We can easily get swept away with the story of Ruth; we just want Ruth and Boaz to get together already! But it's important to slow down and notice the details along the way.
v1 a man walked, from the house of bread, to sojourn in the fields of Moab.
A man walked. Already we're told to slow down.
He walked - he didn't run, he didn't journey, he didn't ride. He walked.
The next line tells us who with, and the line after that tells us their names.
But for now it's just a man, and he's walking from Bethlehem - or literally, the house of bread in Judah -
God's people in God's place, the place where God provides daily bread for his people.
And they're leaving for the fields of Moab.
It could have just said Moab,
but it's the fields - the fields in a foreign land with foreign gods, in order to plant grain in their fields.
And they walked.
How many times did they pause along the way, where they might have reconsidered their actions - it would have taken a long time before they were even half way - why not return? why not wait on God's favour to return to his house of bread?
If you look at this phrase, "a man walked",
5 times you will find it exactly
and each time it's fleeing, scattering, people who have lost trust in God and in his plans (Judg. 7:7; 9:55; 20:8; 1 Sam. 8:22; 1 Kg 1:49; 13:12; Jer. 11:8; 16:12; 51:9; Mic. 4:5; Psa. 39:6; Prov. 6:28).
so too this man
with his wife and his two sons.
Well the next time we hear the word walked, it's "they" walked
but it's a different group
this time it's Naomi and her daughters in law,
with her husband and two sons having died.
Is it any wonder she demands her name be changed to Mara - bitter?
v7, they walked in the road to return to the land of Judah.
and she says to them,
walk! return! each of you to your mother's home.
they walked in order to return to her home
and she ordered them to walk in order to return - but to their mothers' homes.
In v9 there is a kiss, then their voices are raised, then they weep.
they say to her v10, we shall return - with you! to your people!
but Naomi, thankful as she is, says v11, return, my daughters - why walk with me?!
and v12, return my daughters, walk.
we can see these two words, walk and return, are easily reversed,
they are Naomi's instructions for them to turn back
but they are their reassurances that the only walking and returning they will do is with her, to her people.
as with v9, in v14 again there is a kiss, raised voices, and weeping,
although it is a different order.
The kiss is held off until the end, and it is Orpah; a kiss goodbye,
But where Orpah walks and returns, Ruth clings.
So Naomi speaks again,
v15 Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods
return after your sister-in-law
She has listened; why won't you?
Ruth: v16 Stop pleading with me to forsake you, to return away from after you
Because to wherever you walk, I will walk
Orpah can do what she wants,
I however am with you.
The only returning and the only walking I will do is with you.
Your God is my God; death alone will separate us.
What does Naomi see, 18?
That Ruth was determined to walk with her
so she ceased - the Hebrew is a bit harsher here - she ceased to speak to her.
Ruth is as stubborn in her clinging
as Elimelek was in his walking away from Judah.
The story more or less concludes with a reversal of the beginning,
look there in v 19
And they walked, the two of them, until they came to the house of bread
So that where a man walked out, a woman and two sons in tow,
now a woman returns, with only her Moabite daughter-in-law clinging to her.
As she says, she went out full, but Yhwh has returned her empty.
And here is the story formally ends,
not with walking,
but with returning.
v22 Thus Naomi returned, and Ruth of Moab her daughter-in-law was with her,
returned from the fields of Moab.
Walking out full,
returning empty
leaving for a foreign field
and returning to the barley harvest
walking out with sons and a husband
returning with a foreign daughter-in-law
It was a long way to get home
but now they are where God wants them, when God wants them,
in the state of mind where it is not a husband and sons which fills her,
but it is the surprising mercy and overflowing grace of the Almighty that will fill her up.
A lot of us have been walking more in lockdown
usually in loops - walking out and returning home.
As we reflect on the walking and returning in this first chapter of Ruth
let's remember that God has his plans
and they often come through hardship
through going in circles
and at a completely different to what we might like
but they are wiser and far more beautiful than anything we might imagine.
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