naomi that you’ve probably heard quoted at weddings—because the kind of commitment that Ruth makes to her mother-in-law is the same kind commitment that husbands and wives ought to make to one another. Ruth says:
Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. 1
Then, she says, “May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”
That is what commitment looks like!
And keep in mind: Ruth isn’t merely making a commitment to her mother-in-law. She’s making a commitment to Naomi’s God. In fact, some commentators point out that this is nothing less than a conversion. Notice verse 15: Naomi said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
Orpah returned to her gods… Going back home to one’s family meant “returning to the gods of that family.”
But Ruth refuses: “Your God will be my God,” she tells Naomi. For better or worse, she is now all in with Yahweh, the God of Israel.
In his sermon on this scripture, Pastor Tim Keller wonders aloud what causes Ruth to abandon her family’s religion, her family’s gods, and choose Yahweh, the God of Israel. He notices a connection that I’d never seen before: he notices that it’s only after Ruth hears her mother-in-law say, in so many words, “I love you too much to let you to risk harming yourself by going back to Bethlehem with me. I love you too much to put my own needs and interests ahead of your own. I love you too much to risk jeopardizing your future for my sake.
“Because I love you,” Naomi says in so many words, “I will sacrifice my own shot at future security—even if it means starving; even if it means death—so that you, dear Ruth and Orpah, will have a better future.”
How is this not an amazing demonstration of Christ-like love? How is this not the love that the apostle Paul describes, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 13: “[Love] does not insist on its own way… Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Or think of what Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” 2
Ruth experiences this kind of Christ-like love from Naomi, and what happens? It melts her heart. She knows that the gods of her former religion did not teach that kind self-sacrificial love! And here, right in front of her, in her mother-in-law, she’s seeing a living, breathing example of it!
That kind of love always has the power to melt hearts!
To say the least, brothers and sisters, the most important way that we fulfill our church’s vision statement to “treasure Christ above all and help others do the same” is by letting them see this same love of Christ lived out among us! People are so hungry for it. The most important way that we fulfill the Great Commission is by loving others like this.
Jesus thinks so! John 13:35: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The apostle Paul thinks so:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 3
As you know, we’re working on discerning God’s will right now when it comes to children’s ministry. That’s why we’re inviting you to gather for prayer on Wednesdays this summer. We’re working on enhancing church programs. We’re working on improving facilities. We’re working on getting more volunteers for church ministries. We’re working on hospitality. We’re working on improving communications. I’m working, as always, on being a better pastor and preacher.
But listen: We can have the the best programs, the best facilities, the hardest-working volunteers, the most generous missions giving, the most attractive social media messaging, the most gifted pastor and staff, the most dynamic preaching, but without love… without Christlike love… withoutthe kind of love that we see lived out in today’s scripture… all these assets and all this work will amount to nothing.
We can only succeed through love… before anything else. Love is bigger than programs. Love is bigger than pastors, staff, volunteers… Love speaks more loudly to visitors—including those visitors who’ve never received God’s gift of eternal life—than anything we can perform or build or purchase or prioritize… or anyone we can hire. Love changes people. Love melts people’s hearts!
We all need it. We all need more of it. We all need our hearts to be melted by it.
This love melted Ruth’s heart! She experiences this Christ-like love before turning around and giving it right back to Naomi. “For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”
And I love verse 14: “Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.”
Ruth clung to her.
As if to show her mother-in-law, “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me! You’re stuck with me!” In a good way! As I said, all things being equal, Naomi wanted Ruth to stick with her… But in the interest of love, she didn’t think she could ask for her to!
Christ-like love is the kind of love that clings to people and doesn’t let go, no matter what.
And this kind of Christ-like love that I’m describing is the theme of the Book of Ruth. Naomi herself calls attention to it in verse 8, although you probably missed the special Hebrew word for it, which is buried underneath our English translation. But let’s look at verse 8: Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah, “May the Lord deal kindly with you.” Those words “deal kindly” mean nothing other than “to show Christ-like love.” Because you see, there was already a special word for this kind of love in the Old Testament: When Jesus came into the world, he demonstrated this love perfectly and completely. But there was already a word for it, and that word is a Hebrew word hesed.
When Naomi says, “May the Lord deal kindly with you,” she is literally is saying, “May the Lord show you hesed”—this special kind of Christ-like love. The old King James often translated it as one compound word: “lovingkindness.”
But the word hesed shows up again in chapter 2, verse 20, where it’s used to describe the love of Boaz, Ruth’s future husband—under Israelite law the so-called “kinsman-redeemer”—who will go on to purchase Naomi’s old farmland on Naomi’s behalf and have children with Ruth on Naomi’s behalf. And the word “hesed” is used by Boaz to describe Ruth in chapter 3, verse 10. Hesed describes the same kind of love that the Greek word agape is used to describe in the New Testament. Many of you have heard of “agape” love. It’s often called “unconditional love” because we fail God and sin and rebel again and again, yet he continues to forgive us, continues to give us grace, continues to shower us with his love. God’s commitment to us is unwavering… undying…
Speaking of commitment, I’m a fan of the podcast and radio show This American Life with a very talented and thoughtful host named Ira Glass. Years ago, he had a story about a twenty-something couple that had been together, unmarried, since high school. And before they “tie the knot,” they decide that they owe it to themselves to take a break for six months—to “play the field” first—to at least try to date other people before deciding whether to make their relationship permanent by getting married.
And surprise, surprise… at the end of their break… each decided that it was time to call it quits. They broke up.
Anyway, the man who was describing his experience of taking this six-month break told Ira Glass that he thinks marriage licenses should be renewable every seven years—like a driver’s license. Yes, you can continue to be married, but if either spouse decides that it’s time to move on, that’s okay too!
And, yes, this all sounds horrifying to me! But I’m a pastor. I’m supposed to be horrified.
But to his credit, Ira Glass was also horrified a little, too. He said so. He said,
I think that one of the things that’s a comfort in marriage is that there isn’t a door at seven years. And if something is messed up in the short-term, there’s the comfort of knowing, like, we made this commitment, and so we’re going to work this out. And, like, even tonight if we’re not getting along, or there’s something between us that doesn’t feel right, you have the comfort of knowing, like, you’ve got time to figure this out. And that makes it so much easier! Because you do go through times when you hate each other’s guts. And the “no escape” clause is a bigger comfort to being married than I ever would have thought before I got married. 4
A “no-escape” clause. That sounds frightening, especially to a secular-minded culture like ours. But I was pleased that even Ira Glass, on a secular radio show, was willing to say, “No, no… The ‘no-escape’ clause in marriage—with a few compassionate exceptions—is a good thing!”
This reminds me of a couple whose wedding I performed years ago. This young man, the groom, had a lot trouble in his past—he had been physically abused by his parents; he suffered from clinical depression; and because of all these very real emotional and psychological problems he had a difficult time finding and keeping a job. I was heartbroken for the young man, because all these bad things had happened to him—over which he had little or no control. So all this stuff about his past came to light as I was counseling the couple before the wedding.
And I took turns looking both of them in the eye, and I said, with complete candor, “This stuff we’re talking about—you know it’s going to make the prospects for a successful marriage much, much more difficult. Not impossible, by God’s grace, but much more difficult. You know that, right?” I guess I was mostly directing these words to the bride. As Naomi did with Ruth, I was reminding her—in so many words—“You know you can do better than this… You know you have other prospects. You know you can likely have a brighter future with someone else.”
And as I was saying this, the young woman was in tears. But she looked at me and said, “I know… you’re right. But I love him, and I’m going to stick with him, no matter what. That’s my choice, and I hope you’ll still agree to officiate our wedding.”
What could I say to that? I was deeply moved. Of course Iofficiated the wedding. I hope, by God’s grace, they’re still married today. To some extent this bride was demonstrating hesed… Christ-like love.
But think about getting married… We promise God, we promise the church, and we promise one another at our wedding that we will stick to one another “for better and for worse.” But let’s face it: mostly we’re counting on the better and not theworse part to happen. What’s amazing about Ruth’s commitment—her stubborn love for her mother-in-law—is that she has no reason to expect anything other than the worst to happen.
Why? Because remember: everything she knows about Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God to whom she’s now committing herself, she learned from Naomi and her family. So when Naomi says that Yahweh’s hand has “turned against her,” what reason would Ruth have to doubt her? Ruth has no theological reason to believe that things are going to get better. Yet she still wants to stick with Naomi!
What a remarkable commitment! What remarkable hesed! What remarkable Christlike love!
And you know what? It’s the same kind of commitment that Jesus demonstrates toward us. Remember Ephesians 5: the apostle Paul compares our relationship with Christ to a marriage. After describing the love that should characterize the relationship between husband and wife, Paul quotes from Genesis 2:24, which records y the first wedding in history, between Adam and Eve, and writes, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound,” Paul writes, “and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
In other words, Paul says, the love that husband and wife ought to have for one another—that unbreakable bond of love, that “stick-to-it-iveness,”—was intended by God from the beginning to teach us about the love that Jesus has for us Christians: Just as a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and the “two shall become one flesh,” so Christ left his Father in heaven, became one flesh with us, and clings to us. And he loves us with a love from which nothing can separate us—“neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.” 5
Truly, Christ loves us “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” except—let’s be honest—in our case, he’s mostly doing it for worse rather than better… for poorer rather than richer… and in our spiritual sickness rather than in our spiritual health!
That’s what hesed looks like! That’s what Christ’s love for us looks like.
Hear this good news: Like Ruth with Naomi, Christ clings to you and won’t let you go. His love is stubborn that way. Christ clings to you, even though it was on account of your sins—and the sins of the rest of the world—that he endured mocking, beating, whipping, a crown of thorns thrust on his head; he endured nails driven through his hands and feet; he endured agonizing pain for hours; he endured suffocation as his legs tired from supporting his weight by pushing up on the nails in his feet; worse by far, he endured separation from his Father when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”; he endured literal hell itself… In spite of this, he also cried out from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Having endured the cross—for you and because of you—Christ still clings to you.
He’s not letting go of you, either. Never! What do you think you could do right now to prevent Christ form clinging to you now. He’s already endured the cross!
Christ is saying to you right now, along with Ruth, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge.”
Indeed, Jesus says, “I will be with you always, to the end of the age”6 and forever!