Reflection on the book of Ruth

The book of Ruth tells the story of two women, Naomi and Ruth, who are respectively mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Naomi is a Judean from Bethlehem. Famine forces her to move east with her husband, Elimelech, and her two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to the far side of the Dead Sea. They settle in the fertile country of Moab, where other gods and goddesses are worshipped. There they make a life, the sons eventually marrying Moabite women. Yet, after a time, her husband and her sons die, and she is left a widow with no close male kin in Moab to care for her. Without this security, she decides she must return to her homeland where she has heard the famine is over, but admonishes her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, to go home to their mothers' houses and await new husbands. Orpah, after initially resisting this plan, acquiesces, but Ruth clings to Naomi, saying to her:
"Do not press me to leave you
or 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 --
there will I be buried.
May the LORD do thus and so
to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me
from you!"

And so Ruth accompanies Naomi to Bethlehem.

The Hebrew word for widow means "the leftover piece." To be blunt, Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah are the husks left when the grain of their husbands' lives had been consumed. They appear, in this culture, to be worthless, empty shells. Yet the book happily ends with marriage and the birth of a child, the fullness and fertility of life restored.

Look at this story as a story in our world today, as well as a recurring inner drama.

Where do you see people in the world like Naomi and Ruth, people who would seem to be no more than the empty shells of bygone lives?

When you divert your gaze as you pass them on the street corners holding homemade placards, politely nod at them in the nursing home halls that reek of antiseptic, hurry past them in the silent office cubicles on your floor at work, or silently seethe at the unresponsive, television-watching ghost sitting on your living room sofa, what is the worth you assign them?

What do you imagine their dreams of security look like?

What contribution might these leftover pieces yet make?

What possibilities for restoration, new life, and abundance might yet exist within them?


Who are the Ruths who might walk with them on their
journeys home -- clinging to them, loving them, placing
faith in them, feeding them, appreciating their wisdom,
and recognizing their holiness?

What landscapes, places and nations appear as dried out husks – lifeless, worthless,
used up drags on the rest of the world?

What might it take to secure a future for these forgotten lands?

What worth might there yet be in these broken shells? What unseen fertility? What new purpose? What potential fullness?

What might these shadow lands have to teach us about
about our own incompleteness and one-sided develop-
ment? How might they remind us that there are other
worlds in which it is the poor who are blessed?

How is Ruth’s story yours? Who is the widow within, the barren and broken one who is forgotten or kept out of the way lest she drag the brighter parts of you down?

What was the grain that she, as husk, used to surround?

Of what value or worth might there yet exist within her? What aged wisdom might she offer? What does she know about life and love that other parts of you do not?

What might happen were you, like Ruth, to walk with her, cling to her, and honor her as wise mother? Or, like Boaz, see the widow’s worth, supplement her meager rations, and redeem her as a rightful member of the community?

What might happen were you to make her your bride? What divine child might be born from your union?