Sermon - Colin Craggs: Ruth 3 [19/5/24]
Risky Love
Guest Speaker Colin takes us through the 4th part of our Ruth Series
Full Transcript
A little of Ruth and Chapter 3. Chapter 3 is kind of like year nine in school. It's kind of a, it's there, but really it's just trying to get you through to the end. It's a tough year. I've got one of my kids in year nine at the moment. It's tough to keep motivating because they're old enough to know better, but there's still the pressures, there's still a way off. Chapter 3 kind of fits like that. There's stuff happening. It's important stuff, but it's not really the beginning where it's like, [SOUND] and it's not the end where it's like, it's this in between bit. But so is Ruth and so is Boas. They're in the middle of this genealogy where we have Perez, and you find out this right at the end of Chapter 4. So I hope I'm still in the film. So you've got Perez and where he kind of kicks off, where his parents were Tamar and Judah. And that's just a nasty situation. Go read about that. It's just a nasty situation of how that all goes down. And then we've got King David over here. And his on one hand, a man after God's own heart at the same time. There's a lot of nasty that's going on in his life as well. And then in the middle of this genealogy, we have Ruth, this mulbite woman who's not even an Israelite. It's kind of like what's she doing in the midst of all of this? And we have these three main characters, kind of Ruth. It's outsider, we have Naomi, who left with her husband, because things were hard in Israel, and there's their, her husband dies, her sons die. And now she's back trying to rebuild her life. And then we have Boaz. And Boaz is this older man in the story, is an older man. And the three of them are just lovely people. And when we get to chapter three, we've been introduced to them all. And it's just this beautiful story of three people. We finish chapter two with Naomi and Ruth returning. They find the field of Boaz, and Boaz shows them favour to Ruth. And Ruth is doing what women in their situation do. They go out to the fields and they pick up the stuff that the workers leave behind. And that was all part of the way that God provided for desertership people. And she's doing that, and we come to the end of chapter two, and everything's humming along just fine. If they keep doing what they're doing, Naomi will be able to see her days out. That would kind of leave Ruth hanging a little bit. Boaz, he's got his business is running and the fields are doing good, are producing. It kind of finishes at this nice place. And then in the beginning of chapter three, Naomi's like, you know what? There's more for life than what you've got right now. Because Naomi can just let it play out. Systems working. But she's concerned for Ruth. Ruth, this isn't good. I'm taking care of, my needs are taken care of. But you're going to be left hanging if we don't find your husband. Now we can kind of read all kinds of things into the text, but in this day and age, women, you don't get married. Life's hard. And we know that from chapter two, there was the whole staying Boaz's field, so you don't get assaulted. That's not good. There's no pension. There's no settling. There's relationships and marriage and her getting married is kind of a long term safety net. And Naomi says, here's the plan. I want you to go to Boaz. And I want you to dress up well, put on perfume. In other words, it's time to take off the widow's clothes that you've been wearing. It's time to declare yourself a single woman again. That, yep, I'm ready to be remarried. And I want you to go to Boaz. Now that, we know how this all works out. It's all lovely, but that is risky. This is a high risk strategy. Boaz is a good man. And the plan is to kind of sneak into the threshing floor where all this is happening to lay at his feet. This puts Ruth at risk if she gets caught, well goes pear shake, her reputation is ruined. At the moment at this point in the story, she's a woman of high repute. She's got a good reputation. That's going down the drain. That's the risk. The risk is that Boaz finds the whole thing offensive. And if he finds it offensive, he may withdraw his goodwill. And again, at this point, he's doing over and above what would be required of it. If he just pulled back and did what was respectable and expected of him, then Naomi and Ruth lose a lot. So Naomi here, her strategy is risky. Because she's going for a position of my life is okay to I'm risking this and I'm risking this for who? This stage of the relationship with Ruth and Naomi's been really from Ruth to Naomi. Ruth's commitment to Naomi. And at this point in the story, we see this commitment of Naomi to Ruth. And Naomi has a lot to lose. So she tells Ruth, "Guy, this is one what you to do. Kind of set yourself up. By your actions, you're declaring to Boaz, I want you to marry me." And she does that. Scripture says that she does everything that she's told to do. So she goes. When she encounters Boaz, she doesn't just act in this way, but she also makes the comments. "I'm Ruth your servant. Spread your wings over your servant." Ruth's picked up a lot from Naomi. See, Boaz earlier in chapter 2, his prayer was that God's wings would cover you. Well, Ruth kind of feeds that Scripture back to him like, "Hey, this is what you prayed for. Here's the prayer outworking." Jesus uses the same strategy of the apostles. He says, "Pray the Lord of the harvest would send out labourers." And the next paragraph. You guys are going to go. You pray, it's time to go. But here, Ruth fits it up. "I'm your servant. Spread your wings over your servant for your redeemer." And he takes it really well. Now, that whole engagement there, there is no doubt what she's saying. There is a lot in that reading. There's a lot of sexual innuendo that's happening. Why? Because Ruth is trying to make it clear. I want you to marry me. What you've been doing is great. We appreciate that, but I want you to take it a step further. I want you to marry me. I want you to be the redeemer. And again, that's putting out the relationship and the example here of faith, of taking risks, risking what is working well for something better. That's hard. That's hard. Our natural bent is when something's good, we want to hold on to it. We want to protect it. As we develop and grow as people, when two people are young, you've got nothing to lose. My twin brother's a financial planner. And recently, we were talking about the whole... And here's his daughter. My niece got married. And we were talking about the whole... What's the word for it when you get married and you make sure they can't take your assets? - Prenups. - Prenups. There you go. The illustration's off the top. So we were talking about whole prenups and we were discussing that when you get married, when you're young, you've got nothing. And she got nothing to lose. So, hey, who cares about prenups? But the older you get, well, prenups start to become important because I don't want to lose what I've got. That's kind of what happens here with the Guardian of the Dead, the Kingsman of the Redeemer. And there's stuff that can be lost because if I as buyers enter this, first-born comes under Naomi, not here. What's interesting is Naomi didn't send Ruth to play the Redeemer card. Naomi sent Ruth to play the Get Married card. Ruth picks up and goes, "Hey, you're the Redeemer." She plays that card to look after Naomi. So here is Ruth going... Naomi's saying to Ruth, "I want you to go do this because this is good for you. If this works, you will be taken care of." The risk is Naomi gets pushed to the side. That's risky on Naomi. Now, Ruth, in the midst of the plan, well, she plays her own risky card so that Naomi is taken care of. Well, Boaz is like, "You know what? You could have gone after young men. You could have gone after a younger man. You could have thrown Naomi to the side. You could have done it your way." But Ruth plays the "This is the Israeli way." I came to this land. I said, "I want your God to be my God, and this is God's way." The Redeemer was God's way of ensuring that people would be taken care of. The land would stay in the right people's hands. And Ruth plays that card, that this is the right thing to do. And Boaz sees that. Boaz sees that Naomi and Ruth are taking care of one another. They're carrying each other's... They're risking what they already have, what they could have for the other. And Boaz's response is, "I'm actually not the number one guy. I can't actually do that for you." But he finishes by saying, "I promise, if he doesn't say yes, I will." "You're going to be okay." So here's a whole bunch of barley, heaps of it, six bushels of it's a lot. Take it back. And this is a turning point for Naomi because she came back from Moa with nothing. She lost her husband, she lost her kids, she was destitute. And now at this point in the story, because she doesn't say anything else after this, neither does Ruth. Their words end at the end of this chapter. Because what they have to say is complete. They've played their role, they've played their cards, they've taken the risks. But they've done it in a way that is honourable, risky, but honourable. They've done it in a way that was according to God's word. Again, risky, but they took that risk. And we finish chapter three without knowing how it finishes. So I can't tell you that because that's next week. But what does this mean for us? Because these three set a very high standard of living by faith and taking risks. But throughout the whole thing, we see application all the way through it. Walking by faith is not just settling for where things are. It is asking the question, what else? Not just for me, what's in it for me, but what's in it for those who I love? What's in it for those around me? And what can I risk to make their life better? And as the people around me are reciprocating that, together we grow, together we move forward. But there's risks in this. There was risk of relationship. There was risks of being misunderstood in their social context. But that's what love and that's what faith looks like. It is risky. It is not settling. It is looking at what else can we do? From a Christian perspective, we could say things like when Jesus says that there's no greater love that we have for another than to lay your life down for it. Now that's a bit extreme, but we could soften that a little bit and say the way we love one another is by taking risks for each other. When we step into areas that challenge us, that give opportunities for others. That's love in action. That's faith in action. And all the love one another's in Scripture come back to that. How will we love one another? Will we love safely? Will we play safe? Or will we take risks, take a step of faith, possibly get it wrong? But risk for other people so that they may benefit. Amen.
