(Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Mk 12:38-44) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 8, 2024, FBC Amherst

Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, said to her, “My Daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.”(R 3:1) Your life and mine, today, are quite different from these two women, thousands of years ago. But we also might need some security, some sense of safety and hope. I do.

This past week, within a twenty-four hour period, I saw someone die, right in front of my eyes; I finished reading a serious book about the end of life as we know it, called Life After Doom; and a new president-elect was chosen in the United States of America. As an old friend would say, ‘it was a heavy week!’ I need to seek some security. Perhaps we all do.

Alongside the scripture readings for this day, and it being the eve of Remembrance Day, my own mind and soul have been overcome with these other three matters.

Wednesday morning, I arose early, as usual, and delayed checking on the world, to see what happened south of the border, until about 7:30 am. Later in the day, social media told me how various friends and acquaintances, not to mention educators and podcasters, were responding to the Trump win. Here are a few quotations:

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus.

He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.

Start building a wall, Canada.

Grief

Not all my friends are in the same camp.

Congratulations to all Americans! You chose the best person to serve your country. Next year it’s up to Canadians to do the same.

It does seem to be a time of uncertainty, including for us here, resting on the top of the USA. Concerns about so many things arose within me, as I listened just a little bit, to the alarms others were raising, in this return of President Trump.

In a season of speaking our own sense of including people at First Baptist, we get strong hints of some different attitudes among many millions in our world.

History repeats itself. It can also get more severe. I happened to listen to a bit of classic rock from my youth, Land of Confusion by Genesis, released in 1986. Funny how the song seems even more appropriate, in some ways, now.

Now did you read the news today

They say the danger's gone away

But I can see the fire's still alight

There burning into the night

There's too many men, too many people

Making too many problems

And not much love to go around

Can't you see this is a land of confusion?

Well, this is the world we live in (oh-oh-oh)

And these are the hands we're given (oh-oh-oh)

Use them and let's start trying (oh-oh-oh)

To make it a place worth living in

Back to the Bible now... At the time of Naomi and Ruth, it was also a ‘land of confusion. We can read: In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:15)

In the face of that terrible age (Just read the Book of Judges for details!) the amazing story of Naomi, Ruth & Boaz is given. And, as widow Naomi said to her widowed daughter-in-law, “I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.” The story takes us way back in time, amid some different, ancient, Middle-Eastern cultural practices. In harvest time, they find a way to connect with some locals, a relative, there in Bethlehem, and become secure in the community.

It is in togetherness that we get through our challenges, such as world events that are far bigger than us and our little corner of the world. Don’t you see this in the Ruth and Naomi story? Like them, we are here to seek some security for one another, to seek the well being of our neighbours – especially those on the edge, those in need or trouble. Is this not what our nation, at its best, has fought for around the world, and worked for as peacemakers?

Heavy moment two. This week, as I said, I finished Brian McLaren’s book, LIFE AFTER DOOM: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart. It is a book about the climate crisis, emergency. So, I was reading stuff like this:

...we can’t shake this sense that we’re all in trouble—all of us, really serious, tangled up trouble. It’s the feeling that our civilization’s Jenga tower is about to crumble...

If we felt doom about the global climate crisis alone, that would be bad enough. But we have also come to see that global overheating is the toxic cherry on top of a hot, festering mess of other global problems that go untreated because they remain unacknowledged.

I have known this, to some degree, for, oh, thirty-five years. Since I started my biology and chemistry degree at college. What have I done about it? How have I lived differently? When have I teamed up with others to make a difference? It is a bit like my occasional idea to stop eating so much sugar in my diet EVERY DAY. Great idea. I believe in it. Sounds simple – I am the one in charge of every things that goes into my mouth. But my habits stay the same. So too with my use of gasoline, electricity, water, paper, plastic. I stay the same.

This weighs on me a bit more, in past weeks, as I read and pondered how I see the world. As I pondered how Christ would lead me, and us, in better paths. And as this book got me wondering about how things will collapse in the world. How people will behave when things get worse and worse, and really bad. And what is our calling, as those who are clinging to Christ in this day and age? Surely Christianity will not be about survival, or only readiness for an afterlife. The Creator calls us to build a Kingdom, a Kin-dom, here. And to help in crisis time.

I have a nice, easy life, compared with millions. And maybe it will still be so for me when I celebrate my 80th birthday in 2050. What about the refugees on earth, or the local unhoused? The traumatized and the dying? The poor and those cruelly treated? As the Bible put it, the widows and the orphans? Remember Naomi and Ruth, refugees in famine. Or, centuries later in the Bible, the widow Jesus and the disciples observed giving her last coins to the Temple. Generous, sure, but was she being taken advantage of, oppressed by her own Faith? Jesus brought to the fore God’s ‘preferential option for the poor.’ That priority for the needy of the world that Creator has in the Bible, highlighted by the theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, who just died two weeks ago today.

If we are saved, Christ has saved us for good work. Good action is here for us to do, as the New Testament tells us. In crisis time, we belong to the God who walks thru the crisis.

Ready for heavy moment three? Death. We are certainly facing it as we honour our military of the past and present in these days. It is everywhere, of course. As Billy Graham said, in the States, the death rate in America is still very high. 100%!

In Digby, my sixty-first and final funeral service was for a woman I knew who died in her nursing home room, surrounded by family, with the help of MAID. I was nearby that day, though not in the room with everyone at that poignant moment. This past week, I was present for the death of a man I knew, from Annapolis Royal, at the Valley Hospice in Kentville. I went back down for the memorial service on Friday, which was a beautiful musical event, planned by my thoughtful friend.

It is an important, though sometimes unwelcome, privilege to be present when someone dies. It has happened for me just a few times in my life, so far. So blessed when it is peaceful; but many deaths in this world are unpleasant. To witness it is often horrible and traumatizing. Not my experience, yet.

Once more, I take us back to Naomi in the First Testament story. Remember, she had lost her husband, and her two married children. She renamed herself Mara, meaning Bitter.

Jump ahead again to the days of Ruth’s descendent, Jesus the Messiah! He saw a poor widow give her last money to the Temple. Again, she was a widow, which was a place of weakness and vulnerability in that society, not to mention the simple, life-long grief of that loss she carried.

The Spirit has held and kept these sacred stories for us, and the world, in order to bless those who have suffered a loss. In order to bless everyone. This life is short. It is fragile. It is precious. It matters. What good you do, on your own, is important. Seek some security for others. And what we accomplish together can be very good.

Ten days ago I heard retired Pastor, Dr. Barry Morrison, offer this excellent blessing (as good a word to end on as I can find). Dear ones, life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those with whom we walk this way. So let us be swift to love, make haste to be kind, and may the Holy One bless you, and make you a blessing. Amen.