Saturday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 424

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi,
"Let me go and glean ears of grain in the field
of anyone who will allow me that favor."
Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter," and she went.
The field she entered to glean after the harvesters
happened to be the section belonging to Boaz
of the clan of Elimelech.

Ruth was King David's great-grandmother; the Book of Ruth describes the story of the Moabite's migration to Israel and her meeting with David's great-grandfather Boaz. It is a happy-ever-after foundation story of a marriage. The book describes the complicated process that Boaz had to negotiate in order to marry the charming foreigner. If marriage was simple for Adam and Eve before the Fall, it was never again that safe or predictable. 

Ruth, the book, is similar to the Genesis story of Joseph and the books of Tobit, Judith, and Esther. The LORD does not appear in any of them; nor does he say anything. His hand is invisible and the protagonists must manage their affairs without God's overt intervention. If they are successful, it's only because they trust the silent spirit who leads them. 

In The Decameron, the medieval poet Boccaccio described a preference for romantic marriages over arranged marriages. He tells many amusing stories of lovely young women unfortunately betrothed to horrid old men, and their trysts with handsome lovers. It was the dream of the Middle Ages that these impetuous affairs might be more blessed than the hoary old system. 

In our time, many people have lost faith in both romantic and arranged marriages. But, impelled by their reproductive instincts, they invest in artificial insemination and single-parenting. They hope to avoid the curse which God pronounced upon Eve and marriage: 

I will intensify your toil in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children.

Yet your urge shall be for your husband,

and he shall rule over you.

But, if they avoid the perils of romance, artificial insemination and single-parenting seem equally hopeless. I fear for the women who will be disappointed in their custom-made children with no one to blame but themselves (and the anonymous donor). I fear also for the children who will wonder why their fathers abandoned them even before they were conceived. The New York Times ran a story a few years ago, of a young man who searched for and found twenty half-siblings of as many different mothers in several states. When he asked the sperm bank about their father he was shown a note, "I wish them all the luck in the world." 

When we turn to the Bible in search of that mythical marriage made in heaven, we learn of another approach, God's plan. The LORD had planned the marriages of Ruth and Tobit; and, at the appropriate time, revealed it to them. If his divine hand is not obvious in the books, it is proven in the end. 

The exemplary young men and women of the Bible did not go in search of happily-ever-after. Tobias was looking for money owed to his father. Ruth was content to settle with her former mother-in-law. Boaz was preoccupied with his estate; poor Sarah had despaired of ever marrying. Each of them trusted the Lord when God's plan became evident. None regarded "sex" as the way of salvation, fulfillment, or meaning. They had never heard of Sigmund Freud and their culture was not sexualized. 

Ruth remains for the ages a story of God's benevolent plan for everyone, Jews and gentiles alike. In our search for meaning (or salvation, purpose, happiness, or fulfillment) we have only to await with eager longing God's mercy.