Castlebar Christian Fellowship

Happenstance?

Reading:
Ruth 2:1-23

Ruth Meets Boaz
1Now Naomi had(A) a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was(B) Boaz. 2And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the field and(C) glean among the ears of grain after him(D) in whose sight I shall find favour." And she said to her, "Go, my daughter." 3So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. 4And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers,(E) "The LORD be with you!" And they answered, "The LORD bless you." 5Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, "Whose young woman is this?" 6And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, "She is the young Moabite woman,(F) who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.' So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest."[a]
8Then Boaz said to Ruth, "Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn." 10Then(G) she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favour in your eyes, that you should(H) take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?" 11But Boaz answered her,(I) "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12(J) The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!" 13Then she said,(K) "I have found favour in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants."
14And at mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine." So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until(L) she was satisfied, and she had some left over. 15When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, "Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. 16And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her."
17So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah[b] of barley. 18And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over(M) after being satisfied. 19And her mother-in-law said to her, "Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man(N) who took notice of you." So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, "The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz." 20And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law,(O) "May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken(P) the living or the dead!" Naomi also said to her, "The man is a close relative of ours, one of(Q) our redeemers." 21And Ruth the Moabite said, "Besides, he said to me, 'You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.'" 22And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, "It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted." 23So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Introduction:
Just by way of summary of some of the story of the last chapter. We read about how hard times came upon Naomi and her family. A famine came upon the land and there was no bread in the House of Bread. They moved to Moab and Naomi's husband Elimelech died. Naomi's two sons married two Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. The two sons died and left no children. Then there was good news of food back home. Ruth decides to return to Bethlehem. Her two daughters journey with her; Orpah turns back but Ruth shows an amazing display of loyalty.
We saw how Naomi had become bitter and thought that God was out to get her. We considered how bitterness blinds us to past and present blessings. It prevents from experiencing hope, even when it's ripening like grain in the fields all around us.
In this chapter that I've just read, we see among other things God's amazing providence, grace and kindness. Our amazing Kinsman-redeemer.(Jesus) An amazing place of refuge and strength. (Under His wings)
We see noble yet odinary people. (The unsung heroes of this world. Not Hollywood projections but real people engaged in the nitty gritty of real life!)

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God's amazing providence.
In the opening verse we read,
V1Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the [family RSV and NRSV] clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
To quote one scholar, "By 'family', of course, the Old Testament means a much wider network of relationships than our concept of the modern nuclear family of mother, father and 2.4 children." David Atkinson. Some translations (ESV, NIV) renders it The clan of Elimelech.
Another thing that Naomi had forgotten in her bitterness and state of emptiness was that she had a relative on her late husband's side. His name was Boaz and we are told that he was a man of noble character. He is described as Worthy (Hb. hayil, lit., "of worth or excellence") In the original the word connotes character, wealth, position, or strength.
NRSV: "A prominent rich man". NIV "A man of standing."
So you could say he was a man of means and ability. He was a man of character and godly influence.
In V4 We see that he was a Godly man. He gives a Godly greeting which was reciprocated by his workers! However he wasn't just engaging in a commonplace when he greeted his employees in this way. He was a man that believed in the generous grace of God. More of his actual belief about God can be seen in V12.
In this chapter we also get to see more of the character of Ruth. (In chapter three verse eleven she is described as a 'worthy woman'. In that case it doesn't refer to material wealth but to her worthy character.)
In v2 we see that she takes the initiative to go out and work. She is humble and knows how to say please. (V7) She doesn't presume on the legal provisions of the law regarding the right to glean. She is a hard worker. In V7 Boaz' employee tell him that Ruth, has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.
No doubt that one of the reasons we get these descriptions of Boaz and Ruth is that we are being encouraged to imitate their noble lifestyle.
V3.In verse three, were told that she went out to glean.
To glean means to collect or scrape together in small quantities; to gather (ears of corn etc.) after the harvest; to strip (a field etc.) after a harvest.
There was an allowance made in the law for the poor to glean the corners and outer edges of the fields. It was part of the provision for the welfare of certain people in the land who were otherwise destitute. They usually are listed as the resident alien (i.e. the foreigner), the orphan and the widow.
Leviticus 19:9, 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 23:22. 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.' Deuteronomy 24:19. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

One writer puts it like this, "This important social mechanism helped meet the needs of the poor without robbing them of the self-respect associated in Scripture with honest toil." Lawrence Richards.

The picture I get as I read about gleaning is that you worked around the edges of the field and then you moved in after the reapers had harvested the grain. You searched for any random stalks of grain or loose grains on the ground and you meticulously gathered them in order to eke out a living.

As Ruth set out to do this very difficult work in a hot climate were told a very important detail in V3. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.
She happened.
NIV "As it turned out" KJV "her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz". NCV "It just so happened".
"Literally it means 'and her chance chanced'. We're told that by excessively attributing Ruth's good fortune to chance, the phrase points ironically to the opposite, namely to the sovereignty of God." K. Lawson Younger.
This is another one of those pointers to the providence of God. The writer is not telling us about luck or good fortune. This is not coincidence but providence. God is at work on behalf of his people.
As one writer reminds us, "'Providence' says that God is there, God cares, God rules and God provides. Faith in such a God undergirds every chapter in Ruth." David Atkinson

V4. Another bit of interesting detail. Talk about perfect timing or what? And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem.

An amazing place of refuge and strength. (Under His wings)


In V5 and 6 we read, Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, "Whose young woman is this?" 6And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, "She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. (It's fascinating how God brings this worthy man and this worthy woman together!)
As I said earlier on Boaz was a man that believed in the generous grace of God and in the folowing verses we see how he exemplified that grace himself.
In V8 he basically tells her to stick with his workers and glean after them and don't glean in another field.
In V9 He assures her of protection. He has told his young men, firmly no doubt, not to touch her. One commentator see in the language of the text that earlier on before Boaz arrived some of the men were hooting at her, possibly as she went to get a drink of water from the supplies. (Perhaps they made the catcalls or wolf-whistles of the day!)
We don't see any record of Ruth being upset but if this sort of thing was going on no doubt she was. She was in a vulnerable place. John Keats in describing the song of the nightingale in his famous poem, "Ode to a Nightingale", says,
"Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;.."

Though Boaz was a worthy man the times he lived in were often chaotic and lawless. In VV 15-16 we read his intructions to the young men. "Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. 16And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her."
Later on in V22 Naomi advises Ruth, "It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted." Boaz affords Ruth protection!
He's also aware that she would be thirsty with all the work and heat. He tells herV9 And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.
In V10 we see Ruth's amazement at the kindness that she's receiving. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favour in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?"
To digress slightly, when she refers to herself as a foreigner, she is aware that she is a Moabite. (This is how she is frequently referred to throughout the book.) She sees herself as an outsider, as a blow-in. That all being said nowhere in scripture (to my mind) can we find the idea of a pure race. There is no such thing as a pure race. (E.g. What does it mean to be pure Irish? Think of all the different people that blew into Ireland at one time or another. The pre-celtic people. The Celts. The Vikings. The Normans. The English. The Scots. The French Huguenots etc, etc.)
Also there is no such thing as a superior race.
There's no such thing as a supreme race either. (Hitler got it badly wrong)
The prohibitions for Israel regarding intermingling with other races were not to do with racism but to do with the whole cultural package of idolatry. (But amazing grace Ruth the Moabite was incorporated into Israel and became the ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus.)

Look at Ruth's question, Why have I found favour in your eyes, that you should take notice of me? She truly exemplifies the poor in spirit. That is she doesn't just know her neediness she truly appreciates grace. The NLT of Matthew 5:3 says, "God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
As somebody has put it, "She is different from most people today. We have a sense of entitlement. We expect kindness and are astonished and resentful if we don't get our 'rights'….Proud people don't feel amazed at being treated well. They don't feel deep gratefulness. But humble people do." John Piper.

Boaz answers her question by recounting to her all he know of her faith and kindness. V11 But Boaz answered her, "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.
V12.
The LORD repay you (which could be translated 'reward' or 'recompense' J. Piper) for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!
Why would Ruth be rewarded? The reward is not a wage. It's the reward of grace. Amazing grace. Ruth did not expect it. She was overwhelmed with the inexpected blessings she received.
She was like a little bird that found refuge under the large parent bird's wings. Possibly in this case an eagle. The LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge! She found a place of security and blessing.
V12 is not a clinical transaction of work and wages received. It's a relational picture of warmth and security and love.
I found an interesting insightful reminder of what grace means in one writer. He says, "The primary emphasis to hold on to in our understanding of grace is that 'grace' is a personal relationship word. Grace above all means a 'gracious relationship' between God and us." David Atkinson.

Grace is something totally undeserved. Ruth didn't feel she deserved anything? She was totally unassuming!
We live in a prideful world, that though it knows by now the earth revolves around the sun; it subconsioucly thinks the universe revolves around me and owes me big time! The Christian teaching that we are servants is often acknowledged but you know and I know we often get upset if we are treated like one!
I think there's a precious illustration and invitation here for each one of us as we think of the 'shadow of His wings' This is the place God wants us to live while we are in this world and throughout eternity.Just listen to some of these verses.
Psalm 36:7 How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 57:1 Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.
Psalm 91:4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
As we take refuge under the shadow of His wings we get fresh strength and courage. We find the place of warmth and safety. We experience his grace in a fresh way and it gives us the strength to serve God. Paul testifies in 1Corinthians 15:10. By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them- yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Grace enables us to serve and work hard in His kingdom. It frees and energises us to do His will.
Look at Ruth's 'radical, risk-taking love' (Piper). She left her home and family and stepped out in faith like Abraham of old. Boaz was impressed!

Ruth had taken refuge in the grace and security of God. Remember the words of Jesus to the people of Jerusalem. Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
We're reminded in Psalm 147:10-11. "The LORD takes pleasure in those …who hope in his steadfast love"

I was challenged by the following words from John Piper, "The gospel is not an employment ad. God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold them back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus."


Boaz shows exceptional grace and kindness to Ruth. As the chapter unfolds she is drawn more and more from the outside to the very centre of things. She is not marginalised but drawn into the gracious plan of God. What a picture of God's grace to us! She is invited to share the meal with Boaz.
VV14 And at mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine." So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until(L) she was satisfied, and she had some left over.,
VV17-19. So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. 18And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. Think of that big bag of grain she brought home. (Bye the way she must have been a strapping girl, to carry that load after a hard days work!) Naomi realized that this was something exceptional. It was beyond the ordinary! One observer put it like this,
"If Ruth's ephah of barley equalled about ten to twenty litres of barley, she has threshed roughly enough for the two women to eat for a little more than a week." [ESV notes: at least a two-week supply for the two women]Also when we take into the account, that Boaz has given the invitation to Ruth to glean until the end of both the barley and wheat harvest that is an exceptional amount of grain. "If Ruth averages the same each day and works the entire seven weeks, she gleans enough barley and wheat to feed the two women, at the minimum rate, approximately two-thirds of a year, or at the maximum rate, more than an entire year." There a generosity here from Boaz that most modern readers will miss! This is something exceptional and would have a wow factor for the original listeners to this story.

She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. 19And her mother-in-law said to her, "Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you." So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, "The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz."

Our amazing Kinsman-redeemer.(Jesus)

Naomi informs Ruth that Boaz is one of our redeemers.V20

The generosity of Boaz reminds you of God; the much more of God. The extravagance of God!

Eph.3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
The generosity of Boaz is staggering He went far beyond the legal requirements. Many no doubt ignored the legal requirements or grudgingly or roughly treated gleaners. Boaz exemplified grace and drew Ruth the poor widow from Moab from the edges of the field right into the centre of things. It's not surprising that a picture of Christ can be seen in Boaz. Unbeknown to Ruth at this stage of the story, Boaz was a kinsman redeemer. This term takes a little explaining at least. I found the following remarks helpful regarding this. The root of the Hebrew word means "to 'act as a kinsman' or to fulfil one's family obligations. In Old Testament Law this included (1) redeeming land sold by a poor relative, to keep it in the family (Lev. 25:25-28), (2) redeeming a relation from slavery (vv48-55), (3) avenging murder (Num.35:10-28) and (4) in the book of Ruth there is an overlap with the Levirate law i.e. marrying a childless relation's widow, in which case the first son would be considered that of the dead husband. (Deut. 25:5-10)
The Hebrew word powerfully expresses the sense of one's obligation to help family members whenever this is possible, and has great theological implications.
In becoming true Man, a member of the human family, Jesus became our Kinsman redeemer, accepting the responsibility of paying the price for our redemption. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he [Jesus]too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death…
15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." End quote. (Lawrence Richards)
Jesus is our true Kinsman-redeemer. He is the one that has lavished abundance on us; often when we didn't even see or acknowledge it. Remember those words from Ephesians 2: 6-9, And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-
9 not by works, so that no-one can boast.
11-13, Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision (that done in the body by the hands of men)-
12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
17-19.
He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God's people and members of God's household,

Conclusion:
God is at work in all the circumstances of your life. His grace towards you is immeasurable. Jesus is your Kinsman- redeemer. He doesn't want you on the margins. He wants to draw you closer to the very centre of blessing; to find shelter under his wings. To live in that place of grace and security and be fortified to live for him in this world that is not experiencing grace or kindness. He wants to make you a man or woman of standing that will be such a blessing to all in the circle of your influence.





Notes:
God uses people to extend his kingdom; to minister His grace. (Variegated grace) See the ambiguity in verse.20.
The God of comfort comforted us through the coming of Titus.
2 Corinthians 7:6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. God comforts us but he so often uses human agency to convey the blessing. What a tremendous privilege for us.