Ruth 1:15-18
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Comments
Naomi was going back to her homeland, a woman filled with despair and bitterness after the death of her husband and both her sons. She was convinced she had absolutely nothing to offer her daughter-in-law.
Ruth saw things quite differently. She was devoted to her mother-in-law and wanted nothing more than to be part of her family in every way and for all times.
Ruth’s faithfulness led to an unexpected result: her marriage to Naomi’s relative, Boaz, produced a grandson, David, who would one day become king and be an ancestor of Jesus.
Reflection
Do new people who come into your church forever feel like outsiders, or are they warmly welcomed and fully assimilated into God’s family?
How likely is it that those who are most in need of a new family are the ones most likely to be excluded and made to feel like perpetual outsiders?
Can you think of an example in your church of someone who came as an outsider and ended up as a blessing?
Prayer
Help my church, Lord, open wide its doors and its arms to receive even the most unlikely and unexpected outsiders.
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