Protecting Gleaners

Ruth 2:1-13
November 3
David A. Davis
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As we move our way through this fall’s series on “Women of the Old Testament”, this week’s study brings us to the Book of Ruth.  Our study guide, this week’s small groups, and today’s adult education discussion all focused on Ruth and Naomi in Chapter 1. With the presidential election only days away and all the campaign rhetoric, actions, and ads that fill the airwaves and the public square, I find myself drawn to chapter 2 of the Book of Ruth for the sermon this morning. With a slight change to the sermon title I submitted, I invite you to join me in pondering the notion of “Protecting Gleaners”.

Chapter 1 of the Book of Ruth tells of a couple from Bethlehem moving to the country of Moab with their two sons because there was a famine in the land. Unfortunately, Elimelech, the husband and father soon died, leaving Naomi with two sons. The sons eventually married but after ten years or so, they both died as well leaving Naomi and her two Moabite daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth. Naomie hears that the famine in the land of Judah has ended and decides her best hope for survival as a widow in the ancient world is to return to Bethlehem.  Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah that their best hope would be to stay and meet a Moabite man to marry rather than show up in Bethlehem as a foreigner. All of them weep together at the thought of separation. Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and heads off while Ruth clings to Naomi and expresses her intention to stand with, be loyal to, and never leave her mother-in-law. “Entreat me not to leave you”. When the two women wandered into Bethlehem, the bible says that “the whole town stirred because of them.” Two unaccompanied women, no doubt tattered both by the journey and life itself. After ten years away from Bethlehem, the other women in town barely recognize Naomi. They arrive in town just at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Ruth 2:1-16

Ruth didn’t just make up her idea to go gleaning in someone else’s field to gather food for her and Naomi.  Gleaning is supported by the ancient law of Israel recorded in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Gleaners were not uncommon.

“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.” (Deut. 24:19-22)

 Dr. Kathie Sakenfeld wrote a commentary on the Book of Ruth in the Interpretation Commentary Series. In that volume, Professor Sakenfeld points out that Boaz goes over and above the law when it comes to Ruth. He doesn’t just allow her to glean with the other gleaners. He asks the reaper-in-charge about her. He gives Ruth instructions that will help keep her safe in the field. He offers Ruth water that his reapers have drawn. As the chapter moves beyond what I read, Boaz invites Ruth to eat lunch with the rest of the workers and serves her a “heaped up” portion. When everyone goes back to work, he tells the men to allow Ruth to glean among the standing sheaves not just the ones that had fallen to the ground.

This “prominent rich man” offers generosity, hospitality, and security to the daughter-in-law of the wife of a dead, perhaps distant, relative he hadn’t seen in more than ten years. He offers generosity, hospitality, and security to a vulnerable woman with little to nothing to her name who is referred to over and over again as the Moabite, which is the ancients’ way of emphasizing that she was a foreigner, a stranger, an alien, an immigrant. Ruth was the biblical definition of “the other”.

It has to be mentioned that while Boaz was indeed protecting Ruth the gleaner, the story reflects all of the uncomfortable realities about patriarchy in the ancient world and the bible. A rich man who doesn’t seem to lift a finger at the harvest. The laws regarding property ownership, and marriage. And the only means by which a vulnerable woman could find security and a future being with and through a man. Boaz should not be glamorized as a hero. But two things can be true at the same time: the account of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz drips of patriarchy and Boaz went over and above in offering generosity, hospitality, and security to a vulnerable foreigner at significant risk.

Dr. Sakenfeld also notes that God seems to have a minor role in the Book of Ruth. God does not have a speaking part. There is very little God-talk in the four chapters of Ruth. Chapter One describes the end of the famine in Judah as God considering God’s people. Naomi laments that the Lord had turned against her in all of her loss. When Ruth becomes pregnant, the narrator says that the Lord made her conceive. But very little is said about the main characters’ relationship to God, their prayer life, or a life of worship. No theological expositions like those of the Apostle Paul. No prophetic announcements to God’s people like those of the Hebrew prophets. No call to a life of discipleship like those of the gospels. You remember, however, that Ruth does have a place in the family tree of Jesus. As recorded in the gospel of Matthew, “Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.”

Yet, in this morning’s scripture lesson, Boaz does invoke the promise of God to Ruth. “May the Lord reward you for your deeds, and may you have a full reward under whose wings you have come for refuge!” The blessing Boaz bestows upon Ruth is that she will find refuge under God’s wings. In a book where the action of God seems to be rather understated and no credit is tossed God’s way when it comes to Ruth finding refuge under God’s wings, the reader is left to conclude that the refuge for Ruth comes in the form of the generosity, hospitality, and security at the hands of Boaz. The shelter and protection of God’s wings through the actions of Boaz, “a prominent rich man”.

It is not a stretch to suggest that when considering the ancient culture, practice, and history that shaped the context of the Book of Ruth, the decisions and actions of Boaz were life-saving for Ruth and Naomi. A refuge that is more than a metaphor. A refuge that is less about a spiritual rest under God’s wings and a whole lot more about finding food and water and safety and survival under God’s wings. With generosity, hospitality, and security, Boaz becomes an agent for the very wings of God. One can hear echoes of the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25; as much as you did it to these most vulnerable and at risk you did it to me. One also cannot forget the disorienting words of judgment from Jesus either. As you did not to it these you, you did not do it to me. To not offer generosity, hospitality, and security to the orphan, the widow, the alien, the stranger, the immigrant, is then, to withhold the promised refuge of God. To not protect the gleaner is to clip the wings of God.

It is hardly a shocking or outside-the-box theological conviction to believe that God’s actions are often experienced in and through the actions and words of humankind. Divine agency at work in the hands and feet and voice of people like you and me. What is startling, what ought to be stopping the people of God in their tracks these days, what ought to give the followers of Jesus more than just a little to think about is that theological conviction turned around. It doesn’t seem all that profound to proclaim that human sin works against the ways of God. But it is more than compelling to be confronted with the notion that the lack of generosity, hospitality, and security threatens the refuge God promises to the foreigner, the orphan, the widow, the stranger, and even the neighbor. It leads to a theological conviction of a different kind. For the church of Jesus Christ to ponder the possibility and the pretty plain reality all around, that the followers of Jesus may have a role to play in clipping the sheltering wings of God.

Nassau Church has been involved in resettling refugees for more than sixty years. Starting way back in 1964 a family from Cuba was welcomed by this congregation. Families have come from Cambodia, Vietnam, Bosnia, The Sudan, Burma, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. The Hashimi family has been in Princeton for three years and our team of folks kept working all the channels to finally get a visa for their husband and father (Ahmad). For the last 15 years or so we have partnered with Princeton Seminary for housing our refugee families. Together with the seminary, we can also add Mang and his family from Burma reunited after three years as well. Sixty years of ministry, of being agents of the sheltering wings of God. By God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, transforming lives one family at a time. Acts of discipleship and faith are now threatened by the frightening rise of hatred, and bigotry; much of it shrouded in the cloud of an ugly Christian nationalism. The church of Jesus Christ has to ponder the possibility and the pretty plain reality all around, that the followers of Jesus may have a role to play in clipping the sheltering wings of God.

In the Presbyterian Reformed tradition, we believe this meal is a sign of God’s kingdom. Yes, it is a foretaste of glory divine but it is also nourishment for the journey of faith. That nourishment has to include some ethical protein as you and I go forth into the work to work for and serve God’s kingdom. Yes, a meal to remember and give thanks for all that God has done but also a meal of empowerment, encouragement, and exhortation. A kind of pre-game meal for those sent out into the world as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Richard Lischer retired from teaching preaching at Duke Divinity School. He wrote a memoir about his time serving a small congregation somewhere in the South. At one point he writes about why he would lift the silver chalice during communion when he said “As often as you drink it, do it remembrance of me.” Church members often told him it seemed too Catholic to them. But in his words, “I lifted the chalice because when the light was filtering through our stained-glass windows or flooding through the open doors in the back, I could see the whole congregation reflected in that cup. And in the congregation, the whole church.”

I bet if Lischer was serving that church today in the world we live in, he would lift that cup a lot higher. Because God is calling us to see the church at work in the world. A church living out what must now be described as bold and courageous acts of generosity, hospitality, and security. A church still willing to serve as an agent of the sheltering wings of God.

Come to the table this morning and be nourished for the journey of faith to which we are being called.