Letter to the Editor
Recently, a congregant surprised me with a thoughtful gift one Sunday: a beautiful, illustrated edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. As I was paging through it after the morning’s services, I discovered that this particular edition included a letter that Tolkien wrote to his publisher, Milton Waldman. In it, he discussed with Waldman some of the central themes of his epic Lord of the Rings saga–chief among them was the paradox that the rescue of Middle Earth, against all odds, is entrusted to a band of hobbits–unimpressive creatures and unlikely heroes. Tolkien wrote,
the great policies of world history, the wheels of the world, are often turned not by the Lords and Governors. . . but by the seemingly unknown and weak–owing to the secret life in all creation, and the part unknowable to all wisdom but One, that resides in the intrusions of the Children of God into the Drama.
Ruth
By chance or providence, that Sunday we were welcoming Shadi Fatehi, a leader in the underground Church in Iran and throughout the Persian-speaking world, to our church. She preached that morning from the book of Ruth, itself a vivid picture of the dynamic Tolkien depicted. Ruth contains no razzle-dazzle divine interventions. God is behind the scenes.
As the scholar Kirstin Nielson puts it, in Ruth, “Yahweh provides bread and babies.” The narrative of Ruth isn’t concerned with kings or warriors, but widows. In a patriarchal culture, this text centers on the fierce devotion of two women. In a deeply tribal world, Ruth features refugees fleeing famine, and its namesake character is a migrant who winds up in an interracial marriage. And Ruth isn’t just any foreigner, either–she’s a Moabite. The Israelites loathed the Moabites, as they traced their origins to Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughter, and long remembered the Moabites’ refusal to give them food as they were starving in the wilderness.
And yet, it’s Ruth the Moabite–unknown and weak, a foreigner and a refugee, who becomes a stunning picture of Yahweh’s “hesed”–the many-sided Hebrew term for God’s dogged faithfulness and loyal love. Ruth winds up becoming the ancestress to King David himself.
Every immigrant I’ve ever known makes immense sacrifices, and often endures great danger, because they hope for a better life for themselves and their loved ones. But Ruth does just the opposite–in swearing herself to Naomi, she expects a worse life, not an improved one: she leaves her native family and community to go live among enemies, her only companion another hungry, helpless widow. She gives her life for her mother-in-law Naomi to have a chance at a new life. And in this way, Ruth’s story foreshadows great David’s greater Son. She’s included by name in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, a picture of the One who gives his life for ours.
A World of Ruths and Naomis
I’ve been thinking about Ruth a bit lately and I think it’s an apt text for the Church right now. Each of us live, after all, in a world full of Ruths and Naomis. We’re currently in the midst of the greatest migration crisis in human history. Statistically, there are more displaced people in the world today than at any other time in history. And the vast majority of the 122.6 million people who’ve been forcibly dislocated from their homes are simply fleeing violence, natural disaster, or political upheaval.
Every last one of these people are made in the image of God. And, many of them are also our brothers and sisters in Christ–like the group of Iranians who recently made global news because they converted to Christianity, needed to flee their country for their own safety, but were denied entry while lawfully seeking asylum in the United States and are now languishing in a camp in Panama. Whatever one’s politics or nationality, if you’re a Christian- a person defined by the cross of Christ and the waters of baptism–these folks are your family, no matter where they happen to hail from.
If we want to join Jesus, the descendant of Ruth the refugee, where he is at work in the world, I think the Church would be wise to look among the many Ruths and Naomis among us who we’d write off as foreigners, weak, and unimportant. This, as Tolkien so beautifully illustrated, is the strange, wonderful way of God in the world.
4 Responses
It’s like you wrote this for me.
Thank you for these timely reminders. I love the mysteries embedded in the book of Ruth, including why and how this story was preserved to come down to us. All we know of Ruth’s son Obed is that his grandmother Naomi was his nurse, that the women of Bethlehem named him, and that he was the father of Jesse and grandfather of David. I wonder whether Naomi helped Obed become a lover and passer-on of stories where the unknown and weak, especially women and foreigners, make the world’s wheels turn. Or did Ruth tell the story to her grandson Jesse and to Obed’s unnamed wife, so Obed’s wife could pass it on to her grandson David?
And the Pastors of the CRC FB page sports several comments by colleagues that defend such apprehensions and deportations, along with other comments utterly misreading the wicked threats to annex Canada. (I’m a dual citizen, living in Canada.) It’s hard to respond civilly to that kind of ignorance or support for cruel policies. Thank you, as you live close to the current source of such cruelty. Blessings and prayers.
Yes!
Your piece needs nothing more, but I’ll add a footnote. We look for and welcome the Ruths and Naomis because they are made in the image of God. Yes! We also know, this is where we’ll find Jesus, who was a refugee himself, fleeing to Egypt to escape the violence of Herod.
Thank you, Jared