I Know My Redeemer Lives

Ruth 3:1-18; Matthew 7:7-8

Boaz said to Ruth, “And now, my daughter, do not be afraid. I will do for you all that you ask.”

Like many stories that are told in the Bible, the story told in the book of Ruth is a very old story that is surprisingly contemporary in many ways, and in other ways really shows its age. It is a story written perhaps 25 centuries ago, at a time when a certain type of family – a marriage between a Hebrew man and a Moabite woman – was being blamed for every social problem imaginable, and living as we do in a time when there are loud voices insisting on blaming and excluding certain kinds of families, certain kinds of relationships, certain kinds of people, and doing this in the name of God – well, there is nothing more contemporary than a story that, in the name of God, celebrates just this kind of family.

But this story – which describes events that are even earlier, more than 3000 years ago, telling how the great-grandparents of King David met and got married – this story also takes place in a world that is very different from our own. The customs and practices of those days are very different from ours, and things that would have been so obvious to the original tellers and hearers of the story that they went without saying are not at all obvious to us, and it’s easy for us to miss their significance.

This is a society where a woman at marriage becomes part of her husband’s extended family. Her husband’s family becomes responsible for providing her security, a home, and children to provide for her old age – even if, like Ruth’s first husband, the husband dies before they have children, the husband’s family is still responsible for her. And the law of Moses sets forth how this responsibility is to be met. If the deceased husband has a brother, the brother is required to marry his sister-in-law, and the children inherit the name and estate of the deceased, not their natural father.

But in Ruth’s case, her brother-in-law – and her father-in-law, for that matter – are also deceased. So what happens to Ruth? What happens to her mother-in-law Naomi? What happens to the family estate? According to the law, the responsibility to act as the father to this family falls to the “next-of-kin,” as our reading today translates it, the next closest male relative. The Hebrew word translated “next-of-kin” in this text is “go’el.” If a relative dies, the go’el is the one who acts as what we might call the executor of the estate.

The law of Moses spells out all the duties of the go’el. One of them is that, if the relative has gone into debt and has had to sell the family land or even sell himself into slavery, the duty of the go’el is to buy them back, to “redeem” them, we might say. And in the Bible, the responsible “next-of-kin,” the go’el, takes on the meaning of the redeemer, the savior, the one who comes to rescue a relative who has fallen on hard times and sets everything right.

And so in the book of Job, in a passage that has become very famous among Christians, Job the righteous man who has suffered greatly laments all the terrible things that have happened to him, complains loudly and forcefully to God about the unfairness of how he has been treated – then says in faith, “But I know that my redeemer lives” – I know that my go’el lives, and in the end he will stand upon the earth, and in my flesh I will see God.” However bad things have gotten for me, Job says, I know that somewhere I have a go’el, someday I will have a redeemer, and everything will somehow be made right. (Job 19:25-26)

And – in the days closer to when the book of Ruth was been written, as the people of Israel who have gone into exile are preparing to return to the promised land, wondering what has happened to their ancestors’ land, anxious about how they will provide for themselves in an unfamiliar land. The prophet announces – in another famous passage from the book of Isaiah – “For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you: Do not fear, I will help you, says the Lord, your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.” Your go’el, your next-of-kin who will buy you back and save you, is none other than the Lord God of Israel. (Isaiah 41:13-14)

The institution of the next-of-kin, the go’el, the “Redeemer,” makes sense in the ancient culture of the Middle East, where the identity of the family depends on the father, and women don’t have an identity apart from their husband’s family. The Bible is written by people who lived in this culture, and that doesn’t mean God wants us to live in that culture forever. Now, personally, I’m glad to live in a culture where every person has their own unique identity and agency respected and affirmed. I would not want to go to an eleventh century B.C. dentist, and I would not want to live in an eleventh century B.C. family structure. But this is the culture in which God became incarnate, in which God became known, and seeing how those people came to know and see the activity of God in their world can help us to know and see how God is active in our world right now.

And so the confidence that people had in those days that – no matter what happened, no matter how bad things get, even if you suffer like Job – there is a next-of-kin whose responsibility is to be your go’el, your redeemer, the one who will buy you back and make things right. The confidence that if one relative fails, there will be another next-of kin, and another, and if everyone fails, the Lord God of Israel will be your go’el, your redeemer. I know my Redeemer lives – I know my go’el is out there, Job says, I know that in my flesh I will see everything made right with my own two eyes. And even in a society like ours that doesn’t depend on the institution of the go’el, we also can have confidence that we also have a Redeemer.

And so now perhaps we have some understanding of what’s happening in our reading today from the book of Ruth. Last Sunday the widow Ruth, newly arrived in Bethlehem as a foreigner and a migrant, goes out to glean in the fields during the barley harvest, to provide for herself and her mother-in-law Naomi. And, it just so happens, that the field where she goes to glean belongs to a close relative of her late husband, a man who faithfully observes the Law, named Boaz – a man of some means. A man who goes out of his way to take care of Ruth, to protect her from abuse, to make sure she and her mother-in-law are provided for.

And Naomi, who had returned to Bethlehem bitter and angry at God, feeling that God had abandoned her and taken away everything meaningful in her life, starts to think that maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that Ruth stumbled onto the field of their next-of-kin, that Ruth was led to glean on the land of a possible go’el. Maybe God has sent a redeemer after all. And so Naomi coaches Ruth on what to do.

Naomi knows Boaz will be working late at night threshing the harvest. That he won’t finish processing the harvest in one day, so he’ll sleep on the threshing floor that night, to protect the harvest against animals and thieves. That the harvest was successful, so he’ll eat and have a celebratory drink or two before he lies down, as the text says, “in a contented mood.” Naomi tells Ruth to bathe and put on perfume and her best clothes – in other words, don’t dress like a widow, don’t let anyone mistake you for a lady of the evening, but present yourself as the strong and respectable woman you are – and wait for Boaz to fall asleep.

Ruth approaches the sleeping Boaz and, as Naomi suggested, uncovers his feet and lies down there. In the Hebrew Bible, sometimes “feet” means feet and sometimes it’s a euphemism for, um, something else. Either way, it’s pretty forward, don’t you think? It’s a bold way for a woman to propose to a man, especially in that society. It’s a bold way for a migrant field worker to propose to the owner of the farm. Ruth is taking quite a risk, in following Naomi’s advice about how to approach Boaz.

At midnight, Boaz turns over and wakes up. It’s gotten chilly, Boaz thinks, the covers have fallen off my “feet.” Boaz reaches for the covers and – ah! Someone’s there! Who is there? Boaz asks in the dark. I am Ruth, she says, spread your cloak over me, for you are next-of-kin. I am Ruth, she says, and you are my go’el. That is a bold ask. And Boaz says yes.

Well, almost yes. Boaz says there’s actually one other relative who, according to the law of Moses, is ahead of him in precedence to be go’el to Ruth. If he wants to do it, Boaz says, I have to let him go first – but one way or another, Boaz promises to Ruth, you will have a go’el. You will have a redeemer. And Boaz sends Ruth off in a way that preserves her reputation as a woman of valor, with plenty of food to bring home to Naomi, and Naomi interprets this – correctly, as we’ll see in the end of the story next week – that Boaz is going to make sure Ruth and Naomi get their go’el and he isn’t going to mess around.

Ruth is bold – shockingly bold, by the standards of her time and even by ours – in approaching Boaz and claiming Boaz as her go’el, as her redeemer. And there is no reason why any of us should be afraid to be any less bold in calling on our Redeemer. He has already told us – ask, you will receive. Seek, you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened. This is the promise of the gospel – there is a Redeemer for you, there is a go’el for you, whatever troubles have befallen you, whatever hole you have fallen into or dug for yourself, there is Someone who has promised to be there for you and to buy you back, and so don’t be shy or ashamed. Be bold enough to uncover his feet and he’ll tell you what to do.

And let’s spare a good thought for Boaz too. Last week Boaz saw Ruth as a poor widow, a foreigner who had come to glean in his field, and Boaz met his obligation to let her share in the bounty of God’s goodness to him. Boaz had clearly continued to think about Ruth; he had discussed her with the people of the town, and they all agreed Ruth was a woman of valor and worthy of respect. Boaz would no doubt have been delighted to learn that Ruth had found her go’el, that Ruth had found her redeemer. But apparently it had not yet occurred to him that he, Boaz, would be that redeemer. After all, there is someone else whose responsibility is greater than his. But when Ruth came to him, at the moment he least expected it, and called him her go’el, Boaz said yes to the call. And this call became for him, as well as for Ruth, and for the people of Israel as a whole, a great blessing – but that’s the next part of the story.

May we be as bold as Ruth in trusting the promise that our go’el lives, that our Redeemer is ready to rescue us, that we will call on him with confidence and boldness. May we be as bold as Boaz when we are unexpectedly invited to be go’el for another, that we will respond to the opportunity when it comes, and find in that call a source of deep blessing and joy.