Naomi & Ruth- Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?
Oh!, Already my last one!
Oh, I love Rolos. They are so choklity. But ever since they reduced the number in a packet, I find it really hard. “Do I love anyone enough to give them my last Rolo?” There’s only 4 in a packet these days!
Sigh. No I can’t. It goes against all my principles. I have to give this one away.
Although!.... It was bought as a multipack, so maybe I’m ok! I will take these ones over to the coffee table later and we can all enjoy them together there. And I will be watching to see if someone gives away the last one or not!
Believe it or not with my choklit indulgence we’ve touched on an Easter theme there. No not easter eggs- although Rolo did have one on the shelves. It’s a theme that comes up in the story of faith over and over again- this idea of love that sticks with things no matter what. It’s a theme that stretches all the way from the loss of your last Rolo, to the acts of love of Christ at the cross. And maybe we can rephrase the old Rolo tv advert, to show how this theme of loyalty and love that sticks with things is so important in the Christian tradition.
“Do you love anyone enough to stick with them, no matter what?”
Christ did. No matter, a friend doxxing him, selling his personal profile for 30 pieces of silver, his best friend claiming he had never known him lest he get caught in the net of the leaders of the day too, other friends running for their lives, others who came and followed and wanted healings, or proofs, or miracles, but who were sincere for all that too. He loved them all, stuck with the plan, stuck with them, no matter what. No matter the trial they brought, or the betrayal, he stayed loyal to them, to an end that would-- eventually bring life, but first would be seen like an end.
This side of Easter, that amazing transformation, the rising from the dead, has been achieved, and all the fear, all the worry we travelled with through Holy Week, we now know with hindsight, was unfounded. Things were totally different and yet the same because the same deep love and commitment was there for them.
It was amazing. But then, Jesus’ lineage has that loving kindness in it all the way through his blood line.
Let us hear an older story now. One of Jesus’ great great great great great how ever many times grandmother, Ruth, who wasn’t a Hebrew, and her mother in Law Naomi, and maybe we shall see where that ability to stick with someone to the end comes from.
Read Ruth 1.8-17
Naomi and Ruth. What experiences they had. They had everything. Naomi came to Moab for the richness of the land, along with her husband and 2 sons. What tragedy struck when all three men were somehow lost, and the women alone, with no rights, no protection, no income, nothing, were left on their own.
Naomi was far far away from anyone she knew, while Ruth despite having lost so much was surrounded by places and culture and hopefully friends she knew well too.
When Naomi chose to go back to Bethlehem. It was out of a desire to salvage something. To have someone she knew near by. She would still have no rights, no property, no income, no protection. But at least there might be someone she knew from ages past.
She was surprised that Ruth would choose to go with her. To go with Naomi, meant that Ruth who had lost pretty much everything too, would lose the places she knew, the friends she had, the culture she understood, even the protection of her own parents’ home and the chance to start her life again. In its place for this choice, she would have nothing but Naomi, in a foreign land, with foreign people and unknown ways and total uncertainty about where her next meal even would come from.
She must have seen how destitute Naomi was not just in material things, but in the need for company, and for love. Ruth was committed to her mother in law, with such a depth, she couldn’t possibly have walked away leaving Naomi, to walk back what was a roughly a 10 day journey through rugged terrain on foot, an unprotected woman walking the wilderness road. One could almost imagine that perhaps Naomi only had half a plan to reach Bethlehem at all, so much had been lost, so distraught was her life and its circumstances.
Ruth wasn’t going to let that happen. She stuck with her, and Naomi’s fate would be her fate.
Such loving faithfulness that was prepared to risk it all to an awful end, was eventually handsomely rewarded, even though it looked like all was at an end. God seems to have twisted the rudimentary welfare system of Israel to Ruth’s favour for Ruth’s loving commitment. For eventually, Ruth gleaned a future that found her a new life, and a new purpose, and at the same time for Naomi too.
If Ruth hadn’t stayed by Naomi’s side. We might have had a very different bible indeed.
“Do you love anyone enough to stick with them. no matter what?”
The bible would suggest that the results will always be very good indeed.