Thoughts for the Day

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. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi ... but Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there for about ten years, both sons, Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons or her husband.

Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard that the Lord had had consideration for his people and given them food..... 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. 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. .... Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. So she said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ 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. 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!’

When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

How many formal agreements have you made in your life? Thinking back I can remember the obvious ones like buying a house, and getting married, but there are others - sometimes written and sometimes verbal - committing to publicly reading the bible aloud over a week; singing a 12 hour marathon of hymns with a teenage choir; being licensed as a deaconess and eventually a priest; and agreeing to become Vice Chairman of SPCK at a time when the Society needed to sell its bookshops. But as serious as some of these commitments were, nothing were as important as committing to Christ at my Baptism aged seven years old, and my Confirmation at 11 years old. Although my understanding of the commitment was limited at the time, I knew I wanted the faith that my mother had - a faith that filled her life with hymns and singing. These along with psalms and a sense of joy, have underpinned my whole life and meant that even when I got things wrong I kept on going trying to honour my original agreement with God. .

Today's reading from the book of Ruth includes one of the most amazing passages found in scripture. Despite being of a different culture and religion to her mother-in-law (she is after all a Moabite), Ruth will not leave her when her husband dies. Remember women on their marriage went to live with their husband's family, though if the husband died it was possible to return to their original home as we see with Orpah. Instead Ruth makes a covenant promise with Naomi: "Where you go, I will go....your people shall be my people, and your God my God." She will travel the journey around the dead sea and through the Judean wilderness to Bethlehem with Naomi, and make her home with a strange people, in a strange country. But she will become the great-grandmother of King David and hence legally through Joseph an ancestor of Jesus.

Can we reaffirm our commitment to God this New Year, and if so how can we keep to our agreement?

Lord Jesus Christ,
help us to be practical in our thinking
this New Year.
How may we re-commit to You
and keep to the agreement?
Help us to take small but sure steps,
and when we make mistakes and slip back
to pick ourselves up and start again.
Amen.