Opening
Some of my best friends are good storytellers. In fact I reflected this past week that I think I trust a good storyteller more than I do someone who rigorously tries to stick to the facts.
Interestingly as I’m sure you’re aware, Jesus was a good storyteller. In Hawaiian pidgen the way you refer to friends sitting around sharing their life stories is the phrase "talk story". Talk story is what you do with friends. Elie Wiesel said years ago, quoting ancient rabbis, that, "God made man because He loves stories." Over the years I’ve become convinced that talking story with good friends is what changes lives and converts sinners to saints. Over the years I have found that talking story is one of the best ways to prepare someone for initiation into the body of Christ.
Next week we plan to have baptisms
The Colt’s grandchildren, Reid and Anna Claire, are expecting to be baptized here at Saint Pauls. We got to sit at the table of their grandma and grandpa, breaking bread and talking story. It changes lives.
Confirmation
We learned this past week that we will have a bishop's visit on Jan. 9th. Do you know of someone who would like to be confirmed at that time?
Have them get in touch with the church office or with me. Will try to figure out a way to share stories in such a way that we will be ready for the transformation that happens in the celebration of the sacraments.
Great Commandment
How do we learn to pass on the tradition that we ourselves have received? How does the community of the Saints give to the next generation the way of life?
The Jewish method of doing that involves among other things the daily repetition, recitation, of the Shema
שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃ 5 וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽךָ׃ 6 וְהָי֞וּ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֧י מְצַוְּךָ֛ הַיּ֖וֹם עַל־לְבָבֶֽךָ
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. The shema
A student one day asked Rabbi Akiba if he could teach the entire Torah while he stood still on one foot. Akiba responded that the whole Torah could be summed up in the phrase: "Do not do unto others what you would not have done to yourself. All the rest is commentary."
How does one convey “Torah?”
The word “Torah” in Hebrew means: “teaching”, “doctrine”, or “instruction”; the commonly accepted the word “law” gives a wrong impression.
Jesus articulates what I learned as "The Great Commandment" in the words from today's Gospel passage. Jesus is engaged in a classic Jewish study session -- Classic head to head questioning one another, back and forth. I first became aware of this pattern when I watched the movie Yentl many years ago. Maybe some of you saw it too.
When I was a child, there was only one liturgy for the Eucharist. And it included at the very beginning the Great Commandment. We still have it in Rite 1 in the prayer book. It was one of those passages I heard so often that I fairly quickly became numb to it. But it remains to this day as one of the basic signposts for me in how to live my life.
In many ways it is a summary of the "Torah" -- the basic teaching of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. "Law, doctrine, instruction", these words all convey something that is given to us from some authority. We are instructed when the higher up tells us what's what.
Torah is perhaps best conveyed by stories. Jesus thought so.
Surely the understanding of the scribes who were debating Jesus that day was that Torah could be logically argued, settled once and for all. Whoever had the superior logic would win the day -- for them.
Jesus, however, "answered well", for he knew that it is not authority or logic that taught the "great commandments" to steer a life toward the kingdom. He knew that stories had the power to turn hearts. That modeling a life on mentors who have traveled the road before was the way one learned the steps.
"Torah" is learning to tell stories and walking the talk.
We hear in the gospel passage an assortment of biblical texts:
- 3 of the gospels have variations: Luke 10:25-28, Matthew 22:35-40, Mark 12:28-31
- the Shema from Deuteronomy: Deut. 6:4-5
- and an early expression of the Israelite, later Jewish, commitment to love of neighbor (Lev. 19:18)
There is much to learn from these few short verses. One could have many sessions of talking story about these few verses, combining: Love of God and love of neighbor.
Ruth
But our first lesson from Ruth is just as rich in themes about how to be a faithful disciple.
I love to hear and read from this short book.
The main characters are women. That in itself makes it interesting. It is a story about Fidelity, faithfulness, and loyalty.
Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
— I can almost hear Ruth speak those words. She feels like someone I have known. When I hear her share her story, I know that she is someone I admire. It almost seems like she’s someone I have known in my life. A guide and mentor for what it means to be a faithful disciple.
We will miss the 2nd part of the story which we would normally hear next week, because we will be celebrating All Saints Day and initiating the two candidates into the fellowship of the saints.
In the middle of this short story we hear how Ruth is eventually wed to Boaz. It's a steamy story for any of you who haven't read it. Give it a try.
The ending of the book identifies Boaz, as the great-grandfather of David. It establishes Ruth in the line of David. Jesus was later addressed by some of his followers as "Son of David." But note: Ruth was a foreigner.
Themes
The book of Ruth contains some exquisite passages about love and devotion.
- Ruth and her mother-in-law Na'omi.
- Boaz' devotion to Ruth --- as well as her rather scandalous seduction of him
Women, as I've said, are key figures in the story. This story of a woman who was vital to the larger story of God's people fits into the overall narrative of the bible. Beginning in Chapter 1 of Genesis, the biblical narrative makes it clear that women have a vital role in the narrative of God and God's people: this has to be reckoned with by those who would claim that the biblical teaching is that women must be subservient to men.
The verse in Genesis next after the one I quoted last week says:
God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.
Miriam was Moses sister, and though obviously her brother takes the spotlight in the Old Testament, she speaks what some scholars argue is the most ancient Hebrew to be found in the Hebrew Bible.
Sing to the Lord, for an overflowing victory! Horse and rider he threw into the sea!
Debra: I met a woman named Debra the other day. When I asked for a little bit of her story, she told me she was named after the Debra in the Bible. I told her that means she is "a woman to be reckoned with" -- a judge, a prophet, a hero, a ruler
Hannah: mother of the prohet/king Samuel. The first of the prophets by traditional reckoning. 1st & 2nd Samuel -- the scroll of Samuel, begins the story of the people who would produce the prophets. Her "Song" is now included in our authorized Canticles. Centuries before Mary and her "song", Hannah sang of the same reversal and divine justice that upends the expectations of the world as we hear from Mary and her "song", the Magnificat
Mary: the mother of Jesus. God-bearer in the Orthodox tradition. Icon of what is best about humanity. The one closest to Jesus. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord." Ruth takes her place alongside the great women of the biblical narrative.
It speaks of the tension between fidelity to family vs. fidelity to national culture. In a theme that is still very much with us today, Ruth has chosen fidelity to family over fidelity to a national cause. When families get together what do they do? They break bread and talk story.
The book of Ruth makes a point of identifying Ruth as an ancestor of King David, and by extension, Jesus many centuries later. Was that the whole reason for telling the story? No. But it may well be why it was preserved in the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures.
And then there is the theme of the outsider as being a vital part of the story of the chosen people. Women were outsiders just by being women. But Ruth was a foreign woman. From the initial books of the Torah and continuing through prophets and psalms, the Bible teaches that it is essential to care for the foreigner in the midst of the citizens of the covenant. Often the watchword is that once the people of Israel were foreigners in a strange land. Much like it is said of this country that the vast majority of the people living in this country got here as strangers and foreigners. Immigrants.
In Judaism --- as well as Christianity --- respect and concern for the alien in our midst is at the heart of Torah.
Where does that point us in the world we live in?
As we prayed a couple of weeks ago, we live in a time marked by divisions, conflict, opposing points of view that seem intractable. In no small measure these are connected to divisions in culture, diversity, people different from ourselves. Just the kind of thing that the Book of Ruth is about. Just the kind of thing that the Great Commandment directly speaks of: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
There seem to be heightened passions about gender roles and the place of women in our society. As we have witnessed the sudden transfer of power in Afghanistan, we have also witnessed the sudden and terrifying threat imposed by those who would subjugate women to the rule of men.
My own conviction is that we live in an era -- spanning decades if not centuries -- where the relations between men and women are being examined and adjusted. What we hear in the story of Ruth is relevant to that process.
Love of God / Love of Neighbor
- What would Jesus do?
- A variation of that is: What does the biblical tradition teach us to do?
In today's readings from scripture, we hear God speaking to us of how we are to live in the world in relation to others who do not look like us, act like us, pray like us, -- but who are profoundly our neighbor. And Jesus commands us in no uncertain terms that we are to love our neighbor alongside our devotion and trust in God.
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