The Best Director

Happy Mother’s Day! We are so blessed to be here. And oh what a blessing our children’s choir is! They sang that God is the perfect parent and that every parent here was God’s earthly choice to be the parent to raise them up in the way they should go.
God’s hand is, and has been, at work in picking out our family trees.

Today’s story of Ruth is just a perfect example of that. God picked Ruth and Boaz to be the parents of Obed. God planned that Naomi would be Ruth’s mother-in-law and Obed’s grandmother. God planned that Ruth would be King David’s great grandmamma. God had it all planned out. I sometimes say that God has things choreographed out and that we need to get a big bowl of popcorn and a coke and just sit back and watch. Do you ever feel like that? Things start happening and forget saying “luck” or “coincidence” cause that just can’t cover it – – you see God’s hand is in it. Hollywood forgets Him at the Oscars but let’s face it, God is the Best Director & Choreographer.

So Naomi was Ruth’s mother-in-law. Naomi was from Bethlehem. Ruth was from Moab. The folks of Moab weren’t really the best folks. Ya’ll may remember the story of Balaam and his talking donkey – – that’s a story in the book of Numbers. The King of Moab hated the Jews and so he got Balaam who was a prophet and told him to pronounce a curse on the Jews. But God is the Best Director and every time Balaam opened his mouth to pronounce a curse, instead Balaam pronounced a Blessing on the Jews. Boy, that made the King of Moab mad but anyway, so Moab wasn’t where we would think a family from Bethlehem would want to be. So how did that happen? A Famine.

Naomi, her husband, and sons moved to Moab to find food. Not sure when the famine in the Bethlehem area lifted but Naomi didn’t hear about it until after her husband and both sons had died. One of the sons had been married to Ruth for 10 years. So that’s how Naomi became Ruth’s mother-in-law. Pretty cool!

So how does God work it out that Ruth will leave her family, her homeland, and go with Naomi back to Bethlehem? Well, He had been working and directing this out for at least 10 years, actually he had been working this out a long time. Ok ladies, raise your hand if you have ever opened your mouth and heard your Mother come out! Ok, I’m right there with you. Men, raise your hand if you’ve ever thought about your wife “you are just like your mother”. Hope you didn’t say it! What’s so weird is that that makes us so mad. How weird is that? God picked our Moms for us and if someone sees something about them in us, we should pretend that we’re Elvis and say “Thank you, thank you very much!”
So anyway, Naomi must have been just the best mother-in-law. How much of this is from how her mother was or maybe how her mother-in-law was, we don’t know – – we’ll have to ask her when we get to heaven. But Naomi was loved by both of her daughters-in-law and they both wanted to go back with her to Bethlehem. Naomi loved them too but Naomi thought it would be best for them if they stayed in Moab and went back to their families and married again. One daughter-in-law went back. But Ruth vowed to stay with Naomi.

So what about Boaz. Well, you’ve got Jews in Bethlehem. We know there’s not a good history between the Jews and the Moabites. In fact, there’s not a good history between the Jews and a whole list of others.

Ya’ll remember the battle of Jericho? Joshua sent spies who would have been caught except for Rahab, a prostitute, who hid them. And then when Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Rahab hung a red rope out her window and everyone in her house was saved. Well Rahab wasn’t a Jew.

But guess who Boaz’s Mama was? Yep, Rahab – – we find that out in the New Testament when Matthew lines out Jesus’s family tree from Abraham through King David on down to Jesus. Anyway, so who better to be accepting of Ruth the Moabite than someone whose mother was Rahab? So we can see God’s hand picking the cast and directing all of this.

Now, back then, God had given the Jews laws about taking care of widows and the poor. One of the laws was that the landowners weren’t supposed to gather everything when harvesting, they were supposed to leave some behind for the poor to gather. That was one of God’s ways of taking care of the poor.

And God had another law about widows who didn’t have children. The family of her husband was basically supposed to provide her with another husband, usually the husband’s brother. The new husband was called the “kinsman-redeemer”. And this law was taken pretty seriously.

Ok so there’s a story in the Bible about a lady named Tamar. Her husband died and his brother wouldn’t marry her and God struck him dead. (That’s the short version – – the long version is a way juicer story). Well, guess what – – I bet you’ve guessed it already. Guess who was back in Boaz’s family tree between him and Abraham? Yep – – Tamar. So if you’ve got that story in your family tree, you’re going to take God’s law about that pretty seriously.

So God has hand-picked the cast. We’ve got Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz. And then “Action” – – Naomi and Ruth arrive back in Bethlehem right as the barley harvest is beginning. Ruth ends up working in Boaz’s field. Boaz notices Ruth. Word has gotten around and Boaz has already heard about Ruth and how kind she has been to Naomi. Boaz is a relative of Naomi’s husband. So Naomi figures that Boaz is going to be the “kinsman-redeemer”. So Naomi sends Ruth to basically propose to Boaz. So we think, fairy tale ending but wait! Boaz wants to marry Ruth but he’s not the closest relative. Oh no! So there’s this cliff-hanger at the end of chapter 2!

So the very next morning, Boaz goes to the town gate. Guess who comes walking by? That’s right, the name-less dude who is closer in line to be the kinsman-redeemer. (I love it when the Bible doesn’t tell us the name of a guy – – there’s all these times when we don’t know the woman’s name – – like Mrs. Noah.) Anyway, so not only does Mr. Name-less Dude come by at just the right time but there also happen to be 10 of the elders of the town that Boaz gets to sit down. (Ok, I’m seeing God do some great choreographing right here.)

So in front of these 10 witnesses, Boaz tells Mr. Name-less Dude that Naomi is selling the land that belonged to her husband and that since Mr. Name-less Dude is a closer relative than Boaz, that he gets first dibs on being the kinsman-redeemer and that if he doesn’t that Boaz is next in line. Mr. Name-less Dude says “I will redeem it”. Oh No! But then Boaz tells him that it’s a package deal – – whoever redeems the land also gets Ruth the Moabite to be his wife. So Mr. Name-less Dude changes his mind and in front of the witnesses, Boaz becomes the kinsman-redeemer. Ruth and Boaz get married and they have a son, Obed. And then Obed is the father of Jesse who is the father of David.

So how cool was that. God knew and planned it that Tamar and Rahab and Ruth were going to be in David and Jesus’s dad Joseph’s family tree. God had a plan for their lives and he choreographed it all out. And God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has a plan for our lives.

Sometimes it’s like he has said “Action” – – I think a lot of busy moms feel like that – – running from here to there, rushing to soccer games, band concerts, grocery, doing laundry. But we have got to take the time to sit back with the popcorn and the coke and look at how God is choreographing it – – look at our lives – – look at who God has brought into our lives, our Mothers, our children, our family, our friends – – look at all our blessings and thank God for them. Amen.