Where you go, I will go.

“Where you go, I will go”

November 3, 2024 Cobleskill United Methodist Church, Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Ruth 1:1-18

25th Sunday after Pentecost

Introduction to the Reading

This month we are spending time with the Book of Ruth.  Today we will meet Naomi. Naomi’s family is in the midst of exile.  They’ve left their home because of no food and gone to live in the foreign country of Moab where there are a lot of strange things and unfamiliar cultures.  As if that isn’t enough, while they are gone, Naomi’s husband and sons die.  Today, we find Naomi at a transitional moment.  After many years of exile, she has finally heard that there is food once again in her hometown of Bethlehem.  She decides to return.  In this passage Naomi sets off to return home with the two Moabite women her sons have married while they’ve been in exile.  These, her daughters-in-law Ruth and Orpah, have become her only family, even though they are foreigners.  Let’s have a listen.

Ruth 1:1-18

Naomi and Her Moabite Daughters-in-Law

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, he and his wife and two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there for about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons or her husband.

6 Then Naomi started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. 10 They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, 13 would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” 14 Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15 So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said,

“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.17 Where you die, I will die—    there will I be buried.May the Lord do thus and so to me,    and more as well,if even death parts me from you!”

18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

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Have you ever heard the word framily?   Framily is a word that has recently been, I think, made up by our society to define the relationship between two people who are not blood related, but who are, in all other ways, like a family.  Framily is about friendships that go deep enough to form bonds like actual family.  Another way to think about framily is the family you choose.  

We are, beginning today, looking closely at a small and often overlooked book of the Bible about two women who you could say were framily, Ruth and Naomi.  Two women who were from very different backgrounds brought together by a marriage in their family.  Naomi is the mother-in-law; Ruth is the daughter-in-law; and it’s a relationship that by our own stereotypes should never have become as tight as it did.  Yet the Book of Ruth is about how their relationship became tight and how in the face of tragedy, heartbreak, scarcity, and uncertainty, they discovered that God was always working behind the scenes to bring hope.  They ultimately realized there was more to life than just material needs, there was the fullness found in generous life.

November is a good month to talk about a generous life.  It’s the month when we think about gathering around tables for special meals.  It’s the month when the evenings get dark early, I know... it's coming, and we’re drawn toward the warmth of game nights and being together for laughter and conversation.  It’s the month when we think about giving back some of the gifts that have been given to us.  November is a good month to talk about a generous life.

The Book of Ruth doesn’t just tell us about generous living, though.  It weaves together one family’s story of real-life challenges within a larger narrative about food, farming and literal feelings of hunger and having enough.  Themes of hunger and scarcity caused by famine but also tragedy and loss juxtaposed against what it means to be full and feel satisfied with food but also with framily.  

Let’s recap what has just happened here in the book of Ruth.  

Famine is what brought Naomi, her husband and two sons from their home in Bethlehem in the land of Judah to a new and different land called Moab, east of Judah.  But as if life was already not hard enough, tragedy struck.  Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died.  Then their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, which translate to “sickly” and “frail” correspondingly …also died.  The sons left two widows, Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah.  

It was hard for women in those days, especially if you were a widowed woman.  And so it’s no wonder then, when Naomi hears that her hometown, Bethlehem, is beginning to see crops grow again, she decides to return back to her home country.  Bethlehem translates to bread basket, and she has learned that the barley harvest is just beginning to come in. But while Bethlehem is home for her, she understands that life for Orpah and Ruth in a different country will be very hard.  Naomi tries three times to get Orpah and Ruth to stay in their homeland.  For their sake.  

Orpah concedes and does what Naomi asks.  

But Ruth knew that their relationship wasn’t only about her being on the receiving end.  Life through marriage is what had brought them together, but that wasn’t all. Now, for Ruth it was bigger than the law that had legally married her to this woman’s son.  Now it was about human connection.  Now she could see that her life was itself something she could give to this hurting woman.  In a moving profession of loyalty and abundant generosity, Ruth says 

“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.” 

Ruth could have gone back to the safety of her home family, yet her connection to her mother-in-law, or perhaps we should now say, mother-in-love, was so strong that she was willing to risk life as a widow alongside Naomi, who was no blood kin, but was now framily.  They were each other’s life line, and Ruth knew it. 

In the face of tragedy, the human connection grows stronger.  We can probably all relate to that on one level or another.  This is the nature of framily.  We may not choose the challenges, but we choose one another to go through them together.

In the Book of Ruth it’s interesting in that in its total of 85 verses across four chapters there is only one time where there is direct action by God and we won’t get to that part until the end. Yet for every time Ruth and Naomi might be wondering, Where is God in the midst of all of this? the answer is always: God is everywhere. God is the glue that holds it all together.

This is what we might call God's providential action. The weaving of our lives together in ways that make us think there are no coincidences. The right person showing up in your life at the right moment. The stranger who says the very thing you need to hear as you pass by.  The help you get from neighbors during a flood.  The solidarity you feel when someone shows up beside you in the pew on a difficult anniversary.  God is the glue in your life, bringing people together who have no business being friends, let alone family, to show them that they need each other more than they could have ever imagined.  

It is through stories like Ruth and Naomi's that we find one answer that was as true for them as it is for us today: God is in the bonds that make us family whether we're related or not.  

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That’s why what we do here matters.  We’ve been through a season of life that has been hard in deep ways.  In the midst of recovering from the feelings of isolation and disorientation of a pandemic we also have the isolation and disorientation that can be caused by the rise of political extremism and hateful things said by people who are afraid.  When we are separated from what is familiar, we inevitably change.  Life happens to us in ways we can’t predict or control and we find ourselves longing for something that is solid and True.

During the pandemic, it was widely reported that church attendance dropped to less than 60% of what it was before.  Some of this was because the actual risks involved with gathering were high.  And some of this because pandemic isolation changed people.  I’ve heard some people say that they walk in the woods when they want to find God and that they’ve discovered they don’t need church every week to find that direct connection.  

I like the woods and all and I do find God there, but that can’t be it for me.  Like Ruth, I can’t find God apart from real people.  Even imperfect people.  I can’t crack the faith code by myself.  I genuinely need people in my life willing to make a faith journey with me.  People who are honest enough to tell me when I make a mistake; people who will think differently from me and stretch me; people who will carry me when my life is falling apart, and show me grace and forgiveness when I’ve strayed.

That must have been what Ruth meant when she begged to stay with Naomi, right?  I can’t do this on my own; please let’s just do it together.  

Whether this is your first Sunday here or your 1000th Sunday here, there’s something about showing up together that makes this our place of homecoming.  Let this be the place where we rediscover our own generous lives.  Let this be the place where we practice how to be good neighbors so that we can be bravely compassionate in a world of divisions.  Let this be the place where children and elders, alike, sit side by side and dream dreams of a better tomorrow.  Let this be the place where we return when we’ve got nothing left.  Let this be the place where we meet God in real people living real lives, full of both tragedy and beauty.  Let this be the place where we say, Where you go, I will go.  Let this be the place where our weary, worn-down hearts come to be filled with hope.   

Let us pray.