Courage to Love
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
For the last ten weeks, we’ve been working our way through the book of Judges, asking an important question week by week: Who are we becoming? And the answer has been pretty disturbing. We've watched the people of Israel, who were called by God to embody a holy, beautiful and distinctive way of life, gradually become indistinguishable from the world around them. Instead of worship, justice, compassion and mercy, we've seen them descend into idolatry, violence, exportation and chaos.
But then we turn the page to the book of Ruth, and we read these words: “In the days when the Judges ruled…” In other words, this story takes place in exactly the same world that we've been studying all fall. Over the next two weeks, we'll discover that even in the midst of all the chaos and darkness that was happening, another way of being human was (and still is) possible. Not the way of self-assertion and domination, but the way of faithful, courageous, self-giving love.
Remarkably, the person who shows us this alternative way of life is not a political or religious leader, a mighty warrior, or even an Israelite. She is a poor, widowed, Moabite woman named Ruth. Through her extraordinary commitment to her mother in law Naomi, we encounter a powerful portrait of Hesed—the steadfast, covenant love of God expressed through ordinary human relationships. Ruth shows us what it looks like to becoming people who bravely love, even when love is costly.
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Read Ruth 1:1–18. What immediately strikes you about this story, having just spent ten weeks in the book of Judges?
What strikes you most about Ruth's decision to remain with Naomi? What makes her commitment so remarkable, especially considering what she stands to lose?
The Hebrew word hesed describes a steadfast, loyal, self-giving love that seeks the good of another, even at personal cost. Where have you experienced this kind of love in your own life? How has it shaped you?
Ruth chooses to love courageously in the midst of suffering and uncertainty, without knowing how her story will unfold. What fears, desires, or habits make it difficult for us to love this way? What might it look like to practice hesed in a relationship or situation you're facing right now?
Throughout this series, we've been asking, Who are we becoming? What would it look like for our church to become a community increasingly recognizable for its courageous, steadfast love? What practices or commitments might help form us into that kind of people?
Ruth 1:1–18
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”
At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.