Who Do You Think You Are?

Image by Scottish Guy, Pixabay

Do you enjoy the BBC’s ancestry programme, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ For many of us, further back than great-grandparents, we’d probably find only names, dates and male occupations. But I want to know people’s stories, not statistics. If David, King of Israel (c1035 – 970BC) were to feature on the show, he’d be one of the lucky ones, finding memoirs of his forbears preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Image by Pixabay

One such memoir is the brief book of ‘Ruth’ we’ve been using in church this summer, to explore the theme, ‘Light in the Darkness.’ What could be more relevant for the national and global challenges we face? Ruth’s story is set in a rocky patch of Israel’s history, roughly 1375-1043BC, recorded in the book of Judges. Stretching from the death of Joshua, Moses’ successor, to the appointment of Israel’s first king, this chaotic, often violent era is neatly characterised by the phrase, ‘Everyone did as he saw fit.’ (Judges 21:25)

‘Ruth’ opens with darkness. Famine and tragedy leave 3 vulnerable widows, Naomi, an Israelite and her 2 Moabite daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah. They face an uncertain future, threatening destitution and the end of an ancestral line. Naomi sets out to return to Israel, urging Ruth and Orpah to stay in Moab and remarry. But Ruth makes her famous declaration,

‘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.’ (Ruth 1:16-17)

Ruth’s loyalty is the first glimmer of light in the darkness of Naomi’s heartrending loss of her husband and sons. The 2 widows return to Bethlehem, Naomi’s ancestral home, at harvest time. Ruth works hard ‘gleaning’ in nearby fields, belonging to Boaz. Embedded among God’s laws for Israel is the principle of ‘gleaning.’ All landowners were required to leave the edges of their fields unharvested so the poor could ‘glean’ crops there. Here are 2 more glimmers of light – Ruth is a grafter and grafters can get on in a society structured to reward honest labour.

Ruth catches Boaz’ eye and as he enters the drama, the glimmers of light in Naomi and Ruth’s darkness grow into gleams and rays and finally into the full blaze of sunrise.

Christians see some Old Testament characters as ‘types’ of Christ – people whose life-story forms a prophecy told in deeds, rather than words. Boaz is my favourite because he embodies the lavish generosity of God. From the moment he sets eyes on Ruth, a newly arrived refugee, Boaz goes the extra mile: he shows her kindness and acceptance; he protects her from exploitation and abuse; he provides for her and Naomi’s material needs; and ultimately, he steps up as ‘kinsman-redeemer,’ to pay the price to restore Naomi’s family fortunes and welcome Ruth, as his wife, into the fold of God’s people.

Ruth and Boaz are blessed with a son, who will be grandfather to King David, who is in turn the great, great … great grandfather of Jesus, born in Bethlehem, of the house and line of David.

Jesus, like Boaz, will go ‘above and beyond.’ His biographies, the 4 gospels, teem with stories of his acceptance and kindness to the vulnerable, the foreigner, the sick and the wayward. He welcomes the sinner and touches the leper. He shows us God’s heart to provide what we need physically, at the feeding of the 5,000, and spiritually, in granting forgiveness for the soul as well as healing for the body. Jesus is THE ‘kinsman-redeemer.’ Firstly, the Son of God became our kinsman - a human being who lived as one of us, but without sin. And on the cross he became our redeemer: he paid the price to bring us back from the brokenness of rebellion from God and to welcome us into God’s family.

Whatever our ancestry or our family situation right now, each of us can have a future as God’s children – loved, accepted and cherished now and eternally. Most of us will never appear on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ but in answer to that question, through Christ we each have the opportunity to say, ‘I’m a beloved child of God.’ 

With my thanks to Ian Rees and Jan & Richard Williams, Salway Evangelical Church. www.salway.org