Sermon for Sunday, November 10, 2024 || Proper 27B || The Book of Ruth

Today, I am going to begin where last Sunday’s sermon finished, with the future. I ended by saying, “And Jesus is here, walking with us into the future where God is already, always, and eternally present.” For some of us, that future looks bleaker than it did a week ago. For others, that future looks brighter. But no matter our place on the ideological spectrum, none of us knows what the future holds. And such unknowing is prime fodder for anxiety.

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Recently, someone said something to me about anxiety that really resonated. They said that people who suffer from anxiety live in the future more than they live in the present. And since our brains crave certainty, which the future obviously doesn’t offer, we develop scenario after scenario about what the future may hold, trying to pin down what will actually happen. The anxious brain lives out the future scenarios in the here and now instead of being okay with simply living in the present. When the brain tries to live out too many future scenarios at the same time, anxiety can morph into the acute form of a panic attack. The recent Pixar film, Inside Out 2, masterfully portrays this pattern, and I commend the movie to you.

The reason I’m starting this morning with anxiety and the future is that I wrote this sermon last Tuesday, on Election Day. I always write sermons on Tuesdays, and after some back and forth with myself, I decided not to delay my sermon writing until after the election results were known. I decided, in the practice of praying and writing my way through this sermon, that I would attempt something I know I’m not very good at. I would attempt to walk with God into the future that will happen instead of forcing my way alone into a hundred futures that might happen.

This was, as you might suspect, not easy. And Election Day might not have been the best day to try it! But I’m glad I attempted this practice of prayer and trust. Here’s what happened. I was feeling very anxious throughout the morning of Election Day. I hadn’t slept well. I was prickly. My temper was short. So I was behind the Eight Ball before even starting to write this sermon. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful. Mid-sixties, blue sky, sun. I walked out onto the back deck of our new house and stood there, looking at the woods, now clothed in brown and orange and yellow. I breathed several deep, cleansing breaths. I prayed wordlessly, asking God to bring me back to the present from the hundred futures I was staggering through.

The trees calmed me. I watched them, both solid and swaying at the same time. I remembered that trees grow both up and down – branches and roots. And so do we. We grow as the future continually turns into the present, even as we sink our roots into God, the Foundation of our Being. I decided to write the sermon on the porch so the same wind that blew through the autumn leaves would blow through my hair as well. As I meditated on today’s readings, the story of Ruth shimmered for me, and I realized that Ruth’s story is one of a woman constantly living into an uncertain future, just like us. And just like us, God walks with her into the future that will happen, no matter how many invented futures crowd her anxious mind.

Last week, we missed out on the most beautiful part of Ruth’s tale because we read the lessons for All Saints. Here’s the story. Israelites Elimelech and Naomi move to Moab with their two sons to escape a famine. The sons marry Moabites named Orpah and Ruth, but then all three men die, leaving Naomi with her two daughters-in-law. Naomi decides to return to Israel and releases her sons’ wives from the pledges to her family. Orpah goes home to her parents, but Ruth will not leave Naomi. Even after Naomi tells her to go, Ruth clings to her, saying: 

“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God…”

I can’t imagine, in that moment, that Ruth had any idea what she was getting herself into. She was going to follow Naomi to a foreign land, where she (Ruth) would be the immigrant. She would be all alone, save for Naomi. She would have few prospects because of the marriage customs of the people. And yet, Ruth binds herself to her mother-in-law and steps into an uncertain future, far from everything she has ever known. She meets the Israelites’ God in her relationship with Naomi. She trusts that this God is already present in the future she is walking towards.

And still uncertainty exists. Back in Israel, she begins gleaning in the fields with some of the other women. And she catches the eye of Boaz, Naomi’s kinsman, due to her hard toil. All would be well for Ruth and Naomi if Boaz were to marry Ruth. Again, possible futures intrude on the story. There’s a relative closer to Elimelech than Boaz, and this relative has first claim on Naomi’s dead husband’s land. But when the relative learns the land comes with Ruth the Moabite, he refuses, leaving the way open for Boaz and Ruth to marry.

The present continues to flow forward into the future, and Ruth has a son, whom they name Obed. Obed becomes the father of Jesse, who becomes the father of David, who becomes the second king of Israel. And so, David’s ancestry includes a brave immigrant woman, who would not abandon her mother-in-law in the face of an uncertain future.

This is the story that I’m carrying in my heart during these days of uncertainty. As I try, with God’s help, to remain in the present instead of inventing a hundred anxious futures, I remember Ruth and Naomi. I remember the depth of their relationship. I remember Ruth’s determination and Boaz’s kindness. I remember God’s promise to the family of David, that they would be kings forever, a promise fulfilled in the reign of Jesus Christ, whose earthly father Joseph was of David’s lineage. I remember all of this, a story that intertwines with our stories, a story that is part of our root systems, sinking us more deeply into the Foundation of God.

Whatever the future holds, we believe God holds the future. This future will include floundering and flourishing, hardship and joy, life and death and new life. The only future that will come to pass is the one into which God is walking with us. This I believe.