*Please note that the first reading was taken from the previous Sunday (Ruth 1:1-18, Proper 26B) in which we used the All Saints' Day readings in place of the lessons assigned for that Sunday.
Almighty God, may you guide us to seek the Truth:
come whence it may, cost what it will, lead where it might. Amen.
The
freedom to choose is a blessing, but over the past several months, choice has
seemed more like a burden than anything. We’ve had billions of dollars spent
trying to influence our choice, we heard the debates, and we made our choices-
both as individuals and a nation. The one refrains I heard lead up to this past
Tuesday was “I can’t wait for it to be over.” We’re exhausted from making
choices. So I suspect that “just tell us the Good News preacher” might be your
desire for this sermon. The issue is that there is still one more choice to
make. There is one issue that was left off the ballot that is worthy of our consideration
this morning.
When
we make choices, we often think that we’re exercising freedom. If you’re not
free, then you can’t make a choice- or so goes the standard logic. But this morning
we’ll wrestle with that assumption. Can you have your hands tied and yet remain
free? I’d like to take a very rare opportunity to lift up two women as
examples. It isn’t rare that women are deserving of being great examples of
faith, but just rare that that we get stories told about them in a male-orientated
Bible. Ruth and the widow in Mark will be our lens for exploring choice this
morning.
And
I want to make it clear, I’m not lifting these women up on a pedestal, but
rather am pointing to them as examples. There is a problem with calling people
heroes or saints because it makes their actions and sacrifices seem
unattainable. We often think of people such as Mother Teresa, inner-city
teachers, or today on Veterans’ Day, wounded veterans as heroes to be honored.
And while we should honor them and thank them for their service, there is a
great danger in lifting them up too highly. Saints and soldiers accomplish courageous
and amazing feats, but that does not mean we can’t follow in their footsteps.
The widow in Mark and
Ruth, in the same way, should not be seen as being on a level that we’ll never
get to. We do heroes a disservice when we name streets after them and enshrine
them in stained glass as a way of domesticating them and protecting ourselves
from being asked to make a similar choice. But their choice is our choice. Just
because they accomplished something great does not mean that we are excused
from greatness. Rather, they are examples of regular people who step out in
faith. The best way to honor these heroes isn’t with words and statues, but it
is to make their sacrifices worth something by continuing the work that they
began. So with that in mind, the widow and Ruth are great examples of making a
choice, but not in the way we might expect.
We’ll begin with Ruth.
The book of Ruth is relatively short and would make for great Sunday afternoon
reading if you’re interesting in reading a good story. Elimelech and Naomi have
two sons and lived in Moab, and their two sons married two Moabite girls. This
passage is often read at weddings because of the wonderful words that Ruth
speaks to Naomi later in the passage. But it’s rather ironic that the story
begins with the death of the three husbands; not sure that this reading bodes
well for the husbands at weddings.
Anyway, the men all die.
Naomi was a Jew and had heard that God had provided food in Israel, so she
begins the long journey back to her native land. But she tells her
daughters-in-law to return to their families in Moab. And Ruth and Orpah refuse
to leave this woman who had become family to them. But Naomi insists that they
leave her. Naomi knows it is a long journey, and she knows that as a widow, she
will be dirt poor and unable to find much food when she returns home. We see
this reality in our reading from Mark. That widow only had two coins to rub
together. Naomi also knows that two foreign women will not fare very well in
her hometown. She says “what, do you think I’m going to bear new sons for you
to marry?”
And Ruth responds with the
wonderful song, saying “where you go, I will go…your people shall be my people,
your God my God. Where you die, I will die.” It seems that she has made a
choice to stay with her mother-in-law. But how much of a choice was it? If she
stayed in Moab, where there was a great famine, what chance did she have of surviving?
She herself was a widow, so her prospects for remarriage or escaping poverty
were slim to none. It doesn’t really work this way here, but in many cultures when
you marry someone, you don’t just marry the individual, but the entire family.
Ruth captures this sentiment when she says “your people will be my people.” The
fact that her husband died didn’t change her relationship to Naomi; they were
still kin.
So I’ll ask, what choice
did Ruth really have? Could she have done anything other than remain dedicated
to Naomi? My response is no; she had no choice. But you might say, “Robert,
that’s ridiculous. She very much had a choice. Even if the choices were bad,
she still had freedom. Look at Orpah, she clearly made a choice to not stay
with Naomi and Ruth could have done the same.” And I would still respond that
Ruth had no choice.
So why is Ruth worthy of
being an example to us if she didn’t really make a choice but was forced into a
decision? Ruth is an example to us not because she made a choice, but because
she exercised a choice. Even if you don’t have a choice, as I am suggesting that
Ruth did not, how you handle living that choice makes all the difference. What
Ruth did to make her worthy of our emulation wasn’t her making a bold choice,
but rather was her embracing the Hebrew word hesed. Hesed is a
wonderful word in Hebrew that, unfortunately, can’t easily be translated into
English. It is defined in many ways such as “goodness,” “loving kindness,” “fidelity,”
or “steadfast love.” Some scholars say that hesed
is the most important word in the entire language of the Bible. In most
instances, hesed is the primary word
to describe God in the relationship to Israel. God loves Israel unconditionally
and shows goodness towards the people.
One of the few places that
we find the word hesed applied to a
human in the book of Ruth when Naomi extols Ruth for showing hesed to her. Ruth is an example of
faith, not for making a choice to live hesed,
but rather in her exercising of that hesed.
We are all called to love like God does. In our Baptismal Covenant, we are all
called to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as
ourselves” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect
the dignity of every human being.” Embodying God’s unwavering and total love of
hesed is something we all strive
towards. It isn’t a choice anymore than choosing to be born is a choice. It is
simply what we are created to be.
So even though Ruth didn’t
make the choice to show hesed, since
it was the only fitting thing to do, she still is a great example to us because
she thrived in that hesed. Even
though she had no choice, no real faithful option, other than loving and
supporting her aging mother-in-law, she still exercised her choice, or lack
thereof, beautifully.
So let’s now turn to the
widow in Mark. We should not ignore the first half of this reading from Mark,
as it sets the tone. Jesus begins by condemning the Temple structure that
devours widows. The Temple has become a self-serving den of robbers where
justice is not done. They do not practice what they preach. They have gotten
too comfortable in their faith. So along comes this widow to put her offering
into the Temple treasury. She comes and puts in her last two coins, making a
choice to give it all. But was it really a choice?
You might say “okay
Robert, I can get on board with the idea that Ruth only had one faithful option
and it wasn’t really much of a choice. But this widow clearly had a choice.
There was no gun to her head. In fact, the Temple was supposed to support widows,
not the other way around; she didn’t have to give anything. And even if she
did, giving half of what she had would have been more than enough. She
obviously made a choice to give more. She had freedom, and she had a choice.” And
again, I would contest that she had no choice, but like Ruth, she exercised her
choice in a way deserving of our attention.
So this widow comes and
gives, not out of her abundance, but out of her poverty. If you had two
pennies, what good does it do you to keep one? What could this widow have
realistically done with one, or even two, coins? It wouldn’t have bought her a
house, wouldn’t have gotten her a meal. St. Chrysostom said about this widow
that you can’t buy the Kingdom with money; and if you could, this widow wouldn’t
get very much. But she clearly seems to be inheriting the Kingdom in her
actions.
This widow was absolutely
dirt poor, and in that culture, as a poor widow, and real no prospects for
changing her life situation. There was no pulling yourself up by your
bootstraps, no Medicare system to pay for her stay in a long-term nursing
facility. She was totally dependent on the grace of God and the goodness of
others. She depended on hesed. And hesed was the only choice she had in
living her life.
I was talking recently
with someone who works with the poor and homeless and he said the difference
between the rich and the poor isn’t money, but choice. I could go out and give
all of my possessions away today, but I have the intellectual and professional
resources to get it all back within a few years through hard work. The poor don’t
have that choice. The oppression systems that put them in poverty are designed
to keep them there. The poor can’t choose to go out and get a job, to have
people put away their racist and discriminatory points of view, or have the
bank give a loan to someone with no credit history or stable income. They have
no choice but to remain poor. And the widow had no choice.
But despite her lack of
choice about being poor, she exercised hesed.
Like Ruth, there really wasn’t an option other than hesed, but she still wore the garment of steadfast love with all
the grace and beauty of a queen adorned with jewels and fancy clothes. Her life
was made possible by the hesed of
God, and the only fitting response, the only viable option, was for her to
return this hesed. So she put the two
coins in the treasury, not because she made a choice to do so, but because it
was the only choice that she could live with.
In both of these examples
of the widow and Ruth, their hesed
defies explanation. There is no reasonable motivation for their actions other
than being out of options. It is
interesting that in these passages, the lowest of the low, the widow and the sojourner,
those without the choice, are actually the ones with the greatest freedom. They
are able to practice hesed like no
one else. There are no boundaries or conditions for hesed. It isn’t just an attitude, but hesed is action. Their actions force us to consider our own
motivations for action. What do our actions say about us? The text of Mark
literally says that the widow gave her entire life. Where do you put your life?
Marriage is a good metaphor
for this lack of choice. On your wedding day, regardless of how prepared you
think you are and how well you know your future spouse, you have no idea what
you’re getting into. I have a feeling that having a child will be a similar
experience, and I’ll confirm that with you in a few weeks. But when we enter a
relationship such as marriage, we commit to giving up choice. There are
inevitabilities in marriage that we cannot be prepared for. Life circumstances
change. People change and grow. But we stick it out. We don’t wake up each morning
and decide to renew our wedding vows or put our rings on again. We live in hesed to each other, being reminded of
God’s fidelity to us. Now, of course, in some sense I do have a choice in my
marriage. I could do things that would be destructive to the marriage, but they
don’t make sense to do so. They aren’t real options, I don’t have a choice. And
in that lack of choice, there is a freedom beyond comparison.
We are free to not have
to make millions of decisions each day. We don’t need to listen to debates or
compare platforms. We don’t really have a choice in this. As Christians, we
live in hesed. We are loved extravagantly
by God, for no particular reason other than the fact that God loves us. And in
turn, the only real choice is for us to abound in this love. The only fitting
response is to love the Lord our God with all our soul, with all our heart, with
all our might and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This lack of choice doesn’t
take away our freedom, but rather gives us the freedom to actually take the
road that set before us, following Jesus on the way.
So today, we give thanks
for the examples of Ruth and the widow. They aren’t heroes to be enshrined in
stained glass windows, but are faithful witnesses to be followed. Neither of
them had much of a choice to act with steadfast love, with hesed. There was only one way forward for them, but yet they
exercised this inevitable choice with grace that inspires us to do the same.
The Good News comes when
you look up the name “Ruth” in the index of your Bible. There is one place,
outside of the book of Ruth, where her name shows up, and it is in the beginning
of Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus. Ruth, by her hesed, became the great-grandmother of King David, who was one of
the ancestors of Jesus. We never know what sort of impact our hesed might have. Again, Ruth chose hesed not because she necessarily wanted
to, but because it was the only right option. And in her hesed she participated in bringing the Kingdom to reality, in enabling
the way of salvation to come to all people. When we give up the idol of choice
and instead accept the way of God as the only way forward, we too can participate
in the miracle of God’s salvation. And to be clear, the way of God is the way
of extreme love, of hesed. I started
this sermon by saying that we have one more choice to make. But maybe I was wrong;
maybe taking the path of radical and transformative love is our only choice.
