Last week we considered the idea that every person makes choices based on the information they have and the truths they believe. This information or truth may be false in the view of many people. It is, however, what the person believes. Of course, not everything we believe is true, either, to someone else… Something to pause and think about perhaps.
Because our truths are different from each other, we find
ourselves in conflict with one another. We no longer take time to listen to
each other. Too often, we simply react to a statement or to news or to an
action. How, in this tumultuous and divisive time, might we meet with grace
those whose ideology differs from ours? How can we accept and love one another
as we are commanded by our Lord? How can we even face the daily news with its
toll of death and destruction?
Listening instead of reacting is a start. It is not easy to
stop and listen, though. We often need help to pause, help to listen, help to seek
understanding and common ground. That’s where God is present. And we connect to
God in prayer.
Looking at the story of Ruth and Naomi, we don’t hear that
they prayed. In fact, there isn’t any overt mention of God in the entire book. However,
we sense God working in and through the choices of the women. God honors the
decision to go to Moab by giving the family a home and a community, including
wives for the sons. God is with Ruth and Naomi as they return to Bethlehem.
Despite Naomi’s assertion that the Almighty has made my life very
bitter (Ruth 1:20), God provides a protector and husband for Ruth. The
faithful choices made by the women lead to blessings. The women of
Bethlehem note this and say, “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not
left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!”
(Ruth 4:14)
It is easy to look back, after the fact, and see blessing. When
you are in the middle of a troubling time in your personal life, or are
concerned about external events, it is harder to see blessings. We can
always, as the song says, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” The hymn What
a Friend we have in Jesus, by Joseph Scriven (1885) reminds us that it’s a “privilege
to carry everything to God in prayer”! Scriven reminds us that we forfeit
peace and needlessly bear pain because we forget to give our concerns to God.
Even when there are “trials and temptations…[and] trouble anywhere” or when we
are “weak and heavy-laden, cumbered with a load of care” we can “take it to the
Lord in prayer.” The hymn ends with the promise from our “Blessed Savior, Thou
hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear.” You can hear the hymn sung
by Alan Jackson here.
Ruth and Naomi probably didn’t see the hand of God while
struggling to survive on the journey to Bethlehem or when seeking food in the
edges of the fields, but God was every present. We often have trouble
identifying God in our own troubles. We can trust however that God IS there and
loving us through anything. Also, though it can be more difficult to identify,
God is loving and working through the lives of those we don’t agree with.
Maybe this prayer by Rabbi Irwin Keller from 2016 can be of
help when watching troubling news stories. Remembering that our soul, that each
soul, is “pure and vulnerable” may open us to seeking healing for the “wounds
of the world.”
Next week, we’ll look at the story of Anna and Simeon, who welcomed the Infant Christ in the Temple as inspiration for ways we might welcome Christ.
