Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
That Ruth. So unbelievably daring.
It's fantastic how this story never grows old, this simple of story of a foreigner who worms her way into the heart of a culture and the genealogy of a king. Her virtue is her faithfulness, her courage is her sexual indiscretion, and her secret weapon is friendship. Her story undercuts easy theology about welcoming 'the other.' It demands that we recognize the respect, love, and joining to the other that our very own system of justice and our very own systematic theologies require.
And the story we hear this week is that great climax on the old sinful threshing floor. A parishioner of mine recently told me that she can't read the story of Ruth without hearing the Reba song, Fancy. A woman with one shot at a better life relying on her sexual wiles, uncovered feet and the threshing floor in the Hebrew and "men with their pants off" and "very heavy drinking" in more accurate English.
Of course, it's more than that. Ruth's story is also that of a pair of women on the fringe of society, risking starvation, who are willing to challenge the patriarchy to receive what should have been Naomi's by right. Score one against the masculine hegemony.
And of course, it's more than that. Ruth's story is about friendship and dedication and faithfulness, with a fidelity that extends from God through its characters and into Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi, and through them, God's fidelity extends through David, and into Israel, and into the whole world.
But here's what I keep thinking: is Ruth's example really what I expect newcomers at my church to do in order to join? Are they really going to be faithful past reason, seduce our men, and then stay and form happy lives here with bad coffee and powdered creamer?
I'm wondering if Ruth, in its outline rather than its details, is the lie we tell ourselves about evangelism. I'm wondering if we all hope new people, perfect in their faith and dedicated beyond reason, will show up and wait for us to get things right. I wonder if we keep hoping the other will show up and knock us down with their beauty, and then set us back on the right path so that we'll grow and finally become generous to those in need and defend of the outcasts of society.
It seems to me that is subconsciously what we hope. How much easier it would be to have Ruth show up at our door rather than the endless bitchy church shoppers! How much easier it would be to have Ruth at our door than the great absence of people who fear the religious because they have lost all sense of its meaning, importance, and message.
So, perhaps, rather than admiring Ruth from a friendly and hopeful distance, we are called to be Ruth. We are called to be faithful in a foreign land that is America, a land that only sometimes lives up to its notions of justice and caring for widows and orphans. We are called to be courageous in a land with our flagrant indiscretions of passion, our attempts to love people whether they deserve it or not. We are called to be the newcomer showing up at people's doors, inviting them to live up to the full possibility of our shared humanity in their own context.
Perhaps, God calls us not to hope people come to our party, but to show up at the parties of others and encourage them to see that a fullness of party cares for the least of our world.
