Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] October 31, 2021 “Who Loves For You?” Ruth 1: 1-18 – NRSV n 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. 2 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. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. 6 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 considered his people and given them food. 7 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. 8 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. 9 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. 10 They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11 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? 12 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, 13 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.” 14 Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 15 So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 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. 17 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!” 18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. Having just moved here, I was thinking about all the times I have moved. Sometimes just a new apartment, sometimes a whole new city. Some of you can say the same thing. After 17 years on the farm in North Dakota, I lived in four different places during college in South Dakota, and four in the 3 years of seminary in Minneapolis. But then, three places in Washington, DC, and five in Cleveland. And finally, after a year in an apartment in Denver, we settled down and bought a townhome. Thirteen whole years with only one address. Until, of course…! You should have seen my poor mother’s address book. Every move was a new opportunity. Something different, often something better. I don’t know what it’s like to move because I was kicked out or evicted. I don’t know what it’s like to move because war has broken out or famine has descended on the land. I don’t know, can’t fully imagine, what desperation it would take to get into a crowded boat to cross the sea. Or join a caravan to walk 1,000 miles to a place of which all I know is that maybe it’ll be safer. Warsan Shire (SHEE-ray) is a Somali-British poet, born in a refugee camp in Kenya. Her poem entitled Home provides the answer every time someone wonders, for example, “why in the world would anyone send their children across the border with smugglers?” Warsan writes, “No one would leave home unless home was the mouth of a shark.”[1] Read the whole poem. She’s brilliant. All of that is to say, I don’t know what it would have taken for Elimelech and Naomi to conclude that they had to move from their home in Bethlehem to Moab. Moab!, of all places. I’ll get to more on that later. I love the Book of Ruth. Irony drives the story and names provide the clues. For example, Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means House of Bread, had no bread. Elimelech, which means My God is King, believed God would provide. But ironically all God provided was no bread. Naomi means sweet, but later in the story she asked to be called Mara, which means bitter. Understandably. You heard the story. Sweet Naomi’s husband died. However, she still had two sons. They grew up and married local Moabite girls. But then her oldest son died before he had children. And then her other son. Now, Naomi was a childless widow living as an alien in a foreign land with two childless widows. She had every right to change her name to Bitter. She decided the best thing was to move back to Bethlehem. Ruth and Orpah offered to go with her. As an aside, I’m not sure why Ruth and Orpah married Naomi’s sons in the first place. Their names should have tipped them off. Ruth’s husband’s name was “Sickly.” Orpah’s husband’s name was “Caput.” “Caput” like, it’s over. Just like their luck. But there was one piece of good luck for Naomi. One of her daughters-in-law was named Ruth, whose name means Friend. But among this list of biblical “who cares!?” names, there is one more really important one. Key to understanding this story is the name Moab – the same as the name given to Lot’s son (all the way back to Abraham) born of incest. The people of Moab were despised, hated with a deep passion. Think of hearing the name Hillary Clinton at a Trump rally. Or say Trump’s name at a Women’s March. It’s immediate, visceral. The name Moab causes the same reaction, which helps to understand this story. And why the animosity? Well, it started when the Hebrews were escaping slavery in Egypt. The Moabites refused, allegedly refused, to welcome them, to provide hospitality to them. In response, the Book of Deuteronomy states that no Moabite shall be permitted to enter the Lord’s assembly – for 10 generations! Not clear enough? It also states, “You shall never promote the welfare or prosperity of Moabites as long as you live.”[2] Got it? Upon hearing this story, every listener would have felt revulsion. They moved to Moab!?! And Ruth was from Moab!?! Lock her up! That’s how desperate Elimelech and Naomi would have been to choose to move to Moab. And on the flip side, that’s how much hatred Ruth could have anticipated by moving to Bethlehem. Naomi convinced Orpah to go back to her family, but Ruth wouldn’t budge. After all, her name was… Friend. Ruth offered Naomi words of such absolute life-long fidelity they are often repeated at weddings, without knowing the context – daughter-in-law to mother-in-law. “Wherever you go, I will go; your people will be my people; your God will be my God; where you are buried, I will be buried.” Ruth was more concerned for the well-being of her friend than her own. That’s love. Like a lot of things these days, love feels in short supply in our country. Friendships terminated over irreconcilable views. Family relationships ended over political differences, although of course, sometimes it’s the healthiest thing we can do for ourselves. Michael Curry is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. He became famous when he gave an electrifying sermon on the power of love at the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Not long ago he was on the Today Show. As he talked, Savannah and Hoda sat mesmerized. I did too. I stopped getting ready for work. His words were so filling, as though, as a nation, we are starving for love. He said, “Love is about unselfish, self-less, living that seeks the good, the welfare and well-being of others, even above my own self-interest.” And added, “Selfless living is the only thing that has ever changed anything for the good.” He said, “Think about yourself. Who are the people who’ve made a difference in your life? They weren’t doing it for themselves. They were doing it for you.” Self-less. To be clear, this is not about thinking of yourself as worth-less. Humility is not permission for someone to humiliate you. Selfless is not about not having a self. The bishop continued, and this is where he really got my attention, “Think of any social change in history. It has been people thinking about others more than self. The truth is, no good created and done by human beings has ever been done from the motivation of selfishness. Good has always come from people acting self-less and self-giving. That’s what love really is.” I felt like I was sitting in church. And then he described the opposite of love. It isn’t hate, he said. I thought he would give the frequent answer that the opposite of love is fear. But, no, Bishop Curry said, “The opposite of love is self-centeredness. Hate is a derivative of that. If love is self-giving, the opposite is self-centeredness.” As I said earlier in the service, Elie Wiesel said the opposite of love is indifference, which is also thinking more of self than others because it’s actually not thinking of others at all. Either way, the Bishop said, “self-centeredness doesn’t work. If we all lived a self-centered existence, we wouldn’t have a society. Democracy depends on that. Human survival depends on that.” And I’ll just add: Getting past this pandemic depends on that. Savannah and Hoda sat speechless. They had to be prompted to go to a break so NBC could convince people they’d be happier buying a new Lexus. We live in an era that feels especially devoid of love for people like Elimelech and Naomi, desperate. Except that it isn’t. Absolutely, there is hate in the world, hate crimes, incredibly disturbing authoritarian influenced fear mongering for personal gain manipulated hate. But we are also, in fact, living in an era overflowing with love. There are many more examples of acts of love than hate that could fill the news. Of course, I’m preaching to the choir, but if you want to know in whose footsteps we are walking, today we honor Ruth as one very important example. Someone who absolutely loved Naomi. But more importantly, loved for her. Willing to move to Bethlehem for her. Tomorrow is the actual date of All Saints Day, which we will observe next Sunday. This week I invite our reflection upon people who have gone before us, people who not only loved you but loved for you. There’s a difference, right. Who in your life embodied, or embodies now, that kind of love for, the kind of self-less living that seeks the good, the welfare and well-being of others above even their own self-interest? What is love? It’s not just the feeling of loving someone, it’s loving for someone. In addition, I invite us to remember and reflect upon people like Naomi and Elimelech whose very survival means having to cross borders into places like Moab. Moab, of all places. How can we love for them? Lastly, I invite us to remember and reflect upon the people of Bethlehem who, by welcoming Ruth, ignored a direct order from scripture. When someone says, “Well, the Bible says…” remember to tell them, well, the Bible also says never to promote the prosperity or welfare of a Moabite. But, look what happens when we choose love instead. Of all the great ironies of this story full of irony: Ruth became the great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king, David, under whom Israel was never more prosperous. The question isn’t just who do you love or who loves you. Who are you willing to love for, who is the person, who are the persons, who love for you? There’s a difference. Right? [1] https://www.facinghistory.org/standing-up-hatred-intolerance/warsan-shire-home [2] Deut 23 verses 3 and 6
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Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] October 24, 2021 “Gather Us In” Jeremiah 31: 7-9 God proclaims: Sing joyfully for the people of Jacob; shout for the leading nation. Raise your voices with praise and call out: “God has saved the people,[a] the remaining few in Israel!” 8 I’m going to bring them back from the north; I will gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the disabled, expectant mothers and those in labor; a great throng will return here. 9 With tears of joy they will come; while they pray, I will bring them back. I will lead them by quiet streams and on smooth paths so they don’t stumble. I will be Israel’s parent, Ephraim will be my oldest child. This beautiful text reads like a dream, although, not like my dream life this week! On Tuesday night I dreamt I was trying to ride one of those jet skis. Except, in this case, you didn’t start already in the water. You had to stand it up, race the throttle and jump with it into a raging river. I woke up and laughed that there was no mystery involved in that first-week-at-work dream. Wednesday was one of those classic “can’t get there” dreams. I forgot my sermon at home. I ran to get it but I couldn’t get back fast enough – probably blocked by a marathon. And when I finally arrived, not only was everyone so disgusted with me they decided to leave, you were carrying out the pews! As if to say, nobody is EVER coming back. The prophet Jeremiah had often previously spoken in line with nightmare scenarios, but now instead, Jeremiah’s text reads like a beautiful dream: “I’m going to bring them back.” Everyone. Among them the blind and disabled, expectant mothers and those in labor. “Those in labor” sounds so nice in polite company, doesn’t it? Any of you who have actually been in labor would be shocked, perhaps horrified, by the idea of going on a journey in the midst of giving birth. But Jeremiah proclaimed a vision of being led home from exile with shouts and tears not of pain but of joy and voices raised in praise. A throng of people that included literally everybody. Anathea Portier-Young notes that Jeremiah’s dream “does not promise to remove or transform the physical conditions that produce blindness or lameness, but rather to ensure that these realities no longer function as an impediment to full inclusion and flourishing among God’s people.”[1] For example, it includes women at the moment they are most vulnerable – in labor. As Anathea said, it’s a social world transformed, envisioned as radically inclusive of all God’s people. It’s the world of all those yard signs that proclaim “In this house.” In this house, Black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, kindness is everything, and love is love. And there you have it. Jeremiah’s dream of radical inclusion summarized in a yard sign. They are very biblical. Jeremiah goes even further. In the verses that follow, such a transformed world not only includes everyone in worship but, as Kathleen O’Connor describes it, welcome to “the banquet of material life.”[2] Because, in Jeremiah’s vision, everyone will share in the grain, the wine, and the oil, and the benefits of that flocks and the herds.” So, not only a radically inclusive world, but a biblical description of society the meets the basic needs of everyone too. Speaking of biblical, COVID has felt not just like a plague of biblical proportions but like the experience of a biblical-style exile. In fact, when I looked at the lectionary texts for today, I chose this passage from Jeremiah because I was drawn to the line “I’m going to bring them back.” It was August and I was working ahead. I tried to anticipate the world of late October. It seemed like an appropriate text as we emerged both from the pandemic and also as your long period of interim has finally come to an end. But we can’t all come back safely yet – still behind masks, still hesitant to hug. As we endure 2nd waves and 3rd waves and 4th waves, “I’m going to bring them back” feels more unfinished than ever. When will we finally be past this pandemic? We had hoped that by now it would have been something that has been accomplished. Today we’re still wondering and waiting when or whether it will be. It’s a confusing time. A time of anger and especially impatience with those we blame for the delay of our dreams’ fulfillment. Even so, Jeremiah’s dream “I’m going to bring them back” remains the hope. Back to school safely, back to church to sing unmasked, back to traveling… Yet, I wonder, how many times had the exiles had heard this promise before? As we grow impatient, don’t forget, these folks had lived in exile for years; decades actually. How many times had the peoples’ hopes been raised only to be dashed again? How discouraged would they have been? Would hearing Jeremiah’s dream have been hopeful or a painful reminder of broken promises? This in-between time of post-pandemic hope and mid-pandemic frustration actually mirrors a question for the interpretation of the Jeremiah passage. Some translations, like the Common English Bible, say God has saved the people. And others, like the NRSV, plead to God, please save the people. Why can’t the translators all agree? Maybe it’s like this in-between time we’re living through – how do you express something that has been partially accomplished and yet for which we are still waiting. It’s not easy to fully express such a moment in time. As we look closely at this text, there’s another important verse not to ignore. The line isn’t simply “I’m going bring to them back,” but God proclaims, “I’m going to bring them back from the north.” From the north is where their enemies came. Every time they were attacked, it was from the north. Now, instead of a road for the enemy, it would be the path along quiet streams, a wide smooth pathway for homecoming. Which means that Jeremiah’s prophecy is not only inclusive, meets everyone’s basic needs, it is also a long sought-after dream for peace. No more war. Yes, Jeremiah had quite a dream. Of course, I can’t hear those words without also hearing the sonorous, resounding voice of Dr. King 58 years ago proclaim a dream that “one day…” A dream we know today as both fulfilled and unfulfilled, some of it surprisingly already here and yet much of it painfully still delayed. Or rather, denied. Our work to reject racism is as relevant today as it’s ever been. And more so, to understand that means to reject and dismantle white supremacy. Dr. King’s has always been a dream, Clarence B. Jones said, that was about “someone someday,” never about “me now.” You may or may not know that “I Have a Dream” was not in the original script that day. He improvised that part. As the length of the day and heat of late August caused the people’s attention to wane, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out to him, “Martin, tell them the dream.” King pushed aside his script. In response, Clarence Jones, co-author of the original speech, leaned over to a friend and said “we’re about ready to go to church[3]” because Dr. King’s audacious dream was straight out of the biblical prophets like Jeremiah. That dream was reimagined earlier this year by the young poet, Amanda Gorman.[4] Just as Dr. King had, she ignited the imagination of the country at the inauguration of President Biden. Among so many lines that speaks to me is this one, spoken just days after the insurrection: “Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished.” She said, And yes we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect, We are striving to forge a union with purpose. And what is that purpose? What is that dream? Amanda said, To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man. Just like Jeremiah said, “I’m going to bring them back from the north; I will gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the disabled, Expectant mothers and those in labor; A great throng will return here. With tears of joy they will come; So sing joyfully for the people of Jacob Shout for the leading nation. Raise your voices with praise and call out: God has saved God’s people! Or is it, “God please save your people?” Both, of course, are true. We’re in the midst of that living truth. But what I know for certain, God’s dream is to gather us in, for our exile to end. But only when it’s all of us. [1] Anathea Portier-Young, Connections, Year B, Volume 3, Westminster John Knox, page 410 [2] Kathleen O’Connor, Women’s Bible Commentary, WJK, page 176 (1992 version) [3] Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation by Clarence B. Jones and Stuart Connelly | Mar 13, 2012 [4] Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb,” 2021. Read the text https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/biden-inauguration/read-full-transcript-of-amanda-gormans-inauguration-poem-the-hill-we-climb/ |
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