Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Dormition Fast Venerable Isaac, Dalmatos, and Faustus
Kellia: Ruth 1:1-4 Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:29-38 Gospel: St. Matthew 21:23-27
Ruth 1:1-14, especially vs. 14: "Then they lifted up their voices and
wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her." Statistics collected
during the last half century face us with some rather painful facts about the vulnerability and
struggles of families in contemporary society, yet they also reinforce the importance of healthy,
intimate marital and parenting relationships that form men and women into strong, God-fearing
persons. The saga of the Book of Ruth has much to say about healthy family relationships as the
primary matrix for fostering God-pleasing and Life-giving virtues.
The opening passage of the Book of Ruth directs attention to various ways in which the virtue of
trust aids a person in picking up life when events shatter daily routines and working assumptions.
The reading affirms that it is possible to go on living with love, hope, and purpose while there is
life and breath. Privation, loss of a spouse, death of children, family breakup, and aging summon
us to trust. Can we trust that relocating will supply the essentials of life? Can we trust in our
own capacity to carry out the myriad tasks required for keeping a family together? Can we trust
that we will find meaning in life when all that we have worked for is torn away by catastrophe?
Can we trust others enough to set them free to work out their lives apart from us? Can we trust in
an old age alone without the comfort and support of loving relationships?
The threat of famine is a constant in simple agrarian societies. Drought, other cruel weather, or
social chaos can bring whole regions and peoples quickly to starvation. Even the last 'scientific'
century saw this sort of privation come to peoples and countries on every continent. Migration
and relocation was forced on families already weak and debilitated by hunger.
Why famine came to Judah in the time of Elimelech is not told, but the man trusted emigration to
save his family (vs. 3). Thus he left kin and heritage from the Lord and went into a foreign
country. Archaeological studies reveal that the Moabite language was similar to Hebrew, yet the
people worshiped a false deity, Chemosh, and not the true God. Still, it was trust that enabled
Elimelech to venture into circumstances where he and his family would be aliens.
The untimely death of Elimelech left his widow with two sons to manage the family's farming
operation. Naomi, with trust in what was left to her, in her own skills and in the abilities of her
two sons, was able to make a go of their life in Moab even without Elimelech. She found the
trust required for survival, and the family thrived: the sons "took Moabite wives" (vs. 4).
However, the shocks of life were not over for Naomi, for "both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that
the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband" (vs. 5). Naomi had been able to trust in
her own strength and ability to manage a family farm so long as she had sufficient hands and
arms to handle all the work required. However, three widows could not face all the tasks by
themselves, for the demands of farming, even in a rudimentary economy, were too much. Reports
from Bethlehem gave her the hope to return to Judah (vss. 6,7).
Notice that Naomi had trust in herself as well as in her young daughters-in-law to set them free to
leave her and stay among their own people. She encouraged them: "Go, return each of you to her
mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with
me" (vs. 8). They wept together at facing the hard choices that had come upon them (vs. 14).
Orpah followed the natural course of trust in family and culture and turned back; "but Ruth clung
to her" (vs. 14), trusting in the godly manner of life she had found in Naomi. O Lord our God
Who rulest over our souls and bodies, in Whose hand is our breath and all our ways, grant us so
to trust Thee in this life that we lose not Thy heavenly Kingdom.
