November 9, 2003 Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

See also: [2006] [2000]

 

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

 

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13- 17 
If last week’s lesson from the Book of Ruth gave us the prologue to the story, this week’s lesson goes straight to the climax and denouement. Naomi gives Ruth instructions how to win the favor of her kinsman Boaz. Boaz was the nearest next-of-kin of Naomi’s family, and according to ancient Israelite custom, he had the legal right and responsibility to continue the family line by taking Ruth as his wife. This would give Ruth “some security” in Israelite society, as Naomi observes, which is a matter of some importance given Ruth’s Moabite origins. Moreover, if Ruth is given a place in Boaz’s household, that also assures Naomi a place; and if Ruth bears Naomi a grandson, it would redeem Naomi from the shame of having no descendants. These complicated family laws and customs may seem arcane to a contemporary audience; but within the context of the story they are tremendously important to living a full and rewarding life. Since Ruth has a legal claim on Boaz’s care, it is conceivable that she might simply confront him and demand that he fulfill his obligations. But instead, Naomi counsels Ruth to approach Boaz more personally. Going to Boaz while he is sleeping, and uncovering his feet and lying down at them, is a gesture of supplication, an indication that Ruth does not wish to coerce Boaz into any action, but rather wishes to offer him the opportunity for relationship. There may also be a hint of sexuality in the story, since “feet” in Hebrew could be used as a euphemism for genitalia. Here again, to some of our sensibilities today, Ruth’s gesture of supplication (or seduction) might seem inappropriate; by our standards, we might wish Ruth to take a posture of more strength or equality in their relationship.

Still, constrained as it is by the prevailing patriarchy of the time, what is important in Ruth’s gesture is that she opens for Boaz the possibility of a genuinely personal relationship. She does not wish to remain in the merely external relationality of legal obligation, but creates the basis for an internal relation of mutual recognition and affection. Boaz and Ruth marry, and Ruth bears a son. The story comes full circle when Naomi, who had previously complained bitterly that she no longer had sons in her womb (1:11), is given Obed to nurse, so that the women say, “A son has been born to Naomi.” The mysterious and unpredictable power of God to bring good out of evil, to open new possibilities even in what “in the temporal world is mere wreckage,” is thus affirmed and celebrated.

Psalm 127
The psalm provides a poetic capstone to the Ruth story, celebrating children, proclaiming “the fruit of the womb is a reward” and “happy is the one who has a quiver full of them.” It also reinforces Ruth’s message of how God works in the world by providing initial aims and sustaining environments for human acts: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain; unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps its watch in vain.” God provides the aim and environment in which building and guarding and growing take place, and God works through human works to bring potential goods to their fulfillment.

Hebrews 9:24-28
Continuing the reinterpretation of the Yom Kippur rite from last week’s lesson, this passage affirms that Jesus accomplished the truth of which the ritual of animal sacrifice is the outward symbol. In his crucifixion Jesus entered, not a “sanctuary made by human hands” but “heaven itself.” Jesus makes his self-offering, not “again and again” but “once for all.” Jesus offers not “blood that is not his own” but “the sacrifice of himself.” Remembering to be on our guard against a facile supersessionism, we can set this passage in the context of both the Ruth reading and the Mark reading, and see it as a contrast between external and internal relationality. For the author of Hebrews, the rites of animal sacrifice are based on external relations, they are motions through which the priests go, motions that point toward transformation in God but are not in themselves capable of effecting that transformation. Jesus internalized the transformative process, offering his own life as the locus where God’s aims for human existence could be fully actualized. Jesus’ way of transformation can thus “remove sin”—that is, it can overcome alienation from God in a renewed internal relationship—in a way that the animal ritual cannot; and those who follow Jesus’ way as disciples are open to personal transformation that can go far beyond the enactment of an external rite. The passage can remind worshipers today not to let our own rites and liturgies become merely external enactments, but to allow our ceremonies to open up places of possibility where the transformative life of Christ may be internalized in us.

Mark 12:38-44
The passage assigned for today’s reading contains two contrasting sub-units: the first condemns the hypocrisy of the scribes, while the second commends the generosity of widow. Jesus says the scribes wear long robes and say long prayers “for the sake of appearance,” while in fact they crave social status and “devour widow’s houses” for their own enrichment. Their devotion, Jesus accuses, is only external; they have no internal relation with God in which they are called and summoned and creatively transformed by God’s aims for them. The widow, by contrast, performs a genuine act of generosity when she puts her two copper coins in the Temple treasury. Although her gift is small when compared to the gifts of the “many rich people” who come to the Temple, her gift comes from “all she had to live on,” and so is proportionately much greater. But Jesus’ commendation of her gift is more than just arithmetic; he commends her gift because it is given from true devotion, and not merely to fulfill an external appearance. Her gift is the sign of an internal relation with God in which she is creatively transformed by God’s aims for her, God’s power to open up new possibility in her earthly poverty. The contrast between the scribes and the widow, then, comes down to a contrast between accepting or rejecting God’s call to self-surpassing transformation. Because the widow accepts that call, her gift, her very life, is open to the greater blessing.

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