Scripture: Ruth 1:8-17; 1 Samuel 18:1-4; John 15:13; Leviticus 19:9-10; Acts 2:44-46 Series: 2021
Part of the 2021 ‘Songs of the Bible’ series, this sermon on Ruth 1:8-17 explores what true, deep friendship looks like through the bond of Ruth and Naomi, expanded by Jonathan and David and by Jesus and his disciples. Pruitt distinguishes shallow ‘affinity-group’ friendship (sharing hobbies while sacrificing nothing of yourself) from sacrificial friendship that wills the good of the other above oneself. He argues the church is called to this new kind of friendship grounded not in shared interests or politics but in the sacrificial love of Christ, who seeks not only our salvation but our friendship.
Illustrations: bff-best-friend-forever, preachers-younger-nieces, gleaning-orchard-edges, affinity-group-hobbies, online-niche-affinity-poetry, aggies-in-the-building, jonathan-david-harp, peter-draws-sword
July 11
Wherever You Go
Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, “Go, turn back, each of you to the household of your mother. May the Lord deal faithfully with you, just as you have done with the dead and with me. May the Lord provide for you so that you may find security, each woman in the household of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. But they replied to her, “No, instead we will return with you, to your people.” Naomi replied, “Turn back, my daughters…” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stayed with her. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her gods. Turn back after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to abandon you, to turn back from following after you. Wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Ruth 1:8-16
My nieces are 18 and 21 years younger than me. I’m the youngest in my immediate family, but they are pretty close to the oldest of the next generation. One of the things I noticed in their generation is this new term of art called a BFF. When I was a child, there were no BFFs. You maybe had a best friend, maybe not, but somewhere between 1990 and 2010, this term BFF came up: best friend forever. It wasn’t enough to be a best friend. Anybody could be a best friend. You meet someone on the playground and play with them for five minutes. You’re my best friend. You’re my best friend. But a best friend forever was a next level. Now be BFFs also change. The concept of forever for an 11 year old girl is, you know, different than my concept of forever. It’s also different than someone in their nineties. It’s different from God’s concept of forever. There’s this aspect, though, that is rather beautiful. Even with the cliched nature of BFF, the concept of friendship as this eternal relationship is beautiful. What is true friendship? What is deep friendship? How does God describe friendships or BFFs? My brothers and sisters, we are continuing our series on songs of the Bible that looks through the scriptures in a way guided and retold in music. There are a lot of explicit songs in the Bible, but it all can be turned into song. For God’s love for us is so great that we cannot help but sing.
Today, Ruth and Naomi.
Ruth is one of my favorite books of the Bible. It is clear. It is direct. It is a narrative with a great point to it. There’s a great story. I could read the whole story of Ruth on a Sunday morning and that’d be the sermon. And it is beautiful. It is about a woman named Ruth and she is married to a man and he dies and his brother dies and so Ruth and her sister-in-law become widows. And their mother-in-law, Naomi, is living with them. But Naomi soon realizes, with both her son’s gone, that she doesn’t have anyone left in the area. So she decides to go back to her homeland, which is in Canaan, or ancient Palestine.
“ Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her 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 rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And 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? Have I yet 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. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.” Ruth 1:8-14 ESV
But Ruth responds in a different way:
“But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”” Ruth 1:16-17 ESV
It points to a great idea of what friendship can best be.
Ruth goes with Naomi and Ruth becomes a believer. Ruth followed Naomi back and ends up gleaning from the land. Gleaning is an ancient practice. Sometimes you still see it practiced today in Israel and in California, places with orchards where they don’t fence in the edge of the orchard. You can stop and have an orange. You’re not going to live off of gleaning completely, but it’s allowed. The edge of the boundary is for the people. God is explicit about this in the Bible. The edge of the property is to remain for the wayfarer, as it says in Leviticus 19. And so Ruth gleans. And then she goes and listens to Naomi and connects with Boaz, the man who owns the field and redeems Naomi’s family property. Property wasn’t bought in sold in ancient Israel. It always went back to the original owners eventually. And so Boaz participâtes in this process and ends up falling in love with Ruth. But the heart of it is not the relationship between Boaz and Ruth, but between Ruth and Naomi, the trust built between them. The power found in that deep friendship that is willing to go across the world for each other. And then in 1 Samuel, the next book of the Bible, we have this other example, we have David and Jonathan, the son of king Saul; Jonathan, the prince, Jonathan, the heir to Saul. And yet he does not betray David to his father. He cares for him. They spend time together. They talk together, they share together. They model for us what friendship could be. People who are not related by blood or marriage, but share life together.
We have these examples of Naomi and Ruth and Jonathan and David. But Jesus, as well, shows us deep examples of friendship when he calls his disciples. Discipulus means student. They call him Rabbi or Master again and again, sometimes Jesus even stops them from doing this. The point is not found in the power asymmetry. Jesus doesn’t treat them like objects, but as friends. We also see, in the gospel of John, Jesus define friendship in a new way: There is no greater love than this, that one lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Friendship in the ancient world was divided into a number of categories. There was friendship of mutual interest or affinity. You know, like, “You like CrossFit, I like CrossFit. Let’s go do that together. Hey, we’ll have a beer afterwards.” “You like composting, I like composting. You like shopping? I like shopping.” We have these affinities that connect people. The internet has really shifted the geography of affinity groups, because you can find people online that like really niche things in a way that you used to not be able to. So this gets far nichier. “You like 17th century, century satirical poetry. I like 17th century satirical poetry. Awesome. Let’s let’s talk about it.” You can have these affinity groups that even give a veneer of true friendship. And there can be a danger with going too deep into affinity, in that the only people who you think understand you are people who like the same things you like or dislike the same things you dislike. Friends are the ones who like what you like, right? This is not what’s going on with Naomi and Ruth. In some way, you can imagine it with Jonathan and David, but the friendship becomes deeper. It starts off with Jonathan’s hearing David play the harp and saying, “This guy’s really awesome. This guy is really cool.” We see, though, the depth of friendship by their actions. Again and again, Jonathan sacrifices himself for David. He sacrifices his own self interest. You don’t lose anything in an affinity group. This is the thing about mutual interest and affinity groups: the point of it is that you can be with this person or these people without sacrificing your interest. You can do the things you would do anyway, and be with another person or share that time together. You don’t lose any part of what you would do by yourself. If you are only with people who like the same music or the same shows or the same teams or the same politicians, you end up staying in the same place. There is no expansion of your heart. You don’t lose any of your selfishness by doing this activity or being with these people. With Ruth and Naomi, with Jonathan and David, with Jesus and the disciples, what they show us, again and again, is that true friendship, deep friendship is the giving of ourselves. The deepest friendship is found in wanting the good for another more than for yourself. And this is what we see most clearly in Jonathan and David and Ruth and Naomi and the Jesus and the disciples
wherever you go, I will go and your people will be my people
I want your good. I want you to be happy. Naomi wants Ruth’s happiness. She offers and gives advice and helps Ruth find her happiness with Boaz. And so Ruth seeks the happiness of Naomi with her own people and Naomi seeks the happiness of Ruth. David seeks the happiness of Jonathan and Jonathan seeks the happiness of David. Even when it goes against his own self interest. Jesus seeks the happiness of the disciples. He seeks their joy; that is why he calls them into this new life. And they seek the happiness of Jesus, even when it means they don’t understand what is going on. This is why Peter pulls his sword and why Jesus has to make him put it away. In Acts 2, after Pentecost, there’s this one moment when the church is all together. It is beautiful. It is powerful. They are all of one mind of mutual sharing and understanding, and it is beautiful. This is what the church can be when we live for each other. It is not impossible but we need the Holy Spirit to live this way. We need God. When our primary desire is to be entertained or to be satisfied, we insulate ourselves from others more and more. God, though, calls us to seek the good in those around us, to seek the good in our community, to be willing to make mistakes for the good of our neighbor, to be willing to make mistakes for the good of those around us, to realize that we are not here because we all like the same things. We all didn’t vote for the same people in the past election. We don’t like all the same sports teams. We don’t go to the same places on vacation. I hear there are even Aggies in this building. We aren’t from the same town. We don’t have all the inside jokes. And yet to be the church is to be called to a new kind of friendship within the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ that you are offered this day. Not only does God seek your salvation, God seeks your friendship. My brothers and sisters, may you be willing to seek new forms of friendship in the name of Jesus Christ. May you be willing to forgive others in the name of Jesus Christ, may you be willing to seek forgiveness. We seek to build a church of deep and mutual understanding in the name of Jesus Christ, where we understand why we have come together. God has called us together. Not for interest convergence, but because of the blood of Jesus Christ. You are a friend of God, and God is a friend for you. God has offered himself for you. Let us offer ourselves to others. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.