Sermon 9.2.18
Reading Ruth: Gluing Broken Pieces Back Together
Rev. Laura Arnold preaching
Ruth 4
Introduction to the scripture:
We have been reading through the book of Ruth and today we come to the final chapter.
The book began, you might remember, with Naomi and Ruth both grieving deaths of their beloveds. Feeling forever changed by this loss, Naomi said, “Don’t call me Naomi, but call me Mara, meaning “bitter.” Bitter and distraught though she was, Ruth looked at Naomi with compassion and care. Ruth vowed then and there to be family to Naomi, “Where you go, I will go. Where are you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God.”
In time, Naomi and Ruth moved to Bethlehem to start a new chapter of their lives. It was not easily, though. Most of the town just wrote Ruth off as one of those “Moabites” and tried to look the other way. But Boaz was different. He took interest in who Ruth was as a person, which surprised everyone.
When Naomi heard there had been lovely conversation between Ruth and Boaz, she began to formulate a plan that would ensure both her and Ruth’s security and safety indefinitely. The plan involved a threshing floor, a racy scene involving a coat, and news that Boaz could make a claim to Naomi’s land and a claim to relationship with Ruth, too. We pick up on the story as Boaz approaches the man who had the right of first refusal when it came to Naomi’s land.
**In worship, parts of the introduction and scripture were read in Hebrew. For a recording of the beautiful story telling, email the office.
The first time, I bought beautiful plates for the occasion. They reminded me of my grandmother’s wedding china. The white plates were rimmed with silver and a soft gray pattern of swirls adorned the edges as though it was ready to frame the most beautiful of dinners.
They were perfect, at least that’s what the man behind me in line said as the cashier picked them up from the counter to ring up the total. The man looked at them with hint of envy, as thrift store aficionados are prone to do when someone has found something stunning and is buying up the entire lot. “Seeing those on a table will make someone very happy,” he said. I smiled and agreed with him.
When I got back to work, I went in search of the perfect place to set up. I found an out of the way nook, and before long had hung sheets from the rafters to cover the existing walls and added another across the floor. On a table nearby, I neatly stacked the eight beautiful plates, and alongside them put the noise dampening headphones and safety goggles.
That afternoon, I retraced the steps back to that nook, this time with Addison following behind. Addison paid close attention to my safety demonstration and what would prove to be only moderately helpful suggestions on proper technique. I put on my set of headphones and goggles, stepped back another 10 or so feet, and gave permission or encouragement—maybe both—by way of a thumb’s up. Addison put on the goggles and earphones and stood there for a moment, then smiled picked up a plate, settled into a stance much like someone about to throw a Frisbee, and sent the plate flying into the wall. It smashed into pieces.
Addison’s eyes were wide with surprise and a sheepish smile that I hadn’t seen for months was beginning to show again. Addison picked up a second plate, and with all hesitation now gone, hurled it through the air. It too smashed into pieces.
Somewhere in the cultural rules it is written that good and nice people don’t smash plates on purpose, which does a lot to maintain safety and order in a kitchen, but I think it is a preposterous rule overall. Because what Addison needed that day was an opportunity. An opportunity to let the anger have an outlet. A chance to not have to pretend that life is always beautiful and wonderful or that it makes sense. A chance to take something that represented beauty and let go of it. A chance to take something that represented the dreams of home and making meals together and entertaining and family, and let those go too.
Eight plates. Eight pieces of fine china. Eight symbols that life is fragile and delicate, beautiful, and sometimes broken.
Addison took off the headphones and goggles, then walked to the wall where the mound of broken pieces were scattered along the sheet. Combing one hand through the pieces, Addison looked back at me, and said, “This is exactly how my life feels right now.” Still combing through the pieces, the words came again, “It’s been a year, maybe its time to start putting my life back together. But how in the world will I do that?”
It is the image of Addison and that question that emerges again when reading the last chapter of Ruth. How in the world did Ruth and Naomi manage to put their lives back together? You see, in this chapter, the way the story is told, we are supposed to see that there is a happy ending that emerges from the tragedy at the beginning. Where there was once famine, there is now a harvest. Where there was once death, there is now new life. Where there was barrenness, there is now birth. Where there were threats to their well being, there is now security. Where there was a feeling that God had cursed them, there is now a sense of favor and blessing. Where life once felt shattered and broken, it has been pieced back together.
In some ways, this is the narrative threaded throughout scripture. The narrative from brokenness to wholeness, from death to life, that is the narrative that stiches all the various stories together. There is this continuous thread of lives once shattered, getting glued back together. There is a story that speaks to God working even amidst the chaos and rubble, to mend and transform. It is the fundamental narrative that runs through the story of Naomi and Ruth, through Abraham and Sarah, through Moses and Aaron, through King David, through the prophets, even through on to Jesus and the disciples and Paul and first century followers: what feels broken is eventually glued back together, transformed from disparate pieces back to something whole. Eventually.
While this final chapter of Ruth looks mostly like an outlandish story of a town hall meeting, land sale, sandal exchange and explanation of a family tree, and while Boaz’s boisterous voice now talks over the women, maybe the wisdom to be gleaned from it comes from the voices now on margins of the story.
We might ask Ruth now about her experience: How did you hold the pieces together when the worst happened to you—when you lost your beloved, when had to leave behind the life you knew, when you were not welcomed in the new place, when no one bothered to even learn your name? How did you manage to hold the pieces of your fractured life without letting them crumble through your fingers? How did you hold on until they could be glued back together?
We might ask Naomi something similar: How did you keep from shattering into a million uncollectable pieces when the worst happened to you—when you buried your soul mate, when you said goodbye forever to your sons, when the grief was so bad you could not hold yourself up, when you didn’t know if you could make it another day… How did you manage to keep hold of the pieces of your broken life? When was it that you found the strength to try to put them back together? Or did the strength come from something outside of you, while you still clung to your faith, even if you were angry with God all the while?
I think of Addison running one hand through the pieces and the question. How do you put life back together when it seems to have shattered? I think of all the people who have asked something similar in the midst of hurt or grief, divorce or separation from their kids; in the midst of depression or eating disorders, losing their jobs or losing abilities they once had. Or amidst situations where its not exactly life shattering but more about a brokenness, as if feeling cracked. How do you heal? How do you piece yourself or your life back together?
Maybe you know this experience. Maybe you have known brokenness and had to piece life together a time or two. Or maybe you are in the midst of still holding pieces in your hands, with questions like Ruth and Naomi once faced. How do you gather up the pieces? Do you try to force it all back together the way it once? Or do take time to mend and see how the pieces fit? Do you try to hide the fissures and the cracks and the brokenness as though it didn’t happen? Or do you find a way to embrace that you are being transformed into something new, something different something that though broken is beautiful, eventually mended and transformed?
There is an ancient Japanese art form, one that our young ones are learning this morning, known as Kintsugi. The practice of this art begins with broken pottery. Rather than trying to fit all the pieces together perfectly so as to hide all evidence that there was a crack, the artist proceeds to take lacquer infused with gold and piece them back together. It is a process that is slow and delicate since only two of the broken pieces can be joined at a time. One plate or bowl can take months, even years to work through. The result is a vessel, one covered with golden scars, metallic lines over the fissures, and highlights of the uniqueness of the experience of each piece’s history. With their golden truths, these vessels are scared and they are beautiful.
The story of Ruth and Naomi makes it sound like they passed quickly through the hard parts of life and in short order were on to happier times. I suspect that is the more convenient, the more neat and tidy version of how it actually went. Because after life breaks, it takes a while to figure out how and if it’ll ever be pieced back together. It takes a while to even believe it can be pieced together again.
This story of Ruth and Naomi, then, serves perhaps most as a story of hope, that like Kintsugi, that which is broken still has immense value. Leonard Cohen, in his song Anthem says it well, “Forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
May you know this day, that that which is broken doesn’t have to stay broken. When things seem like they’ve shattered to bits and are beyond repair, all is not lost. May God bless you, all the pieces you hold, and all your broken edges. May you dare to let light shine through the cracks that are in you. May you dare to find God even in the hardest times, and, when the time comes that you are ready, may you dare to do something beautiful with the pieces you hold. And may the blessing of the Spirit be with you now and always.
Amen and amen.
In worship, our young ones learned a Kintsugi style practice. They added their pieces to the altar space as we began communion.