Total commitment
Rev Dr Roderick Hewitt admires the decision-making of Moabite widow Ruth.
A nightmare scenario unfolded for Naomi when her two sons died in quick succession and left her with their Moabite widows, Orpah and Ruth.
Refugee: Drought forced this Kenyan livestock farmer to leave her nomadic settlement. Ruth and Naomi returned to Judah with nothing.
It is a sad picture of men easily succumbing to death. We see Naomi standing with two young women at a crossroads; sole survivors who must now chart their own path through life, choose their future without reference to a man in the house, face up to the everyday challenges of finding food, and make complex decisions concerning land and family.
Our Jamaican society can relate to this.
Our families have become so used to seeing young men dying early because of negative lifestyles. Drugs, guns, unemployment, irresponsible and unprotected sex, crime and violence are among the deadly killers of young men in our society between 15 and 30.
Strategy
Three women under one roof do not mean that there will be peace in the house.
Naomi instructed her young daughters-in law to re-evaluate their situation and what the future holds for them.
She does not hold on to them as to some kind of insurance policy for her old age. She desires God's kindness upon their lives and does not believe her future resources will make the lives of Ruth and Orpah better. She begged, urged and beseeched them to return home in order that they are not condemned to a life of poverty and social exclusion.
She kissed them goodbye but only Orpah accepted it. She made a sound and sensible decision and left for her journey home. But Ruth stood firm. "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God, my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me severely if anything but death separates you and me (Ruth 1.16-17)."
She refused to embrace the Orpah model of acting in her own interest.
Choice
Her decision seems on the surface to be emotional and nonsensical. Why would
she reject returning to the security of her mother's home for insecurity with a poor elderly widow, setting out on a high-risk journey back to Judah?
How stupid can a young woman become, choosing an old widow to guarantee her future rather than looking out for an economically secure young man to be her partner in life?
Worse yet, she pledged her allegiance to Naomi "until death us do part". This was a relationship no man could untie!
Naomi gave up trying to change her mind. She had not seen faith like that in all her life. Together they made the risky journey to Judah to the town of Bethlehem.
Their arrival caused a stir in the town.
Those who knew the Naomi that left years ago could not believe their eyes. Like a modern deportee who has fallen on hard times overseas she returned home empty.
She had to start life again in her old age from scratch.
When people asked about her situation she responded: "Don't call me Naomi (sweet one), call me Mara (bitter one) (1.20)." She summed up her condition as a journey from life to death, a life without hope or future. On the other hand Ruth envisioned possibilities. Fate would not control her life but faith!
She stood firm for truth, loyalty, integrity and solidarity in relationship. She chose love and solidarity with a poor widow rather than the safety of personal fulfilment and meeting her own immediate needs. She is a symbol of life built on total commitment.
Naomi's vision of sorrow and death did not have the last word. And Ruth became the ancestor of the woman who gave birth to Jesus, Mary.