Ruth 2:1‑23
A while back I was stopped at a traffic light in Portland and saw an elderly man in a suit coat with an old felt hat. He was pulling the tell-tale grocery cart, filled with beverage cans. I watched as he stopped at a waste can and picked through others’ refuse. I imagined what this man’s life might be like. Had he worn a suit coat and tie in his younger, healthier years? Had he been a person of means who lost every‑thing all at once? Or had he worked all his life and thought he had enough to retire, only to find that he had run out of money? Did he have a place to sleep? Was he alone in the world? I was aware in watching him, that he still walked as though he had as much right to be there as anyone.
My mind wandered to so many others who are alone and afraid and poor. By and large they’re not lazy. They certainly are not worthless in the eyes of God. They’re not even to be pitied. They’re victims of circumstance and the hardness of many hearts.
What of the woman who has lived for decades with a successful husband, who suddenly finds herself alone and poor when he decides there’s someone more delightful out there? What of the teenager who flees his parents’ neglect and takes to the streets? What of the hardworking family scraping by each month, now told the Hostess Baking plant is closing so there’s no paycheck in these weeks before Christmas?
What’s the story of the thirty families who live in our neighborhood and who’ll receive the Thanksgiving baskets for which you and I have brought food donations this morning? In fact, food insecurity in Maine is the 18th worst in the country. 200,000 people, of whom 60,000 are children can’t depend on sufficient healthy food day to day. One child in four in Maine is likely to go to bed hungry. http://gsfb.org/hunger/
That’s why I thought of this story of Ruth. She was used to working hard. Everyone in those days had to work hard ‑‑ especially people who were poor. It was about 1,000 years before Jesus was born. The land of Israel, then as now, was hot and dusty and dry. Freshly picked fruits, or fresh meat could not be stored for very long, and there‑fore were very expensive. But grains, and bread and dried things could be kept, so that was what poor people usually ate.
Rich people owned land, always passed from father to son. For a woman to be honored she had to marry a rich man. Then they would have servants do the actual work. Ruth had been born in a foreign land named Moab. And her husband had come from Israel. When he was honored, she was honored.
When he died, she decided to go with Naomi, her mother‑in‑law, back to Israel. When she got there, she was among the poorest. She was a woman, and was a second class citizen. She was a widow, which was worse. And she was a foreigner.
Ruth learned to care for herself and for Naomi. She could not earn a wage for her work so she scavenged for food by gleaning the fields. She followed the hired servants who picked the grain and grapes, and she would pick up whatever they’d missed.
There was just enough left in the fields to make life possible… in part because of God’s wisdom. In Deuteronomy we can read “when you reap, do not reap to the corners – nor gather the gleanings of the harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and the orphan, the widow and the stranger. For I am the Lord your God.”
Do you suppose back then, in those days when people were so close to the earth, it was easier to remember that God was the source of everything? Even the owners of the field were to remember that God’s law said there was enough for everyone. The poor and widowed and orphaned were children of God, and the rich had an obligation to care for the poor. Curious how people who quote scripture to prove their opinions tend to overlook these laws about justice and the common good.
That’s how life was for Ruth – the foreigner and widow who did what she had to do in order to provide for her life, and for her beloved mother‑in‑law Naomi. Gleanings, they’re called. We might call them leftovers, or even garbage. They’re too much trouble for us when we have plenty, but are life itself when one has too little.
Most of us know about leftovers. Such thoughts may take you back years to the Depression, the forties or the 50’s. For many it is present reality. Once or twice a week the refrigerator is emptied of anything edible. Cold, cooked vegetables, a bit of potatoes, and some flour to stretch the gravy so you could pour it over a piece of bread. To this day I can’t look at tuna and noodles with Velveeta and corn flakes on top! But loving leftovers was a part of life, and we managed to thank God for the same food several times before it was gone.
The Yankee version is familiar: “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” And pig farmers used to speak proudly of using everything but the squeal. Waste not, want not!
None of us by choice would want to depend solely on leftovers ‑‑‑ especially other’s leftovers. But those who have had to “make do or do without” have a very different attitude toward possessions from those who have always had more than enough.
I think again of the man in the suit coat and tie, with the felt hat, picking through the waste barrel for aluminum cans. Is he in that condition because he is less good, less lovable, less worthy in God’s eyes than any of the rest of us? Does he deserve less than you or I?
I don’t suggest that we forgo a time of thanksgiving to God because so many are suffering. I have no desire to make you feel guilty in a season of harvest. Such guilt paralyzes and prevents us from doing what God calls us to do.
Aiding our neighbor isn’t about being nice. God’s ancient law is clear and consistent, as Deuteronomy says: “don’t waste what I have given to you, because I have given you more than you need, enough for you and enough more to care for the poor and the widow and the foreigner. You say this land is yours, because you inherited it from your ancestors? But they received it from the bounty of my hand…” (Deuteronomy 26:1-11)
There’s no shame in being poor… or in being comfortable. But there’s responsibility. As we enjoy so many blessings of our lives, we can make it possible for others to live:
• every time you shop for groceries, buy an additional item for the pantry; if you have the means, make it five items… or ten.
• consider eating leftovers one meal a week and donating the money saved through one of the many hunger relief programs.
Whatever you do will benefit you as much as others. Mother Teresa once related the story of an Indian woman and her eight children who were starving to death. When told of their situation Mother Teresa visited the family and brought them what she could, one bowl of food. After thanking her the woman divided the food in half and abruptly left the house. Upon her return she shared the remaining half with her children.
Mother Teresa was perplexed and asked the woman what she had done. The reply: “there is another woman who lives next door. She also has eight starving children. It was only in sharing the food you gave us that my own family could feel blessed with the gift of God’s love.”
Only in sharing what we have are we truly free to enjoy what we have. It all comes from God: the great harvest of the field, but also what drops to the ground, the leftovers and cast‑offs which are too much trouble for us to consider. So also with God’s people – the rich and comfortable, yes! But also the poor and lost and the orphaned and the foreigner.
All are created in God’s image, and all are worthy of care in God’s name. As we approach this national day of Thanksgiving we recall that God is made known in the bounty of the harvest, at the tables of those who have food enough and food to spare.
And God is made known in the leftovers as the poor and the orphan and the foreigner are made welcome in our midst; beloved in the eyes of God; hungry, like all of us, for those things that sustain life.