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Friday 6 December

Ruth and Naomi

By Gillian Baker

Ruth 1.15-19a

O Root of Jesse – one of the great O Antiphons of Advent. Each year we sing

O come, thou Branch of Jesse’s Tree

In the hinterland of this wonderful Advent trope is the story of three women. Three women without men, three childless widows. Naomi and her daughters in law, Orpah and Ruth.

 Naomi has lost husband and sons.  Immigrant in the land of Moab; she travelled from Judah years before with her husband to escape famine. Economic migrants - probably thriving until her husband’s death - Naomi is now consigned to the margins of Moab society along with the widows of her sons, Orpah and Ruth. She bitterly laments her fate shaking her fist at the Almighty who has dealt harshly with her.

Nothing new there then. Today we are only too familiar with economic migrants and increasingly we are becoming only too familiar with the plight of women without men, with single mothers, with the victims of domestic abuse, with sex workers; women often consigned to the margins of our society and regarded as someone else’s problem, their hardships and vulnerabilities largely unnoticed, their bleak lives and those of their children out of sight. How many of them shake their fists at an inscrutable society and state and feel harshly dealt with.

In the Old Testament narrative, Orpah returns to her Moab people, but Naomi returns to her land and Ruth, an alien, chooses to go with her. Therefugees’ flight is long and arduous and once in Judah their life is hard and Naomi feels inconsolably that the Lord has dealt bitterly with her. We learn that Ruth has to glean corn from the fields.

The end of their story however is good news. With Naomi’s help Ruth marries Naomi’s kinsman Boaz and gives birth to Obed who became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. The Spirit of Counsel and Might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

Traditionally this passage is seen as the hand of God working with the suffering and poor of the world to bring about his purposes leading to the birth of our Saviour in a stable in Bethlehem.

And it is this Jesus, our Lord, who bids us pray ‘Thy kingdom come on earth..’ while the Gospels show  his life on earth seeking out and bringing love and healing to society’s marginalised – the poor, the refugees, the dispossessed, the social outcasts who include today’s Ruths and Naomis. They haven’t gone away.

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Ruth 1.15-19a

So she said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’

But Ruth said, ‘Do not press me to leave you  or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people,  and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die —   there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!’

When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.  So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’