24 Pentecost, Proper 27

November 8, 2015

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17

Hebrews 9:24-28

Mark 12:38-44

I. “Imperfect” Interpretation

There are stories in the Bible that those of us who grew up in the church have heard and read all out lives, so often that we nod when we meet them, assuming that we know “what that story means.” But on occasion we really read them and realize that we can still be surprised, that the unthinking assumptions we have been making about what the story “means” doesn’t begin to do justice to the beautiful suggestiveness of what is there in the text. We have two such stories in our readings today: the story of Naomi and Ruth, and Jesus’ observation of the widow at the treasury.
We have heard them both often. Ruth following her mother-in-law Naomi back to her people, then marrying Boaz and giving birth to a son. The widow putting all she has, her “mite,” into the treasury. We did our Sunday School exercises on these years ago, and we can tune out now because we know what they mean. We got the interpretation “right” years ago. But what if there is not really a punctiliously perfect interpretation? What if the whole purpose of the biblical text were to challenge your set interpretation every time you come to it? Perhaps the test of biblical interpretation is not whether it is “right” but whether it leads us to a view of the world and of our lives that is better than the one we currently hold? The purpose of interpreting the meaning of the story, then, is not epistemological perfection, butuse.[1]
How, then, do the stories of Naomi and Ruth and the widow at the treasury meet us in our lives and lead us to a view of the world that is potentially better than the one we brought with us into this room today?
One of the great gifts of our Anglican tradition is the collect, the opening prayer that guides and focuses our hearts and minds for worship on any given day. Thomas Cranmer had a genius for these—and a formula. Each collect, after addressing God, acknowledges a core truth, then makes a petition (asks for something) in order to realize a stated aspiration (or hope, or purpose), and then makes a concluding appeal.
Here is what we find in ours today. Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God. We ask to hope for that and to make ourselves like him, so that when he comes again we may be like him in his kingdom.
In light of that, then, what do these two stories offer us? We can find that hope and live into that promise through loving relationships and faithfulness in following the way of Christ.

II. Ruth

You remember the story of Ruth and Naomi, her mother-in-law. Ruth’s husband, Naomi’s son, died, leaving Ruth childless. Naomi’s only other son was also dead, as was her husband, leaving them with no support or connection in their world. Naomi decided to return to her homeland, and she urged her daughter’s-in-law to return to their people, as well. Ruth, in one of the most loved passages in the Bible, expresses her great love for Naomi and her commitment to follow her and live with her people and worship her God. To the embittered and self-pitying Naomi, Ruth says: “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. 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!” Naomi saw Ruth’s determination, and they went together to Bethlehem, her home. Once there, Naomi was inspired and strengthened to form a plan for Ruth to marry her kinsman Boaz. Our reading today shows us that plan and its accomplishment.
Ruth gave birth to a son. Now look at what the end of the story contains. The local women came to Naomi and praised the Lord for blessing her with next-of-kin: “He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child to nurse, and the women said, “A son has been born to Naomi.” That child, Obed, became the ancestor of David. So of course, did Ruth, and through her Naomi. Love and faithfulness lead from emptiness to fullness of life.

III. The Widow at the Treasury

We meet another widow in our gospel lesson today. Jesus taught his disciples about the pride of the scribes and about their exploitation of the poor. Specifically, Jesus said, they “devour widow’s houses.” In other words, they take away all their inheritance and resources. For this, he says, they “will receive the greater condemnation.”
Then Jesus sat outside the Temple treasury, watching the crowd put their money in. Many rich people came and put in great sums. Then a poor widow came and put in her two small coins, worth a penny. Jesus called his disciples to him and told them that she had contributed more than all the others, “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put everything she had, all she had to live on.”
An illustration of stewardship? Not so fast. The first part of the lesson has been concerned with the power and oppressiveness of the scribes and with the relative ease of the wealthy. The scribes will receive condemnation. The wealthy give out of abundance. What will the widow receive? Jesus doesn’t say. Elsewhere he does say that the poor, the widowed, the destitute, the last and the least will be first in the kingdom of God. And that may certainly be the implication here. But what we have is only what she does. She gives “all she has,” which is, of course, what Jesus asks of his disciples. Complete love and faithfulness is the way of authentic discipleship.

IV. Our Interpretation

Ruth and Naomi: complete devotion, which led to new life out of seemingly complete loss. The scribes and the widow: complete giving, even in the context of oppression, implies hope.
What “use” do we find in our encounter with the Word today? Perhaps this: that following in the way of Jesus Christ forces us from the self and its concerns—“what’s in it for me? what is happening to me? what will happen to me?—and releases us into the divine hope. The hope that through loving God and one another faithfully we will come into God’s kingdom.
Our reading from the letter to the Hebrews expresses it this way: Christ came down and offered himself completely, once for the sins of all; he is now in the presence of God, appearing on our behalf; he will come again to save those who are eagerly waiting for him, those who have been faithful to him in their life and in their death.
Now, go love and be faithful. AMEN

[1] These thoughts on reading and interpretation come from Mark Edmundson, Why Read? (2004).