“….she said, “See your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, ‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from folowing you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God…” Ruth 1:15-17.
Mercy shows up in a wide variety of contexts and places. This strange story in the Hebrew Old Testament, for example, is about an obscure family in Bethlehem. that were struck by the famine that had engulfed their homeland. The little family consisting of a husband, Elimelech, and his wife, Naomi, and their two sons were struck by a famine that engulfed their homeland.
They went to Moab on the southeast of the Dead Sea shore where there was no famine, and food was available. After migrating, their two Jewish sons married Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. The husband and both sons all died at various points in the ten years the family remained in Moab. This left the three women on their own and without the support that their husbands provided.
Naomi, the mother-in-law, told her two daughters-in-law that the famine had ended and it it was time for her to return home. Her two daughters-in-law joined her on the way back, but they were Moabite women, and Naomi said that they should stay in their homeland, Moab. She blessed them and said, “May the Lord deal as kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.”
One daughter-in-law took Naomi’s advice and remained in Moab. But Ruth, the other daughter-in-law, said, “Do not press me to leave you… Where you go I will go….”
It strikes me that mercy was present everywhere in the Elimelech household. The Moabite daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, agreed with the decision Naomi had made. They clearly had respect for Naomi, and must have understood the longing she had to return to her homeland and her people. Later, they wept when they started to part company. They loved Naomi and were not happy about leaving her.
Mercy was also present in Naomi because she recognized that Orpah and Ruth were still of childbearing age, and might remarry and have children, a life goal of women in that time. Ruth, also full of mercy, said, “Where you go I will go…” It seems possible that she thought she might be of assistance to Naomi.
Throughout this story you find people who were more interested in the wellbeing of the other than in their own. Tears, concern about the future, the other’s future, and deep relationships with each other were markers of lives lived unselfishly and with awareness of the needs of the other.
When they returned home, Naomi treated Ruth like a daughter, and Ruth was blessed with a marriage to Boaz. Her name turns up in a genealogy of Jesus. What mercy.
Prayer:
Jesus, you taught us to be carriers of mercy to a world that often does not receive it or know how to live it. We pray that, having received your mercy, we will be super aware of those who need to be shown mercy. Give us caring and sympathetic hearts so that we can be like you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.