What Kind of Love is This?

Scripture: Ruth 1:1-18 and Psalm 146  • Deuteronomy 6:1-9 and Psalm 119:1-8 

 • Hebrews 9:11-14  • Mark 12:28-34

This week we leave the Book of Job, and take up the Book of Ruth. Naomi, Ruth's mother in law, who had settled in Moab with her husband, returns to her homeland after her husband and sons die, leaving her with only her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah. Though she instructs the two women to return to their parents’ homes, in the face of an uncertain future without prospects of another husband, or other children, almost certain poverty and lack of security, Ruth insists on staying with Naomi and returning with her to Israel. 

In Ruth 1:16 and 17, we have one of the most beautiful expressions of love, loyalty and devotion in any book, scripture or language - often quoted at weddings: "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!"

In the Gospel account, Jesus answers the scribe's question about the first commandment by reciting the Shema from Deuteronomy and a like commandment from Leviticus - sometimes referred to as the Golden Rule":"The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

And so we ask, what kind of love is this? What are the characteristics, and even more so, what are the ways of this love? Ruth is willing to share Naomi's desperate poverty and uncertain future, at a time when prosperity and happiness seem a distant memory for them both. 

Gary Charles says: "In a world and a church that are both deeply, lamentably 'polarized,' we can learn some important lessons from this foreigner, this outsider, this lowly widow, about reaching beyond our own protective walls and opening ourselves to unexpected and new life. 

Dale Andrews says: "We can join Ruth and Naomi on the road, during a difficult economic time ourselves, and offer the gift of ourselves in return for the many gifts God has given us." We can also give of our material goods to sustain our church and its mission.

June Jordan writes; "For the kind of love Ruth  showed Naomi, is 'a love that takes you to its bosom and that saves your life.' No wonder, then, that Ruth's name means "Beloved." And part of the message of the great commandments, the greatest love which ever lived, is that we are deemed worthy - beloved - of God, that Christ gave himself for us, a loving and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, that we might be saved, redeemed and made whole in communion with God and our neighbor. In all of this is relationship with God, and with God's help, each other.

Our readings this week are John van de Laar's article in Sacredise, and The Rev. Suzanna Metz' "Daring to Ask Questions."