(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on November 11, 2018, Proper 27)
“Do You Believe in God?”
Twenty-five years ago, almost to
this day, the first “got Milk?” commercial hit the airwaves.[1] I still remember it. A historian sitting in his study begins
to eat a peanut butter sandwich, when he gets a call from the local radio
station with its $10,000 question: “Who shot Alexander Hamilton?” The historian’s eyes open wide with
delight. He knows the answer is
Aaron Burr. So with a mouth full
of peanut butter, he proudly responds: “Aan Buhh.” “Excuse me?” comes the radio host’s reply. The historian reaches for a milk
carton, hoping to clear his throat.
But horror of horrors, the milk carton is empty. “Aan Buhh, Aan Buhh,” the man cries
hopelessly, as the radio host says, “I’m sorry, maybe next time.” Then the scene fades to black, and the
message “got Milk?” flashes across the screen.
As the “got Milk?” slogan
gathered steam, a host of spinoff slogans appeared on t-shirts and bumper
stickers. One such spinoff has
inspired what is likely the hokiest sermon title I will ever use, “Got God?”
What fascinates me about the “got
God?” slogan is the way we normally interpret it. In most Christian circles, asking this question would be
tantamount to asking the other person, “Do you believe in God?” In other words, the implied correct
answer to the question, is, “Yes, I’ve got God. I believe in God.”
The Songs of Naomi and Ruth
Today’s scripture presents us
with the conclusion to the story of Ruth.
Because we missed the opening to the story last week, here’s a brief
recap to bring us up to speed.
Once upon a time, there was a
famine in Bethlehem. Lacking food,
Elimelech and Naomi and their two sons sought refuge in the land of Moab. But tragedy struck again. First Elimelech died. Then Naomi’s two sons, who had since
married Moabite women, died. So
Naomi was left alone in a strange land with no security outside her two
daughters-in-law. When Naomi heard
that the famine had ended in Bethlehem, her hometown, she decided the best
thing would be for her to leave her daughters-in-law and return home.
Everything in the story turns on
what happens next. You know how in a play the most defining moments are often
expressed through music? Well, in
the Bible, it’s no different, except that poetry takes the place of music. Poetry is the Bible’s way of telling
us, “This is a really important moment in the story!” In the story of Ruth, there are two expressions of
poetry. They both appear right
after Naomi decides to leave her daughters-in-law and return home.
The first bit of poetry comes
from Ruth’s lips. As I’ve already
suggested the analogy, let’s imagine for a moment that Ruth is a musical, and
that the lines I am about to read are being sung with enthusiasm by the young
Moabite woman Ruth. Naomi has just
decided to return home to Bethlehem, when suddenly the lights dim and the
spotlight focuses on Ruth as she clings fiercely to Naomi, singing: “Where you
go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people,
and your God my God” (1:16-17).
Strangely, there is no response from Naomi. The scene simply fades to black.
The next scene opens with Naomi
and Ruth trudging into the town of Bethlehem. Several of the women there spot Naomi and begin whispering
among themselves, “Is this Naomi?”
Again the lights dim and the spotlight settles on Naomi, and she begins
to sing a mournful song: “Call me no longer Naomi [which means pleasant], call
me Mara [which means bitter], for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went away full, but the Lord has
brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with
me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (1:20-21).”
If I had to summarize the story
of Ruth, I think I’d probably start with these two expressions of poetry. They tell me what I need to know. On the one hand, there’s Naomi. Naomi
has no trouble talking about God.
Four times she says God’s name.
If they’d been printing the “got God?” slogan on t-shirts millenia ago,
I don’t think Naomi would have had any trouble wearing one. She’s got God. She believes in God. At one of the most defining moments in
her life, she namechecks the divine multiple times. (Incidentally, I might point out that Naomi’s belief does
not inspire or encourage her. In
fact, her belief has made her very bitter.)
On the other hand, there’s Ruth,
the foreign woman who presumably doesn’t know a thing about the God of
Israel. All she knows is that she
and her mother-in-law have been dealt a tough hand, and they’re better off
together than alone. All she knows
is that she’ll stay with her mother-in-law through thick and thin.
Where Is God?
As the story plays out in today’s
scripture, Ruth returns to Bethlehem with Naomi and ends up meeting Naomi’s
distant relative, Boaz. The two of
them marry and have a child who will secure the land and lineage of Naomi’s
deceased husband. In other words,
we are led to imagine that Naomi and Ruth, who had been dealt such a tough
hand, live happily ever after.
The most curious thing to me,
however, is that the character of God does not once show up in the midst of the
drama.[2] When Naomi and Ruth are husbandless and
without any guarantee of food or a home, God never appears on stage.
So where is God?
The only character who professes
to have an answer to this question is Naomi, the character who’s “got God,” who
is no stranger to God-talk.
According to her, God is the cause of the problem. “The Lord has dealt harshly with me,
and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me” (1:21).
Ruth, on the other hand, hardly
says a word about God. She hasn’t
“got God” in the confessional sense, in the sense of, “Yes, I believe in God;
yes I know all the stories about God.”
And yet the story hints that she
is the answer to this question: “Where is God?” One of the key words in the book of Ruth is hesed, which means something like
“steadfast love.” Elsewhere in the
Bible, hesed is a defining feature of
God. “Give thanks to the Lord, for
he is good; his hesed [steadfast
love] endures forever,” we hear again and again in the Hebrew Bible. In the book of Ruth, where do we see
God’s hesed? In Ruth herself, who commits to stay
with her mother-in-law through thick and thin: “Where you go, I will go…”
(1:16-17).
In other words, Ruth hasn’t “got
God” in the confessional sense.
She hasn’t “got God” in the sense of, “Yes, I believe in God; I know all
the stories about God.” She’s got
God in a deeper way. She’s got God
inside her. She lives out the
steadfast love of God. Where is
God in the story of Ruth? In Ruth. God’s steadfast love takes flesh in Ruth’s steadfast love.
How Ruth and Etty “Got God”
You may have noticed the quote at
the top of today’s bulletin from Etty Hillesum. “If God does not help me to go on, then I shall have to help
God.” Etty died in Auschwitz. She wrote these words about a year
before her death. Lately I’ve been
reading her journals, and I’m utterly fascinated with her. Etty, you see, was not a particularly
religious person. She was not an
observant practitioner of her tradition, Judaism. But as the world around her got darker, she seemed to become
brighter and brighter. As hate
gathered around her and grew in intensity, she became more and more convinced
of God’s love.
Her experience reminds me of
Ruth, because while people around Etty talked about God—about whether God would
come and save them—Etty gave flesh to God. Others “got God” in the traditional, religious sense of
having grown up familiar with God’s name and the many stories about God and the
many customs of how to approach God.
But like Ruth, Etty got God in a deeper way. God dwelt within her.
“There are those,” she writes, “who want to put their bodies in
safekeeping but who are nothing more now than a shelter for a thousand fears
and bitter feelings.” “There are,
it is true, some who, even at this late stage, are putting their vacuum
cleaners and silver forks and spoons in safekeeping instead of guarding You,
dear God.” For Etty, the question
was not, “Where is God?” or “Will God help us?” The question was, will we help God? Will we give existence to God’s
insistence? “We must help You,”
she writes, “and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”[3]
In the last remaining letter that
she wrote, she remarks: “Opening the Bible at random, I find this: ‘The Lord is
my tower.’”[4] I can’t help but think that God would
say the same thing about Etty and Ruth, that they were towers for God, beacons
of God’s steadfast love, strongholds of healing in a hurting world.
“To Help God”
The good news of Etty and Ruth is
also an invitation. The good news
is that we don’t need to get God, in the sense of getting everything right
about God, in order to have God with us.
God is already among us, even in the most bitter of situations. The invitation, then, is that we
welcome God into our lives and allow God to become a part of our world through
our expression. The invitation is,
as Etty rather provocatively puts it, “to help God.”
For Ruth, that meant showing the
empty and lifeless Naomi God’s steadfast love, which brought new life. For Etty, it meant showing God’s
attention and care to the hopeless prisoners around her. What might it mean in my life, I
wonder—or yours?
Prayer
Faithful God,
Whose faithfulness we know
In the flesh—
In Jesus and in the saints,
Who have given existence
To your insistent love:
Inspire us anew
To embody
Your redemption,
Through which all things are made
new.
In Christ, whose body we
share. Amen.
[1] It aired in
October, 1993.
[2] Only at the
end, once Ruth and Boaz are already married, does God appear on stage, and then
only to ensure that Ruth conceives (4:13).
[3] This and the
previous citations are from Etty
Hillesum: Essential Writings (ed. Annemarie S. Kidder; Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 2009), 59.
[4] Etty Hillesum, 157.
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