Reflecting on readings for the 3rd November 2018 Some women of Significance.

GOD IS GOOD – ALL THE TIME!

I have heard some people say this recently like a catch phrase… so I did a google search and found a song that starts with the preacher/ singer stating, “God is good”  and the people replied, “All the time”…. And they went on and then he said, “All the time” and the people replied “God is Good”.

What is your response when you hear this?

I have a confession….  My response is not so immediately enthusiastic.  While I give intellectual assent, my heart is sending messages that oppose and saying, yes but remember how things have gone wrong in your life…. Remember how just when it got good it got taken away....   I wonder if you are also in this kind of inner tug-of-war.

Many years ago in the time something BC.  There was an Ephrathite family, (that is, they were from Bethlehem), and there was famine in the land.  So they moved.  They went to the land of Moab and settled, but the Man of the house died.  His two sons married Moabite women, but the sons then also died, leaving the mother with two daughter-in-laws.  All this was within 10 years.

Naomi was the mother and she was a devout woman of God, but with all that had happened she logically concluded, “God has turned His hand against me”. 

God is good – ALL THE TIME.  But sometimes it seems that God has turned his hand against me.  Is it my sinfulness that has brought about this hand of God?  These are the questions that naturally arise.

In recent weeks we have had readings from the book of Job and almost more than anything, I think the Bible deals with this question….  Why do bad things happen?  Is it because of something bad I have done?  Does God hate me?  Is he trying to hurt me?  IS HE GOOD?   God is good….all the time?

It is natural to believe in cause and effect… for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…  Therefore when we see something bad happen we look for the reason and make conclusions like, God’s hand is against me. 

Apparently the New Orleans disaster had two different views from Christian people – one said God was punishing the people for their great sin, the other said that God was showing mercy such that though there was a natural disaster, people were saved.  I’m just going to conclude that we always look for the cause and effect.  We always ask, why?

Our whole worship is built on the understanding that God is perfect and holy and beyond the reach of imperfect humans.  The ancient people also knew this and had a system of sacrifice to God which enabled them to enter the presence of God.  In our reading from Hebrews we see how God has used this understanding to assure us that we have unlimited access to God.  Jesus gave his life as that sacrifice and through him our communion with God and acceptance to God is unimpeded.  EVERY sin past, present and future has already been atoned for, once and for all.

As far as the East is from the West… this far, he has removed our sins…. And the East and the West never meet.

But, was it due to the sin of Naomi that all this tragedy had happened to her?  Some commentators have suggested that it was that they moved to an unholy place and others have said it was because the sons took foreign women as wives… all these are looking for the cause to equal and make sense of the effect… and all are wrong.

Just as when Jesus was once asked in the Gospel of John chapter 9, “who sinned, this man or his parents that he is blind” – the answer to both that question and the question of why the tragedy happened to Naomi is, neither, but this has happened so that the glory of God can be revealed. 

Our Gospel reading for this weekend is about the greatest commandment.  Mark 12:29-31 “… "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'  The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Jesus was often confronted by people who thought that they kept all the commandments, (stayed in Holy towns, didn’t take foreign wives etc..) but I believe most of those missed these two.  Firstly let’s look at the first one; God is one.  In this land and era of Jesus there were various religions and many so called gods.  So too in Naomi’s time, and in fact the Moabites worshiped the god Chemosh, so you can see how commentators might suggest that Naomi and her family had fallen into sin – and there are Christians today who will say that we as Christians need to be separate from the world and not be tarnished by it.  As a Street Chaplain and resident of planet Earth, I am kind of opposed to this idea.  It certainly is not the way that Jesus lived as he moved among and was merciful to all those who were labelled as “sinful”.  We are told that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners.

Our God is one and we are to love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  How does that tangibly look?  I’m glad you asked.  Let’s go back to this story of Naomi.   This beautiful woman had lost husband and sons.  Her only hope really was her two daughter-in-laws and God.  There is an exchange in the story of Naomi and Ruth that tell us a lot.

Firstly, we have the women setting off to go back to Naomi’s homeland, but then Naomi releases the girls from their obligation to her.  Naomi selflessly gave a huge gift…. that of freedom.  Naomi released the girls from their obligation to care for her.  Not only this, but she urged them to go back to their gods.  She was acknowledging that their conversion to being a worshiper of God was potentially superficial and she gave them the respect that we don’t always give others.  The respect to be free to choose to believe and think differently. 

When I look at the respect that Naomi showed the young girls and the freedom that they experienced with her, then I understand why we see that one of those girls freely chose to declare her commitment to her mother-in-law and to God.  Yes, one did return to her people and her gods, but we don’t actually know the rest of her story either.  Ruth, however, more than declared- she vowed - “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 

Ruth, has long been known for her example of being a loyal friend, but to leave it there is to underestimate the significance of her story.  It seems logical that Ruth, from a people who worshiped the god Chemosh, somehow acknowledged the magnitude of the one true God in the witness of Naomi.  In the time that Ruth had spent with her family she witnessed and received so much love and respect from Naomi, that even though it seemed that all had gone against them, she still chose to say, your God is my God. 

Ruth had married into this foreign family, probably having very little approval from her own family with their own gods, and then her husband died.  What was this new God, who she now worshipped, doing to her?  This was not the way she should be rewarded for her obedience to God… what was going on?  And what was she to make of this?    This is what many in her position would have been thinking and feeling…. But not Ruth, and I believe the difference, is the love and respect that she had in the relationship with Naomi, who was more than likely the one who instructed her in following God. Somehow, Naomi, in the midst of a foreign culture, was grounded in a relationship with God that spoke volumes to those around her.

 I imagine that Ruth, like the scribe in our Gospel story asking Jesus, may have asked Naomi, “What is the greatest commandment”.

And I imagine that Naomi would have answered just as Jesus did, “, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

From the way that Naomi loved her neighbour, and accepted her daughter-in-law into her family, Ruth understood these two commandments and freely responded with her own commitment to God and to Naomi.

The Scribe from the Gospel story also added, “--this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When we experience tragedy in our life it is even easier to feel that God is repaying us for our sins-Naomi and Ruth must have felt this, but the love and respect in the relationship of Naomi and Ruth, while an example of that second greatest commandment, is a reflection of the first commandment. 

People turn to God when they are shown love and respect.  To love God with all our strength means a willing sacrificial love for his people.  The two commandments are connected.

We read in Hebrews about the New Covenant where Jesus has declared the way to God permanently open, but in reality God has always been wanting us to come to him in the same way as Ruth, freely and fully – heart, soul, mind and strength.  She was an outsider who showed the greatest example of keeping the two greatest commands – and she was a total outsider who became the integral to the story of our salvation as she became the great grandmother of King David (ancestor of Christ).

I pray that we can all learn from and be inspired by both Naomi and Ruth; By Naomi we learn to love and respect the outsider and pray for their prosperity even if they choose to believe in and worship false gods.  By Ruth we learn to respond genuinely and freely to the love God regardless of our dire circumstances.  And both show us that, in the midst of intense suffering and grief the story isn’t over and the plans and purposes of God are good beyond our wildest imaginings. 

God is Good – All the time.