"What's the Scoop......on Naomi"

This week in Bible Study we were treated to something very special. Jan presented a dramatic monologue with all the passion that you would expect from our gifted sister. Jan portrayed Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, from the Old Testament book of Ruth. Although this book is named after the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law seems to be very much in the center of the drama portrayed in these pages.

Jan, in the character of Naomi, told us her compelling story. She conveyed all the deep emotions that Naomi would have experienced over the years as her life unfolded. Her story became more than words on a page. We were able to glimpse the heart, the humanity behind the words. As women this is something we could truly embrace.

Naomi, probably as a young wife and mother, was faced with a famine in Bethlehem. Naomi’s husband Abimilech , herself, and her two sons went to Moab to live for a time. While in Moab, her husband died. Following this, her sons married women from Moab. After ten years the sons also die. Around this time Naomi had heard that the Lord had blessed Israel and the famine was no more. Naomi decided to return to her homeland. One of her daughters-in-law chooses to stay in Moab while the other, named Ruth, pledges her devotion to Naomi and returns with her. According to Naomi’s own words, she had left Bethlehem full but had returned empty. “Don't call me Naomi, she told them.”Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter”. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me” (Ruth 1:21). She was a woman beat down by the circumstances of life – filled with discouragement and bitterness. Naomi would not have believed “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

I read something on Facebook this morning that provoked my thinking about Naomi and Ruth’s relationship. Forgive my bluntness, but based on Naomi’s own words, she doesn’t seem like someone I would want to spend time with. She was bitter and angry at God. Despite this, Ruth voluntarily chooses to go with Naomi. Ruth would be leaving her home and all that she had ever known to go to a country where she would probably not be accepted. Financially, the prospects of these two women would have been bleak. There must have been something so compelling about Naomi that drew Ruth. "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” (Ruth 1:16). God became recognizable to Ruth through the Naomi. Ruth wanted the Lord God as her own.

In our small group we spent some time discussing the welcome Naomi expected to receive in Bethlehem. Leaving Israel and inter-marrying with women from Moab would not have been God’s best for them. We speculated that the events that befell them in the land of Moab were consequences of disobedience. Perhaps Naomi felt that others would think ‘they are getting what they deserve’. We took this and applied it to our own relationship with the Lord. When we blow it and then come back to the Lord, how do we think He will deal with us? This story has some parallels to the ‘Prodigal Son’. One of the women conveyed the character of God with passion. Here are some of the words that come to mind: merciful, abundantly loving, kind, compassionate. We sometimes expect God to relate to us the way people do. Oh…He is so much more. That is the God I want to know…not a god of my own making.

By the end of the story we see that the Lord had done something amazing. Through a series of events that could have only been orchestrated by the Lord, Ruth marries a close relative of Naomi’s family. Through this union comes King David to be followed by Jesus Christ, our Messiah and Redeemer.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).