Who Will Disciple You? — Spring Church

Currently Spring Church meets for a public worship service on the second and fourth Sunday evenings of the month. On the Friday before, the blog is a preview of what is coming on Sunday, sort of like the reading you might do before attending a class. This is part of a series on Ruth, as we explore how God is at work and at play in the everyday joys and frustrations of ordinary life.

Post by Matt McCoy

8 minute read

Let me ask you a personal question: Is your mother-in-law a bitter person? (Feel free to substitute “mother-in-law” with mother, father, spouse, child, sister, brother, or anyone else who is a part of your family.)

Let’s just sit with that question for a little bit. We all know that God has placed us within families, that we are called to love and serve our families, and that we don't get to choose our families. So, when you think about your family, is there anyone who seems especially bitter? Go ahead and keep that person in the forefront of your mind as we walk through this blog.

We ended our last blog about Ruth, which can be found HERE, with what is perhaps the most famous quote from the whole book:

“For wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you stay, I will stay. You people is my people, and your God is my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.” Ruth 1:16

Ruth, the Moabite daughter-in-law, gives this moving affirmation of her love and dedication, to Naomi, the Jewish mother-in-law who should have never moved to Moab in the first place. Their husbands are dead, they have virtually no legal rights, no job prospects, and no family to support them. They are extraordinarily vulnerable.

And, to top it all off, Naomi has become a bitter person. In Hebrew, Naomi means “sweet” and/or “pleasant,” which sounds like the kind of person many of us would want for a mother-in-law. But the experience of losing her husband and her sons (one of whom married Ruth) has caused her to observe to daughters-in-law that “it is far more bitter for me than for you because the Lord’s hand has come out against me.”

Have you ever suffered a great tragedy, and had somebody respond with, “Oh yeah, well I’m suffering even worse than you right now!” How did that feel to you? Did that draw you closer to that person? Did it make you want to dedicate your life to that person, or did it make you want to never see that person again? Yeah, me too. Naomi is no longer the kind of person many of us would want for a mother-in-law.

Naomi re-enters Bethlehem, after a ten year hiatus, with Ruth in tow. The Israelites are God’s chosen people, so the people of Bethlehem are called to be a blessing to all the nations. We know they are to be kind to the foreigner and the widow, both of which describe Ruth’s situation.

Screen Shot 2020-07-01 at 2.09.52 PM.png — So what happens when they get to town? The women of Bethlehem completely ignore Ruth and only talk about Naomi. Ruth doesn’t even get mentioned. She’s so invisible, I bet you didn’t even notice her when you read the end of Chapter 1.

Art by Chana Helen Rosenberg

Have you ever been around your in-laws, and felt completely ignored and invisible? Did that experience draw you closer to your in-laws and want to dedicate your life to them, or did that experience make you want to never see them again? Have you ever been to church and felt completely ignored and invisible?

But the conversation Naomi has with the women of Bethlehem reveal the depth of Naomi’s pain:

“Do not call me Naomi (Hebrew for “sweet”), call me Mara (Hebrew for “bitter”), for God has dealt great bitterness to me. I went out full, and empty did the Lord bring be back. Why should you call me Naomi when the Lord has borne witness against me and Shaddai has done me harm?”

Look, we all love that stirring speech from Ruth about “wherever you go I will go,” because it’s so beautiful, poetic, and full of love. But let’s not lose sight of the reality that Ruth was an extraordinarily vulnerable widow, saying this to a bitter mother-in-law who has just moved back to a town that ignored her, and is worshipping her God who (she believes) has harmed them all.

Remember at the beginning of this blog post, when I asked you to think of a family member that is particularly bitter? Because now it’s time to transition to the “application” phase of this blog post:

God is calling us to respond to our bitter family members with love.

Ugh.

Screen Shot 2020-07-01 at 2.18.50 PM.png — Ruth’s speech feels a little less chipper to me now. Frankly, I liked Ruth’s speech better when I could imagine me saying that to people who are like me, easy to hang out with, and supportive of me. At Spring Church we call those “Common Friendships,” and those friendships are so vital and important in our lives. We all need people in our corner who can easily understand us, stick with us through thick and thin, and walk a similar path to us.
But the story of Ruth is about Uncommon Friendship, and how God uses people who are different than us, unlikely to hang out with, and difficult to love to teach us how to walk in the direction God is walking in. At Spring Church we define Common Discipleship as ‘walking in the direction Jesus is walking in” and in Ruth, we’re going to see God’s chosen people get a lesson in discipleship from an ignored foreign widow.
Wait a sec. If God’s chosen people are getting a lesson in discipleship from an ignored foreign widow, then the “application” of this blog post is inaccurate.

It’s still true, God is still calling us to respond to our bitter family members with love, but that application assumes I’m the “Ruth” character in this story. See, as an American, I’m used to reading the Bible, the newspaper, modern culture, history, and everything else where I’m the “good guy” in the story. But the “good guys” in this story are God’s chosen people in Bethlehem, and they are getting it wrong. The “Moabites” are typically the “bad guys” in the Bible, and in this story, God is using a Moabite to teach discipleship to the Israelites. So the second application for this blog post is:

God is using people we find easy to ignore to reveal the bitterness in our hearts and teach us how to walk in the direction Jesus is walking in.

Ouch.

So the visible bitter people need our love, and the invisible kind people are the ones God is using to disciple us.

That’s a challenging application double header right there. I like things better when the kind people are visible and the bitter people are invisible, and maybe that’s why we’re all in such a mess right now.

God’s kingdom feels so inverted, until I enter it, and then I realize that God’s kingdom is right-side up and the rest of the world is inverted. We will learn how to respond to our bitter family members with love as we learn how to be discipled by our invisible uncommon friends.

So how do we do this? How do we love the people spewing bitterness, and how do we pay attention to the invisible people discipling us? Spring Church is a community of practice, and this is where we learn how to enter into this story.

People who are very familiar with feeling invisible are people who are experiencing homelessness. The stories I’ve heard from friends who have spent time on the streets are heartbreaking, yet familiar. We've all walked past people who are holding a cardboard sign on the street corner. We’ve all shrugged our shoulders at all the economic inequality. We’ve all looked the other way when mental health issues meet addictions and someone is left outside all alone. But what if that’s the person that God is using to disciple us, to reveal the bitterness in our own hearts?

I’ve been a weekly volunteer at the Lighthouse Mission (Bellingham’s local homeless ministry) for over five years now, and what do you think is the most frequent prayer request I get? You might think that people experiencing homelessness would most frequently pray for a home, or that people experiencing joblessness would most frequently pray for a job, or that people without food would most frequently pray for food. And you would be wrong.

The most frequent prayer request I hear is for people to be reconnected with their family and friends again. People don’t become homeless when they run out of money, people become homeless when they run out of relationships. And being restored to the people they love is the wound that hurts the most and the hope that motivates them on their journey.

So these people who are so often invisible have also been discipling me. I can grow weary of the bitterness I see in my family and friends, and I can grow bitter as a result. Yet hearing the stories of what is truly important to my friends experiencing homelessness reminds me to keep following Jesus, which means giving my bitterness over to God and letting the Holy Spirit fill me with love instead. Cultivating a heart of love is slow, patient work, and I need a lot of practice. My homeless friends are very patient.

Let me return now to the question at the beginning of this blog. Who is that bitter family member that you thought of? If God is calling you to love that person (rather than fix or ignore that person), who is going to help disciple you? What if God’s discipler for you is an Uncommon Friend who is currently invisible to you?