Season 4 - Episode 12
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Good morning, Covenant Family.
I believe that we are incredibly blessed to live in a country with some measure of a social safety net. I don’t have an Edenic or naive perspective about it, but it is nice that parents can take time off to be with children in their earliest days. It is wonderful that there are some protections against potentially abusive employers. Having access to EI during a job loss and CPP in retirement has helped millions of people. We have a built-in societal structure - one that has been hard-fought for - to care for each other. But charitable giving over and above our established social structure has decreased over the past decade. In March of this year, StatsCan published some numbers based on 2022 statistics. They showed that between 2010 and 2022 the number of charitable donors had decreased every year. In 2022 barely 17% of Canadians listed contributions to a charity on their income tax forms. Of those, seniors are most likely to donate to charitable causes. I don’t know if that is because they are the ones who know that these donations are tax-deductible. Or if they see the need for charity because some of our current support systems weren’t in place in their formative years. Or maybe there is some other reason (or reasons). This tension between “public” social services and “private” charitable giving exists in our society and isn’t going away any time soon. The Old Testament story we’re looking at today explores this tension and how one person chose to respond within an ancient society. So settle in for a brief reflection on a story of a woman and a man and gleaning generosity in this Covenant Weekly for November 26, 2024.
The woman’s name was Ruth. She was a foreigner in Israel who had moved there when her mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to return to her homeland after the death of Naomi’s husband and two sons. Upon returning to Naomi’s hometown, these two widows had to figure out how to survive. Thankfully, the law of Israel included a social safety net. That safety net was that those in poverty could, during harvest season, go out into the fields and follow behind the workers in the field. The workers would, inevitably, drop some of the harvest. These dropped crops, along with the edges of the fields, were to be left so that vulnerable people - the poor and the foreigners - could come and “glean” them so they’d have something to live off of. This gleaning would never make someone rich, but it might allow enough that a family wouldn’t go hungry that day.
Ruth decided to go to the fields to glean crops for her and Naomi’s survival. So with Naomi’s blessing, she headed out. Here is what happened, as recorded in Ruth 2.
She went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. [Elimelek was Naomi’s husband.]
4 Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”
“The Lord bless you!” they answered.
5 Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”
6 The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”
8 So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. 9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”
10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
13 “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”
17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. 18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
There was a social safety net in place which allowed Ruth to benefit from Boaz’ wealth and prosperity. You could even argue that it cost Boaz something for Ruth to benefit. He had to leave behind perfectly good crops, including leaving the edges of his field unharvested. Boaz could have, with all good conscience, left things alone and he would have done his spiritual and social duty. And Ruth and Naomi would have had a little to eat that night.
But rather than just sticking with the letter of the law, Boaz was compelled to follow the spirit of it. He was willing to sacrifice a little of his wealth and prosperity to care for Ruth and Naomi. In the story, we get some clues as to what motivated this generosity. He’d heard her story and knew she was sacrificing her comfort to care for Naomi. He was meeting her generosity with his own. As she met that generosity with gratitude and grace, he was moved to further generosity. Ultimately, it culminated in him taking Ruth as his wife in a complicated legal situation in which his first child would be considered the heir of another.
But in so doing, Boaz became a model of generosity that isn’t satisfied with simply supporting societal systems. Rather he sought to extend the favour and generosity of God for the care of others - particularly those that God brought into his circle of influence. He wasn’t called on to save everyone through his generosity. But when a compelling need was brought along his path, he was faithful in extending the love of God.
Covenant family, I am consistently overwhelmed as I watch you do the same. Your generosity and care for the needs of our community and world are inspiring. And I know that what I see is only a fraction of the love and care you are demonstrating elsewhere. Thank you for consistently and faithfully embodying the hands and feet of Jesus in all kinds of generous ways. I close with this encouragement from St. Paul. Fittingly…using the image of a harvest.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:9-10)