Speaking very personally, we regret to announce:  Our religion is broken. 

Do not persuade me to leave you, or go back and not follow you.  For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live.  Your people will be my people, and your Elohim will be my Elohim.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.  May YHWH do to me, and even more, if anything but death separates you and me.  Ruth 1:16-17

          In the days of the judging, there was a famine in the land (of Israel).  We add this note parenthetically, because in these days there is a famine in America also–not a famine of food and water, but a famine of hearing the word of God (Amos 9:11).  There was a man whose name was Elimelech, and whose wife’s name was Naomi.  They were both Ephrathites from Bethlehem (which means, in Hebrew, “House of Bread”).  The irony of the comparison is hopefully not lost:  in our land of plenty, we are yet starving to hear the word of God.  Elimelech and Naomi decided to leave the land of Israel during the famine for the land of Moab, in hopes of finding better fortune.  Their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite women–Orpah and Ruth.  In the ensuing years, Elimelech died, then both of the sons died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in law alone and, in those days, without a source of income short of prostitution.

          Then, Naomi hears that there is food again back in Israel, and so decides to go back.  Before leaving she tries to persuade her daughters in law to rejoin their Moabite people and the Moabite god (who isn’t mentioned by name), and remarry.  But Ruth is having none of it.  In her 10 years of marriage into Naomi’s family she has seen something, albeit imperfectly modeled and followed.  That is, the Hebrews worship a living God, not a man-made image or carving, and not a god like the one she learned about as a child growing up.   

          To summarize, Ruth is setting out for a country to which she has never been.  She knows no one there except Naomi.  Naomi’s prospects are none too bright as a widow, nor are Ruth’s prospects since she is a widow also.  The law of the kinsman-redeemer is not known to have been applied regularly (Deuteronomy 25:5), but in any event Elimelech and Naomi have been gone many years.  Moreover, Naomi is not a particularly optimistic type of person, for we see that as soon as she arrived and everyone said, “Can this be Naomi?”, Naomi replied, “Don’t call me Naomi.  Call me Mara (which means ‘Bitter’), for the Almighty has made me very bitter.”  Not exactly the most attractive attitude, to go with being completely broke. 

          Perhaps Ruth could remarry and settle into a nice, secure life worshipping the unnamed Moabite god.  Anything would be better than heading into the unknown with “the bitter one”, right?  Maybe not, if one’s religion is broken, if one knows that what one has heard all one’s life is just wrong–and that the truth is found in the living God, Naomi’s God.  Naomi may be bitter, but her God is not.  Ruth has learned that although His ways are mysterious and often painful, Naomi’s God is Ruth’s only hope.  She has no hope in the Moabite god, and we believe she knows that following that way will end worse than mere starvation–the doom of empty religion following a false god.

          Many can identify with Ruth and Naomi/Mara in a number of ways.  Some have come to the conclusion after a traumatic event, such as the loss of a loved one, a catastrophic accident or illness, or a situation where fervent prayers were not answered affirmatively, that the religious training of their childhood simply failed, or at least appeared to fail.  Essentially, God was asked to do something on the basis of an understanding derived from religious training and God said, “No.”  We have defined this situation as your religion being “broken.”  And if you have identified with Naomi, dear reader, and been tempted to become bitter, we urge you instead to identify with Ruth.  Both faced very similar circumstances, but Ruth’s inward response was different. 

          Thus we come to Ruth’s beautiful sililoquy.  To fully appreciate what she says to Naomi, one can merely substitute another Ephrathite in place of Naomi:  Yeshua haMashiach, known to most as Jesus, Ruth’s descendant (Micah 5:2, Matthew 1:5).   It is eminently reasonable to ask, “Why would Jesus ever try to persuade anyone not to leave Him or to go back and not follow Him, as in the first lines quoted above?”  Isn’t it Jesus’ life mission to get as many people as possible to follow after His Elohim?  Yes and no.  If you are “well”, that is, your religion works for you–may we ask, What need do you have of Jesus, or of His God?  But if you are not “well”, that is, your religion is broken, then you will say to Him:  “Wherever You go, I will go; wherever You live, there I will live.  Your Elohim will be my Elohim.  Nothing will separate us.  For I have seen life without You, and that way is only death.  Only You have the words of life.”

          Only the sick have need of a physician.  If your religion works, dear reader, we are happy for you.

          Permit us to point out that He has the advantage of being able to skillfully engineer, that is, arrange, all things.  May we also point out that He has arranged the events of life specifically to bring you to the same confession as Ruth:  I don’t care where You go, I’m going there with You. 

          He has caused your religion to fail, specifically so that you will find Him.  When your religion is broken, only Jesus the Christ offers any hope–not your doctrines, not your creeds, not your beliefs, not your understanding, and not even your will.  Cling to Him, don’t let anything but death separate you from him.  For He has promised that neither death nor life can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus.

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, the king of forever, for because you were lifted up, you will drag all men to yourself.  Thank you for breaking our religion.  Only you have the words of life.  Baruch ‘ata.

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