Among the books of the Hebrew Scriptures that I frequently return to is the book of Ruth. It’s a good story, and it has a lot to tell us about the providence of our Creator and the loving-kindness which we can receive and share.
Jews read the book of Ruth at the time of the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which begins, this year, the evening of June 11th. Shavuot is both the wheat harvest festival and a celebration of the gift of the Torah to the Jewish people.
The corresponding Christian festival is Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps Christians are celebrating abundance and providence as well as the gift of the Spirit. At this time of year we often sing the hymn that begins, “We plow the fields and scatter” - earworm courtesy Godspell.
Both festivals celebrate abundance and providence, and gifts from the Creator. And underlying both festivals is the holy gift of love, and loving-kindness.
What the Jewish festival gives us, in its customary reading, is a background to the celebration, an act, and a series of acts, of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, often attributed as a characteristic of the Almighty, is here a practice of human beings.
Notable among them, but not the first or only, is Ruth, the widow from Moab east of the Jordan, who travels with her widowed mother-in-law Naomi, from Ruth’s own homeland through the wild lands across the river and up into the hill country of Naomi’s ancestral people, indeed, to the city called the house of bread, Bethlehem.
It is there they hope to eke out a living in the midst of famine, and hope beyond hope that Naomi’s long-distant relatives will accept them. Naomi is returning from exile; Ruth is embarking on a one-way journey away from the only home she has known.
Naomi, a woman of Israel, has been living east of the Jordan river in the land of
Moab, married to a Moabite man, and with her two sons married to Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. The men all die, leaving the three women widows, and without the support that marriage and husbands could give them. And then famine comes.
Naomi releases her daughters-in-law from their customary obligation to look after their mother-in-law, and one, Orpah, decides to stay in familiar Moab. Ruth, on the other hand, leaves her home and cleaves to Naomi, out of loyalty and loving-kindness. She thereby begins to establish a new identity. She finds her self among a new people, and becomes the mother of … well, that is a story of its own.
Ruth says to Naomi, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.” (Ruth 1:16-17)
Ruth and Naomi fetch up in ancestral Bethlehem at harvest-time, and Ruth begins to glean between the sheaves in the fields, to find something to eat for her mother-in-law and herself. This gleaning and this kindness and loyalty do not go unnoticed. And one evening Ruth finds a place to bed down at the threshing floor where the workers of the harvest have gathered. A new story is about to begin.
Ruth will become a mother, of Obed, and a grandmother, of Jesse, and a great-grandmother, of David: that same David, of whom Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, is called ‘son of David.’
But let us pause here and realize what has happened. Out of disaster a daughter has come, once a stranger, now a loving family member. Out of desperation a hope for providence has come. Out of the abundance of the Creator new life has sprung.
“We plough the fields and scatter/The good seed on the land,/But it is fed and watered/By God's almighty hand. He sends the snow in winter,/The warmth to swell the grain,/The breezes and the sunshine,/And soft, refreshing rain.
“All good gifts around us/Are sent from heaven above;/Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord/For all His love.”
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The Rev. John R. Leech, D.Min., is priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, and a frequent guest preacher at Episcopal and Lutheran churches in southern Arizona.
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REFERENCE NOTES:
The Hymnal 1982 #291
Author: Matthias Claudius (1782)
Translator: Jane M. Campbell
Copyright: Public Domain
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-isidore-the-farmer/
https://www.sefaria.org/topics/shavuot?sort=Relevance&tab=sources
“Bethlehem’s designation as the “House of Bread” reflects its historical and cultural significance as a center for agriculture and food production. The fertile lands surrounding the city have long been conducive to the cultivation of crops, particularly wheat and barley, contributing to Bethlehem’s reputation as a source of sustenance. This association with agricultural abundance has shaped the city’s identity and played a pivotal role in its development over the centuries.”
https://www.chefsresource.com/why-is-bethlehem-called-the-house-of-bread/
An edited version of this meditation appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on May 19th 2024, page E3 https://tucson.com/life-entertainment/local/faith-values/a-harvest-of-loving-kindness/article_56260582-1249-11ef-8548-cf3023871250.html
https://www.missiongarden.org/blog/remembering-san-ysidro-festival
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