First Reading: Ruth 1:1-19a
1In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2The 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. 3But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. 6Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. 7So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. 10And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, 13would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” 14Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 15And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 18And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. 19a So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.
Psalm 111
1Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. 2Great are the deeds of the Lord! they are studied by all who delight in them. 3His work is full of majesty and splendor, and his righteousness endures forever. 4He makes his marvelous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and full of compassion. 5He gives food to those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant. 6He has shown his people the power of his works in giving them the lands of the nations. 7The works of his hands are faithfulness and justice; all his commandments are sure. 8They stand fast forever and ever, because they are done in truth and equity. 9He sent redemption to his people; he commanded his covenant forever; holy and awesome is his Name. 10The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; those who act accordingly have a good understanding; his praise endures forever.
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 2:1-13
1You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. 3Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 5An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 6It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. 7Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. 8Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 10Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.
Gospel: Luke 17:11-19
11On the way to Jerusalem {Jesus} was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Great is Thy Faithfulness
In 1923 Thomas O. Chisholm wrote the perennial favorite hymn Great is thy Faithfulness. In this hymn, Thomas set to music some of God’s amazing attributes such as His unchangeable nature, His compassion, provision, mercy, love, and faithfulness. Faithfulness, outside of church, or when we talk about the commitment a couple makes to each other, isn’t a word we use often. Yet faithfulness is a word we not only recognize, but most people feel like they understand it. But do we really? Do we stop and ponder the fact that the root of this word is faith. To be faithful, we must start with understanding the word faith.
Think about that word, what is faith? Again, outside the church, faith isn’t a word we use that often, and for good reason. Faith is most often associated with our spiritual lives and not the secular world. For society around us, it speaks in terms of trust which is often seen as synonymous. But there is a subtle difference. And to differentiate between the two, we must first define faith. For the believer, the quickest, and I believe best, place to go do define faith isn’t the dictionary, but the Bible. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines faith as “something that is believed especially with strong conviction.” Close, but not complete.
To better understand what faith is, we must turn to the Bible. In Hebrews 11:1, the writer defines faith as, “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Faith then involves confidence and assurance of unseen things. Each of us displays trust every time we flip a light switch on or turn the key in our cars. We never stop to give these a second thought; the lights will come on, or the car will start. Therefore, our confidence and assurance comes from our experience, from witnessing the result repeatedly.
We know, or we trust, that the lights will come on because we paid the bill and the car will start because we do all the proper maintenance. Thus, trust and faith are different. To better understand what we, as Christians, mean by the word faith we need to once again turn to God’s word. In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (10:17). And Luther, in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed wrote, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; just as He calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives me and all believers all our sins; and at the last day He will raise up me and all the dead and will grant me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.”
Faith then is defined by the Bible as confidence in the things we hope for and the assurance of what we cannot see. Faith comes from hearing God’s word and faith is a gift of God. Do you see the difference between what I would label as common trust and true faith? Common trust only comes after something is proven. True faith is a gift of God given for eternal things, the things that we cannot prove, yet we know them to be true. Common trust cannot be assured of the forgiveness of our sins. True faith says because Jesus came and took my sins to the cross, my sins are forgiven. Faith enables us to believe that in and through the Sacraments we receive God’s amazing and endless grace.
True faith assures us that in the waters of Baptism we were forgiven, adopted into God’s family, and we received the gift of the Holy Spirit. True faith gives us the comfort of knowing that when we eat and drink of the body and blood of Christ, we are physically and spiritually fed. That anytime we confess our sins, God forgives us. Faith gives us confidence to believe the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (10:9). Faith is a gift of God that comes by hearing the message, the message of Jesus Christ.
We as believers live lives of faith because of the message of God’s goodness and mercy that we hear from other faithful believers. In our Second lesson for today, St. Paul instructed his protégé Timothy to “entrust [the gospel message you have heard from me] to faithful men, who will [then] be able to teach others also.” Our call as disciples of Jesus is to learn from those with whom the gospel has been entrusted and then teach others what we have learned. Faith comes by hearing the message, the message of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit grants faith to those who hear and listen, so they too can believe.
But faith isn’t static. The faith given to us by God must be exercised. Remember, God gives us everything we need to live lives of Godly service, by we’re the ones who do the acting. We must exercise the faith given to us for it to do us, or anyone else for that matter, any good. St. James is clear in this when he wrote, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17). In our First lesson for today, we see an example of how the witness, the faith, and the action, of one can have a profound impact on another.
In our Old Testament reading from Ruth, we get a glimpse of how faith came from hearing, and this then turned into faithfulness in Ruth’s actions toward her mother-in-law Naomi. When it comes to our spiritual wellbeing, faith comes first, which when exercised, can enable faithfulness. When it comes to what true faithfulness is, we have an example; remember how St. Paul closed our Epistle lesson with today, [Jesus] “remains faithful, because He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). God therefore is always faithful, but how do we exhibit faithfulness toward God and others? John Denver wrote a song years ago titled All of My Memories, about wanting to get away from the big city to a place in the country – “somewhere to build me a faith, a farm, and a family.” The story of Ruth reminds me of that song, because it’s about simple people living on the land, and about the strength they draw from their faith and family.
The story starts by telling us it took place “in the days when the judges ruled.” Those were days of battles between God’s people and their enemies, of mighty warriors and great heroes like Samson, Gideon, and Deborah. But while mighty giants and epic events were changing the biblical world, people were still going about their regular lives trying to raise their crops and make a living, marrying, raising their children, mourning their dead. And those are the people and events the book of Ruth is about – everyday people leading everyday lives of love, hardship, and faith in God.
We’re most often accustomed to looking for God’s work in dramatic events: in miracles like parting the Red Sea or changing water into wine, in sudden conversions, in the resurrection of the dead. But there aren’t any apparent miracles in Ruth, no angel choirs, no revelations, no resurrections. Instead, this book reminds us that God also works in steady, mundane, unspectacular ways. God is at work in the everyday, and Ruth is a reminder that God has a plan for each of us. Ruth is all about the quiet, constant, gentle providence of God – and of how He works through everyday events and family.
The book of Ruth is about four of God’s chosen people simply trying to make it through the coming months. In the first verse Naomi, her husband, and two sons leave Bethlehem because of a famine, hoping to do better in the land of Moab. About 10 years later, Naomi’s husband and two sons have died, so she decides to return home because God has “considered his people and given them food” (Ruth 1:6). Reading ahead, Naomi and Ruth, now widows, arrive back in Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest, and Naomi sends Ruth out to glean in the fields so the two of them will have food and can also sell the extra to support themselves. There in the barley field Ruth catches the eye of Boaz, her future husband. She romances him at the threshing place; he marries her, and inherits Naomi’s late husband’s family farm, which becomes part of the family legacy of King David (and eventually of Jesus).
As part of God’s plan, farming, in this story, is part of a system of relations and operations that sustains people. It includes raising crops, but it also includes providing work and food for the two widows, finding a new husband and a home for Ruth, and passing a heritage from generation to generation. All those things, the story tells us, are in God’s hands. Farming, in this story, represents God’s provision of our daily bread in the same way as “daily bread” does in the Lord’s Prayer.
Luther, in his Small Catechism, wrote that when we pray for our daily bread, we’re asking God for “food, clothing, home, property, work and income, a devoted family, an orderly community, good government, favorable weather, peace and health, a good name, and true friends and neighbors.” There’s nothing we need in life that isn’t part of God’s gift to us through the normal processes of His creation. God is faithful to His people not only in the things that bring us salvation, but also in the things that bring us joy and comfort, from the food on our tables, to our jobs, our spouses, and our children.
The most obvious blessing in that array of gifts from God is family, and the book of Ruth can also be seen as a family story. Naomi moves to Moab with her husband and two sons. Her two sons marry Moabite women, after which all three men die. One of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, returns to Bethlehem with Naomi as her loyal companion. Ruth works to support Naomi, while Naomi tries to find Ruth a new husband. A bachelor relative named Boaz falls in love with Ruth, marries her and begins a new family. It’s a touching story of faith, love, loyalty, and Ruth’s pledge of faithfulness to Naomi.
Naomi and her daughters-in-law were in a desperate situation at the beginning of this story. Women in their world had no status and no economic power except through their husbands and sons. Widows were powerless, and widows with no sons starved. So, a household of three widows was the picture of hopelessness. Naomi had very few options. She was too old to remarry and resigned herself to a life of poverty and loneliness. Her daughters-in-law, on the other hand, had a way out. They were young, they could expect to remarry, and in the meantime, they could move back home with their parents.
Orpah did the prudent thing: she exercised common trust, the trust that comes from experience, she kissed Naomi, said goodbye and went home. But Ruth, because of the faith that came from the message shared with her through her mother and father-in-law, believed that the God of Israel would provide, and promised to stay with Naomi forever, to share her house, to worship her God, to love her relatives, to thrive or starve at Naomi’s side. Common trust says act in what you know, in what has been proven. However, God given faith says believe and act based on the promises of God. It took courage and faith in God for Ruth to throw her lot in with her mother-in-law, even though Ruth was a Moabite.
Even though this book is called Ruth, it’s also the story of how God took care of Naomi. Naomi’s bereavement gets mentioned the most often, and at the eventual happy ending of the story, when the neighbors came bringing their best wishes, it’s Naomi they congratulate, not Ruth. So Ruth’s improbable faithfulness to Naomi turns out to be the way God saves Naomi from her situation and despair. In reality, what we see here is the faithfulness of two women. Naomi was faithful to God and shared her faith with Ruth who was able to then place her faith in God and be faithful to Naomi.
Faithfulness starts with faith. It’s one of God’s favorite ways of blessing us – through the love of our family. Our parents, children, spouses, and in-laws support us emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually. God also uses people outside of our traditional family to also offer us support. Family, in God’s way of doing things, can include our friends and neighbors, or co-workers; it also includes our church family. When we’re sick, or otherwise in distress, we receive the ministry of doctors and nurses, therapists, social workers, and counselors. And we, in turn, minister to the needs of other people in our communities through our careers and our involvement in voluntary services. Maybe the significance of Ruth’s being a foreigner in this story is that it forces us to enlarge our picture of who our family is, who it is that we support and are supported by. The final thing we see in the story of Ruth is faith, an unusual faith.
There are no hymns of praise in Ruth, no creeds or professions of belief. In fact, God is hardly mentioned in the story except in casual conversation. Still, the characters and the writer are assured of God’s reliability, and the way the story unfolds shows that they’re right. When Naomi leaves Moab to return to Bethlehem and urges Ruth and Orpah to stay behind, she prays a blessing for them: “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” (vs. 9).
Naomi’s prayer creates a climate of expectation in which the rest of the story plays out: and the rest of the way through the book we’re waiting to see if Naomi’s prayer will be answered. As Ruth and Naomi receive God’s provision in Bethlehem and put their new together lives piece by piece, we know that God is fulfilling Naomi’s hope, even though the writer of the story doesn’t feel the need to keep telling us so. That climate of expectation is faith.
Faith is God’s gift to us to experience the confidence we need to trust in His care and keeping no matter what. It’s the assurance we carry through life, that God is in control and is always trustworthy. Faith assures us that God is faithful in the big things, that He always keeps His promises to His people, that He guides history toward its proper conclusion. Faith assures us that God is also faithful in the small things, in dealing kindly with widows, as well as blessing the poor and the lonely. The story of Ruth and Naomi is about the blessings of faith and of faithfulness that comes from trusting God.
You and I may never have to go through what Naomi and Ruth did, but whatever comes our way, God has already given us the faith we need to be confident that God is in control, that God always keeps His promises, and remains faithful no matter what. And because we can place our faith in God, we can be assured that God will see us through. Rest assured, God always takes care of His people: He blesses us with our Daily Bread, the things we need to live from day to day. The story of Naomi and Ruth remind us of three of the most important blessings God gives us: a way to make a living, family and friends to love us and support us, and faith to keep us going in expectation that God will continue to guide us, bless us, and keep us, no matter what.
Amen