'And I mean to be one too'
Commentary
Object:
Today is All Saints Sunday. All Saints Day is always on November 1, but we celebrate it on the Sunday nearest to the first.
This is an interesting day on the church calendar, and one with which perhaps many of us are not familiar. Its observance often begins not on November 1 but on October 31st, which is called "All Hallows Eve," that is, the evening before All Hallows or All Saints Day. I have read that some in the past would, on the evening of October 31st, begin to observe it with ceremonies and lighted candles in cemeteries -- remembering, you see, the saints who had gone before them. The secular world, of course, turned All Hallows Eve into something very different, Halloween.
It's interesting that so many churches have cemeteries attached to them. Some even have tombs inside the church! Why? Is it because those places are considered more holy than others, you know, holy ground? Maybe. But there's another reason and that reason is at the heart of All Saints Day -- that just as a cemetery may be attached to a church or even tombs inside churches, so those resting there, the saints of God, are still attached, still connected to us. They are still very much alive and with us. So All Saints is the memorial day for the church. It's a time in which we remember and honor the saints, those faithful disciples whose lives and examples are still with us, who still inspire and challenge us to be the saints of God.
But the saints were not super Christians with halos. They were ordinary people just like you and me. What made them saints was that they heard and lived the words of Jesus today in our gospel lesson. They loved God above all else, and their neighbors as themselves. They were people like Ruth and the young man, who we also read about today, who lived out those very same commandments.
Ruth 1:1-18
The story is set during the time of the Judges between 1200 to 1000 BC. No specific date is given. No author is identified. Tradition attributes it to the prophet/priest Samuel.
The family lived in Bethlehem -- located about six miles south of Jerusalem. The name means "beth" (house) and "lehem" (bread), that is, "House of Bread." It was probably named this because a lot of grain was grown in the fields around this village and it was stored there. Everyone knew that if you needed grain for bread you went to the "House of Bread," Bethlehem. Isn't it interesting that the "Bread of Life" -- Jesus -- would also be born in the "House of Bread"?
The family had to leave Bethlehem because of a famine. The House of Bread was empty. So they went to the country of Moab. It was located east of the Dead Sea. From north to south it was about 60 miles; from east to west about 25 miles. It usually received plenty of rainfall so it had crops. So we can understand why this family would go there, as well as others.
Their names are Elimelech (E-lem-uh-LECK), Naomi, and their sons Mahlon (MAY-lin) and Chilion (KILL-ee-inn).
Elimelech died. We are not told how. The important point is that Naomi is a widow. That would be bad enough in her own country but she's a stranger in a strange land. At least she still had her two sons.
His sons married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. Orpah means "rain cloud." (Oprah Winfrey was named after her with a little different spelling.) Ruth may mean "to be satisfied as with water" and some have interpreted her name to also mean "beautiful friend."
After ten years, both sons died. No reason is given. Naomi was living in a foreign country, with no husband, no children, no family except two foreign daughters-in-law.
Naomi decided to go back to Bethlehem. She had received word that the famine was over there. While Naomi was packing to go back to Bethlehem, her two daughters-in-law were packing to go with her. This sounds just a little strange, but in those days a daughter-in-law belonged to her husband's family. She lived with them. She was obligated to stay with them even if her husband died, unless released by his family. But Naomi releases her daughters-in-law from their obligation. She told them to go back to their parents. She felt they would be much better off there than with her. This way they could remarry and live the remainder of their lives in peace and security. So she blessed them (said good-bye): "May God be as kind to you as you have been to me and my sons."
But Ruth and Orpah start to cry and refuse. They insist on going with her to Bethlehem. So Naomi seeks to persuade them again. She tries to convince them to go back to their homes by describing how hopeless her situation would be. She had absolutely nothing to offer them. No future. No more sons for husbands. Even if she had a husband and had twins that very night, could they wait around until they were old enough to marry them? Besides, she was past child-bearing age. So it was only reasonable for them to go back home. Besides, Naomi seems to feel that she is under a curse from God (see v. 13). Perhaps she thought that all this suffering was in some way her fault. God was punishing her and any who would stay with her.
Orpah kissed Naomi good-bye, packed up her things, and went back home. But Ruth clung to Naomi. We get the picture here of a small child holding onto the leg of a mother who is about to leave her. So Naomi tries to persuade Ruth to do like Orpah. She was using Orpah's decision as leverage to get Ruth to do the same thing. So there was great pressure on Ruth at the moment, a real temptation. Think what would have happened if she had listened?
Ruth responds to Naomi with some of the most beautiful words of love and loyalty in the whole Bible. Ruth was committing everything to Naomi, and more importantly to God. It was total commitment. It involved every aspect of her life -- where she would go ("where you go I will go"), where she would live ("where you lodge I shall lodge"), who her people would be ("your people shall be my people"), her faith ("your God shall be my God"), and even where she would be buried ("where you die I shall die, and there will I be buried"). Ruth backed up all of this with an oath: "May the Lord's worst punishment come upon me," she said, "if I let anything but death separate me from you." This is how serious she was about staying with Naomi. Her mind was made up! So was her heart.
When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to get her to stay.
This story goes well with the gospel reading for today. Ruth exemplifies love of God and neighbor. She pledges her whole life not just to Naomi but also to God. "Your God shall be my God," she says.
Hebrews 9:11-14
There was no higher or more important person for Jews than the high priest. The high priest was the only one who could enter the holy of holies on the day of atonement and make sacrifices for his sins and those of the people. So the writer of Hebrews goes to some length to show how Christ is a far greater high priest, as we have already seen in previous readings.
But did not the high priest have the great temple, a kind of tent of meeting like in the days of Moses? Christians have nothing like that. True, the writer says, except that Christ entered a far greater temple or tent, not one on this earth but the perfect and holy one in heaven (v. 11). The earthly one was made of stone and wood and by human hands. How does that compare to the one in heaven created by God's own hands?
But the high priest made sacrifice for our sins. We are forgiven through his intercession. The writer even admits that. Yes, but he must enter each year. Christ has entered the true holy of holies, the very presence of God, once and for all time, and made sacrifice for our sins so that there is never any need for another sacrifice. Besides, if the mere blood of animals helped give you forgiveness, then how much more does the blood of Christ himself! He sacrificed no sheep or goat without blemish (for such was the law). But he gave up his own perfect life of obedience as the sacrifice that takes away our sin and the sins of the world for all time. No other high priest could ever do anything like that.
This emphasis on Christ or the superiority of Christ is an interesting and important theme for us today. We live in a time when the politically correct way to think is that all religions are the same, or it doesn't matter which one in which you believe as long as you believe (or believing at all doesn't matter to lots of people). I admire other religions and respect them. I think all Christians should. But at the same time no other religion has such a person as Christ at its very heart and center. Jesus is our faith. He is our model. He is our Lord and Savior. We believe that in him God was revealed as in no one else. That is not something to use as a club to beat others of different faiths into submission or an excuse to be intolerant. Neither is it reason to feel and act superior. What could be further from the mind of Christ than that? But how can we maintain this superiority of Christ without being superior, self-righteous, and judgmental?
The answer is not so much in our theology and doctrine as in our discipleship. We can argue anyone into becoming a Christian. The most powerful witness we have to Christ is living like him, showing in our lives what he has done in and through us. In the long run that is the most powerful testimony we can give to the one who means everything to me.
Mark 12:28-34
This is probably one of the best-known stories in the life of Jesus. A young teacher of the law has been in the crowd and listening to the question and answer session between some of his colleagues and Jesus. The young man is impressed with Jesus and so ventures a question, a question that, unlike most of the others, does not seem to be aimed at testing Jesus or trying to get something on which to have grounds to condemn Jesus. The question is, "What is the greatest commandment?"
This was a hotly debated issue among the teachers of the law. There were literally hundreds (over 600) of laws and commandments. Picking out the one most important and essential law was not so easy or cut-and-dried.
Jesus answers it by quoting the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) that was recited in every Jewish service (also recited every morning and evening) and is at the heart of Jewish faith about there being only one God and loving God above all else. The most important commandment is loving God with all one's heart, strength, mind, and being.
Jesus does more than answer the man's question; he adds the second most important commandment and even the third, in a sense -- to love your neighbor as yourself. Love of God, of neighbor, and of self. And the implication uniting these is that one does not truly keep the first without also keeping the second.
Love of neighbor might be summed up in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It was vividly set forth in the parable of the good Samaritan as Jesus showed what love of neighbor means -- not just a person living close by, not even a member of your ethnic group -- but love that breaks through barriers of all kinds in order to reach out to someone in need.
Such love does not come first. This is important. Love of God comes first. We do not know what love is without knowing and experiencing God's love and placing God first in our lives. When we do this, when we are truly growing in the love of God, we will find ourselves also growing in love of others, for this is God's own way (see Psalm 146 today as God loves others, especially the needy). To love God is to grow in loving others like God does.
It's also important that love of self is mentioned here. Sometimes the Bible and teachings of Christ are presented in such a way that we are told that we must hate ourselves. Such thinking has led to a lot of pain. This serves as a corrective to that way of thinking. God does not wish us to hate ourselves, but to love ourselves. That does not come from making ourselves most important. It comes from loving God above all else, experiencing God's love, in loving others, and in the process we come to love ourselves in a whole and healthy way.
As far as I can see from my research, Jesus was the only one who put these commandments together like this or at least put so much stress on them. In other places Jesus puts them together and says, in essence, that upon these you can hang all the law and the prophets (the scriptures). That is, to fulfill these two commandments is to fulfill the whole law. One does not need an ever-increasing list of dos and don'ts, but only the desire and determination to love God and neighbor as self in all your life. Indeed, an increasing reliance on legalistic lists might well lead away from love of God and others, to a reliance on self and an instrument to use in sitting in judgment on others.
The young man readily agreed with all of this, something that you hardly ever hear a teacher of the law doing with Jesus. It confirmed what this young teacher believed and felt to be true in his heart. And of him Jesus said, "You are not far from the kingdom." And no one else dared asked Jesus any questions after that. Can't blame them, can you?
Application
I like this story in the gospel reading today. I found myself drawn to this young man, so eager to ask questions, to learn. I do not think he was trying to trick Jesus. He had a question, a deep concern, and he believed that here was one who could help him.
"Which commandment is the first of all?" he asked. In other words, we are made to learn all these laws and commandments. It gets quite overwhelming at times. Of them all, which one is the most important?
The answer of Jesus is simple and yet profound.
Here is what's most important in the law and in life -- that you love God with all your being, and that you love your neighbor as yourself.
And the young man's face lit up, for he knew in his heart that this was true, this was what life was about. He said so to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
"You are not far from the kingdom of God…"
That was a compliment. Jesus never said that about most of the other teachers of the law. He saw wisdom in the young man, and love, that this young man was headed in the right direction.
He was not far from the kingdom of God because he was with Jesus. He knew enough to come to Jesus with his questions. The closer we are to Jesus, the closer we are to the kingdom of God, to life as God intended it.
He was not far from the kingdom because he knew that what was most important was to love God and neighbor as self.
Now he had to live that out and maybe that was part of what Jesus was saying. He was not far but still had some distance to go. But could he (or we) really do that on his own?
Or maybe Jesus was saying, "Yes, you are beginning to understand. But you need to come a little further, to follow me, to accept my way of things, and I will show you what it means to love God and neighbor."
In Jesus we see a living example and a model for us in how to love God and neighbor as self. Following him, learning from him, being in fellowship with his people in which love of God and neighbor is nurtured and lived out.
I cannot help but feel a bit uneasy about all of this. I mean, if this young man was not far from the kingdom, then just where might I be in the eyes of Jesus? Am I even headed in the right direction? Do I live like the most important thing in life is loving God and neighbor as myself? Is the kingdom even in sight from where I live and walk each day?
An Alternative Application
Today is the first reading from Ruth. The lectionary passages for next Sunday continue and conclude the story of Ruth. But one thing you might wish to consider is doing a four-part sermon series on Ruth, with each chapter being covered each week. Her story, so simple yet profound, has lots of relevant lessons for today. Sermon 1 could introduce Ruth and the other main characters, with special emphasis on the kind of person she was. Sermon 2 could examine chapter 2, how Ruth comes to the right barley field at just the right time. How often in our lives does God lead us to just the right place at just the right time? Sermon 3 could examine the funny and touching story of Ruth chapter 3 and how Naomi plays the matchmaker. Sometimes love needs a little help. Sermon 4 could be based on Ruth chapter 4, which connects the story of Ruth to that of David and Jesus. It is a love story that never ends.
This is an interesting day on the church calendar, and one with which perhaps many of us are not familiar. Its observance often begins not on November 1 but on October 31st, which is called "All Hallows Eve," that is, the evening before All Hallows or All Saints Day. I have read that some in the past would, on the evening of October 31st, begin to observe it with ceremonies and lighted candles in cemeteries -- remembering, you see, the saints who had gone before them. The secular world, of course, turned All Hallows Eve into something very different, Halloween.
It's interesting that so many churches have cemeteries attached to them. Some even have tombs inside the church! Why? Is it because those places are considered more holy than others, you know, holy ground? Maybe. But there's another reason and that reason is at the heart of All Saints Day -- that just as a cemetery may be attached to a church or even tombs inside churches, so those resting there, the saints of God, are still attached, still connected to us. They are still very much alive and with us. So All Saints is the memorial day for the church. It's a time in which we remember and honor the saints, those faithful disciples whose lives and examples are still with us, who still inspire and challenge us to be the saints of God.
But the saints were not super Christians with halos. They were ordinary people just like you and me. What made them saints was that they heard and lived the words of Jesus today in our gospel lesson. They loved God above all else, and their neighbors as themselves. They were people like Ruth and the young man, who we also read about today, who lived out those very same commandments.
Ruth 1:1-18
The story is set during the time of the Judges between 1200 to 1000 BC. No specific date is given. No author is identified. Tradition attributes it to the prophet/priest Samuel.
The family lived in Bethlehem -- located about six miles south of Jerusalem. The name means "beth" (house) and "lehem" (bread), that is, "House of Bread." It was probably named this because a lot of grain was grown in the fields around this village and it was stored there. Everyone knew that if you needed grain for bread you went to the "House of Bread," Bethlehem. Isn't it interesting that the "Bread of Life" -- Jesus -- would also be born in the "House of Bread"?
The family had to leave Bethlehem because of a famine. The House of Bread was empty. So they went to the country of Moab. It was located east of the Dead Sea. From north to south it was about 60 miles; from east to west about 25 miles. It usually received plenty of rainfall so it had crops. So we can understand why this family would go there, as well as others.
Their names are Elimelech (E-lem-uh-LECK), Naomi, and their sons Mahlon (MAY-lin) and Chilion (KILL-ee-inn).
Elimelech died. We are not told how. The important point is that Naomi is a widow. That would be bad enough in her own country but she's a stranger in a strange land. At least she still had her two sons.
His sons married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. Orpah means "rain cloud." (Oprah Winfrey was named after her with a little different spelling.) Ruth may mean "to be satisfied as with water" and some have interpreted her name to also mean "beautiful friend."
After ten years, both sons died. No reason is given. Naomi was living in a foreign country, with no husband, no children, no family except two foreign daughters-in-law.
Naomi decided to go back to Bethlehem. She had received word that the famine was over there. While Naomi was packing to go back to Bethlehem, her two daughters-in-law were packing to go with her. This sounds just a little strange, but in those days a daughter-in-law belonged to her husband's family. She lived with them. She was obligated to stay with them even if her husband died, unless released by his family. But Naomi releases her daughters-in-law from their obligation. She told them to go back to their parents. She felt they would be much better off there than with her. This way they could remarry and live the remainder of their lives in peace and security. So she blessed them (said good-bye): "May God be as kind to you as you have been to me and my sons."
But Ruth and Orpah start to cry and refuse. They insist on going with her to Bethlehem. So Naomi seeks to persuade them again. She tries to convince them to go back to their homes by describing how hopeless her situation would be. She had absolutely nothing to offer them. No future. No more sons for husbands. Even if she had a husband and had twins that very night, could they wait around until they were old enough to marry them? Besides, she was past child-bearing age. So it was only reasonable for them to go back home. Besides, Naomi seems to feel that she is under a curse from God (see v. 13). Perhaps she thought that all this suffering was in some way her fault. God was punishing her and any who would stay with her.
Orpah kissed Naomi good-bye, packed up her things, and went back home. But Ruth clung to Naomi. We get the picture here of a small child holding onto the leg of a mother who is about to leave her. So Naomi tries to persuade Ruth to do like Orpah. She was using Orpah's decision as leverage to get Ruth to do the same thing. So there was great pressure on Ruth at the moment, a real temptation. Think what would have happened if she had listened?
Ruth responds to Naomi with some of the most beautiful words of love and loyalty in the whole Bible. Ruth was committing everything to Naomi, and more importantly to God. It was total commitment. It involved every aspect of her life -- where she would go ("where you go I will go"), where she would live ("where you lodge I shall lodge"), who her people would be ("your people shall be my people"), her faith ("your God shall be my God"), and even where she would be buried ("where you die I shall die, and there will I be buried"). Ruth backed up all of this with an oath: "May the Lord's worst punishment come upon me," she said, "if I let anything but death separate me from you." This is how serious she was about staying with Naomi. Her mind was made up! So was her heart.
When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to get her to stay.
This story goes well with the gospel reading for today. Ruth exemplifies love of God and neighbor. She pledges her whole life not just to Naomi but also to God. "Your God shall be my God," she says.
Hebrews 9:11-14
There was no higher or more important person for Jews than the high priest. The high priest was the only one who could enter the holy of holies on the day of atonement and make sacrifices for his sins and those of the people. So the writer of Hebrews goes to some length to show how Christ is a far greater high priest, as we have already seen in previous readings.
But did not the high priest have the great temple, a kind of tent of meeting like in the days of Moses? Christians have nothing like that. True, the writer says, except that Christ entered a far greater temple or tent, not one on this earth but the perfect and holy one in heaven (v. 11). The earthly one was made of stone and wood and by human hands. How does that compare to the one in heaven created by God's own hands?
But the high priest made sacrifice for our sins. We are forgiven through his intercession. The writer even admits that. Yes, but he must enter each year. Christ has entered the true holy of holies, the very presence of God, once and for all time, and made sacrifice for our sins so that there is never any need for another sacrifice. Besides, if the mere blood of animals helped give you forgiveness, then how much more does the blood of Christ himself! He sacrificed no sheep or goat without blemish (for such was the law). But he gave up his own perfect life of obedience as the sacrifice that takes away our sin and the sins of the world for all time. No other high priest could ever do anything like that.
This emphasis on Christ or the superiority of Christ is an interesting and important theme for us today. We live in a time when the politically correct way to think is that all religions are the same, or it doesn't matter which one in which you believe as long as you believe (or believing at all doesn't matter to lots of people). I admire other religions and respect them. I think all Christians should. But at the same time no other religion has such a person as Christ at its very heart and center. Jesus is our faith. He is our model. He is our Lord and Savior. We believe that in him God was revealed as in no one else. That is not something to use as a club to beat others of different faiths into submission or an excuse to be intolerant. Neither is it reason to feel and act superior. What could be further from the mind of Christ than that? But how can we maintain this superiority of Christ without being superior, self-righteous, and judgmental?
The answer is not so much in our theology and doctrine as in our discipleship. We can argue anyone into becoming a Christian. The most powerful witness we have to Christ is living like him, showing in our lives what he has done in and through us. In the long run that is the most powerful testimony we can give to the one who means everything to me.
Mark 12:28-34
This is probably one of the best-known stories in the life of Jesus. A young teacher of the law has been in the crowd and listening to the question and answer session between some of his colleagues and Jesus. The young man is impressed with Jesus and so ventures a question, a question that, unlike most of the others, does not seem to be aimed at testing Jesus or trying to get something on which to have grounds to condemn Jesus. The question is, "What is the greatest commandment?"
This was a hotly debated issue among the teachers of the law. There were literally hundreds (over 600) of laws and commandments. Picking out the one most important and essential law was not so easy or cut-and-dried.
Jesus answers it by quoting the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) that was recited in every Jewish service (also recited every morning and evening) and is at the heart of Jewish faith about there being only one God and loving God above all else. The most important commandment is loving God with all one's heart, strength, mind, and being.
Jesus does more than answer the man's question; he adds the second most important commandment and even the third, in a sense -- to love your neighbor as yourself. Love of God, of neighbor, and of self. And the implication uniting these is that one does not truly keep the first without also keeping the second.
Love of neighbor might be summed up in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It was vividly set forth in the parable of the good Samaritan as Jesus showed what love of neighbor means -- not just a person living close by, not even a member of your ethnic group -- but love that breaks through barriers of all kinds in order to reach out to someone in need.
Such love does not come first. This is important. Love of God comes first. We do not know what love is without knowing and experiencing God's love and placing God first in our lives. When we do this, when we are truly growing in the love of God, we will find ourselves also growing in love of others, for this is God's own way (see Psalm 146 today as God loves others, especially the needy). To love God is to grow in loving others like God does.
It's also important that love of self is mentioned here. Sometimes the Bible and teachings of Christ are presented in such a way that we are told that we must hate ourselves. Such thinking has led to a lot of pain. This serves as a corrective to that way of thinking. God does not wish us to hate ourselves, but to love ourselves. That does not come from making ourselves most important. It comes from loving God above all else, experiencing God's love, in loving others, and in the process we come to love ourselves in a whole and healthy way.
As far as I can see from my research, Jesus was the only one who put these commandments together like this or at least put so much stress on them. In other places Jesus puts them together and says, in essence, that upon these you can hang all the law and the prophets (the scriptures). That is, to fulfill these two commandments is to fulfill the whole law. One does not need an ever-increasing list of dos and don'ts, but only the desire and determination to love God and neighbor as self in all your life. Indeed, an increasing reliance on legalistic lists might well lead away from love of God and others, to a reliance on self and an instrument to use in sitting in judgment on others.
The young man readily agreed with all of this, something that you hardly ever hear a teacher of the law doing with Jesus. It confirmed what this young teacher believed and felt to be true in his heart. And of him Jesus said, "You are not far from the kingdom." And no one else dared asked Jesus any questions after that. Can't blame them, can you?
Application
I like this story in the gospel reading today. I found myself drawn to this young man, so eager to ask questions, to learn. I do not think he was trying to trick Jesus. He had a question, a deep concern, and he believed that here was one who could help him.
"Which commandment is the first of all?" he asked. In other words, we are made to learn all these laws and commandments. It gets quite overwhelming at times. Of them all, which one is the most important?
The answer of Jesus is simple and yet profound.
Here is what's most important in the law and in life -- that you love God with all your being, and that you love your neighbor as yourself.
And the young man's face lit up, for he knew in his heart that this was true, this was what life was about. He said so to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
"You are not far from the kingdom of God…"
That was a compliment. Jesus never said that about most of the other teachers of the law. He saw wisdom in the young man, and love, that this young man was headed in the right direction.
He was not far from the kingdom of God because he was with Jesus. He knew enough to come to Jesus with his questions. The closer we are to Jesus, the closer we are to the kingdom of God, to life as God intended it.
He was not far from the kingdom because he knew that what was most important was to love God and neighbor as self.
Now he had to live that out and maybe that was part of what Jesus was saying. He was not far but still had some distance to go. But could he (or we) really do that on his own?
Or maybe Jesus was saying, "Yes, you are beginning to understand. But you need to come a little further, to follow me, to accept my way of things, and I will show you what it means to love God and neighbor."
In Jesus we see a living example and a model for us in how to love God and neighbor as self. Following him, learning from him, being in fellowship with his people in which love of God and neighbor is nurtured and lived out.
I cannot help but feel a bit uneasy about all of this. I mean, if this young man was not far from the kingdom, then just where might I be in the eyes of Jesus? Am I even headed in the right direction? Do I live like the most important thing in life is loving God and neighbor as myself? Is the kingdom even in sight from where I live and walk each day?
An Alternative Application
Today is the first reading from Ruth. The lectionary passages for next Sunday continue and conclude the story of Ruth. But one thing you might wish to consider is doing a four-part sermon series on Ruth, with each chapter being covered each week. Her story, so simple yet profound, has lots of relevant lessons for today. Sermon 1 could introduce Ruth and the other main characters, with special emphasis on the kind of person she was. Sermon 2 could examine chapter 2, how Ruth comes to the right barley field at just the right time. How often in our lives does God lead us to just the right place at just the right time? Sermon 3 could examine the funny and touching story of Ruth chapter 3 and how Naomi plays the matchmaker. Sometimes love needs a little help. Sermon 4 could be based on Ruth chapter 4, which connects the story of Ruth to that of David and Jesus. It is a love story that never ends.
