Two Women, Two Choices, and You?: Ruth1: 6-22; Luke 18: 18-30
Recently, I read an article that talked about church attendance trends during this time of COVID-19, and how the pandemic is affecting church attendance. Many churches have started back some form of in-person worship, and most are still offering either exclusively or alternatively an online worship experience. In this study, it was discovered that only 1 in 3 people have consistently viewed their church and only their church without “church shopping” among videos. Another 1/3 of those surveyed said they were faithful most Sundays but definitely church shopped around for better opportunities online. And 1/3 had stopped viewing, attending, or participating whatsoever.
Faith, at its core, involves some kind of commitment to God and to God’s church. I look throughout history, and how church attendance and participation has ebbed up and down, and I wonder if we really have ever fully embraced this idea of commitment? Many of you remember a time (probably in the 1940s, 50s, or so) when churches were filled and the center of family life. If you go a few years before that from the 1890s to the mid-1920s, church participation was at an much lower. And during colonial and early 1800s America, regular church attendance hovered at 25-35%. Historically, we have struggled with the idea of commitment. What does it mean to be committed, wholeheartedly, to our faith?
We read in the Book of Ruth about Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah, and their tearful departure after the death of Naomi’s sons. All three are widowed, and, being from two vastly different and often non-friendly countries, Naomi has decided it is better to return home to Bethlehem—alone. The first choice to consider is that of Orpah, who walked away with love and a continued blessing. At first, Orpah was set on going with Naomi. She declared with Ruth, “No, we want to go with you to your people!” in verse 10. But then, Naomi gives Orpah and Ruth a reality check. She is beyond the age of remarrying and having children. She is leaving to a country foreign and hostile to Ruth and Orpah, and there is no way they could marry and be a part of the society there in a legitimate way. So with tears, and final farewells, Orpah chooses her own way and her own future and leaves.
We all have these folks in our lives. They talk about a commitment, about faith, about all the grandiose things they want to do. They feel this pull from God in their heart, but in the end, their faith will wither away, and they will walk away. We have to be prepared to handle with love and grace those for whom their heart is not ready for the journey. Faith and following Christ is not an easy journey by any means. It’s a road filled with discipline, trials, struggles, and sometimes pain, but it is also a journey where Christ’s healing, loving, redeeming presence walks with us all the way.
For some, that is hard to swallow. It was for the rich young ruler in our Gospel lesson. So many things he did right, so much faith and hope were in his life, but his heart and mind were not ready for the journey with Jesus. But Jesus loved him still. Jesus loves us when our hearts and souls are heavy, and when our spirits feel too weak to make the journey. Jesus still loved the rich young ruler. In Mark we hear that Jesus looked on him with pity, or genuine love. Jesus knew that the only thing to call back someone who is unready is that same love which drew them in the first place—God’s unconditional love.
The better, and righter path, however, is to make a firm commitment in Christ and let Christ help us live up to it, just as God helped Ruth in the scripture. Ruth made a commitment to Naomi and to God despite knowing it could make her an outcast for years to come. She says, in one of the most power-filled statements in the Bible, “Don’t ask me to leave you or turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God…May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” What a commitment; what a promise! It reminds me of the hymn “Where He Leads Me,” which says, “Where he leads me, I will follow—I’ll go with him, with him, all the way.”
Ruth had a general idea that she might face loneliness or exclusion, but she probably had no clue how poorly the Jewish nation looked on Moabite people. Yes, there was law in Leviticus which said, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself for you were once foreigners in Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:34). But, if we’re honest, this part of Levitical law gets shuffled to the wayside from the time of Ruth all the way to our treatment of brown-skinned people and children today. But that’s a sermon for another time. Ruth made a commitment knowing she faced struggles, knowing she faced a potentially terrible journey, and uncertain of what the future might hold for her. Ruth’s decision is a blueprint for us and calls us to make our own commitment to God, to God’s people, and to a life of faith.
Some struggle because they don’t understand God’s call. The rich young ruler likely missed the point. He heard Jesus’s words to go and sell everything he had and give it to the poor. He assumed Jesus was calling for him to be poor as well. But if you read closely and think on how Jesus works, that’s not correct. Jesus didn’t say, “Go be poor and suffer.” Jesus got right to the young man’s heart. The riches were more important than the desire to follow Christ. Jesus doesn’t call us to give it all up, necessarily, he calls us to value our faith more than our blessings. He gave the young man an opportunity to show where his heart truly was. Jesus’s actions require us to examine our own hearts. What stands between us and Jesus? There is our idol. It’s like the old hymn, “Nothing between my soul and the Savior. Keep the way clear, let nothing between.”
In the end, however, there is a promised blessing. Peter comments to Jesus that the disciples have given up everything to follow, and Jesus makes them this commitment: “Yes, and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brother or parent or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.” God will never ignore your faith, nor will God ever forget your commitment to follow Christ all the way. And to follow means Christ will be with you, helping you each step of the way as well.
When we make a commitment, we do so knowing that we will be journeying through times of peace and joy, through times of struggle and difficulty, and even through times of heartache and sorrow. We are, each one, measured by our commitment—to trust, to love, and to build a solid relationship in all times, and even when we mess up utterly and completely. Faith has not brought me a perfect life by any stretch of the imagination, and I’m certainly not where I envisioned I’d be when I was young. But I have never regretted the choice to follow Jesus as best as I can with his help. The question, now, is yours. As the hymn says, “Will you decide now, to follow Jesus—no turning back, no turning back?” Amen.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/725074441663067