“The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” Perhaps you’ve heard that phrase used in a conversation before. It’s often used to end a debate by appealing to the sovereignty of God. Sure, we might be tempted to dismiss such brazen logic as lazy or closed-minded; but in actuality, there’s something beautifully simplistic about putting our trust in God more than anything else. Goodness knows, I wish faith was that easy; that I always knew how to follow Jesus.
While the Bible gives us
a direction, it does not give us directions; it points us in the direction of
mercy and peace, but doesn’t give us all of the steps needed in every circumstance.
But we can understand why some Christians try to make faith easier to follow. That
desire comes from a place of wanting to follow Jesus closely, and that is to be
commended. The problem with the phrase “The Bible says it, I believe it, that
settles it” is that the Bible isn’t always, or often, clear.
It
doesn’t take long to notice the contradictions and juxtapositions of Scripture.
As they say in the tech world: this is a feature, not a bug. I am not at all
troubled by the diversity of accounts and perspectives in Scripture – as diversity
is a part of the blessed goodness of Creation. Even the account of Creation
itself isn’t straightforward or clear. Reading the opening chapters of Genesis,
we quickly find two different creation stories. We have four gospels, not one.
I was back at Virginia Seminary a few weeks ago for my fifteen-year reunion and
the keynote lecture was given by the Old Testament professor that I studied
under. In her lecture, she used a phrase that I remember from my days as a
student there – “In the Bible if it’s worth telling once, it’s worth telling
twice.”
Just
as diversity is a gift within nature, society, and the Church, diversity is also
a gift found in Scripture. But it means that things aren’t always clear.
Depending on the writer and their context, a lot can change. As much as we want
clarity, the Bible is not always clear. One caveat to this: while the Bible is
not always clear, it is consistent.
When
Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment, he replied “The first is,
‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God,
the Lord is one; you shall love
the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.” The Bible and the way of Jesus
is consistently about love. That is not debatable. Love is always the way, love
is always the foundation, love is always the answer. Love is the consistent
direction of Scripture. But how to love isn’t always clear.
As
a case study in this – let’s consider the book of Ruth. We heard the opening verses
read this morning. But before we get to Ruth, we have to back further. In Genesis,
we read that the Moabites, were a people conceived in incest. The daughters of Lot
got their father drunk and “went into him,” as the Bible puts it. The first
child conceived was named Moab, a name which means “from the father.” Not a
respectful origin story. They lived across the Jordaan River, outside of the Promised
Land and were seen as being outside of the promises of God. In Numbers, we read
about the Moabite king who hired the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelite
army. Throughout Israel’s history, the Moabites were bitter enemies. The
Moabites followed another deity and were downright despised.
So
when we arrive at the section of Deuteronomy that addresses who can and cannot
be members of God’s people, it’s no surprise to read, “No Moabite shall be admitted
to the assembly of the Lord. Even
to the tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly
of the Lord… You shall never
promote their welfare or their prosperity as long as you live.” The Bible is
clear, no Moabites.
Narratively,
the book of Ruth takes place after Judges. It’s only four chapters long, so if
you want to read it this week, which would be great to do, you can find it
right after Judges. But that’s not when the book was written. No, Ruth was
written during the time of the return from Exile. You’ll remember that in 586 BC,
the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and took many Jewish
people into captivity. This was known as the Babylonian Exile. Eventually, that
imprisonment ended when the Assyrians conquered the Babylonians and King Nebuchadnezzar
said, “Why are all of these Israelites in Babylon? We have no quarrels with
them. Let them return home.” And some did just that – they returned home. And
when they did, they rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem and reestablished worship
there.
That’s
the story we read about in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. When the Temple was
being rededicated, Nehemiah records that one of the things they did was to read
the law of Moses. All of it. Just think of that the next time the readings we
have seem to be taking a while. Well, in chapter 13, Nehemiah pays specific
attention to one verse from that law and quotes it – “On that day they read
from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and in it was found
written that no Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God.” Remember, the prohibition
was for ten generations, which is essentially permanent – who is going to
remember that far back? Once you’ve been branded as a Moabite, you are forever
excluded. So as the Temple is rededicated, the Bible remains clear – no Moabites.
Ezra’s
concern is a bit different – he’s writing more about the purity of the people. The
concern was that the Exile was divine punishment for the people’s idolatry.
Back in Numbers, Moabite women were accused of being seductresses who would
lure the men in with intimacy and then have them worship the gods of Moab. We
don’t want that again, so we’ve got to keep our bloodlines pure. No
intermarriage outside of the people of God. That was Ezra’s concern. And so Ezra
includes a long list of names – men who had married foreigners, some of them
Moabites. The final verse of Ezra is this: “All these had married foreign
women, and they were sent away with their children.” It was Ezra and the
leaders putting into place what the Bible makes clear, no Moabites.
Moabites
– we can’t understand the book of Ruth without knowing who the Moabites are. So
now let’s turn our attention to Ruth. We heard, “In the days when the judges
ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah
went to live in the country of Moab.” Uh-oh. The alarms should be going off.
Names
in the Bible are full of meaning – they tell us a lot about a person’s role and
character, so I’m going to summarize what we heard in Ruth, but I’ll use the
English meaning of the words instead of the Hebrew names: In the days of the
judges, there was no bread in the House of Bread, so a man named God-is-king
went with his wife, Pleasant, to the land of people descended from their father
in incest. God-is-king and Pleasant had two sons, named Sickness and
Destruction. We call that “foreshadowing.” Tragedy struck and God-is-king died
suddenly in that foreign land. So their sons got married, one to Nape and the
other to Friendship. That’s when tragedy struck again, Sickness succumbed to sickness
and Destruction was destroyed. So here remain these three women – Pleasant, Nape,
and Friendship.
Pleasant
said to her daughters-in-law – This land is a place of sorrow for me, I must
return home and you each go back to your homes, find a new husband, and live a
happy life. At first, Nape and Friendship resisted and said they would remain
with her. See, though they were Moabites, they knew about Scripture’s direction
of love. But Pleasant said – “What, do you think this old body of mine still
has more sons to produce that I might give you a new husband? No, my life has
been bitter, not pleasnt, and you deserve better than that. Go home.” Nape does just that.
Not because she isn’t dedicated to her mother-in-law, but because she didn’t
quite have the same resolve as her sister-in-law. So Nape turns and heads home.
And that’s where her name comes in, her nape, the back of her neck, is the last
thing they saw of her as she returned home.
But
Friendship stayed and clung to Pleasant. And then Friendship, who we know as
Ruth, offers one of the most beautiful and love-filled vows in all of Scripture
– “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you
go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and
your God my God. Where you die, I will die – there will I be buried.” Steadfast
love on the lips of a Moabite. I thought the Bible was clear about this.
That’s where our reading this morning ended, but Ruth’s story is too good to stop here. I’ll leave the details for you to read through. What unfolds is the story of Boaz, whose name means strength, who notices the friendliness and compassion of the one named Friendship. Strength and Friendship, Boaz and Ruth, are eventually married – the Israelite and the Moabite. Again, this book was written during that time of the return from Exile, when Ezra and Nehemiah were making clear what the Bible said about Moabites. And right here, in the very pages of Scripture, we have a contradiction and a controversy. Call it drama, call it a minority report, call it God’s scandalous and subversive grace. Whatever we want to call it, things aren't so clear anymore, are they?
The
book of Ruth still isn’t over, it concludes with a genealogy. Though the genealogies
of Scripture might seem like a boring list, they are anything but. Check this out:
“So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a
son… They named him Obed, which means servant-of-God; he became the father of
Jesse, which means God’s gift, the father of David, meaning ‘beloved.’”
Did
you catch that – the great King of Israel, the one whose throne the Messiah
will fulfill, has Moabite blood? It doesn’t even go back ten generations. David’s
great-grandmother is Ruth the Moabite. Which also means that Jesus of Nazareth,
a son of David, has a Moabite lineage. Huh, I thought the Bible was clear about
the Moabites.
I can’t help but wonder what the scandalizing grace of God is working to subvert in my life. What biases and assumptions do I hold about others that are preventing me from seeing and receiving the blessings of God that come through them? Especially as our nation is deadlocked in a brutal us-versus-them campaign, I wonder what people we’re clear about, made up our minds about, and dismiss as inbred, backwater no-goods and yet who are still God’s beloved and bearers of God’s promised grace to us. I wonder what boundary lines we’ve drawn that God is so tirelessly working to erase. I wonder where I’ve set up barriers of self-righteousness and superiority to the point that God is on the other side of the line that I've drawn. I wonder what things are clear in my mind but make opaque the subverting and gracious love of God. Maybe things aren’t so clear…
