Ordinary Saints
From Ruth 1:1-18
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 one was
Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there for
about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman
was left without her two sons or 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 had consideration for 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.
Yesterday, I had the privilege of
officiating a wedding at a church with a gorgeous stone labyrinth in
a courtyard overlooking the Bay. And, well, you know I love
labyrinths —and what the journeys in and the journeys out can
reveal to us—in us. I took some precious time before the ceremony
to walk the labyrinth, and I noticed a quotation placed on the path
leading to the courtyard that says, “We are all just walking
each other home.”
We are all just walking
each other home. The people we find next to us on our life
journeys—on our spiritual journeys—are our walking companions.
For better or worse, they are our teachers and our guides. They may
help us through challenging times—and/or they may create our
greatest challenges. They may supply us with the support and comfort
we need in times of distress—and/or they may source our distress
and need for support and comfort. They may meet us on the road with
food and medicine and kindness. . . .
Or they may meet us with tanks and
guns and fear. But regardless, we are all just walking each other
home. We get to decide how we will engage with the journey.
In graduate school, I took a
class on the Lives of the Saints. I remember on the first day of
class, someone asked, “Just what is a saint?” And someone
else responded that a saint is someone who lived long, long ago
and has never been adequately researched. . . . The implication
was that if you researched a saint thoroughly enough, you would
discover the inevitable foibles of that person—and then they would
not be a worthy “saint” at all.
But, I wonder, do the
weaknesses and shortcomings of those we consider saints make them
more, or less, important to us on our spiritual walk? It seems
to me that the lives of saints are meant to be read like an open
book—with all the good and bad and messy and indifferent. We often
depict saints in stained glass windows to let light shine right
through them—their translucence, an apt metaphor. Their
imperfections make them relatable, personable.
And when we celebrate All
Saints Sunday, we are not simply celebrating the superhuman faith and
power of a select few, but God’s willingness and ability to use
flawed people to do divine things.
We celebrate the ways God
creates faith in diverse and varied communities and uses ordinary
people from those communities to bring the Commonwealth of God closer
to us through ordinary acts of love. On this Sunday, we celebrate
the “great cloud of witnesses” that have gone before us, and that
are still with us, as we continue the work of walking each other
home.
It’s amazing to think about the
vastness of the Body of Christ—all the people from all the
communities, just like ours, and all those from different times,
different places, and different cultures. All of them—past and
present—can become our walking companions, encouraging us to take
risks, inspiring us to keep going with the road is wearying,
challenging us to change the world, and showing us how to pray—with
our feet, our hands, our hearts, our pocketbooks, and our votes, as
well as our voices. . . .
It gives me a lot of hope and
heart to feel the breadth of those connections—especially these
days when it is so easy to feel disconnected and alienated. It is
powerful to know we belong to such a great cloud of witnesses seeking
to manifest God’s love in this world.
Many people believe that
connection and belonging is based on having the same theology or
political beliefs—the same denominational affiliation or interests
or neighborhood, or Facebook groups. . . . I certainly can fall into
this trap. But what really connects us is the love of God. We
are—each one who has walked on this earth—God’s beloved child.
And God longs to scoop each one of us up into a web of belonging and
love. God longs to see us walking each other home—with justice and
peace and love.
That is what the story of Ruth
demonstrates. Such a beautiful story. A story of connection and
belonging unexpectedly reaching across conventional dividing lines of
blood and custom and religion. It is the story of ordinary, strong
women—facing the harsh natural disaster of famine and the brutal
human-made disaster of patriarchy that rendered single women
completely vulnerable. Like refugees today, Ruth and Naomi did not
have the privilege of choosing to stay in their homes. Forces beyond
their control dictated their involuntary relocation. Yet, they were
able to survive such tumultuous transitions because they were each
willing to give their greatest gift to the other: their very selves.
It is a story of solidarity and
redemption—of faithfulness, commitment, loyalty, and love. The
recently-widowed Naomi encourages her daughters-in-law, also
recently-widowed, to “Go back each of you to your mother’s
house.” During this time of famine, Naomi is migrating from
Moab—where her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, are from—back to
her native Judah. Naomi relinquishes Orpah and Ruth from any
obligation to care for her, urging them to return to their homeland
with the prayer,
“May the Lord deal kindly with you,” believing
that “the hand of the LORD has turned against [her].”
After some weeping, Orpah agrees
and departs. But Ruth refuses to go, expressing instead a wild love,
selfless kindness, and astounding solidarity: “Where you go, I
will go, / Where you lodge, I will lodge; / Your people shall be my
people, / And your God, my God.”
Ruth clings to Naomi with this
steadfast loving-kindness—chesed—and refuses to let go.
And so, together, they continue the journey—or the “caravan”
we might say—to Judah. We are, after all, just walking each
other home.
Over and over, God uses ordinary,
flawed people to bring the Commonwealth of God closer through
ordinary acts of love. And over and over, we are invited to live out
our faith in the midst of difficult circumstances. Ordinary saints,
walking each other home.
And
God is made known to us as we accompany one another—as we stand in
solidarity with the most vulnerable members in our society—as we
welcome the refugee, advocate for the homeless, insist that Black
Lives Matter, support the sexual abuse survivor, translate for the
immigrant, embrace the LGBTQ community, listen to the pain of the
heartbroken. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor and theologian, who was
executed by the Nazis for his beliefs, wrote shortly before he died,
“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.”
It is through our relationships that God is made known. It is
through our solidarity with others in need that we encounter God. In
the story of Ruth, the portrait of God is painted by two women who
choose solidarity. And in a world that sinfully seeks to divide
people into “them” and “us,” this means that there is no one
but us! There is only us: “Your people shall be my people.”
As
people of faith, we are called into the spiritual practice of
solidarity. To see the needs of others. And to respond. In whatever
ways we can. Because there is no “them.” There is no one
outside the realm of God’s love and care. There is no dispensable
human being. And the best—and the least—we can do is to say to
the one who is hurting, displaced, seeking asylum, exhausted,
fearful, wounded, hopeless . . . that where they go, we will
go—that we will be there and walk in solidarity beside them
throughout their journey.
This
is what it means to be an ordinary saint. And today, as we remember
and draw inspiration from all the deeply faithful and deeply flawed
saints of God—through whom we have seen the light and glory of
God—who have walked with us and guided our steps—may we give
joyful thanks. And may we heed their example as we walk each other
home.
Amen.