Taking Risks to Find Generosity

“Taking Risks to Find Generosity”

November 17, 2024 Cobleskill United Methodist Church, Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Ruth 3; Mark 12:38-44

27th Sunday after Pentecost

‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.’ (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Ruth 3

Mark 12:38-44 A widow’s generosity.

Jesus Denounces the Scribes

38 As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, 39and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

The Widow’s Offering

41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

It's good to be back with you this week after taking last weekend for a trip to see my grandmother in Kentucky.  I’m grateful to Scott for his leadership last week, and to Brian Hayes for connecting us to Francis Sengabo who shared with us what it’s like to be an immigrant and to continue to fight for immigrants in this country.  

For the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about the story of Ruth, which has themes of framily (friends who become like family), immigration and refugee concerns, and then also this book of Ruth tells us about this beautiful community practice of gleaning which Lori helped to explain during children’s time last week.  The idea of sharing the harvest with those who are hungry, especially when it's a harvest that isn’t exactly perfect looking but still definitely edible and nutritious. 

This week we are moving into Chapter 3 of Ruth, a decidedly less child-friendly part of the story. In fact, if I had planned out my year a little better, I might have planned to be on vacation this Sunday instead so that I could have preached a wholesome message about gleaning last week instead of wrestling with the business of Chapter 3 this week.  Alas, that is not what happened and ultimately, it’s okay.  Even though the events of Chapter 3 have been a source of speculation for many seeking to understand the story of Ruth, I could easily skip over this section with its innuendo and veiled meanings.  It could be so much easier to just conclude that Ruth and Boaz were married and lived happily ever after.  But some stories are more complicated and it’s in the complication that we find deeper meaning.

There is a really important piece of the Ruth story that lies between the lines of this Chapter 3.  

What do we know about Ruth at this point?  She’s a widowed foreigner.  She has come back to her mother-in-law’s home as a way of showing love and loyalty to a woman who had lost everything else.  These two women are looking at a life in the shadows in Bethlehem.  A life of eating from the edges of the fields, picking up scraps and depending on the generosity of others as a means of existence.  But the barley harvest had ended.  And their food source is now gone.  Naomi wants Ruth to have a stable home and Ruth wants to be able to provide for Naomi.

So these women decide to take a risk.  In a day when women would never have been allowed to straight up ask a man to marry them, Naomi asks Ruth to go to Boaz in the dark of the night and there present herself to him as one in need of a husband.  “Spread your cloak over me” the ancient words translate.  A Jewish saying that meant, protect me as a wife, in an age where women depended on marriage as a source for stability.  

Ruth could not have gone to Boaz in the light of day in the fields where she picked up the scraps of his harvest and outright ask him to be his wife.  There were too many factors stacked up against her:  women didn’t do that; foreigners would never have presumed to start a conversation like that, and beyond all of that, she was also working as if she were a servant in his fields.  She had no good options here.  

This is what’s really important to understand in this story.  It was out of a vulnerable position of having nothing to lose, that Ruth took a risk so that the future would be better.  

In our church calendar of readings, I love that this passage of Ruth is paired with Gospel reading from Mark.  The widow’s mite, is a story about another widow, this time a widow Jesus observes near the offering plate for the Temple.  The widow came in and placed two coins in the collection.  Two coins worth very little in the scope of what was already in the offering, but two coins that represented a lot to the widow.  Maybe all that she had. 

And what Jesus said about that widow could be said of the widows, Ruth and Naomi, too.  “She, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Compared with everyone who gives when they’re rich and when it’s easy and when the future isn’t uncertain, these widows have put everything on the line because they know what it’s like to be at the bottom and yet they still take the risk.  

These are not stories about power, but about weakness.  These are stories of women who were at the bottom of society and used the only means they had to inch one step closer to the future they longed for.  These are stories about the weakest end up becoming the ancestors of the greatest. These are stories about how the weakest end up being bravest.  They’re stories about the so-called weakest claiming their own potential; their own worth; their own courage.  

In a world ruled by bullies who say power is infinitely better than vulnerability, the stories of these widows highlight one of the most essential truths in our Biblical tradition:  In God’s economy, vulnerability is not a liability, it’s a threshold to see possibility.  It’s a gateway to boldness; it’s a place for holy risk-taking.

When those who have nothing to lose declare that they are going all in, God makes a way.  This was true with Ruth, who found in Boaz an empathetic soul.  This was true for the widow in the Temple whose simple gift was magnified in Jesus’ teaching.  When we take risks in the name of something bigger than ourselves; God never fails to show up.  

There was once a man who believed more than anything that the power of Christ would heal every wound and overcome every evil.  This man was a pastor in Germany in the 1930s.  He saw the Nazi government rise into power and he questioned the way they used their own version of Christianity to justify a radical platform of racism.  When the Nazis tried to pass a rule that no Protestant churches could use the Old Testament in their Bibles, this man began to speak up and actively work on behalf of the God he knew.  When World War II began this man moved to America so as not to be drafted by the Nazi army.  He was welcomed here by many pastors and theologians who told him that he had done the right thing.  Yet almost as soon as he had come to the security of the United States he almost immediately began to regret his decision.  This man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote to a friend that he could not stand by and watch the war from afar.  “I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people ... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that a future Christian civilization may survive, or else willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization and any true Christianity. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from a place of security.”

When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany he spent three years fighting the Nazi regime before he was arrested and eventually executed just two weeks before the war ended.  Bonhoeffer became one of the most famous 20th century theologians.  He lived a life that was a testament to God’s grace in the midst of the most difficult of times.  When faced with a crossroads in his life, he knew that things couldn’t go on as they were.  He needed to be the change that he wanted to see.  So he risked everything and never once doubted that God was with him.  On the evening of his last New Years Eve he wrote a letter to his mother reflecting on what it meant to take a risk in which he knew God was by his side.  The words of the letter have been put to music and are in our hymnal. 

Let us sing now Bonheoffer’s beautiful and moving hymn.  #517

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,

       and confidently waiting come what may,

we know that God is with us night and morning,

       and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,

       and evil days bring burdens hard to bear;

Oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation,

       for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.

And when this cup you give is filled to brimming

       with bitter suffering, hard to understand,

we take it thankfully and without trembling

       out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world you give us

       the joy we had, the brightness of your sun,

we shall remember all the days we lived through

       and our whole life shall then be yours alone.

When we take a risk, we don’t know how it will end up.  That’s why we call it a risk in the first place.  When we take a risk, we do it because we believe that the outcome is a better alternative to the present reality.  I don’t know exactly what kind of risks each of us will be called to take for the sake of something bigger than ourselves.  But what I do know is that each of us will face moments in our life when we feel like we have nothing left to lose.  And it’s in those moments God doesn’t call us to stand still and wait for the worst to happen.  God calls us to be the change we wish to see, to take risks in God’s name, and to never once doubt that God will be with us when we do.  May it be so.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Anna