sermon excerpts: It Takes a Village

... Ruth, on the other hand, commits herself to her new family, to Naomi and followed her mother-in-law to a strange and foreign land. Their commitment to each other continues after finding life a little difficult in Bethlehem, living off the scraps, leftovers from what the workers were harvesting from the field of Naomi’s kinsman, someone named Boaz. Because they were widows, had no man in their lives, Naomi and Ruth had no status in society. Like it or not, those were the rules at the time. Naomi comes up with a plan and this is where we pick up with their story.

The important thing is that Boaz and Ruth have fallen in love and they are happy, fulfilled and wanted to be together. It wasn’t as easy as that; some behind the scenes wrangling had to be done. Now the estate of Naomi’s husband had yet to be settled in light of his death in a foreign land, and Boaz set about to arrange it with the town council of elders. The missing verses of this morning’s selected reading go into further detail about this development.

The saying goes, It takes a village to raise a child. In Ruth’s case, it took a village to create a family. From the encouragement of Naomi, to the harvesters working in the field who left enough grain unpicked for Ruth to gather up, to the servant girls who accepted her, to the village elders who permitted Boaz to marry her, it was more than the simplified “boy meets girl, they fall in love and get married” story.

But every life story is always more complicated than that. The key for us as a church is how might we connect to these stories that are in our midst, how might we support the people who need help, encourage those who gifts and strengths to use them. In spite of dwindling numbers and fading importance, I would suggest that the rural church is well-equipped to do this kind of thing.

This was one of the tasks of the latest conference I attended. In the middle of the Qu’Appelle River Valley of Saskatchewan, we tried to envision to what is God calling the rural church? It’s joked that in a city church, people talk about what they’ve done and who they know; in a country church people, talk about how they’re related. How might the church, how might the world, be different if we treated each other as family?

Something we talked about at this consultation of rural ministers is that we buy into the notion that the ideal church is in the city or suburbs with a team of ministers, surging youth group and bustling Sunday School. But the reality is that the rural church is the majority and the small but mighty group of determined people is the true identity of the United Church of Canada. In Saskatchewan, 75% of the people are in the cities; but 75% of the churches are in the country.

Let’s just be who we are. That is what we’re supposed to be. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. We have all we need here. We have to trust ourselves. We don’t need experts to come and save us. Home grown solutions always work better and if we can tap into the wisdom, strength and passion that sustains this congregation, the community will be an even better place.

The strength of rural is that it nurtures relationships among the community. It looks after people. Although it can be hard breaking in, to really feel like you belong. Ruth had to live through that, coming to Bethlehem as the widowed daughter from the land of Moab. Naomi was at least coming home to some people that she knew, to neighbours that would have known her from before.

At the end of Ruth, she and Naomi have a family once more. The baby Obed will grow up to raise a family of his own and from that family that overcame hardship, stuck together through the hard times, and committed themselves to one another, came the greatest leader of the Israelite people: David, whose family line would give rise to the Saviour.

In this time of remembrance, the community gives thanks and appreciation for the sacrifices made so that we may enjoy the blessings of freedom and abundance. We remember the great wars and the current conflicts around the world, and pray for the pursuit of peace and justice for all people. Let us also remember then that it takes a village to raise a child, to build up a family, it takes a village to save the church.