Ruth: A Story of Redemption—Ruth 3; Matthew 18: 12-14
Now, I loved my college and law school experience, and I will admit that I did not visit home all that regularly. Sometimes, however, the saying is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. One of the best parts of getting to go home was the great, big, amazing welcome from mom and my family, but especially mom. That’s been difficult during this COVID crisis because it has hampered my travel plans to visit family in Kentucky. After awhile, you start to miss that big welcome home. There’s something about that hug and that welcome that makes all of life okay. It feels like all of that time away and of missing one another has somehow been bought back and been given value again.
It reminds me of the word redemption. Now, if you grew up on the Baptist side of things, that idea of redemption, if you glanced in the dictionary, meant “saved by God’s grace from your wicked, sinful ways,” and those words wicked and sinful were always given a very sinister emphasis in the preacher’s voice. But there’s a second definition of redemption that I want us to look at today. That definition is this: to remove a debt or to regain value in something. For instance if you pawn an item, you get it back by redeeming it. You buy it back and add the full value back into it, then you bring it home.
So in our text, we see a very crude example of this kind of redemption. It was common in Ruth’s day for a related family member to “redeem” a widow and take care of her and her family. In Ruth’s time the care of the most vulnerable was placed within the family. In Deuteronomy 25, we learn that it was obligation of the next closest male relative to marry his family member’s widow, so she doesn’t end up destitute, or worse, sold into slavery. Naomi was aware of this law and of Elimilech’s family and relatives and used this knowledge to get Ruth married away. Now, while I’m sure Naomi had good motives for wanting Ruth cared for, she also had a deep self interest in making sure she was comfortable in her elder years.
This concept of the family redeemer was done out of rules and obligation. There were some issues here, though. Naomi doesn’t just have Ruth politely ask Boaz. She has Ruth ask for Boaz to be the family redeemer AFTER she has put him and her both in a somewhat compromising position by spending the night with him on the threshing floor. To make matters more complicated, there would be no small amount of gossip about Boaz marrying Ruth, who was much younger in addition to being a foreigner and outsider to the people in Bethlehem. For us, however, redemption is neither an obligation, nor does it come from tricky motives, for Christ redeems us as a free gift out of love and desire to be reconciled.
So let’s turn our attention to how redemption looks in our lives and in our modern times in the parable of the lost sheep. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves the 99 other sheep which belong to him and searches for the on which is missing. In the simplest terms, this sheep was lost, but now it is found. But there’s a bit more to that “finding.” The shepherd doesn’t just say, “Oh there’s the sheep,” then leaves it alone. The shepherd brings the sheep back, returns it to the fold, and watches over it more carefully. The sheep isn’t just saved; it is redeemed or brought back to the fold.
For some this may be a difficult passage. There were, after all, 100 sheep. What does it matter if one of them wandered off? The shepherd had 99 of them left. Besides, what about the 99? Shouldn’t the shepherd have kept watching them instead of leaving them alone? It’s tempting to think that the attention to the one sheep in trouble is a slight to the other 99, but that’s not accurate. The shepherd did not love or care for the other 99 any less, but they weren’t the sheep who were in trouble. That one sheep was in trouble immediately at that time. Likewise, God’s love is not like a pie, if one person needs a bigger slice at a given time, it doesn’t mean you or someone else gets less of God’s love. Instead, God’s love is all-encompassing, unconditional, and endures forever. There is always enough of God’s love to go around.
That’s what redemption means to us. We hear in “Amazing Grace” that iconic line, “I once was lost, but now am found.” But God’s redemption is so much more than simply finding us. God’s redeeming love brings us back from where we’ve wondered off, fills us with God’s goodness, overshadows the wrongs we have done, and overlooks faults and shortcomings. God’s redeeming love doesn’t just find us, it brings us back and says, “Welcome home, my child.”
And that’s the final point. Redemption demands a welcome home. Ruth was without family, friends, and close associates in a foreign and hostile land. But Boaz being the family redeemer said to her, “Welcome, you are home, and this is family.” Likewise the one sheep was out on its own subject to predators, dangers, and death, but the shepherd found it and brought it back into the safety and welcome of the fold.
We live in a society that seems to miss the point of redemption, where often African Americans still feel like second class citizens, where Hispanics seem to only be valued for their work and looked down on otherwise, where the mentally handicapped are still an embarrassment and ignored, where those who have physical disabilities are considered weak or needy, where the elderly are considered “beyond it,” and where people who are hurting emotionally and spiritually, who may be right on the cusp of losing it, are told to suck it up, buttercup—and their pain is ignored. Some may call these issues “political,” but if we follow Christ, then we must also buy into God’s redeeming love which makes all things new, makes the wounded whole, heals the sin-sick soul, and calls the lost, the wandering, and those in danger back into the safety of God’s fold with a grand welcome and great rejoicing.
As Christians, we have to look to the literal words of II Peter 3:9, that God “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come back to repentance.” If we believe in God, and if we believe in following Christ here on earth, then we must be about the work of BOTH God’s saving love and God’s redeeming love. For as the old hymn says, “Redeemed how I love to proclaim it! His child and forever I am.” To believe in redemption is to believe in the idea that God’s love says to us and to all who seek God, “Welcome home, my child,” for you are part of God’s family. But I also know this. If ever you find yourself as the one sheep, lost and separated, lonely and in danger, you would pray with all your might for God, the Shepherd, to come and find you and bring you home. That is an opportunity which God affords to every single person.
So just as Ruth was preparing to be welcomed into the family, so too, does God welcome us into the holy family. Redemption is an often-tricky idea in faith. It generally means salvation, but there’s something more—giving value back or re-purchase—this idea of paying the debt to bring something home. God has paid that debt, and you are welcomed as God’s beloved children. So, when you find yourself a bit lost or left behind like the wandering sheep (and trust me it will happen in life), listen quietly for your own call to redemption, for God will speak to you in a quiet voice, softly and tenderly calling you home.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/618054372178990