Foolish Promises, Broken Walls

Shorter’s Chapel AME Church
Bridgetown, Virginia

Ruth 1:1-18 (NRSV)
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.
But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the LORD had considered his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back each of you to your mother's house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The LORD grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband." Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud.
They said to her, "No, we will return with you to your people."
But Naomi said, "Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has turned against me."
Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. So she said, "See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law."
But Ruth said, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die -- there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!"
When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

Now I know we’ve been at worship already today. United Methodists, when they come back to worship on a Sunday usually don’t tell a preacher to preach a sermon. They usually say, “Just do a meditation,” because it sounds like it’ll be shorter. But there’s not going to be any meditating this afternoon. No homilies or messages. We have a word to hear from God this afternoon. Did you come expecting to hear a word from God this afternoon? We do have a word from God to hear. And the word is very simple: Be careful what you give yourself to, because you might break something. That’s it. If you lose track during the sermon or your mind wanders during the next three hours, just remember that because it’s what this sermon is all about: Be careful what you give yourself to, because you just might break something.
What does that mean?
When I was in my last two years of high school growing up in a small town called Orange, I spent my Thursday nights in a most unusual way. I would usually meet up with my best friend, Billy Mack, and we’d head off down the road north of town to a little building in the country. I think my folks were a little bit suspicious of what went on out there in that building and I know they were a little mystified by my eagerness to go there every single Thursday night. But I went because I was compelled to go there. I went because I had made a commitment to be there. I went because I had a red T-shirt with white letters on it that said, “Thursday Night Fever”, and I had that shirt specially made for this event.
Just before dinner time the vans and cars would start pulling in and people would start unloading. There’d be about 20 of us by the time we all got in and a few of us would head off to the store to buy dinner while the rest of us set up for the night. Billy and I would set up the tables.
It was an interesting collection of people and I always felt a little bit different because I didn’t share a lot of the same things with the others who were there. This was an adult socialization program for mentally challenged adults. The people who were in the program were adults who lived very different lives than I did. These were folks who came because they wanted to learn how to live more independently. So they went shopping and learned to cook and learned to read and learned to interact with other adults so that one day they might be able…perhaps…to get a place of their own, and with some assistance, to become a part of a community that often did not accept them or made them feel invisible.
I was there because I sensed that what was happening at that little building on Thursday nights was important. O.K., that’s not all true. I was also there because the director of the program had a really gorgeous daughter, but mostly because I knew that it was important, though I could never quite find the words to say why. But being with Charles and Graham and Christine changed my life and broke down a wall I hadn’t even known was there. These folks, who in so many ways lived on the outside of the society in my small town, turned those Thursday night dinners into an open space where everybody was welcome…including me. It was an early lesson…be careful what you give yourself to, because you just might break something…like a wall.
Ruth was not supposed to say what she did. Ruth, in the story we just read as our Old Testament lesson, was not supposed to make the promise that she did. What in the world did she have to gain by committing herself to her mother-in-law in such passionate terms? “Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die.” What was she thinking?
Did you hear the beginning of this story? This was not a family to be committing your life to. The book of Ruth starts with a man named Elimilech…a good, upright, card-carrying member of God’s people Israel…packing up his good, upright Israelite family and taking them off to Moab to escape a famine. Now that may sound good to you. After all, he was trying to keep his family alive and if there’s no food in Bethlehem, you might as well look for supplies elsewhere. But good, upright Israelites would not have gone to Moab…even to find food!
Do you know what they say about Moabites in the Hebrew scriptures? Moabites are the children of incest. (Go read Genesis 19 and the story of Lot, but be warned. It’s rated R.) It was Moabites who lured the Israelites into temptation and the worship of idols when they traveled in the wilderness…especially the Moabite women. Moabites were banned from the assembly of the people to the tenth generation. Moabites were cursed and reviled by the prophets. To go to Moab when the chips were down in Israel would be like a person from the Eastern Shore going across the bay for seafood. You just don’t do that.
But Elimilech does that. He packs up his wife, Naomi, and their two sons and heads off to Moab. And he dies. Well, what did you expect? His sons, who are named Machlon and Chilion, which in English means something like Weakness and Sickness, (we don’t hold out much hope for these guys, do we?), yeah, old Weakling and Sicky marry Moabite wives themselves and by verse 5 they’re dead, too. This Moabite thing is not turning out too well for our heroes.
So the only ones left are Naomi, the grieving wife of Elimilech and grieving mother of the boys, and two Moabite women who have joined the clan by marriage. One is named Orpah, which means “back of the neck” because that’s what we’re going to see of her in just a minute, and the other is named Ruth. Naomi can’t even see them because her vision is entirely clouded by the losses she has suffered.
Naomi hears that, once again, there is bread in Bethlehem. The famine is over. And with nothing to keep her in the god-forsaken land of Moab, she decides to head home. She decides to leave without her daughters-in-law. Oh, they accompany her a way out of town. It is the polite and expected thing to do. But Naomi dismisses them. “Go back,” she says. “Go back to your family homes may you find security with a new husband.” That’s what this story has become now. It’s all about security and in this society at this time a woman on her own had none. Widows had even less. The only hope that Naomi can imagine is to go back to her people, and certainly these Moabite women should go back to theirs.
They protest. They won’t go back. They insist on going with her back to Judah and Naomi gets a little testier. “Go back. Go back.” She keeps repeating this refrain. “Look, what more can I do for you? Could I get married again and have sons so that you could wait around for them to grow up to be your husbands? No, that’s ridiculous. What could you possibly see in me? Besides, it’s worse for me than for you because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” Ah…now we know what Naomi is really thinking. It’s not just about security. She feels that she has been cursed and maybe she wonders if Moab has something to do with it.
Well, Orpah can take a hint. She is named back of the neck, you know. So off she goes back to a future we never hear anymore about. But Ruth is still there. She won’t go back, though Naomi has repeated that phrase many times. She tries once more. “Look, your sister-in-law has some sense. She’s gone back to her people and her gods. Go back.”
Now this is what I don’t get. Ruth should never have made this promise which she is about to make here. It’s a foolish promise. She is a Moabite. She should know that she’ll never be accepted in Israelite society. She’ll never fit in at the town socials and street festivals. People will never greet her by name when she goes into the Hardee’s for coffee and she’ll never get a second look when she sits in the stands for the Friday night football games. No man to protect her. No family to claim her. And a Moabite to boot.
“Stop telling me to go back! Don’t tell me not to follow you! Naomi, you may feel cursed and half-dead already, but you are not all-dead and even when you are I’ll be right by your side. Your people…they’re my people. Your God…that’s my God. And may God have mercy on my soul if even death separates me from you.” It’s a foolish thing to say. But Naomi’s slow climb back into life, and Ruth’s, begins with this foolish promise that ignores the barriers that cloud everyone’s judgment and creates a new opening for God’s new day. Be careful what you give yourself to, because you just might break something…like a wall.
I know a God who’s not very careful about this. I know a God who is a little bit reckless in the promises she makes. I know a God who gives God’s own self to a world and to a people that are not in any shape to be the grateful recipients they should be. I know a God who is not content to let sick people go unhealed, to let outsiders go unwelcomed, to let sinful people go unredeemed, to let lost people go unfound, to let dead people go unraised, to let lonely people go unrecognized, to let the poor go uncared-for, to let you and me go unloved.
And it’s a foolish thing to do. Because God knows that we don’t deserve that sort of commitment. God knows we live behind walls, and throw up barriers, and forget who we are, and forget who our brothers and sisters are. God knows us and God comes to be with us. In Jesus Christ, God comes to be with us, to walk among us, to share our flesh, to share our tears, to tame our fears, to look us in the eye and say, “You may not be able to see anything but death, but I see life. You may not be able to claim me yet, but I claim you. You may not be able to see yourself as a child of God, but where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. Your people are my people. And when it comes to the end of it all, when you die, I’ll be there with you.”
And because God makes this promise…this extravagant, uncalled-for, unmerited promise…to you and to me, something breaks. Something shudders. Something quakes. Because this God we serve? This God of Jesus Christ? This God is in the earth-shaking, curtain-splitting, wall-crumbling, rock-rolling-away-from-the-tomb business, and when this God starts to make promises nothing can stand in the way…not even the walls you and I have so carefully constructed.
I have some news for you, brothers and sisters: there are even walls in Northampton County that are coming down. They are coming down whether we work to keep them up or not. But if we start telling the truth, we’ll see that the work is not worth it.
I hate to say this because I grew up in a place that is in some ways a lot like the Eastern Shore. Many of the things that I can celebrate about my life and my outlook on the world come from having lived in a place like this. But as much as I celebrate those things I have to say that I also grew up with a lot of lies. We grew up with a lot of lies. I told a lot of lies.
We told ourselves lies and they are not true. They are not true. We need to hear the truth. It is not true that when we talk about Northampton County that we have to say, “Oh, blacks and whites will never get along because the gap between us is just too wide.” It is not true that the come heres just can’t understand, that they just will not be able to fit in because they haven’t known our history. It is not true that the potential of our young people is cut off because they live in a place like the Eastern Shore. It is not true that the future is bleak…that things were better in the past. It is not true that the story ends with us, that young people aren’t what they used to be.
The truth, brothers and sisters, is not any of those things because the truth is that in Jesus Christ all things are being made new. The truth is that in Christ Jesus all things are being reconciled to God. The truth is that in Jesus Christ there is no longer Jew nor Greek, Israelite or Moabite, slave nor free, black nor white, male nor female, outsiders nor insiders, “born heres” nor “come heres,” bayside nor seaside, because in Jesus Christ there is a new creation. There is one faith, one hope, one baptism, one Lord and Savior and every wall that denies this fact at the heart of the universe is destined to come down.
Who can tell this story that is the truth? Only the people of God can tell this story. Only the people of God can live out this truth. And whether they be Missionary Baptist or Southern Baptist, whether they be Episcopalian or Presbyterian, or Catholic or Protestant, or Pentecostal or AME or, God help us, United Methodist…they can tell that truth and no one else can.
I hope you know that this is an important day. Us? Gathered here in this place on the Eastern Shore? This is an echo of the kingdom of heaven! I hope you believe that, because I do. Just like I know that that little program I went to on Thursday nights as a teenager was an echo, too. I gave myself to it and something broke…like a wall. You give yourself to the truth that is the story of Jesus Christ and something breaks like a wall. God gives God’s own self to us with a foolish promise and something massive breaks…like the wall that separates earth and heaven….you and God.
Now I treasure the relationship that I have started to develop with Pastor Earl. The thing that got us working together was a belief that our children and youth and young people were worth coming together for. Last year we met with other pastors throughout Northampton and tried to unite around some things that could help our schools and our youth. We held a series of cottage meetings in the spring that were very well-attended and something started to break…like the wall that keeps good people from doing the right thing to help our youth. We’re not done yet. God’s not done yet. We’re organizing the first clergy schools group meeting of the fall and we have a lot of praying and a lot of work ahead. But God’s not going to let us go and God’s not going to let our children go. So we better not either.
You know, I take it back. I said to be careful at the beginning of this sermon, but the point of this sermon is not to be careful about what you give yourself to. Throw caution to the wind. Give yourself to God and this place…this group of people…is where God’s new thing begins. Right now. Thanks be to God. Let’s eat.