Honor Your Parents???Shembull

On Naomi’s advice and with her insight, Ruth makes Boaz aware of her availability as a potential wife. Boaz is a distant relative of Naomi and, as her kinsman-redeemer, he has the right and the privilege of marrying Ruth. 

Eventually, Boaz and Ruth tie the knot and they have a baby boy.

If Ruth had an Instagram post up, it might have featured a professionally-shot photo of her little family during “golden hour” with the sun setting behind the barley fields. The once-widowed woman with zero prospects of marrying again or having children is now the wife of the owner of a field and has given birth to a baby.

Ruth’s life is living the #blessed life. She doesn’t need Naomi. She could have thrown herself into raising her child and into the busyness of keeping home and making hot falafels for her husband when he came back from the fields. Ruth could have excluded Naomi. 

But Ruth, true to her character, doesn’t. In fact in Chapter 4 it says:

Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” Ruth 4: 16 and 17

What a surprising verse. The women didn’t say Ruth has a son. They said “Naomi has a son.” While that alludes to the culture of the time, it also speaks volumes about Ruth’s nature. Ruth included Naomi in her new family, even though she didn’t have to.

Can we honor our parents by including them rather than overlooking them?

Ruth didn’t allow Naomi to feel like a burden but held space for Naomi in her life.

We have a God who doesn’t exclude us based on our age or qualifications or appearance or utility or any other criterion for “selection.” We have a God who chose us and adopted us into His family simply because of His grace. Can we include our parents as God includes us?

And, again, we can’t do this in our own strength and so we pray: Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, transform my bent to forgetfulness into a heart that includes and envelopes others in love.