THE STORY WEEK 9 The Faith Of A Foreign Woman

THE STORY WEEK 9

The Faith Of A Foreign Woman

1. Do you believe in coincidences? It would appear that there are a number in the short book of Ruth.

                                                               i.      Let’s start in Chapter 1 verse 1  Do you suppose it is a coincidence that when the people started worshipping idols, there was a famine in the land. It isn’t the first time God has used famine to move people is it? Remember Joseph?

                                                             ii.      Do you suppose it was a random coincidence that Elemelech and his wife and two sons went to Moab. You have to understand that Israel and Moab were long standing enemies. There was no love lost either direction. Of all the places they could have gone they “happened” to go to Moab.  

                                                            iii.      Do you suppose it is a coincidence that a daughter-in-law named Ruth is too stubborn to do what she is told, and she insists on coming with Naomi to Bethlehem.

                                                          iv.      Do you think it is a coincidence that Ruth and Naomi just so “happen” to arrive in Bethlehem during harvest time so they can glean. That’s just the first chapter. Are you beginning to see a pattern?

                                                             v.      In chapter 2 the Bible says “As it turned out” they were gleaning in Boaz’s field.  Do you really believe that was a coincidence?

                                                          vi.      Or in verse 4 when the Bible says simply “Just then Boaz arrived.”  As though it was a totally random conincidence.  Do you believe that?

                                                        vii.       Even more amazing is verse 20 when we discover that just so happens to be a relative, what they call a Kinsman Redeemer. A kinsman redeemer is a man who would buy a close relative back from trouble. It might be debt, or jail, or slavery, or in this case poverty.  

                                                        viii.      Do you suppose it is just a coincidence that the other Kinsman redeemer cannot fulfill his responsibility so Boaz and Ruth can marry?

2. Does that all sound like a coincidence to you? It doesn’t sound right to me.

                                                               i.      It sounds more like a “God incidence.”

                                                             ii.      It has been said that a coincidence is when God chooses to work anonymously. That seems about right to me in this case.

3. The first lesson we have to learn from Ruth, is that in the Bible there are no coincidences. And  our lower story is never just a lower story.

                                                               i.      Ruth’s lower story is not just the lower story.

1.      Those aren’t coincidences. Those are places where God is working anonymously to bring salvation to his people.

2.      They might seem like random events, but they are not random at all  They are God working out the details of how our lower story can become more like God’s upper story.

3.      Like the magnet drawing the nuts across that sheet of plastic, God’s will and God’s upper story invisibly move and shape our lower stories, drawing us closer and closer to God’s upper story. Sometimes the lower and upper stories touch and we glimpse a vision of paradise.  Many times we have a long ways to go.

4.      Or you can compare it to molding clay, Naomi and Elemilech, Ruth and Boaz are being shaped and formed in just the image God has chosen for them.

5.      God’s upper story hand is working on them, in them, through them, and in spite of them,  to realize the upper story.

                                                             ii.      Your lower story is never just a lower story either. 

1.      As we move through life, work, school, family, church, and neighbors God‘s upper story is at work in the ordinary circumstances of our lives.

2.      You don’t see it?  Slow down and look for God’s finger prints on you and the people and events around you. What would happen if your favorite detective (Mine happens to be the NCIS crew)  moved through a crime scene with the same reckless abandon with which  we live our lives? They’d miss important evidence wouldn’t they.  Instead they go in slowly and carefully, picking up every fiber, every fingerprint, every sign that might tell them something about what happened there.

3.      That’s the way we should live always looking, always studying to see if we can see God’s fingerprints on our lives.  Always searching for the smallest clue that God has been here.  I guarantee if you slow down and look more carefully you will see God working in all the ordinary circumstances of your life.  And many of the coincidences will turn out to be  God incidences. 

4.      If we slow down and watch for God we will realize that our lower story is never just a lower story.

2. Which brings us to the other lesson for today.  No one is excluded from God’s upper story.
1. We have been reading about God’s command to stay away from foreign Gods. Stay away from other nations.  Don’t mary foreign wives. Don’t have anything to do with THOSE PEOPLE. 
2. But what does God do in Ruth?

                                                               i.      God chooses to use a family who lived in a foreign nation.

                                                             ii.      Their sons married foreign women.

                                                            iii.      An d It is through one of those Moabite widows that God decides to work. 

3. Surely, you might think, God wouldn’t work through this foreigner, but you would be wrong.  You forget that God has a habit of choosing to work through the least likely person in the picture. In this case that would be a poor, immigrant, widow named Ruth.

                                                               i.      How would it feel to be a young widow walking into a foreign land, worshipping a new God, learning new customs and a new language, knowing that your looks immediately give you away as a foreigner who has no human or civil rights, no job, and no one you can ask for help. 

                                                             ii.      That is exactly how Ruth felt when she entered Bethlehem.  At least that was her lower story.  But is the lower story the end of the story?  NO.

                                                            iii.      It is not the end of the story because

1.      even this foreign woman has a place in God’s upper story. 

2.      Even this former pagan idol worshipper has a place in God’s upper story.

3.      Even this stranger with strange customs and a strange language have a place in God’s upper story.

4.      Even though she looked different and had no rights and no one to help her Ruth had a place in God’s upper story. She would Mary Boaz one of the wealthiest men in Bethlehem. She would have a son to inherit her husband’s land and support her in her old age. She would turn out to be the great grandmother of the greatest King of Israel, and eventually she would play a key role in God’s upper story because from her family would come the messiah who would save all people.

3. You need to understand that these are not coincidences. These are God incidents.  They are examples of God’s upper story reaching into the lower story and

                                                               i.      including the excluded

                                                             ii.      accepting the unacceptable

                                                            iii.      using the unusable

                                                           iv.      loving the unlovable

2. Maybe you even feel like an outsider sometimes; Maybe you feel e

                                                               i.      excluded,

                                                             ii.      unacceptable,

                                                            iii.      unusable and

                                                           iv.      unlovable.  but you aren’t in God’s eyes.

4. In God’s eyes Ruth was not only acceptable and lovable. In God’s eyes Ruth was essential.
1. In God’s eyes the foreigner was the only person in the right position to save Israel.
2. In God’s eyes the powerless widow was the only one in the right position to be the great grandmother of the great giant slayer.
3. In God’s eyes the former pagan idol worshipper was the only person in exactly the right position to carry on Israel’s the hope for a savior.
4. In God’s eyes Ruth’s sordid lower story was exactly what was needed to move his upper story plan forward.
5. Let me give you the kicker. Boaz is Rahab’s boy.  Do you remember Rahab? She was the Jericho prostitute who hid Joshua’s spies from the  soldiers in our reading two weeks ago.
1. God in all his wisdom, paired up a pagan, foreign, impoverished, widow and the son of a pagan prostitute to bear a child who’s family line will include Israel’s greatest king and our lord and our king Jesus Christ.
2. Coincidence?  I don’t think so.
6. I think it goes to show.  No one is outside God’s upper story reach.  Not even me.  Not even you.  AMEN

  Good morning.  I have a question for you.  Do you think I can move these nuts around on this sheet of plastic without touching them or the plastic?  I think I can.

See? I told you I could do it.  Actually I didn’t do it. An invisible force called magnetism did it. We can’t see it, we can’t feel it, but we know magnetism exists don’t we?

What other things are invisible, but we know they are there.  Wind? Heat? 

What about love.  Your parents love you.  But can you see love?  Can you measure it? Can you point to it?  NO. You feel it and you know it is there.

What about God?  Can we see God? Measure God? Photograph God?  NO.  But we can feel God working in our lives helping us to be the best people we can be.

As you go this week I want you to watch for signs of God.  Watch for God working in your life.  Watch for God … or should I say watch for signs of what God is doing around you and in you.