Covenant
United Methodist Church
Sunday School 9:45 Worship 8:30 & 10:45 am
Pentecost 18-Ruth 1-1-20 Running on Empty
It wasn’t too many years ago, I had worked about 20 days straight without any time off.My grandmother had recently died and I did her funeral. People in my church were complaining about a number of small things, from no toilet tissue in the bathrooms to the choir specials on Sunday morning… I remember getting up to worship and preach one Sunday morning and having trouble remembering what my sermon was about… After worship I went home and laid down to sleep and I ended up sleeping about 6 hours… Then I went to bed at 10pm for the night and didn’t wake up till 7am… I had been running on empty… Has that ever happened to you… Emotionally and physically you don’t have anything left. Spiritually you are bankrupt… Then you can understand what was going on with Naomi in our scripture lesson. She has left her homeland with her husband and two sons because of a drought. Her husband and two sons both die and she returns with nothing, except two daughter’s in law… She has lost everything! Naomi is so empty she changes her name to Mara. Naomi means sweetness, Mara means bitter. Naomi tells those she knows at her return that she was once full but now is empty… Ruth stands beside her through all of this… Ruth the Gentile, the Moabite makes one of the most remarkable speeches in the Bible… We use it at weddings even today, but the words were actually spoken one woman to another. “I will never leave you nor forsake you. Where you go I will go. Your people will be my people and your home will be my home.”
Imagine how Ruth must have felt when Naomi spoke the words she spoke, Ruth the foreigner who had lost her husband, who had been told that she couldn’t have any more children from this family because there were no men still alive. Ruth who like Naomi was destitute… yet Ruth shows us better than most of our Jewish heroes what loyalty to God and your friends is really about.
The book of Ruth also lets us know about God. God never quits working in the lives of Naomi and Ruth. He is concerned about their pain. Ruth and Naomi never give up hope. Ruth eventually remarries Boaz, and Naomi and Ruth end up with family again. God continues to work in their lives even after tragedy hits them and they end up empty…
That is something important to remember as the holidays approach. Many of you are dealing with grief during the holidays. Many of you feel empty as the holidays approach… God is still working in your lives even in the midst of your emptiness, there is still hope.
Have you heard the story of Anna and Susan Warner. They lived in New York City until their family finances were devastated by the “Panic of 1837.” They were forced to relocate on Constitution Island, in a dilapidated old home across from the Military Academy at West Point. In an attempt to create income, Anna and Susan began to publish articles and books, 106 publications in all, 18 of which were co-authored. Say and Seal, one of their best known collaborative novels, was about a little boy who is gravely ill named Johnny Fox. The boy’s Sunday School leader, John Linden, lifts him to his lap, rocks him, and sings reassuringly to him, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so….”
One of the best known novels of the 19th century, Say and Seal was second only to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in sales. When composer William Bradbury put Anna Warner’s words with a melody, the poem became the most recognized children’s hymn ever written. It did not solve Anna and Susan Warner’s financial woes. However, for 40 years, they taught Bible Classes for West Point cadets. To this day, their home is maintained by West Point as a museum to their remembrance. They were buried with full military honors in the West Point cemetery, the only civilians ever interred there.