"A Community by Faith" - Ruth 1:1-19; Luke 17:11-19

<)) Listen to the sermon here and here.

A Community by Faith

I’m not sure what the experts would say, but much of what creates relationships and a community is this: What one person lacks and another has.

One man’s lack of property ownership, paired with another man’s apartment-building-ownership, creates a relationship. He has, you rent. Eventually, there’s a whole apartment community.

You lack a car; the dealer has many. You skipped biology class; your physician studied for many years. You need roads; the governor has the ability to tax – and thereby provide.

Your need paired with what another has creates a certain kind of unity – and then a whole community because others have the same need. (Though, there may not be love and thanksgiving. There may even be bitterness and resentment.)

I.

The book of Ruth, in the Old Testament, takes place after the days of Moses and Joshua but before the days of King Saul and King David, in a time period when Israel was ruled by figures called “judges”, or “deliverers”. Israel is in the promised land.

But now there is a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah named Elimelech and his wife, Naomi, therefore uproot and migrate to a land called Moab with their two sons.

While in Moab, Elimelech dies. Their sons then marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. But then these two sons eventually die. Naomi is left without sons or husband and with her two daughters-in-law.

When Naomi hears the famine in Israel has ended, having been in Moab ten year, she decides to move back home. Though what she will move back to is uncertain. There is an inheritance issue. Only a male family member – a nearest male kin – can inherit her husband’s land. With her two sons deceased, Naomi is desolate even in Israel. Nevertheless, to Israel she is going.

So, she tells her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, to return to their own parents’ households. She has nothing to offer them. They should remarry in Moab. They will have nothing on earth if they go with their mother-in-law, Naomi.

Orpah, in tears, returns to her own mother’s household. But Ruth will not. Ruth insists on going with her mother-in-law Naomi. Naomi has no earthly security to offer, yet Ruth recognizes that her mother-in-law does in fact have what she needs. What does Naomi have that Ruth clings to?

“Where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” God and a people. God’s people, and the true God.

Naomi had told Ruth and Orpah, “Go back to your people and your gods.” Ruth says, “No, I want to have your God – the God who actually is God – and be one of His people.”

What Naomi has Ruth never wants to lack again – a covenant relationship with the one true God. For that, Ruth would leave behind earthly security with her family in Moab to live as a beggar woman with her mother-in-law Naomi.

In Israel, Ruth and Naomi do live as beggars. Under Old Testament Law, the farmers of Israel were not allowed to harvest their entire field. They had to leave behind the corners of the field and anything their harvesters dropped – for the poor and for the wildlife. The poor were allowed to glean the fields for sustenance. Ruth supports herself and her mother-in-law by gleaning in the fields.

What will happen in the rest of the book of Ruth? God will provide what Ruth and Naomi lack. He will give them Boaz, a relative, a kinsman redeemer, who owns the fields in which Ruth picks grain.

Boaz, as a close enough relative to Naomi, marries Ruth, the foreigner, and their marriage brings the inheritance back to Naomi. And, in fact, the marriage of Boaz and Ruth brings Ruth into the lineage of the Messiah. From their son Obed comes the line of King David and, therefore, King Jesus, the Christ.

II.

So, now let’s fast forward to Jesus in the today’s Gospel. Jesus is met by ten men with the same need: cleansing from their leprosy. These ten men have a contagious skin disease that, like sin itself, made them unclean to God and man. They must keep their distance and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” so that no one approaches.

But this time, they keep their distance and cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Jesus tells them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” – for proof of their cleansing so they can re-enter society and go back to their families.

As they are walking along the way, to do as Jesus said, all ten are healed, cleansed of their disease. Undoubtedly, all are happy. But just one of them, “when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.” 

This one out of the ten joined that growing community of those who received, not earthly benefits, but his truest needs met in His Savior Jesus Christ. Not one and done, but he stuck with Jesus for all that Jesus gives in a lifetime.

III.

What’s the point?

Here it is: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me… For when I am weak, then I am strong [2 Corinthians 12:9-10]. “We rejoice in our sufferings” [Romans 5:3].

What I lack joins me to the One who has. My weaknesses join me to Christ who is strong. My afflictions join me to Christ in whom I find consolation, healing, and an answer. My need joins me to His abundance.

The same is true, we can boldly say, of righteousness. My lack of it joins me to His supply. I don’t rejoice in my lack of righteousness, but I do rejoice in the freeness of His grace, the fullness of His forgiveness, and His abundant patience in helping me do better. Forgiving me seven times seventy times a day as He helps me grow. [Luke 17:4; Matthew 18:22]

You belong to a whole community of Moabite beggars and thankful lepers. Fed and cleansed, here together, gathered to the One who has and gives.

Jesus, God’s Son, is here as your Boaz. Jesus became your Kinsman Redeemer on the cross who bought for you the inheritance of heaven’s kingdom at His great cost – to give it to you.

Jesus is the Priest and Great Physician who, upon the cross, suffered your leprosy of sin to make you clean and declared you washed and righteous in God’s sight.

IV.

What is our response?

Like the one leper, our response is thanksgiving. Returning to Christ every minute to return Him thanks. For all He has done, it our duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him – to thank Him with lips and lifestyle.

And to look around us – at each other who are here – and outside of us, at those not yet gathered around Christ. To see need. Not to see faults or remember their wrongs. But to see fellow beggars only gleaning in the field of One who will give them so much more when they come to know Him. So, point each other and others to Him. Amen.