GRIEF

O loving God, you plant your word like a seed in our hearts. Send your Holy Spirit to nourish this precious seed and make it bear fruit for your glory. This we ask through Jesus, your Word made flesh. Amen.

REVIEW

The Journey

The Greatest Commandment

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind...You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
(Matthew 22:37-39).

Salvation History Timeline

Prehistory: Creation, Expulsion from Eden, The Flood (Noah)

1850 BC Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, 12 sons of Israel

1280 BC Moses: Exodus, Ten Commandments, Journey to Canaan

EXODUS FROM EGYPT

12 Tribes of Israel after entering Canaan, the Promised Land

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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

PRAYING AND LIVING THE WORD

GRIEF

• Emotion common to human experience
• Natural response to pain and loss
• Many causes of grief
• Each person’s grief journey is different
• Wide range of feelings

RANGE OF FEELINGS

GOD ENTERS INTO OUR GRIEF

“Blessed be God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

THE BIBLE

THE OLD TESTAMENT (46 BOOKS)

• Pentateuch/Torah (5 books)
• History (18 books)
• Wisdom (7 books)
• Prophets (16 books)

DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS

• Tobit
• Judith
• Wisdom
• Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
• Baruch
• First and Second Maccabees
• Additions to Esther & Daniel

THE WORD MADE FLESH

THE NEW TESTAMENT (27 BOOKS)

• Gospels (4 books)
• Acts of the Apostles (1 book)
• Letters (21 books)
• Revelation (1 book)

LOCATED AFTER BOOK OF JUDGES AND BEFORE FIRST SAMUEL

BOOK OF RUTH

• Date Written: unknown, ? Time of monarchy or post exile
• Date story occurs: Time of the Judges 1250-1050 BC
• Literary Style: short story, didactic fiction with memory of David’s ancestry
• Author: unknown

BOOK OF RUTH: SITUATION

• God’s providence is seen at work in story of two widows in patriarchal society during the time of the Judges
• David’s ancestry is traced to the foreigner, Ruth.

BOOK OF RUTH: THEMES

• Covenant fidelity/loyalty
• God’s providence
• Openness to foreigners
• Emptiness to fullness
• Desolation to redemption

Divine Covenant in the Bible:

A relationship of mutual love that binds together God and one or more human persons. There are two main parts to a covenant: relationship (love) and obligation (faithfulness).

Once back in the time of the judges there was a famine in the land; so a man from Bethlehem of Judah left home with his wife and two sons to reside on the plateau of Moab. The man was named Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and his two sons Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem of Judah.
(Ruth 1:1-2a)

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LAND OF JUDAH

LAND OF MOAB

MOABITES

• Moabites were one of Israel’s most hated enemies (Deuteronomy 23:4-5)
• Refused to give supplies to Israelites when they came out of desert on way to promised land (Judges 11:17-18)
• King of Moab summoned prophet Balaam to place curse on Israel (Num 22:4-6)
• Intermarriage with foreigners was forbidden in post exilic period (Ezra 9:1-2; Neh 13:23-27)

Some time after their arrival on the plateau of Moab, Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one was named Orpah, the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion died also, and the woman was left with neither her two boys nor her husband. (1:2b-5)

CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK OF RUTH

• Elimelech: “my God is king”
• Naomi: “pleasant” or “sweet”
• Mahlon: “weakness”
• Chilion: “consumption”
• Ruth: “friendship” or “refreshment”
• Orpah: “back of the neck”
• Boaz “in him is strength”

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by loss like Naomi? Where did you turn to find comfort?

What have been “secondary losses” you have experienced from the death of a loved one, like the loss of other relationships, common interests, or a sense of home? How have you dealt with these unexpected parts of grief?

THE GRIEF OF NAOMI

She and her daughter-in-laws then prepared to go back from the plateau of Moab because Word had reached her there that the Lord had seen to his people’s needs and given them food. She and her two daughter’s in-laws left the place where they had been living. (1:6-7a)

On the road back to the land of Judah, Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, Go back, each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord show you the same kindness as you have shown to the deceased and to me. May the Lord guide each of you to find a husband and a home in which you will be at rest. She kissed them goodbye, but they wept abound crying, “No! We will go back with you to your people.” (1:7b-10)

Naomi replied, “Go back, my daughters. Why come with me? Have I other sons in my womb who could become your husbands? Go my daughters, for I am too old to marry again. Even if I had any such hope, or if tonight I had a husband and were to bear sons, would you wait for them and deprive yourselves of husbands until those sons grew up? No, my daughters, my lot is too bitter for you, because the Lord has extended his hand against me.” (1:11-13)

Levirate Marriage:

The marriage of a childless woman to the brother of her deceased husband to carry on the brother’s legacy as required by the Torah.
(Deuteronomy 25:5-10)

On the return to Bethlehem Naomi says, “Do not call be Naomi (‘Sweet’). Call me Mara (‘Bitter’), for the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why should you call me ‘Sweet’, since the Lord has brought me to trial, and the Almighty has pronounced evil sentence on me.” (Ruth 1:20-21)

PRAYERS OF OF LAMENT

• Job 30:19-21; 7:11
• Psalm 38:3

When have you felt conflicted in grief or experienced different emotions at once?

Have you been able to bring your honest emotions to God in prayer? What might happen if you shared with God the depths of your sorrow, fear or anger?

Again they wept aloud; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth clung to her. “See now,” she said, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law! (1:14-15)

But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back and abandon you! Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God, Where you die I will die, and there be buried. (1:16-17a)

May the Lord do thus to me, and more, if even death separates me from you!” Naomi then ceased to urge her for she saw she was determined to go with her. (1:17b-18)

Have you ever wrestled with decisions that others have made while grieving? How have friends or family struggled to understand your own grief?

Who has stayed by your side through your grieving? Have you felt God present with you in times of struggle?

THE REST OF THE STORY

Gleaning in the field she meets Boaz, a relative of her husband’s.

She marries Boaz.

And has a son Obed.

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Finish reading the Book of Ruth

Reflect on how Naomi’s sorrow (1:1-22) turned to joy (4:13-20).

READ PSALM 22

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PSALM 13

Palestine
Time of Jesus

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