Ruth - Till death do us part (Part 1 of 2)

Reference passage:

Ruth chapter 1:1-18 Read it here

As always, I recommend a prayerful and sincere reading. Till God speaks, the following text would remain mere Greek and Latin.

The story begins with four players in the cast – Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon and Chilion, a family from the Israelite city of Bethlehem. Faced with the hard times of famine, they chose to seek refuge in the neighbouring country of Moab. Perfectly understandable, given that no one would like to sit through starvation, without seeking a way out. But was this perfectly justifiable? This remains to be seen.

A short history lesson, I'm sure, will help throw some light on the ramifications of Elimelech's decision. The book of Genesis (in chapter 19) testifies that Moab was the son born to Lot, Abraham's nephew, by an incestuous relationship with his eldest daughter. Many years later, tensions arose between the families of Israel and Moab when Moab refused to cooperate with Israel's journey to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 23:3-6). Alarmed by the sight and 'sounds' of Israel, King Balak of Moab hired a prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites. However, God turned the tables and Balak's initial efforts met with failure. You can catch the whole story by reading chapters 22 to 25 in the book of Numbers.

However, Balaam's scheming mind devised a plan that soon worked the ruin of God's people. The children of Israel had failed to realise that their power lay in their holiness unto God. What exactly do I mean by holiness? We often equate holiness with mere moral purity, but this is not true of the Scriptures. According to Strong's Concordance, the word in Hebrew translated as holiness is 'kodesh'. The word is almost synonymous with dedication and consecration – simply put, set apart for a special purpose.

Apostle Peter also clarifies the implications of holiness in his first epistle. In the first chapter, he draws a contrast between two lifestyles. Exhorting the believers to reach up to God's expectations of holiness, he reveals that the antonym of holiness is 'aimless conduct', in verse 18. God wants us to know that ultimately what matters in life is our conformity to His grand design for our lives. We fail to see and experience the beauty of Christian living because we are still aimless and seeking to define life on our own terms.

Coming back to the mainstream, Balaam knew that idolatry and sexual immorality would strike at the very heart of Israel's relationship with God. Soon, Moabite women were seen subtly seducing Israelite men and drawing them to a worship that was foreign to the ways of the eternal Yahweh. Jesus Christ testifies that Balaam was behind this in Revelation 2:14. This invited God's wrath and a terrible trail of mass destruction followed.

In believing God to be love in very essence, people seem to assume that judgement is out of the equation. Atleast the God of the Bible believes that perfect love necessitates perfect justice, of this I'm sure.

In response to all this, God explicitly warns the Hebrews of ever making the same mistake again. The Lord said to Moses, "Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you.” (Numbers 25:16-18) At several key points in Israel's history, we see the same mistake repeated again and again – liasing with the enemy and throwing God and His exclusivity out of the picture. It happened to Solomon, it happened in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. Each time, what was sacrificed was this: the love for God and His plans.


It is against this backdrop that our protagonists take the stage.

Perfectly justified? I don't think so.

Elimelech's approach has at least 2 weaknesses which I shall discuss next.
Life always has its fair share of problems - theres nobody on the earth who could claim a freedom from problems. What makes all the difference is how we choose to deal with the problem. On one hand, I could choose to run away from the problem and pretend that it doesn't bother me; on the other, I could tackle the problem head-on, raising the right questions and seeking the answer.
Elimelech seems to have opted for the easier way out. Did they figure out how they were going to sustain their relationship with God in a strange land? Where would they go to worship God? Didnt they share the pangs of Psalm 84?
What is even more interesting, is the Lord's own words in Leviticus chapter 26: "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land." (verses 3 to 5) So, if God appears to have gone back on His promise, why isn't anyone asking God the reason?
We're no different today - we ask our toughest questions to the counsellor, the pastor, the doctor, the priest, Dad, Mom...everyone else but God. Take the simple example of our doubts in Biblical knowledge. We'd run to the scholar or the pastor to get the "ready-to-eat-in-2-minutes" answer but we'd never get on our knees and ask the Author Himself. Strange, huh?

Secondly, there's always the issue of identity - specifically, God-given identity. God called Abraham out of the land of Mesopotamia and made him a large nation. The Israelites were given a rigorous code of conduct to adhere to. If they were to identify themselves with the nations around them, why did God separate Abraham from an idol-worshipping community, in the first place? In the case of the Elimelech family, these boundaries probably blurred after the husband's death. The sons soon married into two Moabite families with Naomi's consent.
I've asked myself this question, "Am I not just another person in the crowd? Why bother with all this discipline and prayer and reading? Why can't I be just like anyone else?" I'm sure you've felt the same.
Yet, each time it boils down to just one thing - God's plan. Like I mentioned earlier, this life is just not about us - if it were, we're all wasting our time. If meaning in life is indeed dictated by the 'livers' themselves, sans Creator, are we not as good as saying that the universe is ultimately meaningless except for the meanings we build up among ourselves? Thats just the same as saying that we're making perfect sense out of nonsense. And that's ridiculous. If then we were created, we're obviously made for a purpose and it must be our aim in life to discover God's unique design for our lives. Can you imagine a Toyota assembly line, producing cars by the hour...for nothing?!

But then, in the days of the twenty first century, aren't we merely repeating history and blaming our circumstances?

“Brother, why couldn't you make it to the prayer meeting on Sunday?”
“Oh! I was at work, you see. I need the cash so desperately – got to build the new house.”

“Sister, how strong is your prayer life these days?”
“Its really late by the time we're done with our day. We sleep everyday at 1 in the morning. I'm just so hard pressed for time, Pastor.”

The lines are blurring already.
Perfectly justified? Think twice.