Clinging in our Grief
You can listen to this sermon here
Gate Pa – 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - November 7 2021
- Take time to name your own grief, anxiety, and questions
- How are we making sense of what is happening,
- Who are we “clinging to” as we negotiate our way through this?
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
This is a busy time of year with a number of notable commemorations.
2. Grief
At the heart of each of these stories is profound sense of grief. There is a deep sense of grief for those who died. But more than that. There is grief for what was lost. Grief at the new situation people found themselves in. Grief at having to let go of life as it was. And grief for having to live in a new world, for better or for worse.
The writer of one of the resources from USA I use invited her readers to use this Sunday to help our parishioners name our grief; both for those who have died, and the ongoing effects this pandemic is having at it drags on. Compared to the USA and much of the western world we have come through this pandemic pretty well so far. But despite that these have been hard years. Many are longing to go back to how it once was. And there are increasing levels of anxiety and fear caused by the uncertainty around what our covid future holds. We keep wondering when will this end? What will our new normal look like? And we join the Psalmist praying “how long Lord, how long will we sing this song in this strange land?
What then might our readings offer us in all this?
3. Ruth
Story of Naomi and Ruth is the story of two women left in an extremely perilous situation by the deaths of Naomi’s husband and sons. It is a story full of grief, disappointment and questions
At its heart this book is a protest
It is first and foremost a protest against the proclamations of Ezra and Nehemiah when the exiles returned, commanding all those taken non-Jewish wives that they must send them away with their children, and take new Jewish wives. As the kinsman of Naomi’s husband said, to take a non-Jewish woman and father a child with her would “risk damage to their inheritance”. The book of Ruth stands against that need for racial purity by reminding all who hear it that from this foreigner, Ruth the Moabite, come the grandfather of David. Her inheritance is David the great King
But there is also a Job like protest going on here as well. A protest against the common theological position that God rewards the righteous with wealth and sons. Like Job this book offers the minority opinion against the dominant “Deuteronomic” theology of First Testament, and which is still around today. The rich are blessed by God, the poor are punished. Naomi protests this understanding of God that somehow justified this painful story somehow diminished her pain and loss
“Don’t call me Naomi,[a] but call me Mara,[b] for the Almighty[c] has made me very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has returned me empty. Why would you call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has deemed me guilty?” (Ruth 1:20)
The hebrew of Ruth 1:9 is difficult. One scholar has offered this alternative translation “May YHWH give to you … [Oh, forget it!] Find rest, each one in the household of your husband!”[1]
Naomi’s sense of betrayal and uncertainty about God is central to this whole story. She can no longer trust God, so she will take action herself.
4. More than protest
Ruth is more than a protest book. And it is a really important book for us in our time. The story of Ruth embraces questions and makes space for our experiences of grief, anger, anxiety, uncertainty. They are part of our response to all that is happening and need our attention. Even at the end Naomi is left with her grief, frustration, and questions. And that is ok - there are no easy answers.
In the end Naomi has saved her husband’s name and inheritance through the birth of Obed to Ruth and Boaz, and has found security for herself and Ruth. But she did that. Maybe God is in the midst of that. Naomi held her uncertainty and grief and with Ruth acted.
For some, maybe many, these last 20 months raised many questions. It has left many of us feeling uncertain, angry, anxious. Much of the protests are about this in the end. We are all grieving in one way or another. Deep down we would like things to be as they were. But they are not and will not be for some time, if ever. Today we are invited to name our grief, to hold it, and maybe, to know that God is in the midst of this.
This is also a story about how to name and hold our grief. The Hebrew in 1:14 is the word for cling. These two women “cling to each other” in midst of their pain, and together they find a way forward.
So who are the people who we cling to? Who are we finding our way forward with?
Who are the people we can name our pain and grief with, ask our questions with?
Not for easy answers, but to hold our grief, frustration, pain, uncertainty, anxiety, and questions as we work our way through.
5. Candles
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