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| Source: uidaho.edu |
One theme that keeps coming up is the concept of hesed in Hebrew, translated as "loving-kindness" in our English Bibles.
If love is an ice cream sundae, then hesed is an ice cream sundae with an oozing puddle of hot fudge, a thick drizzle of caramel, a mound of whipped cream, and a cherry on top.
In other words, there is love, mercy, grace, charity...and then, there is that extra bit of goodness, that ridiculously senseless kindness intermixed with it all, that makes it over-the-top, and THAT is hesed, the loving-kindness spoken about in the Book of Ruth.
Interestingly, this loving-kindness is shown most between Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. But we also see it between an older man, Boaz, and this much younger woman, Ruth. In both cases, this loving-kindness appears to cross the ethnic divide of Jew and non-Jew, and it is radically irrational in many ways, as we will see in a moment.
What I've come to understand as I've studied the Book of Ruth this week is the fact that the story centers around a Moabite woman. I used to interpret that only as "non-Jew" or "foreign" and move along with the story. But, as I've come to learn, the Moabites have a very dark history in the Scriptures. They stem from Lot's incestuous relations with his daughters (they got their father drunk on two consecutive nights and both bore children, one of them being Moab; see Genesis 19). In Numbers 25, we see the Moabite women seducing the men of Israel and introducing them to Baal worship. In the Book of Ruth, when Naomi's husband relocates the family to Moab during the famine of Bethlehem, he and both his sons die within ten years. It seems that everything associated with Moab leads to death, both physically and spiritually.
However, Ruth, a Moabitess(!), becomes grafted into the people of God when she chooses to leave behind her country and her gods to join Naomi in her return to Bethlehem. In fact, she will become a part of the Davidic family line, which is in direct lineage to Jesus the Christ! Ruth's decision, this act of loving-kindness, this commitment to her bereaved, destitute mother-in-law is far from being the sensible thing to do. After all, we see Orpah, Naomi's other daughter-in-law, make the logical choice to return to her family of origin and remain in her homeland. But not Ruth. Instead, she insists upon traveling with Naomi, even after Naomi strongly persuades her to stay. This display of hesed, this irrational, senseless, unexpected loving-kindness seeks to benefit another, not itself.
We see this counter-cultural, radical display of hesed again when Boaz meets Ruth in the next chapter. Once Ruth and Naomi return to Bethlehem, Ruth "happens" to glean grain from Boaz's fields. (According to Old Testament law, harvesters were instructed to leave behind a portion of the crop to provide for the poor.) Boaz notices this young woman and desires to protect her, calling her "daughter" and encouraging her to remain in his fields, lest she be molested in the fields of other men. He allows her to safely glean from his fields, not laying a hand on her and instructing his men not to touch her (a usual practice it seems in this time of the Judges when everyone "did what was right in their own eyes"). In Ruth 2:15 we see the following over-the-top act of loving-kingness:
"When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, 'Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her."
Did you catch that? Boaz tells his employees to leave extra grain out for Ruth to pick up, in excess of what she can manually glean for herself.
Over-the-top, I tell you!
And it doesn't stop there.
At the mid-day meal, Boaz invites Ruth to join him, saying, "'Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.' So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over." (2:14)
Ruth's belly is full, her arms are full, her heart is full. In what could only be utter astonishment and wonder, she asks him:
"Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?" (2:10)
Do you ever feel this way, dear friend?
Do ever see the gifts of God, undeservedly given to you, and are awe-struck at the utter ridiculous mercy and grace He has bestowed upon you in that moment?
A phone call comes through from a friend when you most need a listening ear or a word of encouragement...
An article pops up on your Facebook feed that answers the very question you have been wrestling with for the past week...
The person in front of you pays for your chicken sandwich...
Senseless, unexpected, loving-kindness.
Hesed.
If you have not received a gift like that recently, would you consider being the conduit of such an amazing gift for someone else this week?
As it unfolds in the Book of Ruth, this loving-kindness flows freely from Ruth to Naomi, from Boaz to Ruth, from Ruth to Boaz, and on-down the lineage to the person of Christ, who did the unthinkable for the hopeless and undeserving upon the cross of Calvary.
It is meant to be passed, shared, free-flowing, with no strings attached.
May you and I be blessed by the wonder of hesed this week, dear friend, and may our lives never be the same!
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