In our continuing Lenten study of the Book of Ruth as it
relates to the Way of Love, we come
to the fourth practice. The Way of Love invites us to Turn. Looking back over
the past three weeks, we see that we all find Rest in letting God be in
control. We have seen that the mandate to Go, is a call to step out in faith
and Learn
that God never leaves us alone. Just like Ruth stayed with Naomi, God is with
us.
In verse 19-22 of the first chapter of the Book of Ruth, we
meet the two women as they “came to
Bethlehem.” Naturally everyone
wanted to know “Is this Naomi?” Rather
than acknowledging the welcome, Naomi replies sadly, “Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt
bitterly with me. 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?”
It may be hard to relate to the despair and grief of Naomi.
She has lost all that she held dear, and all that offered security, in a
worldly sense. All she sees is bitterness, emptiness, and calamity. As we hear of natural disasters, shootings, and deadly accidents
in the news we know that people are still experiencing the same sorts of
devastation. Sometimes we wonder how anyone gets through such tragedies.
Naomi is not alone, though. She seems to have forgotten that
she has great wealth in the love of Ruth and in God’s unfailing love. Naomi
needs to Turn to God. God is beside us in the depths of despair, even if we may, like Naomi, think he has abandoned us.
In the Gospel lesson for this Sunday (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32),
many will hear the story of the Prodigal Son. The parable says that a father
had 2 sons. The younger breaks his father’s heart by insisting, “Father, give me the share of the property
that will belong to me.” The father agrees and the son “gathered all he had and traveled to a
distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.”
As conditions worsen, the younger son has a change of heart.
He Turns
his mind back to his father. “I will get
up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer
worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” He
knows he has broken his father’s heart, and has no right to be accepted as son
any longer.
We know the result of this repentance and Turning.
“While he was still far off, his father
saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and
kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'” The father is simply and totally delighted
to see his son, who he never expected to see again. He is full of joy and calls
for a celebration. “Quickly, bring
out a robe…get the fatted calf…let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine
was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!“ This sculpture by Charlie Mackesy captures the moment when the father and son are reunited.
The women in Bethlehem want to welcome Naomi and rejoice
that she has returned. Unlike the father and his younger son, she wants to sit and wallow in
your grief and sorrow. Like the older son in the parable, she
complains about how difficult her life has become. She wants everyone to know how terrible life is for her.
When he hears that his father is throwing a party for his
brother, the older son “became angry and
refused to go in.” His father tries to reason with him and gets an angry
response, “For all these years I have
been working like a slave for you,…yet you have never given me even a young
goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came
back…you killed the fatted calf for him!”
Like Naomi, the older son is focusing on the negatives of
the situation. He refuses to see the joy in his brother’s return, even though
the father explains, “Son, you are always
with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was
dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”
The result when we Turn back to God is the same. God
rejoices over us. The Sunday Epistle (2 Corinthians 5:16-21) states, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed
away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.”
Not only are we reconciled to God when we Turn to God, we have been given “the ministry
of reconciliation; that is, in
Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
It’s amazing to think that God uses us to reconcile the
world. We are entrusted with Turning the world back to God!
First, we ourselves must Turn to God, like the Prodigal son returned
to his father. Then, we become ‘ambassadors…
reconciling the world to himself’.
Naomi first has to be reconciled to God’s plan for her life
before she can find hope. That will mean she must let go of her old definition
of herself as Elimelech’s wife/widow. She needs to see that God is providing a
new life in Bethlehem. She stepped out in faith to return to Bethlehem and now
must embrace the new and different person she is. At a recent retreat, the
presenter noted that when we return to an old home, we discover that it’s not
the same. Like us, the town and people have moved on and are in a different
place. Everything is in a constant state of change and renewing.
When we feel that we are at the end of our ropes or that
there is nothing left, we need to be reconciled to God so there can be “a new
creation…everything has become new!”. We can become a new person with
new gifts to offer when we start over.
Are you feeling reconciled to God, or do you need to Turn
to God?
How can you be (or are) an ambassador for reconciliation?
Do you ever feel like the older brother when someone gets
seemingly special treatment?
