The Rest of the Story
The Rest of the Story
Ruth 3:1-6
Before I talk about Ruth, I want to share two personal stories. Each concerns a moment in my life where I had to make a tough decision. I’m telling my stories in the hopes that they will prompt you to think about yours.
Pretty much straight out of seminary, knowing next to nothing about what it meant to be a pastor, I was thrown to the wolves. Really! I interviewed for a job, got the job offer, led worship and preached a sermon—all leading up to a congregational meeting—when the congregation would vote on whether to call me as their pastor. Normally, that vote would be a mere formality. I was taken to a nearby home to wait. They said that they would come get me when they were done.
No one came for three hours. Let me repeat that. No one came for three hours. It turns out that they had voted to hire me but only by a couple of votes. I reviewed the worship service in my head: “Did I say something offensive? Did I swear and not realize it?” None of that happened. I had to make a decision. I called my father to ask him what to do. What I wish he had said, in retrospect, was, “Something is wrong with this. You should press them to understand this vote. You shouldn’t say, ‘Yes’ until you understand what’s going on.” What he said, instead was, “They voted to hire you. You should say, ‘Yes.’ I think it was the only piece of bad advice he ever gave me.
Within weeks someone broke into my office and stole my counseling notes. The next day, rumors spread about a couple that had come to me for counseling. The rumor was that the couple had “hosted a partner swapping hot tub sex party.” They hadn’t done any such thing. It turns out that the church was split by a long term conflict into two warring parties. This rumor was just one piece of evidence of how over my head that I was.
I felt betrayed by my denomination—which knew full-well how torn apart the church was and told me nothing. I was a little frustrated with my Dad, too. I knew what the right thing to do was, though: I needed to quit. I did that the next Sunday, just before pronouncing the benediction. I told the congregation that they had deep healing to do, healing that would require someone with far more experience than I had. As I got into my car I thought, “I did the right thing but who is ever going to hire me now?”
Tracy had a job and I needed to work so I went for an unknown period of time to live with Tracy’s mother in Indianapolis to do some work for a community center there that a friend ran. Sleeping on my mother-in-law’s hide-a-bed (the kind with the metal bar that hits you in just the wrong place!), I was really down. I could not see the path forward. I was lost.
One day, the phone rang. I barely paid attention because it was the house phone. (Cell phones didn’t exist yet!). Undoubtedly, it was a call for my mother-in-law, Ann. She picked it up and then looked over at me and said, “Mark, it’s for you.” “Maybe it’s Tracy…” I said, “Hello.” The voice on the other end said, “This is Wallace Moore.” (That meant nothing to me.) He said, “I have a question for you. Are you the person who accepted a call at (insert the church name here) and then quit?” I said, with resignation, “I am.” He said, “I know what a mess that church is. Any one who is smart enough to leave that place is someone I want working for me. I’m the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmette. How would you like to be our youth pastor?”
I was stunned. I was so grateful that he had done the work to find me. I was totally amazed that doing the right thing wasn’t going to be the last thing that I would do. I worked for Wallace for the next seven years, a whole chapter of my life that was filled with my earliest work trips and great group discussions and retreats and a lot of fun. (Those kids are in their mid-fifties now!)
Sometimes, you have to do the right thing, even when you can’t see the path forward, even when you know that doing the right thing is going to cost you. You follow your heart. You do what has to be done. Every now and then, when you do the right thing, what unfolds is something that probably never would have happened if you’d been trying to outsmart life and engineer something else.
Roll the clock forward…In the midst of that time in Wilmette, I had finished my graduate work in counseling psychology and joined a group practice of pastors who were also trained as clinical psychologists or social workers. It was such a wonderful balance to have the community that I had in Wilmette and then to do the in depth, individual work with clients in the practice. I was really happy in that job until…one day…at home…a friend of mine who was also a clinician called and said, “I hate to ask you this but did you know that your boss is sleeping with his clients?” I happened to share a file cabinet with my boss. The next day, I glanced in his files and saw the names she had named. I opened the files and saw—as the all time epitome of narcissism and sheer stupidity—that he had noted when he had slept with each of those people.
“Mark, are you ready to do the right thing…again?” Thank God, I had incredible colleagues and a great mentor. That mentor led me through the process of filing state ethics charges. She listened to my complaints while I went through a whole year of acting as if nothing was wrong while he continued to function as my supervisor and showered me with advice. I felt like I needed to shower three times a day just to get the “stink” off of me. In the end, the practice bought out his contract (he profited nicely) and the board immediately made life miserable for those of us who had never done anything wrong: “Boy, are we going to have safeguards now!”
So, I did the right thing and was basically out of a job again. The youth work had kind of run it’s course, too. What in the world is going to come next? I couldn’t see the path forward. That’s when I learned that the Union Church was looking for a Christian Education Director. I loved being an educator: “Let’s try that.” I was in that roll until change came for the pastor. I was asked to be the interim. During Lent, a representative of the search committee asked me if I would consider applying for the job.
I remember the interview like it was yesterday. I can remember walking into the Jean Smidt’s living room and seeing about a dozen people in a circle. There was an empty chair—a family heirloom chair I found out later. The moment I sat on it, it broke beyond repair. Nice start! It got better—the interview, not the chair.
I won’t lie. There were big challenges right out of the box. The challenges changed but remained huge for years. Here’s the truth, though, again: it was when I did the right thing and had no idea what was next—when I couldn’t see a path forward—that something profoundly meaningful and completely unexpected and sacred happened. I found my “mystery date” of a church, the one I wasn’t sure was out there, where I have been for 28 years.
You can try to outsmart life or you can try to do the right thing. You can try to manipulate life or you can look for the right choice. You can search your heart and maybe, in the course of that hard work you may learn what it means to trust…
Ruth did the right thing early on. She followed her heart and married a foreigner, even though I’m sure that a lot of her fellow Moabites told her to marry one of her own. In ten years of marriage to her husband, she stood by him when his father died, grew to love his mother and grieved her brother-in-law and her husband with her whole heart, even when each one died. Awash in a sea of grief, when no one would have blamed her for making a different choice, she chose to stay with her mother-in-law and accompany her to a foreign country. Should could have gone looking for a new husband. Instead, she looked her mother-in-law in the eye and declared, “Wherever you go, I will go.”
When things grew desperate in the new land, she did what she had to do to feed herself and Naomi. She humbled herself and became a “gleaner,” picking through the field for left over husks of grain. Before she could even get started, though, the owner of the field, Boaz, recognizes that she is the woman that he’s heard about, the Moabite who did the right thing and cared for Naomi. Having heard that Naomi’s heart is in the right place, he guarantees her safety. He makes sure that she knows that there is water for her when she’s thirsty. He instructs the women who are harvesting the field to make sure that Ruth gets plenty of grain. Basically, Boaz says, in a variety of ways that someone who cares the way Ruth cares for Naomi deserves his care. Ruth does the right thing. Boaz notices and does the right thing on her behalf.
This morning, we hear the rest of the story. It would have been sweet enough if the story ended with Ruth and Naomi having plenty to eat and drink, if the idea was that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, when you do the right thing, someone you haven’t even met you will catch wind of your choices and make the right choice, themselves. Some times people who act with grace toward someone run into someone acts with grace towards them. Some times, good hearted people run into good hearted people and good things happen.
The thing is that the story doesn’t stop there. Instead, Naomi seems to take a turn into slightly manipulating things: “Ruth, you know that man, Boaz, that you met? He’s part of my extended family. We’ve got an ‘in.’ Here’s what you need to do. Get yourself cleaned up and smelling good. Then go find him where he sleeps. After he’s asleep, cozy up to him. He’ll wake up…see you…(nudge, nudge, know what I mean?) Naomi wants what’s best for Ruth but crosses the line into trying to force something to happen. We’ve all been there and tried to outsmart life.
Initially, Ruth does what Naomi suggests. Boaz wakes up and is flattered but…he does the right thing. “There’s a right way to do this. I am connected to your late husband’s family. We have to figure out his estate (in part, sadly, because, Ruth would have been legally considered her husband’s “property.”) Boaz offers the person who has the right, by law, to first refusal the chance to buy the land (and, by law, the rights to Ruth.) When he refuses, the land becomes Boaz’s land and Ruth becomes his wife. Shorter version— in a messed up world, two good hearted people found one another by being good, kept doing the right thing and fell in love.
The kicker of the story is that those two good hearted people who fell in love, married, and had a son whose name was Obed. Obed would later become the father of Jessie. Jessie would become the father of David, who, against all the odds, would become the most beloved king in the history of Israel. Oh ya… all of this, of course, was happening in Bethlehem, the place, centuries later, where Jesus was born.
Sometimes, even though it is going to cost you, even though you can’t see a path forward, you do the right thing. Sometimes, that’s how good people find you. Sometimes, that’s how we create room for God to work.