October 31, 2020
Text: Ruth 1:1-18
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In a time of famine, Naomi, her husband, and her sons leave their homeland of Judah [or Israel] and start their lives as strangers in Moab. They left Israel in order to find food, security, and to make a living for themselves. And they stay in Moab for ten years — for as long as the famine persists. But, while in Moab, Naomi’s husband dies. Her sons grow up and eventually marry. Being in Moab, her sons marry Moabite women. But as more time passes, Naomi’s sons die, too. Then, Naomi, an Israelite woman, was left with her Moabite daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth. With no husband, no sons, and the famine in Judah coming to an end, Naomi decides to return to Judah. She starts back toward her homeland with Orpah and Ruth. However, she turns to her daughters-in-law to tell them to stay in Moab. After all, Naomi has nothing to offer them--no sons and no security. She has nothing to give Orpah or Ruth and she considered herself useless to her daughters-in-law. Orpah, heeding Naomi’s advice, remains in Moab — not out of selfishness, she simply needs to make the best decision for her survival.
Ruth, however, clings to Naomi. She insists that she remain with Naomi.
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.
And Ruth follows Naomi back to Judah, to Bethlehem.
When I read this passage, I see movement, migration, hospitality, and mixing: from Israel to Moab and back again; Israelite men marrying Moabite women. The country of Moab offered a home for Naomi and her family to live and thrive. And Naomi offered a home to Ruth, a Moabite woman and eventually a widow living in Judah, a foreign land. Naomi in Moab, a Moabite in Israel, Ruth with Naomi crossing borders in search of life and friendship.
The book of Ruth is intentionally a book about mixture, movement, crossing borders, differences mingling, and permeable communities. For many scholars, the book of Ruth intentionally counters the trends found elsewhere, such as Nehemiah and Ezra, where marriage between Israelites and foreigners was strictly forbidden. But in this passage in Ruth, Israel finds rest in a foreign nation. And Ruth, a foreigner, becomes part of the people of Judah, the great grandmother of King David, and, eventually, in the lineage of Jesus.
This theme of migration resonates with us today. We see it along the southern border of the United States. And we’ve heard about boats leaving from northern Africa toward Italy and Greece full of migrants in search of better life. Right now, entire communities displaced by violence, climate change, and poverty, are on the move to other lands in order to make a living for themselves.
However, there’s also migration for less desperate reasons. People travel to new places in search of friends, for better opportunities, or just for vacation and rest. And even when we can’t leave our homes, our lives are already crisscrossed with products, signals, screens, images, and messages from people all over the world.
It's possible that one could look at this mixture, migration, and plurality as solely a product of capitalism. One could look at this movement and see only rootlessness and violence, but I suggest that misses the point. Rather, capitalism simply distorts the freedom and beauty of human movement into labor, misery, forced migration, tourism, and even gentrification.
I mention gentrification as it pertains specifically to this city. Driven by local policy, Washington, DC, has become increasingly unaffordable. Since at least the early 90s onward, there has been a concerted and heavily financed effort to draw white and wealthy populations into Washington DC. Neighborhoods are rebranded, renovations are subsidized, and property is quickly flipped to draw in a specific demographic. This coordinated effort has resulted in a substantial change to the racial, social, and economic composition of DC. Though new residents mean no harm, sadly, they are part of a larger effort to rebrand and increase profit for the wealthiest here.
Moreover, the movement into the city is inseparable from the movement out of the city. The influx of certain new residents to DC has resulted in a sharp increase in the cost of living and has made life here unaffordable. The coordinated effort to increase the white and wealthy populations in the city is simultaneously an effort to displace the city’s black and brown and low-income residents. High rent, low wages, evictions, and homelessness are rampant. In fact, some recent studies find that black women face eviction at alarming rates, comparable to the incarceration rate among black men.
In contrast to gentrification, this passage in Ruth offers a vision of migration where movement is greeted with hospitality — where strangers and wanderers find rest. And hospitality is what I hope we can talk about today. The hospitality they offer each other, and the hospitality they receive in Moab and Israel stands in sharp contrast to the hostility of local and federal policies in our city and along the national border.
However, there’s a particular way I would like us to think about hospitality today. Oftentimes, when we hear the call to hospitality, one might think of welcoming strangers, wanderers, and those in need. We think of opening our doors, creating a place at our tables, and generously, even humbling, making room for others. But there’s so much more.
Hospitality always has two sides — the host and the guest, the one who offers and the one who receives. If we only imagine ourselves in the role of the host, the one who offers, then we presuppose that we are the ones with the goods; we are in control; and we are the masters of the resources. And though we want to be generous and kind, the desire to remain in control — to be masters of resources and their distribution — limits our possibilities.
Have we forgotten that more than hosts, we are, in fact, guests? That, we are foreigners, strangers who rely on the kindness of others? How would our perspectives change if we remember that we are, in fact, guests?
Here in DC, we are guests, not hosts. We walk along streets and homes and storefronts that have belonged to other communities for generations. On this land, many of us are guests, not hosts. American Indians continue to live across this country, but their presence has been systematically reduced and erased. On this earth, we are all guests, not hosts. After all, the Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. The plants, water, soil, and animals are not raw material, products, property, or waste; they all belong to God and we are guests in this blue, cosmic house God has built.
Moreover, we are reminded of in the liturgy and the sacraments, again and again, that we are guests, not hosts. We start the service with God’s welcome to us. In the sacraments, we receive from God the gifts of bread and wine. We are guests, not hosts, at God’s table. And, most of all, simply as Christians, we are guests, not hosts because our faith is a stranger in the house of another. Our religion is nestled within another religion: namely Judaism.
One of the other passages from the lectionary today is Deuteronomy 6:1-9. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.” It is called the Shema, a centerpiece in Jewish faith, the affirmation that there is only one God. Jesus echoes this passage in our Gospel reading; Jesus himself was a devout Jew. And it is through Jesus that we, non-Jews, are able to be guests in God’s promise to the people of Israel. Jesus does not belong to us. Our faith does not belong to us. Rather, it is through Jesus that we become a guest in his faith, that is, his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Have we forgotten that we are guests? Have we forgotten that we are strangers? I ask because there is such violence when we forget that we are guests--that we are wanderers reliant on the kindness of others. In taking ourselves to be hosts, however generous we believe ourselves to be, we move against our faith. We take ourselves to be generous, but not dependent; giving, but not in need; masters, but not in solidarity. Isn’t this the very shape of gentrification? Isn’t this the human-centered economics that is devastating the planet?
In this passage, I think Naomi and Ruth show us how to be wanderers, how to be strangers, and how to be guests. They welcomed each other and they were welcomed by each other. They relied on each other and gracefully accepted the kindness of others. Neither Naomi nor Ruth had much to offer, but they were welcomed into the homes of others; like Jesus who had no place to lay his head and depended on the kindness of the women who supported him.
We are foreigners here in this city, this land, and this planet. We are wanderers in the halls of a home that does not belong to us. We are guests in the story of Israel. Let us appreciate this precious gift we have received and reflect on the debt we owe, then, to God and to others for their kindness.
Amen