“Naomi’s Thankful Transformation”

Ruth 4:13-22

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

November 23, 2003

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            We now witness the transformation of Naomi at the end of the book of Ruth.  We remember that not only was she a widow, but she had the awful experience of outliving both of her sons.  As she returned to Bethlehem, she changed her name from Naomi to Mara.  Naomi means pleasant.  Mara means bitter.  Naomi had every right to be bitter.  She had fallen into a pit and it seemed there was no way out of it.  That’s where Ruth came in.  Ruth told her she would stay by her side in thick and in thin.  At first, Naomi argued, but in the end she succumbed to Ruth persistence and the two traveled to Bethlehem together. 

            Once in Bethlehem, Ruth caught the eye of Boaz, who just happened to be a cousin of her deceased husband.  As Naomi coached her, Ruth got herself not only noticed by Boaz, but even got him to marry her—of course not until he got a closer cousin out of the way.  Since a woman was redeemed by bearing a male son, Ruth’s son Obed was her redeemer in patriarchy’s eyes.  In all the ways that really mattered, Ruth was Naomi’s redeemer.

            You know with all of the talk about Biblical family values, we would be hard-pressed to find a family more holy, loving, just and loyal than Ruth and Naomi.  In fact, many of the families in the Bible are down right dysfunctional.  It doesn’t help that the Bible has some pretty twisted ideas about marriage.  Hear this list, for instance:

            In the Hebrew Bible, a a woman could only be married to one man, but a man could be married to a number of women at the same time. 

            It was legal and often even expected for a man to have not only a wife or many wives, but also concubines.

            Deuteronomy 23:13-21 says that a marriage is only valid if the wife is a virgin.  If she’s not, she’s to be executed.

            Deuteronomy 23:3-6 also says that no one shall marry a Moabite, that is until Ruth came along.

            Numbers 25:1-9, Ezra 9:12 and Nehemiah 10:30 says that marriage is forbidden between believers and non-believers.

            And as we learned last week, Genesis 38:6-10 and Deuteronomy 25:5-10 says that if a man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow.  If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe.

            We need to be careful when we talk about Biblical family values.  But Ruth and Naomi, now there’s a family to be thankful for. 

            At the end of the last chapter, Ruth gives birth to Obed.  Apart from what the genealogy says in the last verse, he is not legally Boaz’s son. He’s Mahlon’s son, the dead husband of Ruth. Boaz was simply the surrogate donor under the laws of leverite marriage.  Obed becomes the father of Jesse who is the father of King David.  Ruth is David’s grandmother.

 

            But Ruth does something amazing in this story.  She doesn’t raise Obed by herself.  In fact, she does the selfless act of giving Obed to Naomi.  Remember how last week I said that there is no evidence of Ruth’s attraction to Boaz?  Ruth is faithful to one person.  That’s Naomi. 

Naomi raises Obed, teaching him all of the her shrewdness, her cunning, her pain, her redemption and telling him over and over again the story of the way his momma Ruth was the most faithful, selfless, brave, and loyal daughter, companion and mother she had ever seen. 

What’s more, Ruth and Naomi’s community knew what this was all about.  They knew what this child meant.  When the child was born, the women, Naomi and Ruth’s community named him, not Boaz.  The women declared, “A son has been born to Naomi.”  This communion of women saw what was true, and declared it for all to see.

            I’m sure Obed gave thanks for both his mothers as he grew up.  When we talk about Biblical family values, I hope we’ll remember the story of Ruth.

            When Naomi had Obed in her arms, she was able to change her name from Mara back to Naomi.  She was pleasant again.  She had power, she had a child, she had a place in her society, but most of all she had Ruth by her side.  She was true to her words which she spoke back in Moab:  “wherever you go, I will go.  Where you live, I will live and where you die I will die.  Your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God.”

I told you a few weeks ago how the film Pleasantville illustrates one’s resurrection from the predictable life in Pleasantville to a world full of possibility. Pleasantville is a fictitious 1950’s town in which nothing went wrong.  In the beginning of the film, everything is in black and white.  When two intruders find their way in to the town, however, the town changes.  Things are not so predictable.  And one by one, people are set free when they let their true desires show.  When they are set free, they experience color for the first time. 

Naomi’s original Pleasantville was life in Bethlehem with her husband and her sons.  It was traditional.  It was normal.  It was what was to be expected.  But when her world came crashing down—when a certain type of reality struck with its mighty force, then her view of life became bitter.  Her focal point was blurred.  The death of her husband and her offspring introduced color into her world.  And it terrified her.  In her terror, she became bitter.

            Her bitterness began to fade, however, when she saw the world in a different light.  Through her relationship with Ruth, she saw colors for what they were, varieties of light and possibility.  She saw that she could paint a new tapestry out of her life experience.  And paint it she did.  With every opportunity available, she devised plan after plan, making things up as she went along.  She who thought herself a traditional wife and mother found a new communion among this group of women of whom she and Ruth were central players.  With every move they made, they snubbed the system which had let them only see the world through a certain lens.  When it was over, they had introduced interracial marriage, secured land-rights for the area in which Jesus would later be born, and most importantly, looked at the world in a whole new way.

            This is a resurrection story.  The resurrection of hope, the resurrection of family.  The resurrection of attitude.

            I admire Naomi’s ability to change her world-view.  I applaud this mother who took her life into her own hands, accepted however reluctantly, the clandestine help of daughter-in-law Ruth and put forward a new spirituality where she could be respected as the powerful woman that she was.

            Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a celebration party for the AFSCME 3800 Union.  Once again, they thanked UBC profusely for offering them space during the strike.  One of the organizers told me that before the strike, they had a union on paper.  People paid their dues and occasionally lobbied the powers that be.  But now, the energy and community was palatable.  There was power in that room.  They had coalesced into a community of support and mutual empowerment.  They were transformed.  They were more powerful because they did not stay in their place of bitterness.  They were pleasant, if not elated.

My friends, not everyone gets out of the valley of bitterness.  The journey out from Bitter Valley when Pleasantville is shattered requires your passion to be unleashed, your color to flow.  This means that the old rules vanish and you might have to slash your way through the underbrush to forge a new path.  As scary as this is, when it happens then there are new possibilities.  It is like a birth process.  It is no accident that the child Obed is the symbol for Naomi’s emergence from her bitter Mara existence.   Who knows what this child will bring.  It will not bring a return to the old Pleasantville.  It will also not bring a return to the same bitter valley.  It will be a life lived in the wisdom of having survived both Pleasantville and the bitter valley.  That new life is that blank canvass upon which to create and find life and meaning.

People who emerge from the Bitter Valley do so with a community surrounding them, be it a family, a church or a group of friends.  It always happens when there are people who surround you and are willing to be with you even in the bitter valley.  Life, real passionate life, life that matters, life that is truly colorful and thankful and possible happens beyond the bitter valley.  It happens as we take hold of a hand which is reaching down into the pit and is there to hold on.  Maybe you can be that hand for someone. 

            If you are that hand, then you are like Ruth, you are like Jesus.  For you participate in the resurrection.

            Think of the people who are important in your life.

            Think of the people who intervened for you when you felt alone, or abandoned or put down by society, religion, family, friends or the tyranny of living up to someone else’s expectations.

            The people who restore you to your pleasantness are the ones who deserve our thanks.

            I invite you to take a few moments and think of the people who have helped make you into the people you are today.  You may have thanked them before.  You may have never said thank you to them.  Some of them might be living and some of them might be dead.  But draw them to your mind.   They are people who have drug you out of your pit.  They are people deserving of your thanks.  I invite you to thank them, at least in your prayerful imagination.  For as you do so, you may well remember and celebrate your own transformation and their part in it.