VII.
Today let’s focus on the conversation between Naomi and Ruth.

VIII.
Ruth 1:6-18, 22 (NRSVue)

Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

So she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you,
     to turn back from following you!
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,
     and there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus to me,
     and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

IX.
As I read and reread Ruth’s words they take on more depth for me than a mere conversation between the two. Should I call Ruth’s words a promise to Naomi? No. That still does not fully capture the spirit and depth for me.

Should I call it a covenant? That gets much closer to the force of the words for me.

What do you hear as the most central to the covenant? That they will travel together? That they will lodge together? That they will die together? That Ruth will identify herself as one of Naomi’s people? Or that they will share commitment to the same God?

Maybe we can hear this as Ruth’s commitment to walk the same path with Naomi even to knowing Naomi’s God as Ruth’s God. She is leaving all she knows to move into an unknown future trusting Naomi and Naomi’s God.

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}