Carolyn Custis James - Finding God in the Margins: The Book of Ruth

FINDING GOD IN THE MARGINS

THE BOOK OF RUTH

TRANSFORMATIVE WORD

CAROLYN CUSTIS JAMES

Series Editor

Craig G. Bartholomew

Finding God in the Margins: The Book of Ruth

Transformative Word

Copyright 2018 Carolyn Custis James

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are the New International Version, 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Print: 9781683590804

Digital: 9781683590811

Lexham Editorial Team: Douglas Mangum, Claire Brubaker, and

Danielle Thevenaz

Cover Design: Brittany Schrock

TABLE OF CONTENTS

One of the biggest fears in todays world is that something as harmless looking as a backpack will slip undetected through security checks, past bomb-sniffing dogs, and into a crowded area, where it will explode.

That fear became realitytwiceon April 15, 2013 , in Boston. On that fateful day during the Boston Marathon, two brothers deposited backpacks 210 feet apart near the finish line in the midst of a preoccupied, cheering crowd. The backpacks contained pressure cookers packed with deadly explosive material that, as planned, exploded sequentially in two devastating blasts.

For Boston, nothing will ever be the same.

Ironically, though the aim of that life-altering attack was to terrorize and disable the community, in the aftermath Bostonians came together. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, the rallying cry resounding in a packed Fenway Park, on Boston city streets, and echoing defiantly round the world was Boston Strong!

Overview

It may seem odd to compare the Old Testament book of Ruth to a backpack containing powerful explosives, but for far too long the Christian church has underestimated the potency of this harmless looking ancient narrative.

Traditional interpretations see the book of Ruth as a beautiful love story between the impoverished Moabitess for whom the book is named and Boaz, the wealthy Israelite landowner. Its the kind of story that is suitable for bedtime readingnot to make it hard to sleep at night. The romance interpretation is understandable, given that the story line focuses on the fortuitous meeting between a man (Boaz) and a woman (Ruth). But this is not a Disney movie.

A series of tragic events that befall Ruths mother-in-law, Naomi and push both Naomi and Ruth over the poverty line serve to draw Boaz and Ruth together. Their meeting ultimately leads to a marriage proposal (unexpectedly coming from Ruth), a wedding, the birth of a son, and, so it seems, to the restoration of the distraught Naomis spirits. According to this interpretation, the biblical camera settles on Boaz as the hero of the storya man possessed of wealth, resources, and generosity that reverse the sagging fortunes of the two women.

The story line is all too familiarseen in countless fairytales and chick flicks (with the possible exception that the man in question usually makes the proposal). The problem comes with preaching a story that has a happily-ever-after banner waving over the ending to a congregation living in real-world stories that dont play out like that. Subsequently, the book of Ruth becomes a source of pleasure but doesnt give the readers faith much substance to grasp.

Naomis losses are catastrophic and pivotal to the story. As we will see, according to ancient patriarchal calculations, Naomis losses amount to total devastation and raise disturbing questions about Gods character that the story will address. The opening five verses describe a devastating litany of tragedies that leave the Israelite Naomi emptied of everything that gave her life meaning.

Parallels between the book of Ruth and the book of Job are striking and further corroborate this interpretation. Both sufferers losses are catastrophic. Job loses his livestock, servants, children, and his health. Naomi endures famine, the life of a refugee, and the deaths of her husband and both her sons (Job 1:132:10; Ruth 1:15). It is a total wipeout for both sufferers, the only difference being that Job, as a man in a patriarchal culture, can eventually begin again. Not so Naomi, who, as a postmenopausal widow, is finished.

Both sufferers turn their attention away from secondary causes to YHWH and cry out in protest over the injustices involved in the suffering that God has unleashed on them (Ruth 1:13b, 2021; Job 6:4; 7:11). Job questions Gods justice; Naomi doubts his love ( hesed ). That one word lies at the heart of this story and is the driving force of the action that takes place. (More about that later.) Both are met by friends who find the toll of sorrow has rendered these sufferers unrecognizable (Ruth 1:19; Job 2:1113). And although in both stories God responds to each in ways that fortify their faith in him in powerful ways, he doesnt explain the reasons behind their losses.

Where the book of Ruth lands in the Bible is significant. In the Jewish Bible, the book of Ruth is located after the book of Proverbs as a beautiful example of wisdom living, a.k.a. living in the fear of God. In the Christian Bible, Ruth follows the book of Judges and precedes 1 Samuel. Viewed at the macro level, this narrative forms a sturdy bridge between the years when the judges ruled (Ruth 1:1) and the monarchy of King David (4:1822). At the micro level the story centers on urgent family issues and Ruths reinterpretation of three Mosaic laws: gleaning, levirate, and kinsman-redeemer. Ruth lives on the hungry side of the law, so her perspective differs dramatically from Boazs. His willingness to listen to her (which is one of the jaw-dropping aspects of this story) moves him from the letter to the spirit of the law. As a result, a hungry widow is fed, and a dying family is rescued.

The original readers of the book of Ruth and people living at that time would notice what is happening in this story at both macro and micro levels. But a third, cosmic level is only recognizable from the vantage point of the New Testament and beyond, for God is working through the lives of ordinary and socially insignificant individuals to advance his purposes for the world.

Framing the book of Ruth as a Job story brings this ancient narrative into the twenty-first century . Suddenly this is a story about the real world in which we live, where trouble often strikes unexpectedly and the God who has the power to prevent our sorrows doesnt stop it. Naomi is voicing questions that come to us all. Suddenly her story and her questions belong to us too. We have a stake in how the book of Ruth plays out. The story that followsthe bold initiatives of Ruth and the astonishing responses of Boazwill take us into uncharted territory, where this harmless looking little story, like the red pill in the Matrix, will awaken us to a whole new world and a whole new way of being human that will reconfigure our lives and leave us longing for more. It will raise the bar for what it means to live in a fallen world as Gods childas his image bearers. It presents a startling vision of the kingdom potency of male/female relationships and will inject rich hope, purpose, and significance into the veins of the most God-forsaken, hollowed-out human soul.