Ruth, God's good time

Beloved of God,

    I want to remind you that if you are staying in town and looking for a great way to spend Thanksgiving with others, we’ll be hosting our annual Thanksgiving potluck at the church house beginning at 1:30 pm. Make your favorite Thanksgiving dish to share, and come spend the afternoon with some equally happy and hungry neighbors. A headcount is helpful, so if you plan to attend please contact the office or Scotta Latka. 

    I get to teach Middle School Sunday School. I love it. I’m not exactly sure why, but I do. Our curriculum this fall has been an Old Testament survey in sequence, and this Sunday we’re talking about Ruth. Ruth is a bit of a folktale and depends a lot on dramatic irony. If you’ve not read it in a while you should. 
    There is a moment in Ruth 2, where it becomes clear to Ruth that she’s been dealt with very kindly. It’s not the sort of thing she would expect. She was a woman in the ancient world. She was on top of that a Moabite, the ancient enemies of the people among whom she was now living. She asks Boaz why he’s been so good to her. Boaz tells her he knows of her faithfulness to her mother-in-law, and her own struggles. He tells her he’s moved by her coming to live among, “a people you did not know before.” It’s plausible. That’s a good enough reason to admire her. But it’s not in Ruth that we find out how deeply he meant this. 
    We know who Boaz’s father is. It’s recorded in I Chronicles. But it’s not until Matthew that Scripture tells us who his mother is. Boaz’s mother also left behind her home to live among a people she did not know before. She also was gentile. Boaz’s mother was a prostitute from Jericho named Rahab. I have to wonder if this peculiar sympathy for Ruth didn’t come in part from being raised by someone who had lived a life with the same kind of jagged edges. 
    Beloved, God does stuff like this. So very often the unexpected challenges we find in our own story turn out to be points of memory and tenderness that take effect only in God’s good time. They bear fruit sometimes among those who know us and love us. It happens often in other times and places about which we’ll never know. That doesn’t make those jagged edges any smoother, but it does show how faithful God is even with our pain. In your struggles and hurts, I always hope God gives you strength to bear it, justice when you need it, and grace to move beyond it. But I also know we serve a God who works his will through both weal and woe, even though he doesn’t have to.

Please join me this week in praying for:

• Kids and parents who are sick and/or tired.
  
• Those among us who are traveling.
• Those who are entering this season with a powerful absence in their lives.
•  Children who are caring for their parents.
• Our Associate Pastor Search Team and whoever they may call.
• Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local levels.
• Those who respond to emergencies on our roadways, in our wildlands, our communities, and even in our homes.
• Your enemies.
• Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list).

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,

Marshall