"I've Been Meaning to Ask: Where Do We Go From Here?"

 The First United Presbyterian Church of Loveland

“I’ve Been Meaning to Ask: Where Do We Go From Here?”

Rev. Amy Morgan

August 15, 2021

Ruth 1:1-22

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons.

 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.

 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.

 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years,

 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

 6 Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the LORD had considered his people and given them food.

 7 So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah.

 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back each of you to your mother's house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

 9 The LORD grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband." Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud.

 10 They said to her, "No, we will return with you to your people."

 11 But Naomi said, "Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?

 12 Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons,

 13 would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has turned against me."

 14 Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

 15 So she said, "See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law."

 16 But Ruth said, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

 17 Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!"

 18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

I’m a person who has back-up plans for my back-up plans. 

Before our big road trip last summer, I plotted out each segment of our journey on Google maps, determining where we should stop and how long we should drive each day, reserving campsites and planning activities for each location. But that was only step 1. I then created a binder with printouts of every reservation, information on each area, and the map and directions between each of our stops. Because sometimes we lose cell reception in rural areas, and I didn’t want us to end up in the middle of nowhere with no idea where we were going. 

The first day of our trip, we hit a roadblock going into South Dakota. The Pine Ridge Reservation was closed off to anyone except tribal members to try to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Fortunately, my cell phone had enough reception to navigate us around the reservation and to our campsite, which ended up being a two-hour detour. So much for my carefully planned drive times. The next day, as we neared our destination, the rain was pouring down so hard we could barely see through the windshield. What we could see was streets that were starting to flood. So we bailed on the campsite and got a hotel room. When I called the campsite to see if we could cancel our reservation, we learned I had mistakenly booked it for the night before and my card had already been charged. So much for my carefully planned reservations. 

The third day of the trip, we encountered just the situation I had prepared for. Driving through the woods of northern Wisconsin, we lost cell phone reception, and I quickly turned to my printed maps. We easily found our campground, nestled next to a beautiful lake. But we couldn’t find the campsite I’d reserved. There were only about a dozen sites, and our number was 36. We parked the car in a vacant site and  looked carefully at the sign for the campground. It said that these sites couldn’t be reserved and were first-come first-served. Odd. Then my husband looked more closely at the reservation I had so responsibly printed out and started laughing. “It’s the wrong campground!” he howled. “No it’s not!” I insisted. “This is Laurel Lake Campground.” “Yes,” he chuckled, “but you reserved a spot in Laura Lake Campground.”

Why one state park would have two campgrounds with such similar names is beyond me. But so much for my carefully printed maps. 

Even someone whose backup plans have backup plans can still find herself lost. 

When a famine arrives in the land of Bethlehem in Judah – an ironic famine given the fact that Bethlehem literally means “house of bread” – Elimelech has a backup plan. Now, it’s not a great backup plan. The land of Moab isn’t that far from Judah, about the distance between Ann Arbor, MI and Columbus, OH. But much like Ann Arbor and Columbus, the homes of the University of Michigan and The Ohio State University, there was a good deal of enmity between those folks. And it’s hard to believe the weather and crop yield were all that different between the two locations.

But they manage to make it to Moab before the backup plan starts to really fall apart. First Elimelech dies – we don’t know why or how. But we do know this leaves his widow, Naomi, in a precarious situation. Among the Hebrew people, there is a strong social safety net for widows because God makes it clear to the Israelites that they have a divinely ordained responsibility to care for them. But Naomi isn’t in Israelite territory anymore. 

Fortunately for her, Elimelech’s other backup plan comes through. He has sons. And his sons will take care of Naomi. But then they do something a little problematic: they marry Moabite women. This might seem like a good idea, given that it looks like they’ll be in Moab for a while, and these men need heirs just like anybody else. But there are a number of places in the Israelite narrative that indicate God frowns on that. 

We don’t know exactly how long the sons are married, but if it’s any substantial length of time, we have to assume the women they happened to choose were unable to bear children because they aren’t mentioned anywhere in the story, particularly when the daughters-in-law head toward Judah with Naomi later on. So much for the plan to have heirs. 

And then the wheels really come off. Both of Naomi’s sons die. Again, we don’t know why or how, but we do know that it leaves Naomi and now her daughters-in-law in a very precarious position. All the backup plans have failed. And these women are lost. 

All the backup plans we make won’t protect us from hardship, loss, grief, disappointment, and all those other experiences of life we’d prefer to avoid if we can. I’ve been in many pastoral conversations with folks who are lost and never expected to be. I’ve listened to folks who have lost a spouse or received a devastating diagnosis, who have been served with divorce papers or lost their job as they try to answer the question, “Where do I go from here?” The path for their life is no longer clear. The GPS has stopped working and they’re in the middle of nowhere and have no idea where to go now.

When Naomi finds herself there, she gets word that there is once again bread in the “house of bread,” in Bethlehem. And so she makes her own plan to head back to her land and her people and hope to live out the remainder of her bitter life there. Her daughters-in-law come along, until Naomi realizes this is a terrible plan for them and tries to persuade them to return home and make their own plans. Orpah is sad to leave, but goes as she’s told. 

But Ruth refuses. Ruth is just as lost as Naomi. Her husband has died. She has no children. She might return home and find another husband. But that’s not where she decides to go. 

Because Ruth does not feel lost. Her plan was never dependent on everything working out all right, on unrealistic ideas that her husband would live forever and she’d bear a dozen sons and they’d all live happily ever after. 

Ruth’s plan was hesed. Hesed is a Hebrew word with a very specific meaning. It is translated in the book of Ruth as kindness or loyalty. In the Psalms it is often translated as steadfast love or loving kindness. But essentially, hesed describes an action that is essential to someone else’s well-being, can only be accomplished by a particular person, and is done within the context of an existing, positive relationship. Hesed is not a random act of kindness. Hesed is your sister giving you her kidney. 

There is perhaps no better illustration of hesed in scripture than Ruth’s beautiful speech to Naomi. No matter what goes right or wrong, no where Naomi goes or what she does, no matter who lives and who dies, Ruth’s plan is to stick with Naomi, to be loyal and kind to her, to never give up on her, to dedicate her life to her. Her plan doesn’t need a backup plan. Her plan is always hesed. 

Fortunately for me, that was my husband’s plan, too. Without a reservation and without GPS and cell reception, he laughed. And he started unpacking the car and setting up the tent in one of the best campsites of the whole trip. In the face of my failure, he was loving and kind, dedicated and loyal. His plan was never to depend on all my backup plans or for everything on the trip to go smoothly. His plan was hesed. 

Most of us have felt lost in one way or another in the last year. Some have lost loved ones, and some have lost faith. Some have lost jobs and others have lost time. We are only now beginning to process all we’ve lost, to grieve all the backup plans that unraveled, all the hopes that were derailed. All of us are wondering, “Where do we go from here?”

What Ruth’s commitment to hesed teaches us is that where we are going is less important than who we are going with. Commitment to one another is more important than commitment to a plan. If our plan is to love and dedicate ourselves to each other, we don’t ever need a backup plan. Even death cannot part us from one another. 

We’re going to have some time now to talk a bit about hesed and the relationships that are needed for this kind of dedicated kindness. It’s been a couple of weeks, so just a reminder of our ground rules to maintain a safe space in these conversations. Listen and don’t try to fix, share what you’re comfortable sharing, be curious and respect confidentiality and if you need to, follow up with each other later. 

Okay, here’s our first question of the day:

Who is someone in your life you'd like to grow closer to or reconnect with?

What might that growth and connection look like for you?

And our second question is:

When has someone shown you hesed? How did you feel?