First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Ruth 1:1-18
I was wrong in my Steeple Notes column when I said that none of us welcomes worshipers to a wedding with the phrase “Dearly Beloved” anymore. No sooner did that appear in print, but Rod Quainton said that he still does. Which only proves that from the various and sundry clergy at First Church, you not only get quality but variety.
Which is good, because weddings no longer fit into the “one size fits all” category. So we find ourselves broadening the parameters almost weekly. Just two days ago, Lisa did a wedding which featured a dog (in a tux) as the ring bearer. There was, I am sure, a story behind it. But she’ll have to tell it. We’ve all loosened up a bit, even those who address the rest of us as “beloved.”
In a month that has been anything but light and airy for yours truly, I did experience a delightful diversion at a movie entitled My Big Fat Greek Wedding. At least it struck me just right. It was both funny and fresh. It was also warm-hearted (as Roger Ebert noted) in the way that a movie can be when it knows its people inside-out.
In terms of plot, it’s about a Greek girl who marries a non-Greek boy. Which is good from her family’s standpoint, given their fear that she might never make it to the altar. But which is bad from her family’s standpoint, because it never occurred to them that standing next to her at the altar would be a groom who wasn’t Greek. His family is similarly chagrined, although you never get the feeling that all of this cultural dissimilarity is going to blow up in their faces. Instead, you sense that while they are going to fuss over it, they are eventually going to get beyond it. Which they do by the time of the reception….at which everybody seems to be having one heck of a lot of fun (making me glad I forked over $8.50 to attend, if only at a distance). Just thinking about it makes me hungry for baklava.
In the scene that struck me as especially poignant, the ceremony is unfolding in a Greek Orthodox church which is filled on one side of the aisle with her “people,” including 27 first cousins, 16 of whom are named “Nick.” While the entire other side of the church is empty, save for three pews of his “people”….meaning that either he doesn’t have many “people,” or that what “people” he has chose not to come. Which is why, years ago, I started instructing ushers at rehearsals:
Whatever you do, don’t ask anybody anything. Especially, don’t ask anybody whether they are friends of the bride or friends of the groom. If sitting on the wrong side is going to ruin their day, trust me, they’ll tell you. If not, put ‘em anywhere. Just give me an even split. And if you come within 15 bodies of a fifty/fifty house, you can have three of anything at the reception. The bride’s mother told me I could make that offer.
I say that because I’ve done weddings with 150 on one side and 15 on the other. Which looks terrible pictorially and wrong theologically. I mean, how can there be a “wrong side” at a wedding? And isn’t one primary reason in attending to recognize that “whereas we were once ‘friends of the bride’ or ‘friends of the groom,’ starting from this day forward, we are now ‘friends of the couple’”?
Love can do that, you know….lower old walls and build new bridges, I mean. Even when the cultures seem foreign and the languages, strange. It is clear that the groom’s parents, looking lonely on their side of the sanctuary, don’t understand one word of what the Greek Orthodox priest is saying. Which leads the father of the groom to whisper words to his wife which look (for all the world) like “It’s Greek to me.” Which it was, of course….Greek to him….Greek to them….Greek to everybody. But, as languages go, the New Testament was written in it….making it “Greek” to all of us. So none of us have reason to get uppity about anything.
Moments ago, I read to you from the story of Ruth….language we love from a tale we love. But, as stories go, it takes place in an era of which we know next to nothing. It describes a time before King David (perhaps as early as 1100 BC). But it was written (in its present form) at least 600 years after that. As to why, it’s hard to say. Except that in Nehemiah 13:23-25, we read of King Nehemiah’s attempt to annul all mixed marriages. So Ruth may have been written as the party platform of a more liberal group of Jews, a group with greater tolerance toward foreigners, even to the point of accepting such into marriage. But no one’s sure. Still, as one who is soon to co-officiate (for one of our members) with a rabbi at a local temple 13 days from now….the only rabbi and the only temple in Michigan where such is possible….I can understand how this could have been an issue once, and how the Book of Ruth may have been a political statement every bit as much as a romantic folk tale.
For Ruth was a non-Jew (don’t you see), hailing from Moab (which today is Jordan). And Moab was as foreign to Judah then as Jordan is to Israel now. But the story doesn’t begin with Ruth. It begins with Elimelech and Naomi (Ephrathites from the town of Bethlehem). With their two sons in tow, Elimelech and Naomi go to Moab in search of food and prosperity. Whereupon they settle there and both boys take Moabite wives. Then everybody dies. At least all of the males in the story die (which, in that day, pretty much represented everybody that mattered). The story doesn’t say how they died or makes no comment about how three otherwise-healthy men died in the relatively short span of a decade. There’s no mention of war….no mention of a plague….no mention of an accident. But this is a story, remember. Don’t get picky. We have three men. We have three women. Suddenly all of the men are dead. And we’ve got a woman who wants to go home.
More to the point, what we have is a Jewish mother-in-law and her two Moabite daughters-in-law. The two daughters-in-law say to Naomi: “If you want to go home, we’ll go with you.” Naomi tells them: “Don’t be foolish. There’s no life for you there.” So one stays in Moab. But one goes with Naomi to the land of the Jews, even though she (herself) isn’t a Jew. The one who goes with Naomi is Ruth. And concerning that decision (which her mother-in-law accepts, even though she thinks it’s dumb), Ruth says: “Please don’t ask me to leave you or forbid me from following you. For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people. Your God, my God. And wherever you die and are buried, that’s where I’ll die and be buried.”
And sopranos have been singing those words at weddings ever since (even though, as originally spoken, they had nothing to do with a wedding and represented, not the heartfelt devotion of matrimony, but the cross-cultural bonding of family). Eventually, Naomi finds Ruth a husband….a Jewish husband….a rich Jewish husband. But that comes later in the story. And for those of you addicted to True Confession magazine, the search for Ruth’s husband involves a little discreetly-described premarital hanky-panky. As endings go, the conclusion to the Book of Ruth is more fairy tale-ish than it needs to be and, as such, does not concern me here.
So what does concern me here? Why should we remember Ruth today? I suppose we should start with Matthew’s genealogy which lists Ruth as one of the lower branches of Jesus’ family tree. Through her second husband, Boaz, Ruth became the mother of Obed….who was the father of Jesse….who was the father of David. And every Christmas Eve we read of Jesus “being of the house and lineage of David.” Which is interesting. But I doubt that you are going to go to brunch today and marvel (over your omelet) that a twice-married woman who wasn’t even Jewish by birth is buried in Jesus’ family cemetery somewhere.
Or I suppose we could remember Ruth’s incredible kindness to Naomi and talk about the biblically-recommended way to treat your mother-in-law. But I’ll leave that for you to work out on your own. As mothers-in-law go, mine was great while I had her. And I only hope that, while I had her, I did right by her. I think I did.
No, my intent in reading Ruth this morning has less to do with genealogy or in-law relationships than with covenants….a “covenant” being a wonderful biblical word about a deal that God makes with people, and then challenges them to make with each other. A covenant is the closest thing to an unconditional deal that I can describe….meaning a permanent deal, a durable deal, a “till death us do part” deal. I mean, isn’t that what Ruth promises Naomi? I think that’s what she says. “Don’t try to dump me, because I have every intention of walking beside you in life and lying beside you in death.” More amazing still, Ruth doesn’t ask the terms of the deal before inking the deal. In point of fact, terms have nothing to do with the deal.
Most of us worry about terms….what they include….what they don’t include….whether they are favorable or unfavorable….and whether they are clearly spelled out (as opposed to having some of them hidden). Robert Frost voiced popular opinion when he wrote: “Good fences make good neighbors.” But I know all kinds of people who (today) care not one whit about fences, but who would amend Frost to read: “Good contracts make good neighbors.” People want to get things written down. Preferably, with notary.
I may have told you before how contracts differ from covenants in marriage. Contracts define terms and set limits. I’ll do this….you do that. I’ll bring this….you bring that. These are my jobs….these are your jobs. My part….your part. My share….your share. Which quickly becomes my half….your half.
And since contracts are often expressed mathematically, the idea of “my half, your half” quickly becomes a fifty/fifty relationship. But I’ll tell you what happens to most fifty/fifty relationships. They fail, that’s what happens to them. And I’ll tell you why they fail. In fact, I’ll tell you personally why they fail. Because many days, I don’t bring fifty. A lot of days, I don’t bring forty. Several days, I don’t bring thirty. Occasionally, not even twenty. And every now and again, I fall short of ten. Sad to say, there are days when I come totally empty of hand, bringing nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nothing there. Cupboard’s bare.
And if on those days Krissy stops at fifty….saying: “Here it is, everything I said I would bring (just as we agreed)”….she will have done her half, delivered her share and fulfilled her contractual obligation. But if she stops at fifty, we’ve still got a gap, don’t you see. On the days I come with nothing, either she brings it all or we don’t connect.
But here’s the hard part. Most people can do that in the short run. She can bring it all one day, because she knows she’ll need it all the next. Which is nicer than fifty/fifty. But is still contractual, don’t you see.
Unconditional love (if such a thing is humanly possible….you tell me) says: “Even if it never comes back….even if days stretch into weeks, weeks stretch into months, months stretch into years, and I am forever the hundred and you are forever the zero, I will not cut you off, pull the plug or let you go.”
Like I said, I don’t know if that’s possible. I hear a lot of loose talk about unconditional love. It’s a lot harder than anybody thinks it is. After all, we all have our limits. But isn’t that the ideal we describe at weddings? We talk about the biblical model for marriage as being the love of Christ for the church. I think that means “all the way….without thought of cost, price or even return.”
Miroslav Volf of Yale writes (in what appears to be a wedding homily):
Here’s one way to put it. Soon you will want to purchase a home. If you are lucky, you will get a good deal. And what’s a good deal? A good deal is paying less than the house is worth. A fair deal is paying exactly what the house is worth. And a raw deal is having to pay more than the house is worth.
But in a relationship, it is just the opposite. To give less and get more is selfish. To give exactly in proportion to receiving is fair. But to give more and expect less is love. So is love a raw deal? Contractually, yes. Covenantally, no.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not equating marriage with martyrdom. And I know that all giving and no getting isn’t likely to make you very happy. It may, however, make you more Christ-like. And there is also this. The closer you can come to loving without conditions, the more likely it is that the love you give will begin to transform you, whether it does anything for anybody else. That transformation takes place from the inside out. And, over time, that transformation will make you incredibly attractive and very hard to resist.
One of the things about being with somebody for a long time is that you spend fewer and fewer days wondering whether you got a good deal or a raw deal (and please, don’t raise that question while cutting into your omelet). The reason the “good deal/raw deal” question matters less and less over time is because you have become the “real deal.” It happens, you know. To Greeks. And others, too. Opa!
