Returning to Ruth and Naomi

Although I've been fascinated by the Biblical character of Ruth my whole life, I'm surprised to find that I haven't written much about her.

In my early years, I was fascinated by the daughter-in-law aspect of Ruth. My teenage brain wondered what it would be like to be married and for both my husband and brother-in-law to die so close to each other. My older self wonders what kind of catastrophe had fallen upon the family or the land to make this happen. I look at that picture of Naomi telling those women to go back to their families of origin. One leaves, and one stays.

My current self can feel the terror in the situation of these women. They don't have great potential outcomes. If they return to their families, their families may not take them in. If we read between the lines of the story, it seems that hard times have descended everywhere. There's mention of famine, and when resources are scarce, older women do not fare well. Ruth and Orpah have been married for 10 years, so their chances of starting over with a new husband are not very good.

When I was in college, I saw the story of Ruth and Naomi as one of feminist sisterhood, and in some ways, it is that--but my college self would not have seen the utter desperation in this story. My older self is aghast at what Naomi asks of Ruth--essentially to seduce the man who could take care of them both. The story has a happy ending, with Boaz making an honest woman of Ruth, but it could have gone badly.

We might see this story as a tale of kindness, and it is. Ruth's kindness to Naomi goes before her, and that's why Boaz is so protective of her, even before he decides to marry her.

It's also a tale of kindness towards outsiders. Ruth and Naomi are the ultimate outsiders: two women from a distant country with few connections. It doesn't take much imagination to tie this story to our modern history.

Like many, I have been distressed at the tone of some of our leaders when it comes to immigration policy. I am distressed to realize that I've spent my whole adult life feeling this way.

We have enough room for everyone who might want to come here to this country. There are huge swaths of the U.S. that are empty. Some are truly uninhabitable, but most were once inhabited.

I understand that these arguments against taking refugees are not based in rationality. I understand the scarcity consciousness behind some of them. I understand the fear of those who are different.

But I also understand the richness that we all bring to the pot of stew where we live. One ingredient does not make for anything interesting.

The end of the book of Ruth shows what can happen when we open our hearts to outsiders. At the end of the book of Ruth, we find out that Ruth is an ancestor of Jesus. If Boaz had treated her the way that so many refugees and immigrants are treated today, we might have had a different kind of miracle--or no miracle at all.