Ruth 1:16-18

Ruth 1:16-18 16 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. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

In thinking about the first chapter of Ruth, I am always pulled toward this particular part of the story. In reading commentaries I found out several things about this verse. The first thing that I learned is that this verse is often used in traditional wedding ceremonies, even though it wasn’t in mine. The second fact is that the English translation doesn’t capture the anger and frustration that Ruth has in her voice as she makes this statement back to Naomi. In the rest of the first chapter we see Naomi ignoring Ruth the rest of the way. Scholars argue about what kind of ignoring this is, is it because Naomi is angry, is it because she is grateful for Ruth and doesn’t really want Ruth to see it. Personally I think Naomi is angry. She has been corrected by a younger person, not only a younger person but someone who she is technically in charge of. My experience has been that few if any people are very gracious when this situation happens to them. In our lives now this maybe one of the biggest challenges facing the “older” generations of our church. I’ve watched repeatedly as church people act patronizing to younger people in the church, “we’ll teach them right,” “they’ll grow out of it.” Instead of taking seriously that the individual may be spiritually more mature and may seriously have something to teach. My hope and prayer is that I never fall into this danger, and that those in my church can move beyond this. This is the only way that we will grow, if we learn from each other, not just try to use one another.