A Generous Love (Ruth #2)

How many of you spend time thinking about rock puns? Most of you don’t — which means you take them for granted.

Yes, they’re getting worse. Have I hit rock bottom yet?

My jokes may or may not land. But here’s the real question: have you ever hit rock bottom emotionally?

If you have, you know exactly how badly it hurts. Maybe rock bottom came when you lost a job. Maybe when you lost someone you loved. Maybe when a friend betrayed you — or when you betrayed your own values. Maybe it was the moment you realized the addiction was out of control. Maybe a crisis hit: physical, mental, financial, relational. Most likely it was some combination of all of it at once.

I’ve told you before about a couple of my own rock bottoms. One came in the first year of planting this church.

We launched on Easter Sunday of 2014. We poured everything we had into it. We had around ninety people at launch — and within a few weeks we were down to about thirty. And there we stayed.

After a while it felt like every month another one of those thirty was coming to me to say they wouldn’t be part of this anymore. I started spiraling into depression. And when I’d open up to another pastor, the response was essentially: you need to shut the doors.

I hit the bottom.

Your struggle probably didn’t involve planting a church. But if you’ve been there, you know precisely what I felt. Incredibly vulnerable. Raw. Broken. Maybe a little anger, but more likely embarrassment — and confusion. How did I end up here? In my case: God, I’ve done everything You asked. Why aren’t You blessing this?

And when you fall down that deep emotional well and hit the bottom, you think: this is it. This is the end.

Looking back now, I can see things could have been far worse. But in the middle of it, all I could see was darkness and all I could feel was pain.

Two Women at the Bottom

We started the book of Ruth last week and met two characters who, over the course of chapter 1, hit rock bottom.

Naomi moved with her family from Bethlehem to the neighboring nation of Moab — and Moab, at that time, were bullies. She’s living as a foreigner among them. They moved because of famine; her husband was trying to protect their lives by going where he heard there was food.

And then her husband died, leaving her a widow. Ten years later, her two grown sons — now married — died as well, leaving her with two daughters-in-law.

So here she is: a widow, a foreigner, vulnerable in a patriarchal culture. Rock bottom.

Then there’s Ruth. A Moabite who married one of Naomi’s sons, and who also becomes a widow. But unlike Naomi, she has no children. Which was worse for her — no one to distract her from the pain, no one to pour her love into, no one to grow up and provide for her. She was truly alone. Rock bottom.

Today, in chapter 2, the story turns. We’re going to watch God step into their deep emotional well, shine a little light, and begin to lift them out. Hope springs.

My hope is that if you’re at rock bottom right now, or feel yourself plunging that direction, Ruth 2 becomes a sliver of light in your darkness — a reminder that God is aware, God is with you, God is working, and God can lift you out.

And if you’re doing great right now? Fold this sermon up and put it in your back pocket. Because today, standing in the daylight, you can look down into the well and think everything is fine. One day you may find yourself falling in — and you’ll need to reach into that back pocket and remember that even in the middle of suffering, God is still there.

Your pain is not evidence of the absence of God or the absence of His love. Your rock bottom may turn out to be the fertile ground where God grows something great.

“At the Beginning of Barley Harvest”

Last week we watched Naomi tell her daughters-in-law to go back to their families, hoping their fathers would take them in and help them find husbands and have children and happy lives. Her name in Hebrew means pleasant, and her life felt anything but — which is why, when she gets home to Bethlehem and people recognize her, she says: don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara. Call me bitter.

Orpah heard the reasoning, agreed it was wise, and went home to her father.

Ruth didn’t.

Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.

With those words Ruth bound herself to Naomi — not romantically, but in deep covenantal friendship. Ruth saw that Naomi had no one to care for her, and stepped into that gap at enormous cost to herself.

Now look at the very last verse of chapter 1:

So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

That final phrase matters enormously.

First, some barley trivia. Barley is currently the fourth most produced crop in the world. It’s more popular outside America, where it goes into breads, cereals, stews, and soups. Here, most of the barley grown ends up as beer — so, fermented barley juice, if that’s your drink. About forty percent of American barley comes from Idaho, followed by Montana and North Dakota, because barley thrives in temperate climates — which is exactly what Israel is in the spring.

The barley harvest would fall around what we’d call May. And interestingly, the wheat harvest came immediately after. Barley and wheat are both grasses producing similar grain, so they’d harvest barley for three or four weeks, and right as they finished, the wheat was ready. For seven or eight weeks it was constant harvesting.

But the phrase does more than mark the calendar. Remember why Elimelech moved his family out of Bethlehem in the first place: famine. He didn’t trust God to provide in Israel, so he went to Moab where he believed there was food.

And I pointed out the irony — they were from Bethlehem. Yes, that Bethlehem, where King David was born and where Jesus was born, the one you sing about at Christmas. Bethlehem means house of bread.

The house of bread was empty.

Now Naomi hears the house of bread is full again. And by telling us it was the beginning of barley harvest, the author is announcing: crops are growing, the famine is over, food has returned to the house.

It’s as if this were a stage play and the crew has just rushed on to strike the Moab backdrop and set up stalks of barley. As we move into chapter 2, our scene is a barley field outside Bethlehem.

Enter Boaz

Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

Boaz walks on — but he doesn’t get center stage until verse 4. So keep the barley field in your mind, and picture this man standing off to the side, waiting for his entrance.

And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.

And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant answered, “She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”

The Gleaning Law

Back in the Mosaic law, Israelites were commanded not to harvest everything out of their fields. Leviticus 19:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.

In commanding this, God was developing a kind, caring, generous heart in His people. After all, their national story was slavery in Egypt. They knew what it was to be the foreigner. They knew what it was to be poor. So out of their own experience, God wanted them showing that same kindness outward.

But notice this isn’t a pure handout. The poor had to come and work for it. That preserved their dignity. It also gave them work experience — and perhaps, if they did well enough, a wealthy landowner might notice and hire them.

God was using His people to care for the poor and the foreigner, because that is God’s heart.

I doubt Moab had anything similar. Based on what we know from the book of Judges — the roughly three-hundred-year period in which this story takes place — the Moabites were bullies. I highly doubt they were leaving field edges for the poor.

So here’s what I suspect happened. After Ruth’s beautiful vow, these two women traveled roughly a hundred miles from Moab, across the Jordan, into Judah and down to Bethlehem — well over a week of walking. I imagine they spent that time making a plan. We’re two widows. We’ll need shelter. We’ll need food. And Naomi, having grown up in Israel, knows Leviticus 19.

Why Didn’t Naomi Go?

So they arrive, and Ruth says she’ll head out.

Why doesn’t Naomi go with her? She isn’t that old — probably in her forties or fifties, and she had the strength to walk a week from Moab. This is not a frail woman.

Maybe she’s exhausted from the journey. Maybe she felt the work wasn’t appropriate at her age. Maybe she was too busy scrolling on her phone to think about food.

Here’s what I actually suspect: she is so depressed, so thoroughly at the bottom, that she cannot face anyone. Remember — don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara.

Have you been there? Where you simply cannot bear to be seen?

So she stays wherever they’ve found to sleep and lets Ruth go alone — even though two workers would have meant twice the grain.

But her absence sets up the conversation that moves the entire story forward.

Extraordinary Generosity

We met Boaz in verse 1 and know he’s of Elimelech’s clan. Ruth doesn’t know that. She has no idea whose field she’s in. Which is why she’s so taken aback by what happens next.

Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”

Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”

But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

Count the layers of generosity here.

Kindness. “Now listen, my daughter.” This is a foreign woman, not his daughter. He uses familial language to say: I’m going to be like a father to you. A good father cares for his children.

Access. Don’t glean anywhere else — stay in my field, and stay close to my young women. Normally the poor and foreign trailed far behind the main workers, whether from a sense of their station or plain embarrassment. He says: come up front. Work alongside my servants. It’s almost as if he’s hired her — except that whatever she gathers, she keeps entirely.

Freedom. “Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping.” Don’t restrict yourself to the edges we leave for the poor. Whatever you see is yours.

Physical protection. “Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?” He knows a single foreign woman in a field of laborers is exposed — that men might harass her or say crude things. He’s already given the order.

Provision. “When you are thirsty, go and drink.” Whatever you need, I’ll supply.

And if we read further into verse 14, he invites her to eat with them — and lets her dip her bread in the wine. That’s inclusion. You’re part of the family now. It doesn’t matter that you’re a Moabite. I know what you’ve done for Naomi. You’re with us.

But the most staggering generosity is down in verse 17: Ruth gleaned until evening, beat out what she had gathered, and it came to about an ephah of barley.

Which raises the obvious question: what is an ephah?

My Bible’s footnote says about three-fifths of a bushel; another source said two-thirds. Which prompts the follow-up question: how much is a bushel? Roughly twenty-two liters. Which prompts: how much is a liter?

Converted into terms I can picture, that’s about thirty to fifty pounds of grain — and that’s just the grain, not whatever she carried it in. This is a strong woman hauling thirty to fifty pounds home.

But you still want to know what that means. Here’s the number that matters: that was roughly a month’s wages for a male laborer.

Boaz didn’t make sure they’d get through the week. He made sure they’d get through the next month, if not longer.

Where Does That Heart Come From?

So we have to ask where that kind of generosity originates.

We’re in church, so somebody wants to answer “Jesus.” But the answer is actually right here in the text. The problem is that our American eyes skate right past it.

To see it, we need to talk about chiasms.

A chiasm is a literary structure often used in poetry — you’ll see it in some of the Psalms. Your first line pairs with the last line. Then you work inward, and those lines pair. And you keep working in until you reach the center. The author is drawing your attention like an arrow to the middle, because the middle is the crucial part. It’s like climbing a mountain, taking in the view at the summit, and then heading back down.

There are at least two chiasms in Ruth 2.

The first spans the whole chapter. Verses 2–3: Ruth and Naomi. Then Boaz with the reapers. Then verses 8–14: Boaz and Ruth in conversation. Then verses 15–16: Boaz back with the reapers, telling them to let her take whatever she wants. Then verses 17–22: Ruth home with Naomi and the grain.

The centerpiece is the conversation between Boaz and Ruth. The author is telling us this is where the whole story is heading — not just this chapter.

But that alone might let you read it as a simple romance: Boaz is unmarried, thinks Ruth is lovely, and this is the ancient equivalent of jewelry and a nice restaurant. That’s reading into it. Something else is going on, and it’s exposed in the second chiasm — right at the beginning.

Remember how awkwardly Boaz was introduced in verse 1 and then just left standing there while we cut back to Ruth and Naomi at home? It reads clunky to us. Like a kid writing a story: so there’s this guy Elimelech, well he died, but he has a relative named Boaz, oh and there’s this woman Ruth, she’s connected to Naomi, Naomi’s husband is the one who died, anyway they have a conversation and she heads out…

Modern authors don’t write that way. But the original readers would have been impressed, because they’d have seen instantly what he was doing.

The chiasm opens with a relative of Elimelech — it doesn’t even lead with the name. Then Boaz is named. Then we move to Ruth talking with Naomi about going to the fields. And then we hit the center, in verse 2:

“Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.”

The centerpiece is finding favor.

And then the very next phrase: “and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.”

She happened to.

The author is telling us this is no accident. This is the providential hand of God moving her to the exact place she needs to be so that He can work.

Which reframes everything. This is not just Boaz being generous — this is God being generous. It isn’t only Boaz saying “go anywhere in the field”; it’s God saying all of this is yours. It isn’t only Boaz saying “get a drink whenever you need one”; it’s God saying I will provide everything you need. It isn’t only Boaz saying “I’m the kinsman redeemer, so I’ll be generous”; it’s God saying I am ultimately your Redeemer, and I will give you My generous love.

The Redeemer

Which brings us to Naomi’s reaction. Ruth comes home with an ephah of grain, Naomi’s eyes go wide — who in the world gave you all of that? — and Ruth says a man named Boaz.

And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”

That word redeemer is the key to the entire book. Some translations render it kinsman redeemer. He was someone within the extended family who, because of his proximity in relation, carried the role of redeemer — a protector, a guardian, or better yet, a rescuer.

Here’s one example of what a redeemer might do. Say a man owes a great debt he can’t repay, so he sells himself into servitude. He wasn’t kidnapped — he receives a lump sum up front, and in exchange works for years without pay, doing whatever he’s told, using that sum to clear the debt and provide for his family.

God routinely made provision for getting people out of that. A redeemer would do everything in his power to purchase that man back out of servitude and restore his land, so the family name could continue.

Boaz knows who Naomi is. Naomi knows who Boaz is. Ruth doesn’t. And when Boaz hears who Ruth is — having already heard her whole story — he steps immediately into his role as redeemer, rescuing them from their poverty.

Naomi Sees It

If you’re skeptical that I’m reading providence into the text, don’t believe me. Believe Naomi.

Listen again to what this cynical, bitter, rock-bottom woman says: May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead.

Naomi felt dead. She thought her life was over. All she could see was dark; all she could feel was pain. She had become Mara.

And in this moment she realizes: the God I thought was dealing bitterly with me is not dealing bitterly at all. He has been caring for me. My rock bottom has become fertile ground for something new.

Everything before this had been whispering: God hates you. God doesn’t love you. God is powerless. And suddenly she sees — no. God is with me. He does love me. And He loves me generously.

Look Up

So often when we hit rock bottom, we assume we’ve lost God’s favor. We let our circumstances define reality. And so often God is working far deeper than we can see or hope or imagine.

Which is why we have to lift our eyes off the circumstances and back onto Him.

David writes in Psalm 34:18: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

When you hit rock bottom, your heart feels broken. Your spirit feels crushed. Everything inside you feels splintered. And it is precisely there, in your deepest pain, that the Lord is near.

We sometimes forget that God knows pain. Jesus knew it physically on the cross. The Father knew it emotionally, watching His Son brutally killed. He knows your pain from firsthand experience.

If you’re at rock bottom right now, hear this: God has not forgotten you. He is not heartless. He is not ignoring you. He knows exactly what you’re going through — and if you will seek Him and trust Him, you will have the joy of watching Him work.

He may not work as fast as you want. He may not work the way you want. But maybe — being God, with perfect knowledge — He knows exactly what He’s doing, and can produce something far better than you would if He did it your way.

Will you trust Him?

That doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real. It doesn’t mean giving up, and it doesn’t mean God doesn’t care. It means you hold on. I have no idea how long. I only know God is with you, He loves you, and He is for you.

So if you’re in the well, look up. See the light.

And when I say look up, what I mean is: look at the cross. Look at the empty grave. Jesus dying on that cross means God knows your pain and has generously lavished His love on you to rescue you and redeem you from the clutches of sin.

The world keeps insisting that happiness is found in all these other places, and mostly it just digs the hole deeper. It’s like drinking salt water. The world says here, it’s wet, drink it — so we keep gulping it down, and all it does is leave us more parched. We’re dehydrating ourselves. We’re killing ourselves.

And Jesus says: I am living water. Come and drink of Me. I will give you life, and give it abundantly.

So come. Lift your eyes to the cross and let the gospel be a balm on your soul.

And if everything is going great right now — keep your eyes on Jesus anyway. Because you know your past wasn’t perfect, and you know that someday something will come along to steal and kill and destroy your joy. When your eyes stay on Him, He is the one who renews hope.

Don’t let your circumstances lie to you and tell you God doesn’t love you. It’s the opposite. This is exactly the environment in which God’s love shines brightest.

The fields are wide open. If you need a drink, come. If you need sustenance, come. If you just need Him — come.