Invisible People Have A Name

POST BY MATT MCCOY

8 minute read

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. You can find the rest of the blogs within this series HERE.

Can we name a few Uncommon Friends who God is using to disciple us?

At our last worship service, we observed how the people God is using to disciple us might just be invisible to us (you can find the previous blog post HERE). Ruth was invisible to the women of Bethlehem when she and Naomi made their return from Moab (Ruth 1:19-21), yet Ruth is the person God was going to use to disciple the people of Israel and show them how to walk in the direction He is walking in.

At our next worship service, we’ll get to observe how those invisible people have a name, and how we might notice them.

Let’s re-enter the story from the perspective of Boaz in chapter 2 verse 4. Based on the best archeology we have, we would assume that Boaz, along with all the other people of Bethlehem, would live in town together. These towns would seldom exceed a few hundred people, so it would be reasonable to assume Boaz knows everyone, including Naomi. The fields Boaz owns would be outside the town, and, “it was necessary for the people to leave the security of the town to work in the fields.” [1]

So Boaz is coming from his house in Bethlehem, out to the field where his harvesting crew is already working, and he greets his employees along the way. This idyllic greeting serves as an interesting foil to the crazy times of the Judges, which is the setting of this story. Wait, we can still be kind to people, even during crazy times? There’s a great moral lesson for us in this, but I digress…

After greeting his employees, and presumably taking a look around to see how the whole operation is going on this particular morning, Boaz sees someone he doesn’t recognize and checks in with his foreman. Boaz asks, “Whose is this young woman?” Again, Boaz would probably know every one of the few hundred residents of Bethlehem, but he doesn’t know this young woman in his field this morning, and so he inquires about her family as a way to figure out who she is.[2]

Ruth, it seems, is becoming less invisible.

He doesn’t ask for her name, and his foreman doesn’t offer her name, “She is a young Moabite woman who has come back with Naomi from the plain of Moab.” Let there be no doubt that Ruth is an immigrant; the foreman mentions twice that the woman Boaz is inquiring about is not from the chosen people of Israel.

But instead of ignoring her and getting back to work, Boaz is kind to Ruth. The women in chapter 1 ignore her, and the Foreman in chapter 2 simply identifies her as the immigrant that came back with Naomi. Boaz, departing from expected behavior, offers her some water to drink from the well.[3] But just in case the reader hasn’t been surprised enough at Boaz’s reversal, Ruth’s question makes things explicitly clear: “Why should I find favor in your eyes to recognize me when I am an immigrant?” (2:11)

In Boaz’s speech, we get the literary clue that lets us know why Ruth is the Uncommon Friend that God is using to disciple the people of Israel:

“It was indeed told to me, all that you did for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death, and that you left your mother and your father and the land of your birth to come to a people that you did not know in time past.” (2:11)

Where have we heard that language before? Where have we heard of someone leaving the place of their birth, their family, and everything they knew, and participating in what God was doing in a new place? Boaz is referencing one of the most important parts of Israel’s history: The covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 12:1 “Go from you land and your birthplace and your father’s house…”. Robert Alter aptly observes, “Now it is a woman, and a Moabite, who reenacts Abraham's long trek from the east to Canaan. She will become a founding mother of the nation as he was the founding father.”[4]

The narrator, and Boaz’s speech, make explicitly clear that Ruth is behaving in a way that is consistent with what it means to be a part of God’s family. At Spring Church, we frequently define discipleship as “walking in the direction Jesus is walking in,” and Ruth is walking in that direction. Boaz recognizes that Ruth is living a faithful life, and he responds by caring for her in the way that God has commanded Boaz, and us, to care for the invisible among us, including immigrant widows.

I find this to be a delightful story to read, and a challenging story to live.

“Ruth meets Boaz,” Artist: Nicolas Poussin, 1660

When I place myself in this story as one of the women of Bethlehem, I think, “Can’t believe Naomi is back. She should’ve stayed here, rather than running away. Serves her right to have an immigrant for her family now.”

It’s easy for me to seek friendships based on affinity, and based on what will help make me seem better, rather than on what is important to God. And it’s really hard for me to build a friendship with someone who is considered a traitor, a back-stabber, or somehow makes me look morally inferior.

As my daughter Emma observed in today’s culture, it’s “friendship means approval” and that means if I become friends with someone stigmatized, I risk having their stigma being placed on me. Do you have a close friend or family member who belongs to the wrong political party, disagrees with your decisions around physical distancing and mask wearing (either less strict or more strict), or has made poor lifestyle choices?

When I place myself in this story as the Foreman, I think, “Hey, I’ve got a job to do today. We got barley to be harvesting, some of my crew showed up hung over, I don’t trust the weather to stay favorable, and Boaz is gonna show up any moment now and he’s counting on me to stay on schedule. I don’t have time for this Moabite immigrant, or any of these other gleaners.”

It’s easy for me to focus on my own goals, and not pay attention to the way the people around me are pointing me towards God. I’m grateful this Foreman chose a better path, and at least figured out who Ruth was. Perhaps the town was small enough that when he heard Naomi the bitter widow was back, with an immigrant souvenir from her time in Moab, he anticipated they’d need to glean somewhere.

When I place myself in this story as Ruth, I think, “When life is broken, and things haven’t worked out the way I thought they would, and my mother-in-law is bitter and everything is a mess, why should anyone care about me?”

It’s easy for me to feel self-pity and isolate myself when things go horribly wrong, and to stop caring and stop walking in the direction Jesus is walking in. Ruth, by contrast, kept walking in the direction God was walking in, and she served her bitter family member well. I’m grateful Ruth chose a better path.

“Ruth meets Boaz,” Artist: Edward Burne-Jones, 1879

When I place myself in this story as Boaz, I think, “Raising barley is risky work. The locust are always ready eat what a drought doesn’t kill. This looks to be a good harvest, but I remember that famine from ten years ago, and it’s a miracle that any of us survived it.”

It’s easy to become self absorbed in my own concerns, and not notice what God is up to in the world around me. Boaz never had to ask the name of that unknown woman gleaning in his field, but he slowed dow and paid attention to someone would otherwise be invisible. I’m grateful Boaz chose a better path.

These stories of how God uses invisible people appear throughout the Bible and throughout history, and a few years ago I started looking for people working in ‘invisible’ occupations. Now, whenever I pass a person stocking the shelves at the grocery store, a person cleaning a building I’m in, or a person working in landscaping, I try to look them in the eyes and say “thank you” as I go by.

In our next service, we’ll learn more about the “Common Discipleship” that Boaz noticed in Ruth. Boaz could see that Ruth was walking in the direction that an Israelite was called to walk, and that’s how God made the invisible Ruth visible. That moment of, “Hey, wait a sec, this person I wouldn't expect is actually walking in the direction Jesus is walking in, and I can walk with them” is what’s next for us.

But before we get there, I want to spend some time coming up with a list of names, as we answer an important question, “Can we name Uncommon Friends who God is using to disciple us?” Who is the immigrant, the widow, the poor, the overlooked, the invisible people in our midst who are walking in the direction Jesus is walking in? Naming them as a community, is going to be important as we shift from focusing on Uncommon Friendship to Common Discipleship in the weeks to come.

Footnotes:

1 - Dale W. Manor, “Ruth” in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, edited by John H. Walton, Volume 2, p. 253.

2 - If you’re from Cascadia, and you’ve been influenced by this culture that values autonomy from one’s family of origin, it might sound odd to ask about her family as a way to figure out who she is. But it’s still a very common thing for people to be known by their family. One fun example: My wife, Denise, is from a very small town in North Carolina, and I love being around my father-in-law when he meets someone else from the area for the first time. When my father-in-law, a life-long resident of the area, meets another resident of the area for the first time, do you know what they spend at least five minutes doing as part of their introductions? They swap genealogies. Seriously. It’s amazing. They stand there, as content as can be, going back and forth talking about their family trees and looking for connections. It’s the coolest thing, and when I hear Boaz asking about this woman he doesn’t recognize, I hear the voice of people from small towns who are used to knowing each other, and I hear the importance of staying connected to the families God has places us within.

3 - Where do modern people go find someone to take them out on a date? A dating app, a bar, a bible study, a hiking trail? In biblical times, it’s at a well, and the woman offers the man something to drink. The Ancient Near Eastern person hearing this story would be thinking about Isaac and Rebecca, or Jacob and Rachel, as they hear this, and would notice the fun reversal of Boaz being the one serving water to Ruth.

4 - Robert Alter, “Ruth” in The Hebrew Bible: A Translation and Commentary, Volume 3, p. 630.

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The Book of Ruth, Common DiscipleshipSpring ChurchJuly 22, 2020Ruth, Discipleship, Vocation, Jesus, God at work, Invisible