Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen

Perhaps some of you are familiar with Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation.”  The book is all about the generation of American men and women who braved the Great Depression and prevailed during World War II—the generation of our Grandparents or even perhaps for some of you Great Grandparents.  Perhaps you remember from your US History classes G.I. Joe and Rosie the Riveter were two symbols of that generation.  They were a tough and courageous generation, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using such a superlative to describe them— the “greatest” generation.  But what then are we to make of their children’s generation or their grandchildren’s generation?  What about our generation (notice I put myself in with you guys) can we also be the greatest or at least great…or good.

Unfortunately, the adjectives that some people use to describe the generations that follow the “greatest” generation, including our own, are self-absorbed, childish, selfish, noisy and materialistic. 

Leonard Steinhorn is one scholar who argues otherwise.  He points out that it is the generations that follow the “greatest” generation, beginning with our parents and including our own, that deserve credit for a whole range of positive changes in American life including environmental protection, improved race relations, women’s liberation, tolerance, openness and equality—to name a few.

Steinhorn, who is a professor at American University, argues that our country is far more open, inclusive and equal than at any time in our history.  About women, he writes that the era following the “greatest” generation, “has been one of breathtaking change.”  Since the “greatest” generation, “American women have affected one of the greatest social metamorphoses in recorded history.”  Goodbye, Donna Reed and June Cleaver.  Hello, Condoleezza Rice and Hilary Clinton.

Of course, the women born after the “greatest” generation were not the first to experience or create breathtaking change.  Open the pages of the Bible and you will find women in both the Old Testament and the New who shattered traditional expectations and moved with the liberating power of God into a new and even more faithful future.  And one such woman is Ruth whose story we hear in tonight’s Old Testament lesson.

Let me begin Ruth’s story by giving you a little background.  The verses that precede tonight’s lesson tell the story of a woman named Naomi and her family.  They are Israelites who are facing a time of severe famine in their land.  So they make the decision to move away from their home—which is the little town of Bethlehem—perhaps you have heard of it.  It’s ironic that Naomi’s family has to leave Bethlehem, because Bethlehem literally means “House of Bread.”  But anyway, the famine is quite devastating, so Naomi travels with her husband and two sons to the land of Moab, a country not to distant from Israel, in search of a better life.  Now Naomi’s husband dies in Moab, and her two sons marry Moabite women—Orpah and Ruth.  Sadly, after about 10 years, both of the sons die so Naomi is left with only her two daughters-in-law.

Now please realize we are talking about a time when a woman was in real trouble if she did not have a husband or a son who could earn a living.  A woman without male relatives to care for her was likely to end up desperately poor; more so even, if she was living in a country other than her own.  A foreign woman without male relatives was the lowest form of human life in the social strata of the time.  So Naomi decides that her best bet is to move back to Bethlehem where she can hopefully rejoin her extended family who might give her food and a home.  

So Naomi begins her journey back to the little town of Bethlehem with Orpah and Ruth her two daughters-in-law at her side.  However, she soon realizes that these Moabite women, her daughters-in-law, will have a better chance at remarriage, and a decent life, if they stay in Moab which is their homeland rather than returning with her to Bethlehem.  Again, as I said, this is a time when discrimination against foreigners was acceptable behavior.  It was much more likely that a woman from Moab could find a husband in Moab rather than in another country like Israel.

“Go back each of you to your mother’s house,” urges Naomi.  “May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.”  Naomi knows that her relatives in Bethlehem have a negative view of outsiders from other countries.  Deeply entrenched prejudice about race, gender, and ethnicity is alive and well in the ancient world, and multiculturalism has not yet become a movement, to say the least, among the people of Israel.  So she sends her beloved daughters-in-law away, because she wants them to be spared this kind of discrimination and perhaps even find a new life among their Moabite relatives.

So understandably, Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and returns home to her relatives in Moab, but Ruth refuses to budge.  Surprisingly, she clings to her mother in law and says to Naomi, “Where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”  Perhaps these are some of the most beautiful words spoken in all of scripture.

Ruth’s statement is both bold and faith-filled.  She turns away from a family in Moab that represents her best chance at a decent life, in order, to support her beloved mother-in-law.  After all Naomi could return home to Bethlehem to find no family that will help her, and, in that case, she will need Ruth’s support and friendship more than ever.  Moreover, Ruth refuses to be intimidated by the new country and town she will be entering knowing full well that she will experience racial, ethnic, and gender prejudice when she arrives.  And in the face of all of this, she commits herself to moving in a new direction, sticking to the side of her friend and trusting completely in Naomi’s God—the God of Israel.

And moving forward in Ruth’s story we see that the God of Israel smiles on Ruth’s determination to support Naomi and follow her to Bethlehem despite the risk.  In time, Ruth meets and marries an Israelite man named Boaz despite the fact that she’s an outsider.  And together, they have a son named Obed, who becomes the father of Jesse.  And Jesse is the father of someone that I am sure you have all heard of—King David.  And do you know what that means?  Ruth contributes to the bloodline that will eventually produce the baby Jesus.  In that same little town of Bethlehem many, many years later a frightened group of Shepherds will hear from the lips of Angels, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am brining you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David as Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

Notice that David’s branch of Jesus’ family tree begins not with pure Israelite blood and not with traditional practices which normally would have shunned a marriage between a man of Israel and a woman from another country.  Instead, this branch of Jesus’ family tree starts with the bold and daring faith of a foreigner, a Moabite woman named Ruth.  A woman who was determined to support her dear friend Naomi and embrace the God of Israel despite the risk of becoming destitute herself and despite the risk of experiencing discrimination and prejudice as a foreign woman living in a country other than her own. 

Ruth is a very important part of the “Greatest Story ever told.”  That story is the story of God’s love and salvation given to the world in Jesus Christ.  In other words, Ruth is a part of the story that leads to our own personal experience of love and salvation—yours and mine.  You see Ruth’s determination to love a friend no matter what the cost—Ruth’s determination to face discrimination and prejudice and overcome it to create a life for herself, opened a door for the God of Israel, our God, to work through her—to work through her to bring into time and space the greatest expression of love that the world has ever or will ever know, Jesus Christ our Lord.  

When we are all walking together in Ruth’s path, there are no Great, Greater or Greatest Generations. There is only one generation—the people of God who step out to love boldly—pushing over barriers of hate and discrimination despite the cost to ourselves.  And the people of God are not divided into old and young, black and white, male and female, American and immigrant.  We should not make distinctions between liberals and evangelicals, Protestants and Catholics, singers of praise music and hummers of hymns.  Instead, the people of God are those individuals who have discovered this truth.  If we love people boldly and tear down walls of discrimination despite the cost to ourselves, God will work through us, as he did Ruth, to manifest his love in unimaginably glorious and life changing ways.  Amen.

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