Better Bread

Grace that is Greater

* I enjoyed the invitation to preach at Annandale UMC this morning. My friend Jason Micheli is the Senior Pastor. The normal disclaimer applies: I prepare a manuscript, and more often than not, the delivered sermon may be a bit different.

Better Bread

Ruth 1:6-21

Pastoral Prayer: Lord God, there is enough despair to go around. Give us eyes to see and hearts to receive what the old hymn conveys about Your marvelous, matchless Grace that is greater. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, Our Rock and Our Redeemer. And all God’s people say, Amen.

I bring you greetings from Snow Hill Baptist Church in Tuttle, Oklahoma. Or, as we endearingly refer to our part of the U.S., Flyover Country.

If we have not met, I want you to know that I feel like Annandale is my church away from home. Yes, even as a Baptist, a Southern one no less. I am a regular listener.

Jason is one of the best preachers I listen to. He may not have helped me be a better preacher, but he has spurred me to be a more diligent preacher even in my old age. As such, I plan to diligently ensure that once I have offered you the Word of the Lord, you will experience a deep appreciation for your Pastor. [Pause]

We attended our first Mockingbird NYC in 2018. This year, I made our hotel reservations. I selected a room for three. We were supposed to have a room with a full-sized bed and two bunk beds. I was rolling the dice in hopes Jason and Josh would be afraid the old man might fall from the top bunk and offer me the full-sized bed.

We opened the door, and to our despair, we saw a full-sized bed and ONE bunk bed. ONE. I was a bit embarrassed. Josh may vouch for me that we did not get the room we selected. Now, there have been plenty of whispers about Jason and me traveling together. So I will tell you that we did sleep in the same bed, with the suitcase stool between us. As far as we could see, any future possibility of separate beds was closed off. We despaired.

“Despair,” said David Zahl, “is the collapse of the horizon of the possible.”

Put another way, despair straitjackets our future.

Sitting in our TV room in March of this year, I received a call from Larry. We graduated from high school together. He told me that one of my childhood friends, whom he met in high school, was being medevaced from Paris, Texas, to OU Medical in downtown Oklahoma City. I told Larry I was about to leave for our granddaughter's basketball game. I thought I had enough time, and said to him that I would get to the hospital as soon as possible.

I did not make it.

Randy died while I was in the parking lot of the hospital, trying to find a place to park. Our friendship dates back to a church nursery more than 60 years ago. Our parents were as thick as thieves. Though the last time I had seen Randy was at his mother’s funeral twenty years ago, I had fond memories of Randy and his family. Randy’s story is one of despair. His brother, born with cystic fibrosis, died at 20 when Randy was 22. Soon after, his parents divorced. Randy’s relationship with his dad deteriorated to the point that he would not receive his Dad’s phone calls, did not leave a forwarding address for birthday cards his Dad sent, and did not acknowledge his Dad’s death a few years ago. His despair had foreclosed any future possibilities. He became bitter and reclusive.

There is enough despair to go around.

I don’t know what went on behind the closed doors of his family’s home any more than I understand what prompted Elimalech to venture to the other side of the Jordan to settle in a hostile, forbidden land. Sure, there was a famine in Israel. However, the history between Israel and Moab ruptured precisely because Moab and Ammon refused food and water to Israel during their Wilderness Wanderings. Given that history, it is odd that Elimalech thinks he will find food from them now. Add that Elimalech seems to ignore the prohibition found in Deuteronomy that no Moabite could enter the assembly of Israel, precisely because they had treated Israel harshly when they were in need.

The last verse of Judges may provide an answer.

In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

Elimalech did what he thought was right. He may not have thought about the future. What would happen if his young sons married Moabite women? Wouldn’t he have created the conditions for their exclusion from his and their people? Would that decision not collapse their future possibilities of fellowship? Or had Elimalech decided never to return? Even more, how could he have predicted his untimely death and the death of his sons?

Twenty-three years ago, we were driving home from Arkansas; I had performed the ceremony for Paul and Beth in Fort Smith, Arkansas. We crossed the State line when the call came. Cameron, my three-year-old buddy who lived down the street, had fallen into his backyard pool. He did not survive. Lured into the pool by his John Deere toy tractor that had fallen in, he was too small and inexperienced to survive the depth of the water. His death brought despair to his parents. The future they had imagined had been foreclosed.

There is enough despair to go around.

You already know from last week that Naomi lost not just her husband but also both her sons. She narrates that she had left Bethlehem full of life. Now, she is empty. They had left Bethlehem, The House of Bread, because their food supply was empty. This morning's passage tells us she heard the news that the barley harvest in Bethlehem was underway. The famine broke. Heavens opened. Crops grew. There would again be bread in The House of Bread. Even hearing the news from home, Naomi could only feel despair. Upon being greeted by old friends, who saw how time and grief had not been so good to the beautiful one, she declared,

Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.
I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty; . . ..

No longer pleasant or beautiful... time and experience had left Naomi bitter. She could not conceive of a hopeful future.

Nineteen years ago in March, we settled into our Sunday evening routine. Our Sundays were full: Sunday Bible Study, Morning Worship, followed by Sunday evening Bible Study. Our Associate Pastor at the time called. Lyle, my best friend, had had a heart attack. Lyle and I became good friends since he and his wife joined our church. You may know it is complicated for ministers to have “best” friends among the congregation. My mentor had even warned me years ago.

Lyle was an Oklahoma City firefighter. Like many, he had served on the frontline in the aftermath of the Alfred P. Murrah Bombing. We took in local high school football and basketball games. His youngest son graduated with our Tommie. We worked out at his Dad’s gym. We read Dallas Willard and talked about The Divine Conspiracy.

When Jason, our Associate at the time, called, I was not ready for the news. Lyle had enjoyed dinner and capped it off with his regular bowl of ice cream. He then slumped in his recliner. Any hope I had that he survived the massive heart attack was dashed once I arrived at the hospital. Our close-knit crew felt the despair. Any future trips to the Southern Slope of Colorado were foreclosed. Moreover, his son would graduate without his Dad in the stands. The promise of a particular future had been walled off. We felt it was a conspiracy, but could not locate the Divine.

There is enough despair to go around.

Certain that she could not offer her daughters-in-law a promising future, Naomi told them to return home. Why should they get swept up in her despair? Though she could not see her own possibilities, Naomi told them maybe a future awaited them with their people. Twice, she insisted they return home before Oprah agreed. And she told Ruth a third time to go back home. There is no future for you where I am going. You are free to marry. And you cannot think I will have any more children, much less ones for whom you would wait until they are grown to marry. They might have a future. Naomi could not see any way to live beyond her bitterness. The only thing that drew her home was the promise of bread.

There is enough despair to go around.

We experience bitter results from any number of life’s events. Even if we deem them arbitrary, and sometimes, we are not sure there will even be bread to sate our basic hunger, much less our hunger for a hopeful future.

We find the setting for our portion of Naomi’s story in these words,

She had heard.

Hidden in plain sight, in a hostile land, among a hostile people whose adversarial history is embedded in her people’s law is the seed of Grace that becomes for Naomi, and all of God’s people a story to hear that creates in us eyes to see that though there is enough despair to go around, Grace is greater.

The young Moabitess, Ruth, responds to the despairing Naomi with words that give sight to Grace.

Do not press me to leave you.

In those words, we hear the description that whether in famine in Bethlehem or searching for food in Moab, the same God who supplied food for Abraham and then all Israel in Egypt, is the same God present with Naomi. We may summarize the Good News that comes to Naomi’s ears,

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

We may find it hard to hear God speak to us in our despair. We may be convinced our future has collapsed, leaving us justified in changing our names to bitter. But that does not extinguish the words of Grace that open up hope. Those words are embedded in a Promise that precedes every decision Elimalech made for his family.

With our minds' eyes and ears made alive by Grace, we hear in this story the ongoing Promise God made Abram, turned Abraham. We see Abram asleep on the ground while God takes responsibility for both sides of the Covenant He makes with Abraham. The Promise is repeated - I will be Your God and You will be my people.

Here in Ruth, the boundaries Moses had noted due to Moab’s actions were now being torn down. Here, a young Moabitess offers in her very Words the Grace that opens up all possibilities for all people. She forecasts the One born in the House of Bread who will be the very Bread of Life, whose life sustains us, overcoming our despair and its roots heard in the words from the Cross,

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

When it seems there is enough despair to go around, the consequences of the Power of Sin, the Apostle Paul puts it this way,

Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.

Where the Powers of Sin and Death, Hell and the Grave, Satan and his minions appear to hold sway, God’s love for us in Christ Jesus who gave Himself for us all is Greater.

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,

Freely bestowed on all who believe!

All who are longing to see His face,

Will you this moment His grace receive?