Grief Shared: Ruth 1:1-18 - Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. ² The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. ³ But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. ⁴ These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, ⁵ both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

⁶ Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. ⁷ So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. ⁸ But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. ⁹ The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. ¹⁰ They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” ¹¹ But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? ¹² Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, ¹³ would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” ¹⁴ Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

¹⁵ So she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” ¹⁶ But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you,
    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.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die,
    and there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus to me,
    and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

¹⁸ When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

¹⁹ 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?” ²⁰ She said to them,

“Call me no longer Naomi;
    call me Mara,
    for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.
²¹ I went away full,
    but the Lord has brought me back empty;
why call me Naomi
    when the Lord has dealt harshly with me
    and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

²² So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. (NRSVue)

Eichner-Shaw, Barbara. Pillar of Love, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

If Job had a female counterpart in Scripture, she would most certainly be Naomi.

Job, you may recall, was a wealthy and righteous man who loses everything he has: his ten children, his property, and his health. 

Naomi also loses everything. When a famine strikes in Bethlehem, her husband Elimelech takes her and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to live as refugees in Moab. Soon after, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi to raise their two sons on her own. Later, her sons marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. But then, both sons died—thus leaving all three women as dedtitute widows.

If the women are to survive, their only option is to return to their families, in hopes that they will take them in. Since Naomi had spent ten years living in a foreign country, she doesn’t know if there’s any family still alive for her to return to. For all she knows, they could’ve perished in the famine. 

But when she receives word that the famine has subsided, she decides to go home. When she offers her final farewell to her daughters-in-law, they offer to go with her to Bethlehem. Naomi realizes that this would be a huge sacrifice for them to make, because if they go back to their families, there’s a possibility that they may be able to remarry and have children. No one in Bethlehem would want to marry them, since they’re foreigners. 

Orpah accepts Naomi’s blessing and goes back to her family, but Ruth insists on staying Naomi. The three women weep bitterly as they part ways. Once again, they are suffering another loss due to tragic misfortune.

It needs to be said Orpah is not being selfish. She's not-- she goes, having received Naomi's blessing. All three women have lost so much, and we don’t know how Ruth’s family situation would compare to Orpah’s. We know she loved Naomi, but there may have been other family members she felt the need to look after. Perhaps Orpah had family members she needed to look after. Nobody can be 100% loyal to everyone, 100% of the time. Hard choices must be made—and those choices will hurt.

Even with Ruth by her side, Naomi remains a broken woman—so broken, in fact, that when she arrives back in Bethlehem, her relatives barely recognize her. As she says, she went away full—but the Lord brought her back empty. 

You can draw a lot of comparisons between Naomi’s stories and Job’s: they both suffered terrible tragedies; both are seemingly treated unfairly by God; both have friends who come to console them. 

But where Job’s friends attempt to explain why God permitted him to suffer so terribly, as if that would make everything better, Ruth doesn’t try to fix Naomi. She can’t. No one can. All that Ruth had to offer Naomi (and all that Naomi had to offer Ruth) was their brokenness and their love. And that was enough… God takes care of the rest.

What we ought to take from this story is the fact that God doesn’t use perfect people to make a difference. God uses broken people. Sinful people. Hurting people. Destitute people.

Unfortunately, we tend to hide away the most broken parts of ourselves, in fear that others may judge, blame, or reject us. Sometimes, we even hide ourselves away because we feel so unlovable and so unworthy. That is the very essence of shame—and shame is one of the biggest obstacles to people experiencing a sense of belonging to the Body of Christ. And it’s also one of the biggest obstacles to you living the life God created you to live. The fact that you are broken does not make you worthless—or incapable of making a difference.

But God uses the story of Naomi and Ruth to teach us that in offering ourselves to each other in love, amazing things will happen. God will make up for whatever we ourselves lack. 

And there are so many possibilities for us and for you to experience connection with others on the basis of your hurts, struggles, and even your failures. At GriefShare, hurting people grieve together and heal together. People who participate in NA and AA help each other break free from addiction. As a church, we’re not a social club of the self-righteous; we’re a hospital for sinners. We are a support group for people who struggle in a relationship with God. We don’t have all the answers. But we have the Triune God and each other. We journey together through our worst times, and we rejoice together in our best times. And in Christ, we are a new creation. Every single day. 

So don’t get discouraged if you’re hurting today, or there are things about yourself that make you feel ashamed to be you. Don’t hide your wounds away; don’t hide yourself away. I guarantee you there is at least one person near to you who’s going through the same thing. And if you’re willing to take a chance on loving that person and offering yourself as a companion on that journey, I promise you God is going to do some amazing things. And if we can as a church can help free people from their shame by sharing our healed and unhealed wounds, we are going to witness many lives transformed and the resurrection of our communities.