Biblical Words [741]
The widows – and others in need – find redeemers, in spite of the pride and prejudices of the great.
Ruth 3:1-5 ; 4:13 -17
The story of Ruth moves through its complications
and dramatic climax – though our reading includes only a couple of key
scenes.
The two widows, an older wise one and a younger
attractive one, have devoted themselves to finding a livelihood and some future
prospect in
Naomi devises a daring plan. She sends
Ruth, scrubbed and perfumed, to sneak into Boaz’s bed that night after the
harvest-end carousing is over. She tells
Ruth, When he discovers you, “he will tell you what to do” – that is,
everything will be up to him!
Our text does not elaborate, but here are the three
possible outcomes of Naomi’s plan: (1) he
may throw you out as a slut, (2) he may take advantage of you and send you away
in shame, or (3) he may grasp the opportunity you are offering him. May God make it this last!
Our selected reading does not narrate the
outcome. However, the details given in
chapter 3 show Ruth improving her chances by telling Boaz about his distant
kinship obligation to Naomi’s family.
Chapter 4 then shows us that Boaz chose door three: he was wise and took Ruth as his wife.
When Ruth has born a son, she fades into the
background as grandmother Naomi takes over.
Naomi is grandly congratulated by the neighbor ladies of
One trusts that Ruth will also have her day – when
she too becomes a grandmother, the grandmother of Jesse, father of the
king-to-be, David.
Psalm 127.
The Psalm reading is a short wisdom or instruction
piece, said to belong to Solomon. (Psalm
72 also belongs to Solomon.) The links
to the Ruth story are not strong, but the psalm is about building houses and
producing large families, especially numerous sons.
The strong affirmation of the first part of the
psalm is that unless a human enterprise is in harmony with God’s will, it won’t
succeed. This part concludes, almost
with a smile, that anxiety and overwork will not help – which God demonstrates
by giving his beloved one a good night’s sleep.
(This is the more likely meaning of verse 2b.)
The second part of the psalm is a paean to having
many sons. We hear the values here of a
tribal society in which the rights and
opportunities of a tribe or clan depend on how many adult males are available
to back its disputes. The head of a
large clan “shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the
gate” (verse 5,
This is the society the Ruth story
presupposes, and the widows are struggling throughout to have strong male
advocates in the city gate. Ruth’s
descendant David, and especially Solomon (as portrayed in Psalm 72), represents
the strong man who champions the rights of the weak and the poor – in God’s
name, and under God’s ultimate supervision.
Hebrews 9:24-28 .
The Epistle reading continues the climax in the
presentation of the high priestly work of Jesus. The passage emphasizes two things, the heavenly location of the completed work of Christ, and its
once-for-all character. The latter topic
will be reiterated in next week’s Epistle reading, so only the first topic will
be discussed here.
“For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human
hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (verse 24,
The writer follows the hermeneutics of that time
among Judeans of the Greek-speaking Diaspora:
the sacred text, which seems to speak about religious duties in the
earthly world, is read as a guide to the non-earthly realities that make up
true religion, and particularly the salvation from sin that all people
seek.
On the level of earthly realities, the high priest
carried out the Day of Atonement rituals every year in
The death, and then supremely the resurrection,
opened the heavens for human
approach to God in a way never before
possible. This death and resurrection of
Jesus subsumed the old mechanism for forgiveness of sin. On the level of earthly realities, the old
religious practices are no longer needed; there is now a new access to the
presence of God, the supreme heavenly reality.
But the last
part of our passage indicates that this great change is not just a heavenly
reality: it is an eschatological
reality: “…as it is, he has appeared
once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself”
(verse 26). There is still a stretch of
time between this heavenly sacrifice of Jesus and the consummation of the age
when Christ “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those
who are eagerly waiting for him” (verse 28).
From a much
later perspective, we are very interested in that interval. How do the followers of Christ live through
their remaining earthly realities after the heavenly sacrifice and before the
end of the age? Soon this becomes the
Age of the Church, of course, and a wide world spreads out for the faithful who
still await that consummation. The
writer really addresses this matter in the homilies on faith and on the
pilgrimage from the holy mountain to the holy city, homilies which are given in
chapters 11-13 (which appear as Lectionary readings for this season next
year).
Here, at the
conclusion of Jesus’ high priestly work, we are sent forth to discover a new
way in the world “outside the camp” (
Mark 12:38-44
The Gospel reading presents a contrast between the pride of the self-righteous and the devotion of the
poverty-stricken.
First there is a brief but fierce condemnation of the scribes (verses 38-40).
In Matthew this will become the much longer litany marked by the cry,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…” (Matthew 23:1-36). As short as is Mark’s version, it summarizes
the ways of self-important religious leaders:
wearing elaborate vestments, assuring that their titles are properly
printed and correct protocols are observed in public events, taking pains to
assure that seating and precedence are correct in services, and that the right
people are placed at head tables at banquets (verses 38-39).
In Jesus’ indictment, those who are so scrupulous
about the etiquette of their ranks and prestige, maintain themselves by devouring widows’ houses. After the
bank in which he has stock has foreclosed the mortgage of a single-parent
family now driven into homelessness, our hypocrite makes a point of leading the
congregation in a particularly long prayer (verse 40).
These are the mighty who cherish the ceremony more
than the mercy.
Having declared this condemnation of religious
hypocrites, Jesus lifts up the poor widow’s offering as a supreme
act of devotion to God (verses 41-44).
Here is another hard saying about wealth – hard especially for folks
faced with getting church budgets to come out right about this time of
year.
Jesus acknowledges that many rich people put in
large sums of money, but of the widow with her two cents he says, she “has put
in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury” (verse 43). In the eyes of God it is more, but it poses a
dilemma for those paying the bills.
Jesus, it seems, would have no more patience with such concerns than he
did about how the lilies grow and who feeds the birds.
Speaking of
feeding the birds, for a long time this poor widow has reminded me of the scene
and the song of the Bird Woman in the musical “Mary Poppins.” Outside the magnificent old marble towers and
domes of
This scene
contrasting the hypocritical mighty with the faithful poor stands at the end of
Jesus’ public ministry. There remain
only the apocalypse (Mark 13) and the Passion (Mark 14-15).
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