Sermon 8.26.18
Reading Ruth: The Search for Security
Rev. Laura Arnold preaching
Ruth 3
Introduction to the scripture:
We continue this morning reading through the book of Ruth with chapter three. But first, a recap: In ancient days, at the time of the judges, there was a woman named Naomi. When a famine struck the land, Naomi, her husband, and her two sons moved from Bethlehem to Moab. Naomi’s sons married women from Moab and all was well for a while. But then tragedy struck. Naomi’s husband died first, then both of her sons, and then another famine set in. When Naomi heard that her homeland, Bethlehem, was doing well, she decided to move back. She told the girls to stay with their families of origin, but Ruth, one of her daughter-in-laws, made the choice to be with and care for Naomi instead. Ruth uttered the vow, “Where you go, I will go. Where are you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God.”
When Ruth and Naomi arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town looked at Ruth with suspicion. Naomi, they knew, but Ruth, was a foreigner. The people made presumptions about her based on her ethnicity, assigned her to whole a category in their minds of folks they didn’t much like, and decided she wasn’t worth getting to know. There was one exception, though. Boaz. Boaz saw Ruth out gleaning in the field and asked after her, and later invited her to eat with him and talk. He wanted to know her story. In a town that erased her down to just a label, he became a source of hope.
This week we pick up the story where we left off. It is towards the end of the barley and wheat harvest, and though Ruth and Naomi have been able to glean a lot of food from the harvest, at least one of them is well aware they are still quite vulnerable.
There are a couple of additional things to note about the story that is going to unfold. When you hear the phrase “uncovering his feet” you should know that it may not be about feet–the phrase being used here is also a common euphuism for particular male anatomy. Also, when Boaz is referred to as a “redeemer,” the Hebrew word is go’el. It is a word used for the relative who charged with redeeming and protecting the property, and welfare of other family members after the death of their beloved.
Now on to the story. You are welcome to read along. There are bibles in the pews for your to use. If you have the New Revised Standard Version, the story begins on page 243. If you have the Common English Bible, it’s on page 337.
At the time a sermon series on Ruth was proposed, I thought it was a brilliant idea. Apparently, I had totally blocked out the “uncovering of his feet” and that there was an entire chapter’s worth of Biblical erotica, problematic sexual ethics, and a disregard for consent. As my sister said this week, having to figure out how to read this story in worship and how to preach this text is now her favorite instance of what she calls #pastorproblems.
Just so we’re all clear about what just happened in the story. It’s been a few weeks since Ruth and Boaz met in the field and now that the wheat and barley harvests are finishing up, the guys on the work crew are spending the night threshing the grain. Threshing is the process of separating the grain from the rest of the plant.
Naomi has hatched a plan for that evening as well. She tells Ruth to get dressed up and put on some perfume, then wait until Boaz will be tipsy and thoroughly in a good mood before heading down to the threshing floor where he will be. Naomi tells Ruth that she should take notice where Boaz goes to lay down, and after he’s fallen asleep, go and “uncover his feet” and lie down with him.
As the story is told, that’s what Ruth does. Boaz—completely not consenting to this activity by the way which we ought to find super disturbing here—wakes up startled to find a woman “lying at his feet.” (Remember what that really means, y’all?) She re-introduces herself at this point, and what ensues is not a usual conversation for 3 am pillow talk. “Spread out your coat over your servant, because you are a redeemer,” she says. And here again, the meaning gets muddled because of translation. The word for coat, is either literal like she’s cold (after all Boaz is said to have shivered or shuttered), or its referencing the tradition that “to spread out your coat refers to marriage” and this is Ruth’s marriage proposal to Boaz, or it could be a way of signifying that Ruth is asking for Boaz’s protection because the phrase here also means “spread out your wing” which would mean that she’s asking to be taken under his wing and protected.
Whichever way we might interpret it, Boaz hears Ruth loud and clear. He confirms that he is a redeemer—that is, he is a relative of Naomi’s and he could lay claim to the land she has—and that he will make a claim to it in the morning. But for the time being, Boaz invites Ruth to spend the rest of the night with him. Then, before the light of the day, before anyone could recognize her or where she was coming from, she gets up and leaves him.
How many of y’all saw this scene coming? [Vote]
I, for one, never would have expected the story to take a racy turn towards the threshing floor. But maybe the signs were all there. Since the beginning of the story Naomi has been in search of one thing: security. And for her, the only security she’s known was dependent on having a man in her life: a father, then a husband, then sons. With none of them still alive to care for her, in search of security once more, she looks for it where she has all along: a man. She turns to Ruth, knowing that if Ruth can find a man to marry, Naomi too, will be taken care of.
Naomi is rather straightforward about it all, though she makes it sound like this plan is for Ruth’s well-being, rather than her own self-interests. “My daughter, shouldn’t I seek security for you, so that things might go well for you?”
There it is, plain as day. Naomi in search of security for Ruth and for herself and thinking that only a relationship, only a relationship to a man, in this case, can provide it. We’ll hear in the next chapter that Naomi apparently has ownership of land from her husband’s estate, which means she actually did have some element of security and means of earning some income…but Naomi doesn’t acknowledge that here. She is blinded, almost, by her presumptions, old patterns and social norms, to seek security in a way she thinks only a guy can provide.
We seek security in misguided or problematic ways too, sometimes, don’t we?
Looking back on the ancient world, with our modern sensibilities and with a solid feminist critique, we might find ourselves criticizing Naomi but this text also ought to serve as a lens for us to look at our own culture, presumptions, and where we search for security.
After all, we still tell similar stories of how women are in need of help and how men to protect and save them, just with a more modern twist. Think of the stories we tell even our youngest of kiddos. Where do you see these stories still played out? [Congregational responses: in Disney classics of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel, and the like]. The story of a woman in need of a man to save her is a popular princess/prince narrative but its present in rom-coms and sci-fi and various other genres in between. Telling these tropes over and over again creates a culture of dependency, fosters a toxic masculinity, and gives an unrealistic expectation that relationships will fix everything and make us feel secure.
We tell other narratives too, about what will make us secure and safe. We tell ourselves that money will bring security, if only we can accumulate enough of it. Or that hard work will secure a good job and then we’ll be ok. Or that a home will keep us safe. We tell a million misguided narratives so that we don’t have to admit we’re actually as vulnerable as Naomi, just in a different way.
The reality is that we’re vulnerable. Folks know this. Folks feel this. We know relationships come and go. Money does too. Jobs are lost and so are homes. The future has no guarantees.
And, still we love the illusionof security, don’t we?
And of course we do. Because feeling secure is one of the most basic needs we have (punt to Rich H. for an “amen” to this Maslow’s hierarchy of needs confirmation).
So the question this narrative of Naomi and Ruth invites us to reflect on is: are wesearching for security in the right places? And, if not, where are we going to turn in that search for security?
**At this point, the sermon deviated from the manuscript, so the conversation that followed has been transcribed from a recording with basic notes of congregational responses.
Downstairs our young ones are creating prayer labyrinths. Have you seen these? Their versions are about this big (6×6). Labyrinths are a tool for settled down our bodies, devoting time to meditation, settling in to a kind of embodied prayer. In their labyrtinths, they’ll drop a piece of string along a pathway. Then they’ll be able to trace their finger along a pattern of twists and turns, all the while holding space to know that however they might wander, they are not lost. They are simply on a new path. The will learn to pray as they trace to remember that they always known and beloved by God. Their labyrinths are for the practice of remembering that wherever they go, whatever the twists and turns in life, there issecurity if they also know in the deepest part of their being that they are loved by God, always.
As adults, the inclination is to complicate this basic truth. Some of us might hear “find security in knowing you are loved by God” and think, “well, that sounds fine on a Sunday morning but wait until real life hits.” And you are right. That’s when it gets hard to actually feel secure. To be clear, there are some of us who say, “Yes, it is in God I that find security!” But there are others—holy skeptics and sacred doubters–who say, “No way, that a feeling of God makes me actually feel secure.”
So where is it that we find security? Knowing that life is always changing, knowing that there are these hard experiences in life, where is it that you find security?
[Community responses]
- In each other, in community, in knowing we are not alone
- In this building—after all its called a sanctuary for a reason
- In the truth of non-duality
- In the moment of falling asleep—that feeling of being cacooned, safe, calm
- In activities—art, biking, story telling—that bring joy and make us feel grounded
- In routine and patterns
- In this present and holy moment
- In the reassurance over and over again by people who have known it to be true, that God is always present. Those who don’t believe it, still want or need to hear it.
Y’all I think it is true we are often in search of security. Sometimes we are like Naomi, trying to get someone else to do something to make us feel secure—she sends Ruth out for that very reason—or we seek security in our old ways, even if they don’t always work. But the wisdom within this room is that there are a variety of place to find security, even if just for this moment, and that a whole different kind of security emerges when you trust that you are a part of God’s beloved community. That trust doesn’t make you physically or financially secure, but it does bring security in a different way…
In this place, in this story, we are challenged by it to see that it is not only about people having to generate their own security. In this place and in this story we get to lift up that security also comes from trusting that you are a part of God’s sacred story as well. That image of the labyrinth is helpful, perhaps here. That no matter the twists and turns, there is nothing more simple or more true: God is with us, now and always, and in that, we are offered a sense of security.