Try to remember a time when you fell in love. Maybe it was summertime. Maybe you remember a warm evening spent walking through a park, hand in hand with someone you had had your eye on for some time. And now, now you knew the feeling was mutual. And you were giddy and light-headed with the excitement and newness.
Or maybe you were in an elegant new restaurant. A conversation starts with: “Tell me about yourself.” And the next thing you know, five hours has flown by, and you regretted the early morning commitment that made you say goodnight before you wanted to.
Or maybe you were watching the one you’d been married to for a long time already. They were fixing a faucet on a hot day, and it was a frustrating job. It took longer than expected, requiring a second trip to the hardware store. You took your partner a cup of ice-water, and your eyes met, just for a moment, and there it was… you’d do anything for each other, still.
This morning our scripture gives us a window into an intimate moment – but what moment is it? The moment Ruth and Boaz fall in love? Is it the moment they know they are meant to be together? What exactly happens on that threshing floor?
The story was set in motion by Naomi.
We know that the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have been living a rough life in the town of Bethlehem, a new land for Ruth and the home of Naomi. They were poor, stomachs empty until Ruth went to glean grain from Boaz’s field. Now they were satisfied.
In reality, the women’s story reflects the well-known Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Physiological needs come first – stop the hunger. Then the need for safety – stop the fear. Then the need for connection- stop the loneliness through love, marriage, family, relationships. According to Naomi the only way for Ruth to fulfil this need for connection is for her to get married. So, to achieve her goal, she gets Ruth all cleaned up and smelling pretty, dressed her in her best clothes, and sends Ruth off to the end of harvest celebration at Boaz’s field, with Boaz unknowingly being at the center of her plan. Naomi says to Ruth: go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then go, and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.
Friends, there are several ways to interpret what it is that is happening here. Maybe we are seeing a planned seduction – Ruth is all clean, perfumed and dressed in lovely clothes. Naomi has made sure that Ruth has taken the time to look her very best, a far cry from her typical field gleaning look. She’s cleaned the dust of her feet, the dirt off her nose and combed the tangles out of her hair. Naomi fusses over Ruth, fixing skirts, tucking in fly away hair, and ensuring her makeup is perfect. All the normal things that happen when trying to make an first impression… except, once all of this preparation is done, the story takes a sharp turn. You see, Boaz doesn’t know what is coming. Instead, Naomi instructs Ruth to wait until Boaz is full of good food and tipsy off the wine. Wait until he goes to bed, and then watch where he goes. Figure out where he sleeps and before he settles in for the night, go and lie down next to him.
There is a ghost of unspoken things and biblical innuendo hanging over the scene, the spectre of something else entirely. I’ve said many times over the last two weeks that Naomi and Ruth had no other employment options other than gleaning the grain from the fields. But that isn’t entirely true. There is one profession open to them, one that some would argue is one of the oldest professions for women. Hints of prostitution hangs around this part of the story, lingering just under the story.
Let’s be clear, anyone reading or hearing this story back in the time it was written, around 5th century BCE, would have understood that fact very clearly. The actions Naomi urges Ruth to take – with the desired outcome being a marriage proposal from Boaz – could easily be seen as solicitation, with Ruth as the prostitute and Boaz the client. It’s a tricky interpretation – How on earth can we know that this idea lingers in the story? Ever wonder why Ruth would “uncover” Boaz’s “feet?” Welcome to biblical euphemisms – sometimes, in polite company and writing, the word feet was sometimes used to refer to a person’s genital region.
But, friends, this is not a story of Ruth’s entry into prostitution. Ruth is not soliciting, and Boaz is not partaking. In fact, after following Naomi’s instructions to the letter, Ruth stops short. She stops short at stopping short – meaning she doesn’t wait for Boaz to tell her what to do. Instead of lying there waiting to see what happens, Ruth speaks, answering Boaz’s question of “who are you?” with: I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over your servant for you are next of kin.
Before we go any further, let me unpack what “next of kin” means in this context. According to the laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, close relatives must step up to guard the proper rights of the family when there is a death. In this case, Ruth is marriageable, and there is, we learn for the first time here, that there is property associated with Ruth’s dead husband – property she cannot legally own because she is a woman. Here, “next of kin” is a legal designation. It means that Boaz is not only eligible to inherent the land, but he is also morally obligated to step forward and keep the property in the family by marrying Ruth.
But now: did you notice what happened? In a story that was supposed to have taken place something like 3500 years ago, did a woman just propose marriage to a man? In the Hebrew scriptures, it is mentioned many times that God spreads a cloak over God’s people. If you know how to read Hebrew and take a moment to read the passage in the original language, you’d know that the Hebrew word used here is “wings” not cloak. But you get the picture. God spreads God’s wings over God’s people. The same word is used here as well… and what Ruth is asked of Boaz is that he offer her complete care and protection. An act of love and nurture. When Ruth askes this of Boaz, she is asking him to care for her, to protect her. In short, she is asking him to marry her, and she does it with language that deliberately ties Boaz’s action to God’s: love as an act of caring. This is HESED again – love, loving kindness, faithfulness…
HESED is the kind of love God spreads over us and is the kind of love Ruth is asking of Boaz.
And how does Boaz respond? He says: “May you be blessed by God; this last instance of your loyalty is better than the first; you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, do not be afraid, I will do for you all that you ask, for all the assembly of my people know you are a worthy woman.”
HESED is so very present in the passage, but this time it is translated as Loyalty. But it’s the same word. Love. The kind of Love God has for us.
It might be a good time to point out that this chapter is often portrayed as Naomi’s attempt to save herself through Boaz, because if Boaz were to marry Ruth, then Naomi and her family’s property and heritage would be safe. But here Boaz, with incredible grace, humility, and honesty, points out a poignant truth: Ruth is saving Boaz as well. Through their conversation on the threshing floor, Boaz reveals that he thinks himself as less worthy, as less desirable. And he is honoured by Ruth’s request.
I wonder… do you think maybe the best relationships are the ones where both people involved each think, they are the lucky one?
Can you remember a time when you realized that this person you were spending time with was indeed a person you wanted to be with for the long term, no matter how that relationship took form? And the connection isn’t based on looks or brains or money…but is solely connected to the fact that you see something special in them? When Ruth looks at Boaz, she sees a man who didn’t chase a foreigner away from his field, but rather she sees a man who provided her safety and ensured she did not hunger. When Boaz looks at Ruth, he sees a woman devoted to her mother-in-law, despite her own self-interest, and who, even in this bold and daring threshing room floor proposal, continues to care for Naomi.
After all this is said, Boaz urges Ruth to sleep. Now, because the author of Ruth is a brilliant storyteller, this scene doesn’t lead straight to the happily ever after for the two….no, not yet as we encounter a twist in the form of another man, who just so happens to be a closer relative to Ruth and Naomi, and it’s a situation that needs to be rectified. Boaz, mindful of the conclusions that might be drawn if someone were to see Ruth leaving in the wee hours of the morning helps her to leave undiscovered. Still, the atmosphere is light, and the symbolism is heavy: Boaz loads Ruth down with grain to take home to Naomi. Seed and fertility – fullness of every kind – is promised. So, Ruth leaves with a heart as full as her cloak.
As soon as Ruth returns home, Naomi starts in with the questions: how did things go with you, my daughter? But the Hebrew is much sparer and more enigmatic: who are you, my daughter? Who is Ruth now that she has returned home from her assignment? Is her reputation still intact? Did Boaz understand what she was asking for? Has Ruth returned home a woman promised marriage or not?
Ruth’s response, if it is fully reported in the text, is equally spare and equally enigmatic: He gave me these six measures of barley, for he said, ‘don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty handed.” If Naomi was digging to find out what exactly happened, Ruth was silent, leaving it to mystery.
What a night! An interaction on the threshing floor full of sexual tension and anticipation and yet carrying even more pressing questions of long-term care and security, of life and death. Which, if you think about it, is true of every deeply committed relationships. Song of Songs reminds us “Love is stronger than death, and passion fierce as the grave.” Which is much like the love of God… God’s love and passion is stronger than death and fiercer than the grave. And God cares about us, our lives and loves matter to God, in all their messiness and unpredictability and moments of embarrassment and grace. Dr. William Willimon wrote an essay on weddings and marriage which ends with these words: Our God, thank God, does not wait until we get our lives cleaned up and aesthetically acceptable, until we know what we’re getting into, until all the psychological factors indicate we are ready to mate, and until we figure out the real meaning of what it means to love another human being forever. Our God – the one who began Jesus’ ministry at, of all places, a wedding in Cana, in Galilee – entered the flesh, the tackiness and the transitoriness of it all and said, strange as it might seem to us, that our human unions are of divine consequence.”
God’s presence quietly guides the characters of the story. Next week, all will be revealed. But we can already see the ending like a well plotted rom-com. We see it in Ruth, in the cloak full of grain, quietly moving through the early morning light to show Naomi the promise of what lies ahead. This very human union that is of divine consequence.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
