When she was a young girl she met my father, a man eighteen years her senior. They married and she was rescued from a life in a packed two bedroom shack that she shared with her parents and six siblings. Mom was always close with her family, but they had a tough life. So tough that she didn't like to talk about it and didn't even like looking at the rare pictures that existed from her childhood. Dad provided stability and a way to get out. The romantic side of me says they fell deeply in love and were married solely because of this love. The realistic part of me thinks that while she probably did love him, marriage was also an escape. Either way, they built a family; and that family would go on to do things neither of them would have imagined.
Mom reminds me a lot of Ruth from the Bible.
The book of Ruth takes place during the time of the judges. Because of a terrible famine in the lands of Caanan, Ephrathites, an Israelite, moved his family from Bethlehem in Judah to the foreign land of Moab. There he had two sons with his wife Naomi. These sons married Moabite women. After some years, the husband and then the two sons died. It could not have been an easy time for a widow in a foreign land. If she was ever going to leave, now was the time.
Naomi heard there was food in her home land and decided to move back.
She told her daughters-in-law that they should stay in Moab with their families, find husbands and build a new life. One daughter-in-law, Orpah, did as she was asked and left. Ruth, however, decided to stay with Naomi and worship the God that Naomi had so often spoke about. The trip could not have been easy. Two women, on foot, with no-one to protect them.
But, they made it to Bethlehem.
When Ruth and Naomi arrived they were greeted by the women of the town and Naomi told her tales of woe to anyone who would listen. She explained who Ruth was and that she would be staying with her. The two women had a place to stay, but no livelihood. So, Ruth went to the fields to glean grain left on the ground after the workers had gone through.
It just happened she gleaned wheat from the fields of Boaz.
Boaz was a member of Naomi's clan. He was a God fearing man and landowner, fair to his workers. Boaz noticed Ruth in the fields and asked about her, heard she was taking care of his relative Naomi and instructed the men to leave her plenty of grain to glean. He also instructed the men to leave Ruth alone, invited her to eat lunch with him and his workers, and told Ruth she should join the other women and glean everyday until harvest was over.
Naomi was thrilled and had a plan.
She instructed Ruth to go to the threshing floor one night and find Boaz, after he was a bit drunk and asleep. She was to "uncover his feet" and lay by him. Boaz, upon finding Ruth, had a plan of his own. He was going to take care of Ruth, marry her and buy the land so the family line would continue. But first, there was another man he had to go through. This other man was the first in line to be Naomi's guardian redeemer and he had to first say he did not want the land or the women that came with it. Once that was done, Boaz could do as he wished.
Boaz, through some tricky manipulations, got both the land and Ruth.
Ruth and Boaz were married and had a son named Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse who was the father of David. David is in the lineage of Jesus, as listed in both the Gospel of Mathew and the Gospel of Luke. (Interestingly, after David the two gospels differ on how we get to Jesus. Maybe one is the line of Joseph and one of Mary?) I think what is important about this union is that Jesus came from a lineage that united a son of Israel with an outsider. Was this to show the world should be united, regardless of where the people began?
Something to think about.
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