Build a Longer Table

Ruth 2:1-23; Luke 6:36-38

Boaz said to Ruth, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me, how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.  May the Lord reward you for your deeds, and may you have a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!”

When I was 21 years old, a few weeks after graduating from college, I took my first international flight to Belgium to start seminary. There was one other student on the flight, who I met for the first time at the airport, and otherwise I didn’t know a soul where I was going. We were picked up by one of the staff members and rode the 20 minutes or so to the American College in Leuven. I got to my room around 11:00 in the morning, unpacked, and – because I didn’t have any experience with jetlag and didn’t yet know how important it is traveling east to stay awake the first day until at least early evening – I would have taken a nap, except there was no bed in my room.

So an hour or so later, lunch was available, so I went down to the cafeteria and met some people there. And, as casually as I could, I asked – Is there supposed to be a bed in my room? I mean, I didn’t know, Catholic seminaries still have this element of monastic living to them, maybe this was some kind of spiritual discipline of some kind? And everyone had a good laugh at how naïve I was. There’s a door on the wall, and the bed folds up behind the door during the day to make more room. It’s a Belgian thing, apparently.

It's hard going to a new place, where you don’t know anyone, where you don’t know the customs or the expectations that people have. Where you don’t recognize the money or really speak the language. Where you are completely dependent on other people because you don’t know how to do the simplest things. I know many of you have had similar experiences. You know how difficult it can be.

In our Biblical story today, Ruth has arrived in Bethlehem, as a foreigner and a widow. Her mother-in-law Naomi is the only person she knows. Naomi has been away more than 10 years but she’s now back among her people. But Ruth is alone.

Bethlehem, at least 1100 years before Jesus would be born there, was a farming village. And, at the end of last Sunday’s reading, we were told that Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest. So Ruth, not knowing what else to do, goes out to the place everybody else is, in the barley fields. Probably half scared to death.

And when she comes home that night and opens her cloak, she has a whole ephah of barley – that’s about 30 pounds of barley – to bring home to Naomi. And Naomi is impressed. “Where did you work today? Blessed is the man who took notice of you!”

Why did Ruth’s first day in Bethlehem – which could have gone wrong in a million different ways – turn out so well? The story we read today tells us three things that helped. And, as it happens, all three of these are rooted in the Old Testament Law of Moses.

First – Ruth does not have to apply for a job. Even as a widow and a foreigner, she is entitled to glean in the field. Now, if you’re like me and have no experience with farming, you may not appreciate what that is.

In the law of Moses, Leviticus 19:9: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest (that is, the part that falls to the ground).” More in Deuteronomy 24:19, 21-22: “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 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.”

Now, this is not how things work in modern times. We value efficiency. A farm is a business, and the business that ekes out every last penny of income is the one that succeeds. But in the Law God commands the people not to harvest efficiently, not to maximize the harvest, but intentionally to leave a lot behind. Why?

Because the Promised Land does not belong to Israel – the land belongs to God. God gives it to God’s people for their benefit. But there are some people who do not have their own land – particularly the foreigner, the orphan, the widow. And God insists that these people have a right to the land as well – so the landowner is required to leave to them the edges of the field, the things that fall to the ground during harvesting, the sheaves accidentally left behind.

The right to glean is not charity – it’s not something that the farmer is invited to do out of kindness and compassion. This is justice. The land belongs to God; once the farmers were slaves in Egypt but God delivered them and brought them to this bountiful land, so that they can be a community where everyone, even the foreigner and the orphan and the widow, has the opportunity to enjoy its blessings. They still have to work – they go out to the fields and gather just like the landowner. But in Israel the law is that everyone gets a chance to gather their own food.

So Ruth goes out to glean in the field of Boaz during the barley harvest. And Boaz, a man of faith, an upright man who loves God and follows the law, allows her to do it. Makes it easy for her. Goes out of his way to let her take as much as she can. Because Ruth is a foreigner and a widow. Because this is what it means to be an Israelite – one who does not hoard God’s blessing but shares them with those in need.

Not only this. You may have noticed that Boaz is concerned that Ruth, this young woman who is no longer married and a foreigner, is especially vulnerable. So Boaz assures Ruth, stay in my field, I’ve told the men not to bother you. And when Ruth tells Naomi about this, Naomi tells her, yeah, why don’t you stick with the women. Both Boaz and Naomi take responsibility for Ruth, they give her advice how to protect herself, how to be safe.

And when Boaz and his workers sit down for lunch, Ruth is an honored guest. She sits among the Hebrew workers, dipping her bread in the common wine, included at the table. In the New Testament, when Peter sits down to eat with the Roman centurion Cornelius, you’ll remember that everyone got all worked up, clutching their pearls – Eating with Gentiles, that’s just not done. But here Ruth is welcome at the table. The text says twice that Ruth ate until she was satisfied – in God’s promised land there is enough for everyone, there is enough even for Ruth the widow and the foreigner.

Remember: the book of Ruth is written at a time when everybody was worked up about a different passage from Deuteronomy: Hebrew men, don’t marry Moabite women. It is written at a time when faithfulness to the Law was being defined as enforced divorce of all Hebrew men married to Moabite women, with the women and the children being sent away to fend for themselves.

The book of Ruth wants to reminds the people what the Law of Moses is really about: it’s about justice for the widow and the foreigner, it’s about sharing the blessings of the land – yes, even with the Moabite women living among you. It’s about watching out for the vulnerable and making sure that they are not taken advantage of. It’s about welcoming and including the vulnerable and the stranger at the table, making sure they can eat and be satisfied.

Sometimes people think that the Old Testament is all legalistic and judgmental, but the New Testament is about freedom and grace. And it’s true that in the Bible – in both Old and New Testament, actually – the Law is used to condemn and judge, to tell us who to kick out and shun. But in this Old Testament book of Ruth, we are reminded that the Law is God’s beautiful revelation of how human beings are intended to live. The Law is about a community of inclusion, a community where even the weakest and the most vulnerable are provided for, are protected and cared for.

And this community is based on grace – God’s gift of the promised land to the people God has called and chosen, not because they have earned it, but as a free gift. The Land is given as a gift to the escaped and redeemed former slaves in Egypt. With the understanding that what we receive as a gift, we also must share as a gift.

We who have also come to know this God of grace and gift are also invited to the table – but at this table our host is not Boaz but his 30-or-so-great-grandson Jesus. Like Ruth, we have been welcomed to this table, offered bread and wine, enough to satisfy our hunger and thirst. May we receive to the extent that we share this gift with others. May we be forgiven our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. May we, like Ruth, find our place in the family of God’s people, with security and a share in the blessings that God so freely gives.