Orpah, the other woman in the book of Ruth

The book of Ruth in the Bible is 4 chapters but quite a complex story, and involves various aspects of the culture of the time that may seem odd on first reading around kinsmen marrying widows etc.

It has a quote that is among the most treasured for many. When the widow Naomi decides to leave the place the family fled to in a past famine and return to her country at Bethlehem she has two widowed daughters in law who were Moabites, local women from where they had taken refuge.  She tells them to go back to their mother's homes but Ruth clings to her and says - 

'“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/ruth-naomi-and-orpah-veronica-mcdonald.html

A quote that has been used to speak of commitment, love and loyalty.  But what about her sister in law Orpah, the other woman in the story who does go back to her own family? 

The book of Ruth is the focus for 'Bible Month' 2020 and so many churches are looking at it and considering its message. As part of a day of reflection for our staff team led by Dr Rachael Starr (tutor in Biblical Studies at the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham) we were asked to imagine a letter to one of the characters in this story.  These are my thoughts addressed to Orpah - 

Orpah,

You and Ruth accepted this family of outsiders, of economic migrants, coming to your country with nothing, adding to the mouths to feed. Famine knows no boundaries, was life tough in Moab too even if better than in Judah?

But you were willing to mix with them, so much that you married one.  What did that mean for you? Was it love, surely it would not have been seen as an advantageous match for you? Or was there something that left you without options in your own people?  Or did the family take you and Ruth so that they would be more part of your community, more integrated, assimilated, accepted?

What did it mean for your identity to marry the immigrant?  Could it have been a blending of cultures? Or did you have to set your Moabite ways aside? Were you claimed by the immigrant faith, did it shape you within or just hide your own ways?

And after your widowhood, your sisterhood with Ruth, when your mother in law decided to leave your country, what then? Legally bound together, setting out on the road, then a choice.

‘Go back to your mother’s house, find a new husband, a new future there’

Was it a warning, had you considered the implication of being a Moabite in Judah, where Moab was seen as the enemy the pagan, those who tempt Godly people to wrong ways….?

Was this behind Ruth’s pledge to take on Naomi’s faith and her God – to be as little Moabite as possible, to deny her own roots in order to be more acceptable, to have a better hope in Bethlehem? 

Yet in the Bethlehem fields she was just called Moabite, foreigner, ‘not one of us’, even with her commitments she faced the prejudice. Only because she supported Naomi, working in ways the older woman’s body would not, is she praised – valued not as herself but for the sake of another who IS one of us?  Only to be protected from assault because of Naomi?

By He Qi info here https://pages.stolaf.edu/lagerqui/d-chaidez/

Did you glimpse this ahead? Did you glimpse the future of being ‘redeemed’ being married off to a relative without choice following the laws of Moses, this culture you were not born into?

You chose to turn back, to go to a place where you were not a foreigner, where people would remember you as a child, would know your kin, your place among them.  But was it that easy?

As Naomi and Ruth travelled with each other you travelled alone, as Naomi would be able to testify to Ruth’s story as a widow, you travelled alone.  Explaining your story alone.

Was there an embrace? A welcome home of the prodigal? Or were you treated as tainted by your time in the family of outsiders? 

Were you seen as a burden – married off to be someone else’s responsibility but now back looking for provision in your birth family.  Someone who would be unwanted by any other ‘decent’ husband now, a reminder to everyone of the immigrants, that they may be glad to see the back of.

Were you now neither of your people nor Naomi’s people? Caught inbetween? Whereas Ruth chose Naomi’s people, faith and future over her heritage, did you wrestle with what it means to be in the gap? Forever changed and yet all things at once – a Moabite woman; a wife of the people of Judah – did you feel the tensions in your own heart? Or did you find your voice as yourself, as an individual? 

Was that voice heard, rejected or ridiculed? Were you silenced or did you bring something new to the community of your ‘mother’s house’?

I wonder, I wonder…..

Trigger points

It was nothing much, my poorly worded email prompted a stroppy response from a stressed person. But despite my gracious (I hope) reply the effect on me was huge.   First was batting away the tears, then came the anger, and boy did that come.  The long drive passed quickly though as the emotions pulsed through my whole body.

Of course the depth of emotion was nothing to do with the minor matter that triggered it, it was like digging it the garden and hitting a huge oil geyser that shoots up to the skies.  It was tapping into some old wounds that have been stirred up by looking back to a difficult time a few years ago. Anger that had no outlet to those who had caused the wounds, so it bubbles up against those I can react to.

Realising the roots of the big emotions I felt anger at myself for still having that vulnerability, yet does that mark my humanity? That I am still capable of caring enough to hurt. Sunday was Mothering Sunday - a tricky day to preach, either we get over sentimental and risk ignoring those for whom it is a difficult day, or brush over and dodge the topic.  I spoke on the 1 Cor 13 passage about love  - an image of perfect love. Then I talked about how we mess up our attempts of love, and others mess up in loving us before offering my own version -

'Love is messy, love is raw, it does not come with a guide book, it does not control. It is vulnerable, it is tough, it keeps no record of ‘the answers’ because they change with every person. It holds safe and it lets go. It always hurts, it always struggles, but mostly love simply is.'

Life is messy when vulnerable to triggers, and especially when it overlaps and not all that person's fault, but I would rather risk hurt to know love and all the messiness of human relationships than let the hurts make me shut myself away from it all.

I have a dream...of the church

In the days after Pentecost what does a church filled with the Spirit look like?

We are told that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (the letter to the Galatians ch 5)

What would that look like?

I dream of churches full of people who look to care for other people’s needs, a place that welcomes the outcast, the fragile and the hurting. A church that can in tough love support those who need help to avoid temptation, and yet open its arms to the unconventional.

People who sit and listen to that story all over again, because he needs the company, people who weep with those who weep, and sing with those who rejoice. Those who bind wounds, and hold hands in the dark places.

It would be a group ready to take risks, but for a purpose not just because.

They may sing hymns ancient and prehistoric, or songs where the ink has yet to dry. They may find their own words of prayer or harvest the resources of the generations of faith. They may be loud or they may be quiet, large or small.

But their eyes will be on God, their hands reaching out to neighbours (near and far) and they will love and care for themselves as well.

I dream of the church of the Spirit, and I awake to the church of people.

People with fears that fight the faith, with pains that test the patience, journeys that have quenched the joy, politics that steal the peace.  We are flawed and wounded, our fruit may be stunted, lumpy, moth eaten in places – but it is still fruit.

May the Spirit take us in all our chaos and form us into a church – creased and crinkled but the church of Christ who still bore his wounds in resurrection.

Its my party...

I remember an old pop song ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to...’

Whilst not going that far, the voice of depression came to my party yesterday.  A local event in the village hall to celebrate that great moment of ordination the Sunday before.

I arrived with the fear that none would come, like the childhood grief of being stood up at your own birthday party. Yet I knew of those who would be there! Such is the undermining, lying voice of self doubt.

It was a busy affair, with many people there from different churches, and some friends from far off too. There was the moment of presentation when I was given the ordination gift from my churches – a unique commissioned communion set from Marches pottery and handcrafted box to keep it safe, there was the crowd of well wishers, there was love and care from people...

And yet the cursed voice would rob me of the fullness of joy that such a moment should bring, and only whisper about those who are not there, the imperfections of my limited planning, the fear that those present were not enjoying themselves, that I .... (fill in the blank – I’m sure you can!)

But I refuse to hold onto those thoughts – I choose to remember the affirmation of ordination ‘They are worthy’, I choose to hold onto the love of those who came to the party and those who came all the way to Cornwall for the ordination.

The voice is depression but it feeds off tiredness, and I have had a long and emotional couple of weeks.  In the Bible God’s response to the prophet Elijah’s depression was to have him eat and sleep. I did plenty of eating whilst away, now I need some time of sleep, then I will be able to celebrate fully and let people’s care for me seep under the skin properly.