Naomi and Ruth: Ripples

 For the next couple weeks, we’ll look at the story of Naomi and Ruth as found in the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this tale, we’ll see how supporting one another encourages the entire community, like ripples from a pebble in the water.

The story begins with Naomi and her husband Elimelek moving to Moab with their two sons during a famine time in Bethlehem. They settle in Moab which starts one set of ripples as the foreigners from Bethlehem learn to interact and live with the Moabite community. The boys grow up and marry Moabite girls: Ruth and Orpah. This is a new ripple in the pond caused by the integration of the foreigners more deeply into the community. Then tragedy strikes as Elimelek and his sons all die. This leaves the three women vulnerable as widows with no man to care for them. For Naomi and her daughters-in-law this is like a stone into the pond with huge ripples of consequences.

Naomi decides on the drastic step of returning to Bethlehem, telling her daughters-in-law to remain and find new husbands in Moab. Her decision resonates with multiple ripples. There is the goodbye and return to her family by Orpah. And there is the massive ripple when Ruth famously responds, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17) Ruth is willing to leave all she knows to remain in relationship with Naomi. This choice ripples across the ages.

The pair sets out on a long trek of somewhere between 60 and 100 miles. They must cross the Jordan River and traverse desert and hills. It is possible, even probable, that they would have joined a caravan heading in the right direction. It would be rare and very unsafe for two women to travel alone, but the Bible doesn’t say. We are simply told, the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” “Don’t call me Naomi, she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter…” [arrived] in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. (Ruth 1:19-20, 22) The return of Naomi with her Moabite daughter-in-law made ripples among the tight-knit community of Bethlehem.

The timing of getting to Bethlehem at the time of the harvest was fortuitous because the Law of Moses allowed widows and other destitute people to gather the grain from the edges of the field. Ruth offers to do this for herself and Naomi. She luckily entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters….in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. (Ruth 2:3)

Boaz is impressed by Ruth’s support of her mother-in-law and tells her to stay with his workers throughout the barley harvest and into the next harvest as well. Naomi sees the opportunity in this and suggests a risky ploy to Ruth. She says, “Tonight [Boaz] will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor… note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.” (Ruth 3:2-4)

Ruth’s decision to glean and then to follow Naomi’s advice are intersecting ripples in the story. Her action results in Boaz meets with the elders, and another relative, at the city gate. As was the custom, he offers the other man a chance to buy land and wed Ruth. When he declines, Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown.” (Ruth 4:9-10)

Boaz marries the foreign woman leaving ripples of change in the wake. Ruth has a son. The Book of Ruth ends with the statement they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. (Ruth 4:17) The great King David of Israel is descended from the son of a foreign woman (Rahab) and the immigrant Moabite, Ruth. Because of her faithfulness, Ruth was welcomed into the community. Naomi supported Ruth just as Ruth supported Naomi. Together their courage and faithfulness led to the strengthening of the nation of Israel two generations later. Ruth’s insistence on going with Naomi dropped a pebble into the water. That pebble continued to eddy outward until it reached a stable in Bethlehem 1000+ years later.

Every choice we make and action we do has a ripple effect. These intersect with the actions and choices of others. Some actions cause large ripples or even waves and they join with other ripples. Some are barely noticeable. We never know where the ripples from our actions may lead.

Think about how your actions cause ripples that meet and cancel or build on other ripples around you. We’ll look more deeply at that next week.