Turn of Fortune
Commentary
In 1954, Marcelle Maurtette wrote a play called Anastasia. It was based on the true story of a woman named Anna Anderson who claimed to be the long-lost daughter of the last emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, and his wife, Aleksandra.
The Russian tsars believed their kingdom was imperishable. They knew they would rule forever. But at the turn of this century, the groundswell of social and political revolution tossed them aside. The emperor and his family were held hostage in the palace and then executed as the Bolsheviks bathed the countryside with blood.
Rumors persisted that little Anastasia, the youngest of the Romanovs, somehow survived the slaughter. Over the years, a number of women claimed to be her. Some were easily spotted as frauds. Others convinced enough supporters to make a serious claim to fame.
And then there was Anna -- a nameless, homeless, memoryless wanderer, prone to suicidal fits at the “insane asylum” where she was brought. Nobody knew where she came from. They gave her the name Anna because she had none of her own.
But one day, Anna’s doctor came across a picture of the last Russian royal family. Anna bears a striking resemblance to little Anastasia. And she seems to know more about the Russian noble house than one would expect. Anna is hypnotized. She knows even more in her subconscious. There’s a real possibility that she could be the only surviving heir of the Romanov family fortune. But who knows for sure? Is there any way to prove it?
Newspapers pick up the story. Is this really Anastasia? By some miracle was her life spared, only to be thrown into this new and dismal tragedy?
Or is she only a hoax, a scoundrel, a publicity-seeker? The controversy sells papers. And the press hypes it to the limit.
Enter the old empress. She was not in Russia at the time of the murder of her son and his family, and now she lives in exile. If anyone should know if Anna is truly her granddaughter, this woman is the person. One day she comes to see Anna.
The two women talk together for a long time. When she leaves, the elderly woman tells the world: “Anna is my granddaughter Anastasia!”
Suddenly Anna begins to change. She blossoms as a person. She takes hold of her life. The suicide threats are gone. She washes herself and combs her hair. She looks after herself and dresses in style. She stands up straight in a crowd, and she carries herself with dignity when she walks.
The rumors follow her for the rest of her life. The courts in West Germany debate the issue of her identity for years. But Anna -- Anastasia -- has a new lease on life. She starts over. She learns to live again. She leaves the past behind and finds herself with a future.
One line in the play carries the heart of the story: How did Anna climb from the pit of her insane asylum and walk again in the land of the living? What transformed Anna the nobody into Anastasia the princess? This is her secret: “You must understand that it never mattered whether or not I was a princess. It only matters that . . . someone, if it be only one, has held out their arms to welcome me back from death!”
Someone gave her a new identity. Someone gave her a reason to live. Someone gave her a vision and a purpose and a hope and a goal. In the unsettling and changing and tumultuous wanderings of her existence, someone gave her something to live for.
The Romanov family lost its royal heritage. The Russian revolution, in turn, is running out of steam. The great powers of the world are shaken. But Anna Anderson came back from the dead. She found something of strength and support in changing times and circumstances. She found someone who believed in her.
This is the gospel story, and it is recounted in four wonderful ways in today’s lectionary passages.
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 and Psalm 127
The story of Ruth is quickly told in only a few economical paragraphs. During the time of the Judges, unsettled by a nasty famine, Elimelech removes his family from the hill country of Judah to find food and work. They settle in Moab long enough for the two sons, Machlon and Kilion, to marry. Then, in short order, all the men of the family die, and Naomi is left a widow. Destitute, Naomi can only think of returning to Bethlehem where she might find old friends who could give her a few handouts until she dies. Her daughters-in-law try to travel along, but Naomi resists their pity. She has nothing to offer them, not even future sons, if the unlikely should happen and she would marry again.
Orpah is wise and goes back to her Moabite community to start over. Ruth, however, is stubborn, and doggedly determined to accompany Naomi in order to share the burden of her desperate situation.
On arriving in Bethlehem, Naomi is barely recognized but warmly welcomed. She tells her woeful story and claims a new name, “Mara,” (which means “bitter”) as an indication of her sorry state.
Ruth joins the other poor people who glean the barley fields for leftover corner patches and fallen stalks and loose kernels after the reapers have taken in the bulk of the crop (see Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22 about reaping and gleaning practices). She catches the eye of Boaz, a wealthy landowner of some of the fields where she labors. He gets friendly, and Naomi sees a good prospect looming on the horizon. She urges Ruth to return Boaz’s kind initiatives, and before long the gentleman makes public his courtship intentions. Quickly he cuts through community red tape, and the two are wed. Already on their honeymoon a child is conceived, and when little Obed is born, Naomi claims him as a sign of Yahweh’s renewed blessing on her life. Of course, everybody lives happily ever after, and the closing credits show that this is the origin of the great family of David, who later restores glory and honor to Israel.
The tale is as clean and crisp and delightful as any ever written. But like an iceberg, there is much more going on beneath the surface than first catches the eye. A character study reveals that nearly every dramatic persona in the book is doubled and paralleled. Ruth and Boaz are the twinned lead characters. She is female, young, single (widowed), poor, and an alien in Israel; he, on the other hand, is male, older, single (unmarried), wealthy, and a leading citizen in Israel. Their interaction continually highlights both their similarities and their differences, making them a truly engaging couple.
Next to them stand their dramatic counterparts, lesser figures in the story, to be sure, but foils in whose reflection these lead characters are further defined. Ruth’s “other” is Orpah, another young Moabite woman who also married a son of Elimelech and Naomi. While Ruth becomes noble as the whole of the drama progresses, Orpah becomes ordinary, taking the typical human path at the beginning of the tale. Orpah reminds us of ourselves, acting with modest self-interest to make it through life. Meanwhile, Ruth soars in an impressive arc of witness, a triumph of the humble spirit focused relentlessly on things that really matter.
Similarly, there is a counterpart to Boaz. He shows up near the end of the tale as the “kinsman-redeemer,” or nearer relative, who can follow through on the levirate customs that would allow Naomi and Ruth to regain title to the land evacuated by Elimelech. Once again, this man is very much like Boaz. He would also like to help Naomi and Ruth, but practical matters of family get in the way, and none among the elders of the community reproaches him for stepping back. Boaz, however, stretches beyond what circumstances require, and gives himself to pledges that define a new future for others, even when Boaz himself is not under obligation to them.
A third pair of dramatic characters is found in the background collectives that provide color commentary to the story. There is a group of women who congregate around Naomi and Ruth early in the tale (when these two enter Bethlehem after Naomi’s exile) and again later in the story (in order to pronounce blessings on the household after Obed is born), announcing Naomi’s situation and reflecting her changing fortunes. Likewise, a group of men gloms onto Boaz, first in the fields of harvest where they act as his confidants and advisers, and then for a second time in the final gate scene where they adjudicate the decisions that are being made.
What becomes strangely clear when reviewing these pairings is that Naomi stands alone. Elimelech, her husband, vanishes within the first few verses. Ruth may be a companion to Naomi, but she is never an equal. The women who chant are always in the background, even as Naomi lives at center stage. While the title of the book may focus our attention on Ruth, it is actually the figure of Naomi which emerges in the drama as the main character. She has no counterpart. She is the focus of the story. Although we delight in snuggling up to Ruth and Boaz, it is the fortunes of Naomi that become the prime concern of everyone else in the tale.
In this light we begin to understand the theological significance of the drama. While it is a story well told and beautifully staged, it is also a clearly moral and religious homily. Like Samson in the book of Judges, Naomi is the mirror reflection of Israel as a nation. The very fact that she has no parallel character within the tale makes her stand out as a type of something larger, something more significant.
This theological significance is highlighted by the striking use of setting and names throughout. The story begins in the time of the Judges, when the dominant motif, echoed particularly in the sordid appendix to the book of that name, is: “in those days there was no king in the land and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” The book of Ruth commences with a man consciously removing his family from their divinely granted inheritance, to seek fortune and security among Israel’s enemies. This is the displacement warned about in the curses of the Sinai covenant, and modeled in the failures of both the tribes of Dan and Benjamin.
At the same time, the book of Ruth ends with a clear and unambiguous link to the time of the kings in its epilogue that lists the family succession directly to David. In this way the story of Naomi bridges the awful destitution of life under the judges with the Camelot sparkle of Israel’s grand existence during the reigns of David and Solomon. It is thus, coded in the weavings of Naomi’s life, that the key to Israel’s success is found. How does Naomi go from rags to riches? How will Israel claw its way back from destitution to restitution? The answer lies in the symbolism of this story.
Bethlehem, the home town of Elimelech and Naomi, means “house of bread.” Yet it is precisely here that there is famine “in the days of the judges” because of the failure of the Israelites to live as Yahweh’s covenant community of witness. This becomes even more clear when Elimelech (“My God is King”) leaves his inheritance to become, in effect, a Moabite man. The Moabites were cursed by Yahweh for having led Israel to lose its religious identity in Numbers 22–25. Though unstated, Elimelech’s faithlessness prompts an underlying current of judgment against his family. This is why his sons are so frail (Machlon means “sickly,” Kilion means “weakling”) and die along with their father, leaving the one vision of hope in the family, wife and mother Naomi (“sweet” or “pleasant” -- “Sweetie-pie,” you might say!), turned sour (Mara means “bitter”).
It is only through a faithful Israelite who did not leave his inheritance (Boaz means “in him is strength”), coupled with a despised Moabite woman who actually caught the vision of Yahweh’s missional covenant community in spite of the failures of so many of Israel’s citizens, that Israel/Naomi is restored. So, the drama, which began when the “House of Bread” was empty, ends with a bountiful harvest in the same breadbasket community. Moreover, the family that gave up its inheritance, only to have its future obliterated under the curses of the covenant (all of the males -- who carry the inheritance links -- die, leaving the women worse than dead), finds a new fulfillment that brings harvest, safety, home, wealth, and, above all, a male child to restore a claim in the inheritance of the covenant people in the promised land. And what is the name of the boy? Obed. “Servant.” Exactly! Only when personal self-interest (Orpah and the kinsman-redeemer) is given up for faithful covenant service (Ruth and Boaz) does life begin again to shimmer with significance. The book of Ruth is very fine drama indeed, but it is exceptionally great theology besides.
Hebrews 9:24-28
All the images painted in Hebrews 9 are intended to recall the annual Israelite national cleansing ceremony called the Day of Atonement. This ritual was established by God at Mount Sinai, just after the Suzerain-Vassal Covenant of Exodus 20-24 officially transferred the “ownership” of Israel from the Pharaoh of Egypt (who had been defeated by Yahweh in the battle of the Ten Plagues, and annihilated in the waters of the Red Sea) to Yahweh, the Creator of all and Lord of the nations.
When God moved into the Israelite camp to live and journey with the people, everything changed. There was a sense of nervous tension and excitement. How should the people act, now that this powerful deity actually resided at the heart of the community? The atmosphere was charged with energy and anticipation.
And the lifestyle of the people did change, just as would be the case whenever a ruler of power visited or established a new royal home. The book of Leviticus functioned as a sort of new Operators Manual for the changing expressions of culture and behaviors when God moved in with God’s people.
While these instructions are understandable for the most part, and provide a general outlook on life in the Israelite camp, they remain somewhat arbitrary until viewed in light of what appears to be the primary rationale undergirding the entire social ethos. In Leviticus 19:1–2 Moses received this command: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: “Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”’” Holiness was a lifestyle intrinsic to the Creator’s character. So, naturally, when Yahweh moved into the camp of Israel as its Suzerain, some behavior modification among the Vassals was necessary. In essence, the commands and regulations of Leviticus explored and explained the unique culture of Israel’s modified society, now that she was under new authority, and her champion had chosen to identify closely with these people.
In this light, the various sections of Leviticus take on new and vibrant meaning. Rather than merely cataloguing certain rituals or practices (because these are the way things have always been done and are now simply being codified), there was a new and pervasive dynamism, along the lines of a town getting ready for its recently elected mayor, or the inauguration of a new president in a superpower nation, or the affirmation of a new constitution and governing body after a great revolution. The lack of any significant historical narrative or context-setting materials at the outset of Leviticus indicates that these instructions are elaborations upon the big covenant declarations of Exodus 20-24, along with the raising of the Tabernacle at the center of the community (Exodus 25-40). Now the day-to-day operations are explained and nuanced. In fact, the detailed notes about offerings in chapters 1–7 form a perfect bridge between finishing the Tabernacle and getting on with life. The five types of sacrifices commanded and explained may be seen as vehicles for communicating inward “cleansing” or “holiness,” both to Yahweh and also to others in the newly reshaped community. These offerings were visible prayers, and may, in fact, picture the idea of the Israelites engaged in the dynamics of mealtime rituals with God. Notice that these offerings were to take place in the courtyard of the Tabernacle (similar in location to the place where informal meals were eaten in front of the Israelites’ family tents) at the same time as the typical meals, in the rhythm of Israelite custom, were eaten.
The Levites thus took center stage within the community. They cared for the House of Yahweh on behalf of the Israelites. And since the family of priests was contained within their numbers, these officials were to process the approach of the community as a whole toward Yahweh through their administration of the sacrifices of Leviticus 1-7, just as they were also to oversee the details of the “cleansing/holiness” practices throughout the camp. For these reasons, the entire collection of regulations, in its later Greek (Septuagint) translation, was fittingly titled “Leviticus,” or the activities pertaining to the Levites in the administration of Yahweh’s holiness among his people.
What becomes apparent in reading Hebrews is that the original readers were as familiar with these things as was the writer. They, too, lived and breathed and drank in the Hebrew Scriptures as the very essence of meaning itself. It is precisely this devotion that provides the author of Hebrews with his interpretations that become, repeatedly, a call, not to abandon these things, but to receive them as signs and pointers to Jesus. If they trusted in the revelation of God through the ceremonies of the past, as outlined in scripture, they should more fully trust Jesus now. All that happened before, all that was written in the covenant documents and the holiness codes, now finds its fulfillment in Jesus.
Mark 12:38-44
Roland Pertwee’s short story, “The Voice That Said ‘Good Night,’” tells of Philip Gaylor’s murder. One morning he was found dead in his chair, neck twisted and broken. Who could have done it?
It might have been anyone, said Charles Crichton to the investigating officer. After all, Philip Gaylor “was the kind of beast who kept his soul in his trousers pocket, along with his other small change.”
That is an amazing description of a man! According to Crichton, Philip Gaylor was spiritually bankrupt, and his soul was reduced to a plaything he could pocket with his other cheap coins. As Mr. Gaylor’s wealth increased, his heart nearly evaporated and his life became a shade shuffling expensive shadows.
Money is a power in our lives. We have all felt it feed our greed or suck like a leech at our souls. In our consumer-oriented society it has to be disarmed or it will consume us with credit card debt and gambling addictions. One family in our neighborhood is painfully climbing out of an over-buying hole. Another friend now spends more time at Gamblers’ Anonymous meetings than he does in church.
Jaques Ellul, the deeply religious French social critic, offered some hopeful suggestions in his book Money and Power (IVP, 1984). Ellul said that there are three ways we can learn to defuse the power of money in our lives.
First, in all the issues of life, said Ellul, we must choose to side with the human dimension rather than the economic. In other words, we have to refocus the glasses of our heart’s eyes to see persons before profits. Economic problems have to become, for us, human relations successes. People always matter more than the bottom line on bills.
Second, said Ellul, we must each make a willful decision not to love Money. Jesus, in Matthew 6, called Money a god directly in competition with the Creator. If we would find the true value of our lives, according to Ellul, we need to peg our hearts on God’s board, and deliberately refuse to be counted on Money’s team.
More than any other advice or admonition, this goes against the current of our society. Harvard economist John Kenneth Gailbraith developed the creed of North American life when he declared, as his major economic thesis, “prosperity is generated by desire.” If you want to gun for economic greatness you have to feed the flames of greed. Wealth is a perspective on life carved out of insatiable consumer madness.
Ellul’s third guideline for defusing the power of money was to give it away. It is not enough, he said, to take God’s path at the fork in the road. We must also divest ourselves of the very power of the other god in our lives. Just as alcoholics must renounce the bottle in order to survive, those who are smitten with the plague of greed have to get rid of the things that produce the cancerous disease. Some, in fact, as Jesus noted elsewhere, may well have to get rid of every bit of money and goods, and take vows of poverty.
Even for those of us who may be able to survive with less drastic healing measures, Ellul urges that we all need to give away much more money than is our current habit. Prosperity makes it easy to throw dimes and dollars this way and that without attacking our deep connection to material things. Recession, on the other hand, feeds our worry and robs us of both faith and generosity. To paraphrase the prayer in one of the Proverbs, “Lord, give me neither riches nor poverty; riches will make me self-sufficient and poverty will make me obsessive.”
This is Jesus’ point in his lesson for his disciples. Precisely when the going gets the toughest the only quality of life that we can bank on is the graciousness of God. That is why the truest test of our spiritual character is found in the reflection of God’s generosity that spills out of our souls.
Application
Lev Tolstoy wrote a brilliant little story about a man who had found favor with the governing powers and was allowed to select a parcel of ground as his own. The only limitation on its size was the requirement that he be able to plow a furrow around the property in a single day.
Early one morning he set out, excited about the small farm he would stake out. He didn’t need much -- just enough to make a simple living for himself and his family.
By mid-morning he had moved a great distance. Still, when he looked back the area seemed so small. Since the day was still young he decided to angle out a bit more. After all, a larger farm would make him a wealthy man. In his mind scenes flashed of his children, robust because of their fine meals. He could see his wife gliding at the ball adorned in a Parisian gown. Men would seek his opinions and women would giggle with delight as he tipped his hat to them.
As noon approached the man grew impatient with his slow progress. The circle of land now seemed much too small. He must have more, so once again he widened the angle of his plow.
Throughout the afternoon he fantasized of kings and princes calling him to court, and the fever for more land burned in his soul. He plowed with a passion, forgetting to watch the sun as it slipped in the western skies.
Too late he realized that he might not make it back to the starting stake. In panic he whipped his horse, pushing at the plow handles as the furrow began to zigzag madly. His heart pounded, his stomach churned, and his muscles tightened in desperation. He must make it!
But his desire had overextended itself, and inches short of a complete circle he falls to the earth he covets, dead of a heart attack. He is buried on all the land he needs: a plot of ground three feet by six -- a farm for the dead.
In his Ethics, Spinoza said, “Desire is the very essence of man.” He was right. The thing that separates us from the instinctive responses of the animal world is the God-given ability to hope and wish and dream and plan. Desire makes us more than mere biological organisms. It is the God-like quality that makes us both loving and creative.
But hidden within every desirable desire in our spirits is the possibility of cancerous mutation. Greed and covetousness are desire gone mad, the degradation of consumerism at its crassest.
In a 15th century morality play, the human race is portrayed as a Prince secured within the stronghold of a castle under siege by the Seven Deadly Sins. During the young years of this Prince, Pride, Anger and Sloth inflict many horrible wounds but are not able to gain full access to the castle. As the Prince mirrors an aging humanity, most of these Deadly Sins lose their power, until six of the seven lie listless outside the fortress gates. Only then does the seventh Deadly Sin, Lust, come to its own. With the battle virtually won, the aging human race opens the doors of the castle and staggers out willingly into the welcoming stranglehold of this final foe.
The lesson is clear: our hearts’ desires are our allies in our early years, nourishing the best of God’s strength in us. In fact, we are often proud of our strengths, and sometimes mercilessly berate other ages that seem less competent. But the cancer of consumerism and materialism are already changing our inner selves until, even in our older, seemingly wiser years, the security systems of our hearts fail, and we willingly embrace our own ruin in greed.
Tolstoy’s story of the farmer who died staking his claim was adapted from Jesus’ parable of the wealthy landholder who needed to deal with his runaway bumper crop. God called that man “Fool”. The judgment against him came not because of his riches but because of the isolation produced by his success. We’re told that in his surplus he “took counsel with himself” rather than with his community. That assessment of cancerous desire returns us to scripture’s search for a cure.
When desire becomes cancerous in us, we are “dragged away” from our community and friends. We begin to act as Lone Rangers, isolated and insulated.
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have no way to contain the virus, but the church does. When people begin to relearn the value of community in small groups of care and spiritual accountability, they can guard one another against desire’s cancerous tendencies in the early stages. In my small accountability group, we ask each other regularly “Is the public you consistent with the real you?” and “What are you wrestling with in your thought life?” I’m not immune to desires that multiply out of control, and neither are you.
What circle of desire are you plowing around today? You might not be aware of it until it warps you or kills you. Or until your best friends sit across the table from you and help you check your spiritual health. Why not invite them over for coffee today?
Alternative Application (Psalm 127)
Homes come in all shapes and sizes. There’s a house in Asheville, North Carolina, that boasts 250 rooms and lays claim to being the largest private home in the world. Of course, if you’re into the weird and wacky, there’s the home of Mrs. Winchester in southern California. After her husband and her only child died early this century, Mrs. Winchester believed spirits were telling her that she should buy a particular seventeen-room house, then under construction, and that she would continue to live so long as she kept building it. She did manage to survive another thirty-eight years, dwelling in solitude as the construction continued on around her. But even the builders couldn’t keep death from going in to visit her one night. Her house is now one of the strangest curiosities in the world.
But perhaps the most unusual story of house-building happened in Detroit. Henry Ford erected a marvelous home called “Fairlane” on the upper slopes of the River Rouge. It’s a masterpiece of craftsmanship and artistic design. Ford had learned early in life that he could never really count on anyone else, so he spent an extra $200,000, already back in 1917, to put in his own electric power plant for the whole estate.
In all his years at Fairlane, the power plant served faithfully, lighting and heating his impressive home. Except for one time: in early April of 1947, torrential rains lashed the Detroit area. The River Rouge rose from its banks. And on the night of April 7, the floods entered the Fairlane boiler room, smothering the fires and causing the steam pressure to drop. That night the lights went out at Fairlane. And that’s the night that Henry Ford died in his bed at the age of eighty-seven.
That story is something like a parable. Here was a man who put North America on wheels, who invented one gadget after another to make life less tedious and more enjoyable, who helped to usher in our modern technological society. Here was a staunchly independent man, one who took care of himself and didn’t owe anybody anything. Here was a man who even managed to separate his wiring grid from that of the public utilities. And the very night he dies, forces beyond his control snatch away his source of power!
Along with Psalm 127, this reminds us of Jesus’ parable about a rich man who built bigger barns. Wealth, said Jesus, was not the issue. Self-sufficiency was. We can each build our own houses, rich or poor, luxurious or humble, extravagant or miserly; but only love can turn a house into a home.
And, as the psalmist declares, love is the business of the greatest builder of all time.
The Russian tsars believed their kingdom was imperishable. They knew they would rule forever. But at the turn of this century, the groundswell of social and political revolution tossed them aside. The emperor and his family were held hostage in the palace and then executed as the Bolsheviks bathed the countryside with blood.
Rumors persisted that little Anastasia, the youngest of the Romanovs, somehow survived the slaughter. Over the years, a number of women claimed to be her. Some were easily spotted as frauds. Others convinced enough supporters to make a serious claim to fame.
And then there was Anna -- a nameless, homeless, memoryless wanderer, prone to suicidal fits at the “insane asylum” where she was brought. Nobody knew where she came from. They gave her the name Anna because she had none of her own.
But one day, Anna’s doctor came across a picture of the last Russian royal family. Anna bears a striking resemblance to little Anastasia. And she seems to know more about the Russian noble house than one would expect. Anna is hypnotized. She knows even more in her subconscious. There’s a real possibility that she could be the only surviving heir of the Romanov family fortune. But who knows for sure? Is there any way to prove it?
Newspapers pick up the story. Is this really Anastasia? By some miracle was her life spared, only to be thrown into this new and dismal tragedy?
Or is she only a hoax, a scoundrel, a publicity-seeker? The controversy sells papers. And the press hypes it to the limit.
Enter the old empress. She was not in Russia at the time of the murder of her son and his family, and now she lives in exile. If anyone should know if Anna is truly her granddaughter, this woman is the person. One day she comes to see Anna.
The two women talk together for a long time. When she leaves, the elderly woman tells the world: “Anna is my granddaughter Anastasia!”
Suddenly Anna begins to change. She blossoms as a person. She takes hold of her life. The suicide threats are gone. She washes herself and combs her hair. She looks after herself and dresses in style. She stands up straight in a crowd, and she carries herself with dignity when she walks.
The rumors follow her for the rest of her life. The courts in West Germany debate the issue of her identity for years. But Anna -- Anastasia -- has a new lease on life. She starts over. She learns to live again. She leaves the past behind and finds herself with a future.
One line in the play carries the heart of the story: How did Anna climb from the pit of her insane asylum and walk again in the land of the living? What transformed Anna the nobody into Anastasia the princess? This is her secret: “You must understand that it never mattered whether or not I was a princess. It only matters that . . . someone, if it be only one, has held out their arms to welcome me back from death!”
Someone gave her a new identity. Someone gave her a reason to live. Someone gave her a vision and a purpose and a hope and a goal. In the unsettling and changing and tumultuous wanderings of her existence, someone gave her something to live for.
The Romanov family lost its royal heritage. The Russian revolution, in turn, is running out of steam. The great powers of the world are shaken. But Anna Anderson came back from the dead. She found something of strength and support in changing times and circumstances. She found someone who believed in her.
This is the gospel story, and it is recounted in four wonderful ways in today’s lectionary passages.
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 and Psalm 127
The story of Ruth is quickly told in only a few economical paragraphs. During the time of the Judges, unsettled by a nasty famine, Elimelech removes his family from the hill country of Judah to find food and work. They settle in Moab long enough for the two sons, Machlon and Kilion, to marry. Then, in short order, all the men of the family die, and Naomi is left a widow. Destitute, Naomi can only think of returning to Bethlehem where she might find old friends who could give her a few handouts until she dies. Her daughters-in-law try to travel along, but Naomi resists their pity. She has nothing to offer them, not even future sons, if the unlikely should happen and she would marry again.
Orpah is wise and goes back to her Moabite community to start over. Ruth, however, is stubborn, and doggedly determined to accompany Naomi in order to share the burden of her desperate situation.
On arriving in Bethlehem, Naomi is barely recognized but warmly welcomed. She tells her woeful story and claims a new name, “Mara,” (which means “bitter”) as an indication of her sorry state.
Ruth joins the other poor people who glean the barley fields for leftover corner patches and fallen stalks and loose kernels after the reapers have taken in the bulk of the crop (see Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22 about reaping and gleaning practices). She catches the eye of Boaz, a wealthy landowner of some of the fields where she labors. He gets friendly, and Naomi sees a good prospect looming on the horizon. She urges Ruth to return Boaz’s kind initiatives, and before long the gentleman makes public his courtship intentions. Quickly he cuts through community red tape, and the two are wed. Already on their honeymoon a child is conceived, and when little Obed is born, Naomi claims him as a sign of Yahweh’s renewed blessing on her life. Of course, everybody lives happily ever after, and the closing credits show that this is the origin of the great family of David, who later restores glory and honor to Israel.
The tale is as clean and crisp and delightful as any ever written. But like an iceberg, there is much more going on beneath the surface than first catches the eye. A character study reveals that nearly every dramatic persona in the book is doubled and paralleled. Ruth and Boaz are the twinned lead characters. She is female, young, single (widowed), poor, and an alien in Israel; he, on the other hand, is male, older, single (unmarried), wealthy, and a leading citizen in Israel. Their interaction continually highlights both their similarities and their differences, making them a truly engaging couple.
Next to them stand their dramatic counterparts, lesser figures in the story, to be sure, but foils in whose reflection these lead characters are further defined. Ruth’s “other” is Orpah, another young Moabite woman who also married a son of Elimelech and Naomi. While Ruth becomes noble as the whole of the drama progresses, Orpah becomes ordinary, taking the typical human path at the beginning of the tale. Orpah reminds us of ourselves, acting with modest self-interest to make it through life. Meanwhile, Ruth soars in an impressive arc of witness, a triumph of the humble spirit focused relentlessly on things that really matter.
Similarly, there is a counterpart to Boaz. He shows up near the end of the tale as the “kinsman-redeemer,” or nearer relative, who can follow through on the levirate customs that would allow Naomi and Ruth to regain title to the land evacuated by Elimelech. Once again, this man is very much like Boaz. He would also like to help Naomi and Ruth, but practical matters of family get in the way, and none among the elders of the community reproaches him for stepping back. Boaz, however, stretches beyond what circumstances require, and gives himself to pledges that define a new future for others, even when Boaz himself is not under obligation to them.
A third pair of dramatic characters is found in the background collectives that provide color commentary to the story. There is a group of women who congregate around Naomi and Ruth early in the tale (when these two enter Bethlehem after Naomi’s exile) and again later in the story (in order to pronounce blessings on the household after Obed is born), announcing Naomi’s situation and reflecting her changing fortunes. Likewise, a group of men gloms onto Boaz, first in the fields of harvest where they act as his confidants and advisers, and then for a second time in the final gate scene where they adjudicate the decisions that are being made.
What becomes strangely clear when reviewing these pairings is that Naomi stands alone. Elimelech, her husband, vanishes within the first few verses. Ruth may be a companion to Naomi, but she is never an equal. The women who chant are always in the background, even as Naomi lives at center stage. While the title of the book may focus our attention on Ruth, it is actually the figure of Naomi which emerges in the drama as the main character. She has no counterpart. She is the focus of the story. Although we delight in snuggling up to Ruth and Boaz, it is the fortunes of Naomi that become the prime concern of everyone else in the tale.
In this light we begin to understand the theological significance of the drama. While it is a story well told and beautifully staged, it is also a clearly moral and religious homily. Like Samson in the book of Judges, Naomi is the mirror reflection of Israel as a nation. The very fact that she has no parallel character within the tale makes her stand out as a type of something larger, something more significant.
This theological significance is highlighted by the striking use of setting and names throughout. The story begins in the time of the Judges, when the dominant motif, echoed particularly in the sordid appendix to the book of that name, is: “in those days there was no king in the land and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” The book of Ruth commences with a man consciously removing his family from their divinely granted inheritance, to seek fortune and security among Israel’s enemies. This is the displacement warned about in the curses of the Sinai covenant, and modeled in the failures of both the tribes of Dan and Benjamin.
At the same time, the book of Ruth ends with a clear and unambiguous link to the time of the kings in its epilogue that lists the family succession directly to David. In this way the story of Naomi bridges the awful destitution of life under the judges with the Camelot sparkle of Israel’s grand existence during the reigns of David and Solomon. It is thus, coded in the weavings of Naomi’s life, that the key to Israel’s success is found. How does Naomi go from rags to riches? How will Israel claw its way back from destitution to restitution? The answer lies in the symbolism of this story.
Bethlehem, the home town of Elimelech and Naomi, means “house of bread.” Yet it is precisely here that there is famine “in the days of the judges” because of the failure of the Israelites to live as Yahweh’s covenant community of witness. This becomes even more clear when Elimelech (“My God is King”) leaves his inheritance to become, in effect, a Moabite man. The Moabites were cursed by Yahweh for having led Israel to lose its religious identity in Numbers 22–25. Though unstated, Elimelech’s faithlessness prompts an underlying current of judgment against his family. This is why his sons are so frail (Machlon means “sickly,” Kilion means “weakling”) and die along with their father, leaving the one vision of hope in the family, wife and mother Naomi (“sweet” or “pleasant” -- “Sweetie-pie,” you might say!), turned sour (Mara means “bitter”).
It is only through a faithful Israelite who did not leave his inheritance (Boaz means “in him is strength”), coupled with a despised Moabite woman who actually caught the vision of Yahweh’s missional covenant community in spite of the failures of so many of Israel’s citizens, that Israel/Naomi is restored. So, the drama, which began when the “House of Bread” was empty, ends with a bountiful harvest in the same breadbasket community. Moreover, the family that gave up its inheritance, only to have its future obliterated under the curses of the covenant (all of the males -- who carry the inheritance links -- die, leaving the women worse than dead), finds a new fulfillment that brings harvest, safety, home, wealth, and, above all, a male child to restore a claim in the inheritance of the covenant people in the promised land. And what is the name of the boy? Obed. “Servant.” Exactly! Only when personal self-interest (Orpah and the kinsman-redeemer) is given up for faithful covenant service (Ruth and Boaz) does life begin again to shimmer with significance. The book of Ruth is very fine drama indeed, but it is exceptionally great theology besides.
Hebrews 9:24-28
All the images painted in Hebrews 9 are intended to recall the annual Israelite national cleansing ceremony called the Day of Atonement. This ritual was established by God at Mount Sinai, just after the Suzerain-Vassal Covenant of Exodus 20-24 officially transferred the “ownership” of Israel from the Pharaoh of Egypt (who had been defeated by Yahweh in the battle of the Ten Plagues, and annihilated in the waters of the Red Sea) to Yahweh, the Creator of all and Lord of the nations.
When God moved into the Israelite camp to live and journey with the people, everything changed. There was a sense of nervous tension and excitement. How should the people act, now that this powerful deity actually resided at the heart of the community? The atmosphere was charged with energy and anticipation.
And the lifestyle of the people did change, just as would be the case whenever a ruler of power visited or established a new royal home. The book of Leviticus functioned as a sort of new Operators Manual for the changing expressions of culture and behaviors when God moved in with God’s people.
While these instructions are understandable for the most part, and provide a general outlook on life in the Israelite camp, they remain somewhat arbitrary until viewed in light of what appears to be the primary rationale undergirding the entire social ethos. In Leviticus 19:1–2 Moses received this command: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: “Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”’” Holiness was a lifestyle intrinsic to the Creator’s character. So, naturally, when Yahweh moved into the camp of Israel as its Suzerain, some behavior modification among the Vassals was necessary. In essence, the commands and regulations of Leviticus explored and explained the unique culture of Israel’s modified society, now that she was under new authority, and her champion had chosen to identify closely with these people.
In this light, the various sections of Leviticus take on new and vibrant meaning. Rather than merely cataloguing certain rituals or practices (because these are the way things have always been done and are now simply being codified), there was a new and pervasive dynamism, along the lines of a town getting ready for its recently elected mayor, or the inauguration of a new president in a superpower nation, or the affirmation of a new constitution and governing body after a great revolution. The lack of any significant historical narrative or context-setting materials at the outset of Leviticus indicates that these instructions are elaborations upon the big covenant declarations of Exodus 20-24, along with the raising of the Tabernacle at the center of the community (Exodus 25-40). Now the day-to-day operations are explained and nuanced. In fact, the detailed notes about offerings in chapters 1–7 form a perfect bridge between finishing the Tabernacle and getting on with life. The five types of sacrifices commanded and explained may be seen as vehicles for communicating inward “cleansing” or “holiness,” both to Yahweh and also to others in the newly reshaped community. These offerings were visible prayers, and may, in fact, picture the idea of the Israelites engaged in the dynamics of mealtime rituals with God. Notice that these offerings were to take place in the courtyard of the Tabernacle (similar in location to the place where informal meals were eaten in front of the Israelites’ family tents) at the same time as the typical meals, in the rhythm of Israelite custom, were eaten.
The Levites thus took center stage within the community. They cared for the House of Yahweh on behalf of the Israelites. And since the family of priests was contained within their numbers, these officials were to process the approach of the community as a whole toward Yahweh through their administration of the sacrifices of Leviticus 1-7, just as they were also to oversee the details of the “cleansing/holiness” practices throughout the camp. For these reasons, the entire collection of regulations, in its later Greek (Septuagint) translation, was fittingly titled “Leviticus,” or the activities pertaining to the Levites in the administration of Yahweh’s holiness among his people.
What becomes apparent in reading Hebrews is that the original readers were as familiar with these things as was the writer. They, too, lived and breathed and drank in the Hebrew Scriptures as the very essence of meaning itself. It is precisely this devotion that provides the author of Hebrews with his interpretations that become, repeatedly, a call, not to abandon these things, but to receive them as signs and pointers to Jesus. If they trusted in the revelation of God through the ceremonies of the past, as outlined in scripture, they should more fully trust Jesus now. All that happened before, all that was written in the covenant documents and the holiness codes, now finds its fulfillment in Jesus.
Mark 12:38-44
Roland Pertwee’s short story, “The Voice That Said ‘Good Night,’” tells of Philip Gaylor’s murder. One morning he was found dead in his chair, neck twisted and broken. Who could have done it?
It might have been anyone, said Charles Crichton to the investigating officer. After all, Philip Gaylor “was the kind of beast who kept his soul in his trousers pocket, along with his other small change.”
That is an amazing description of a man! According to Crichton, Philip Gaylor was spiritually bankrupt, and his soul was reduced to a plaything he could pocket with his other cheap coins. As Mr. Gaylor’s wealth increased, his heart nearly evaporated and his life became a shade shuffling expensive shadows.
Money is a power in our lives. We have all felt it feed our greed or suck like a leech at our souls. In our consumer-oriented society it has to be disarmed or it will consume us with credit card debt and gambling addictions. One family in our neighborhood is painfully climbing out of an over-buying hole. Another friend now spends more time at Gamblers’ Anonymous meetings than he does in church.
Jaques Ellul, the deeply religious French social critic, offered some hopeful suggestions in his book Money and Power (IVP, 1984). Ellul said that there are three ways we can learn to defuse the power of money in our lives.
First, in all the issues of life, said Ellul, we must choose to side with the human dimension rather than the economic. In other words, we have to refocus the glasses of our heart’s eyes to see persons before profits. Economic problems have to become, for us, human relations successes. People always matter more than the bottom line on bills.
Second, said Ellul, we must each make a willful decision not to love Money. Jesus, in Matthew 6, called Money a god directly in competition with the Creator. If we would find the true value of our lives, according to Ellul, we need to peg our hearts on God’s board, and deliberately refuse to be counted on Money’s team.
More than any other advice or admonition, this goes against the current of our society. Harvard economist John Kenneth Gailbraith developed the creed of North American life when he declared, as his major economic thesis, “prosperity is generated by desire.” If you want to gun for economic greatness you have to feed the flames of greed. Wealth is a perspective on life carved out of insatiable consumer madness.
Ellul’s third guideline for defusing the power of money was to give it away. It is not enough, he said, to take God’s path at the fork in the road. We must also divest ourselves of the very power of the other god in our lives. Just as alcoholics must renounce the bottle in order to survive, those who are smitten with the plague of greed have to get rid of the things that produce the cancerous disease. Some, in fact, as Jesus noted elsewhere, may well have to get rid of every bit of money and goods, and take vows of poverty.
Even for those of us who may be able to survive with less drastic healing measures, Ellul urges that we all need to give away much more money than is our current habit. Prosperity makes it easy to throw dimes and dollars this way and that without attacking our deep connection to material things. Recession, on the other hand, feeds our worry and robs us of both faith and generosity. To paraphrase the prayer in one of the Proverbs, “Lord, give me neither riches nor poverty; riches will make me self-sufficient and poverty will make me obsessive.”
This is Jesus’ point in his lesson for his disciples. Precisely when the going gets the toughest the only quality of life that we can bank on is the graciousness of God. That is why the truest test of our spiritual character is found in the reflection of God’s generosity that spills out of our souls.
Application
Lev Tolstoy wrote a brilliant little story about a man who had found favor with the governing powers and was allowed to select a parcel of ground as his own. The only limitation on its size was the requirement that he be able to plow a furrow around the property in a single day.
Early one morning he set out, excited about the small farm he would stake out. He didn’t need much -- just enough to make a simple living for himself and his family.
By mid-morning he had moved a great distance. Still, when he looked back the area seemed so small. Since the day was still young he decided to angle out a bit more. After all, a larger farm would make him a wealthy man. In his mind scenes flashed of his children, robust because of their fine meals. He could see his wife gliding at the ball adorned in a Parisian gown. Men would seek his opinions and women would giggle with delight as he tipped his hat to them.
As noon approached the man grew impatient with his slow progress. The circle of land now seemed much too small. He must have more, so once again he widened the angle of his plow.
Throughout the afternoon he fantasized of kings and princes calling him to court, and the fever for more land burned in his soul. He plowed with a passion, forgetting to watch the sun as it slipped in the western skies.
Too late he realized that he might not make it back to the starting stake. In panic he whipped his horse, pushing at the plow handles as the furrow began to zigzag madly. His heart pounded, his stomach churned, and his muscles tightened in desperation. He must make it!
But his desire had overextended itself, and inches short of a complete circle he falls to the earth he covets, dead of a heart attack. He is buried on all the land he needs: a plot of ground three feet by six -- a farm for the dead.
In his Ethics, Spinoza said, “Desire is the very essence of man.” He was right. The thing that separates us from the instinctive responses of the animal world is the God-given ability to hope and wish and dream and plan. Desire makes us more than mere biological organisms. It is the God-like quality that makes us both loving and creative.
But hidden within every desirable desire in our spirits is the possibility of cancerous mutation. Greed and covetousness are desire gone mad, the degradation of consumerism at its crassest.
In a 15th century morality play, the human race is portrayed as a Prince secured within the stronghold of a castle under siege by the Seven Deadly Sins. During the young years of this Prince, Pride, Anger and Sloth inflict many horrible wounds but are not able to gain full access to the castle. As the Prince mirrors an aging humanity, most of these Deadly Sins lose their power, until six of the seven lie listless outside the fortress gates. Only then does the seventh Deadly Sin, Lust, come to its own. With the battle virtually won, the aging human race opens the doors of the castle and staggers out willingly into the welcoming stranglehold of this final foe.
The lesson is clear: our hearts’ desires are our allies in our early years, nourishing the best of God’s strength in us. In fact, we are often proud of our strengths, and sometimes mercilessly berate other ages that seem less competent. But the cancer of consumerism and materialism are already changing our inner selves until, even in our older, seemingly wiser years, the security systems of our hearts fail, and we willingly embrace our own ruin in greed.
Tolstoy’s story of the farmer who died staking his claim was adapted from Jesus’ parable of the wealthy landholder who needed to deal with his runaway bumper crop. God called that man “Fool”. The judgment against him came not because of his riches but because of the isolation produced by his success. We’re told that in his surplus he “took counsel with himself” rather than with his community. That assessment of cancerous desire returns us to scripture’s search for a cure.
When desire becomes cancerous in us, we are “dragged away” from our community and friends. We begin to act as Lone Rangers, isolated and insulated.
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have no way to contain the virus, but the church does. When people begin to relearn the value of community in small groups of care and spiritual accountability, they can guard one another against desire’s cancerous tendencies in the early stages. In my small accountability group, we ask each other regularly “Is the public you consistent with the real you?” and “What are you wrestling with in your thought life?” I’m not immune to desires that multiply out of control, and neither are you.
What circle of desire are you plowing around today? You might not be aware of it until it warps you or kills you. Or until your best friends sit across the table from you and help you check your spiritual health. Why not invite them over for coffee today?
Alternative Application (Psalm 127)
Homes come in all shapes and sizes. There’s a house in Asheville, North Carolina, that boasts 250 rooms and lays claim to being the largest private home in the world. Of course, if you’re into the weird and wacky, there’s the home of Mrs. Winchester in southern California. After her husband and her only child died early this century, Mrs. Winchester believed spirits were telling her that she should buy a particular seventeen-room house, then under construction, and that she would continue to live so long as she kept building it. She did manage to survive another thirty-eight years, dwelling in solitude as the construction continued on around her. But even the builders couldn’t keep death from going in to visit her one night. Her house is now one of the strangest curiosities in the world.
But perhaps the most unusual story of house-building happened in Detroit. Henry Ford erected a marvelous home called “Fairlane” on the upper slopes of the River Rouge. It’s a masterpiece of craftsmanship and artistic design. Ford had learned early in life that he could never really count on anyone else, so he spent an extra $200,000, already back in 1917, to put in his own electric power plant for the whole estate.
In all his years at Fairlane, the power plant served faithfully, lighting and heating his impressive home. Except for one time: in early April of 1947, torrential rains lashed the Detroit area. The River Rouge rose from its banks. And on the night of April 7, the floods entered the Fairlane boiler room, smothering the fires and causing the steam pressure to drop. That night the lights went out at Fairlane. And that’s the night that Henry Ford died in his bed at the age of eighty-seven.
That story is something like a parable. Here was a man who put North America on wheels, who invented one gadget after another to make life less tedious and more enjoyable, who helped to usher in our modern technological society. Here was a staunchly independent man, one who took care of himself and didn’t owe anybody anything. Here was a man who even managed to separate his wiring grid from that of the public utilities. And the very night he dies, forces beyond his control snatch away his source of power!
Along with Psalm 127, this reminds us of Jesus’ parable about a rich man who built bigger barns. Wealth, said Jesus, was not the issue. Self-sufficiency was. We can each build our own houses, rich or poor, luxurious or humble, extravagant or miserly; but only love can turn a house into a home.
And, as the psalmist declares, love is the business of the greatest builder of all time.
