University
Congregational United
“Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge” -Ruth 1:16
The old story is told of a monastery that seemed to be dying. Its members were aging, and no new monks were joining, and the Abbott despaired of its ability to continue. He was in the habit of having regular conversations with the rabbi in the village near the monastery, and so one day he mentioned his concerns about the future of this place to which he had devoted his life. After listening to the Abbott’s concerns, the rabbi said, “Whether your monastery will continue, I do not know. But I do know this. The messiah is in your midst. Look carefully to your monks. The messiah is one of you.”
The Abbott returned to the monastery with the news the rabbi had given him. “The Messiah is one of us,” he said. And all the monks looked at one another in wonder. They began to ask themselves, “Which one of could it be?” And that wondering, that question, transformed their community. Suddenly they found themselves treating on another with a new deference, with a new regard. Anyone of them could be the one the rabbi spoke of, so every one of them became special. And soon the word spread that this monastery was a place of genuine community. Young seekers came and were received with the same grace that now permeated the monastery. New members joined, and the monastery grew. Its future was secured.
This story, familiar to many of you, sums up what I want to say as we conclude our conversations about the seventh commandment. “Do not commit adultery,” God told the people of Israel, and we in this church have taken that commandment as an opportunity to celebrate “love month.” I have enjoyed the way we all have embraced that invitation. Peter told us there can be such a thing as Christian sex, and suggested that the energy to connect with each other in all sorts of ways comes from this delightful gift of sexuality that is in each of us. Don told us about a wholehearted approach to life and love that leads us to constantly ask the question, “What is important in life? What really matters?”
And today, as we begin to prepare ourselves for the season of Lent, we come back full circle to a consideration of relationship, to an awareness of the “other.” So we look at two texts. The first is the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi, and this text which has become most often a wedding text: “Where you go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge, where you sleep I will sleep. Your people will become my people and your God will become my God.” It is a text of genuine devotion, but when we put it in its context we are reminded that it is also a text born out of deep grief. Naomi has lost her sons; Ruth and her sister-in-law Orpah have lost their husbands. And while Orpah turns back to her home, Ruth clings to her mother-in-law and asks to stay with her as family. This story is not only significant in itself, it is also a story of the history of Israel, as Ruth marries Boaz and becomes the mother of Jesse, and the grandmother of the king, David. In our very beginnings, the people tell each other, there was devotion, and there was the stranger. In our very beginnings, there was love and faithfulness and there was The Other.
When a story like this is at the foundation of one’s national story, then the welcome of the stranger, with the amazing gifts that stranger might bring, is at the heart of one’s identity. Suddenly, every time the story is told, the listeners are reminded, “The messiah is among you.”
Of course, this story of Ruth is our story too. Ruth appears in the genealogy of Jesus. And in fact, this welcome of the Other that is at the heart of our faith is why we have been welcomed in this place. All of us, in one way or another, are strangers at the gate. We all have wondered if we belong, we all have wondered if we can be a part of this community where everyone else seems to have found their place and we are not so sure of ourselves. Here in this community, Jesus tells us, “The messiah is among you.” And thus we become convinced that there is something of Jesus in this moment- no matter how ordinary- and if there is some thing of Jesus here, then this moment is sacred.
Now it may seem that we have
strayed far from our commandment: “Do not commit adultery.” However, I believe that for all of us to
understand this commandment and have any chance of living it out in our lives,
we have to start with this sense of the value of the other; the preciousness
that makes our commitments to each other and our relationships with one another
and our commitments to each other precious.
Adultery is basically a dehumanization of another human being. That is why
So to turn away from adultery, to learn faithfulness on any level, to keep this commandment, we must learn the value of the Other. We must come to know that the messiah is always among us, and always found in the face of the stranger. Now I know this is a tough statement. “When did we see you, Jesus, in our midst? When did we reach out to you, Jesus?” We all ask the question. And Jesus points to the one we have regarded as the least and says, “I was right there with you all the time.”
The Jewish mystic Martin Buber has called this sense of relationship, which refuses to objectify and dismiss the other, an “I-Thou” relationship. As we encounter our world, he suggests, we each have a choice to make regarding how we shall relate. The choice to relate to the world as primarily an experience for and within myself is an “I-It” relationship, in which other parts of reality are seen only as they relate to me and my needs, comforts, will or utility. I find value in you only insofar as you meet my needs, my expectations, and my desires. As Buber says, “The primary word “I-It” can never be spoken with the whole being.” The I-Thou relationship, on the other hand, is not about objectification, but encounter. As Buber says, the “I-Thou” can be spoken only with the whole being. “I-Thou” finds its reality not in objectification, but in encounter, and encounter is mutual.
That sense of mutuality is what leads us to faithfulness, to justice, to connection, and to peace. It is mutuality that God calls us to in relationship to one another and in relationship to God. Mutuality is what fills our loves with meaning, what makes partnership become its best, what fills our hearts with singing. Mutuality is, literally, two way. It insists on a two-way respect, and enjoys the adventure of discovering the separateness of the other while at the same time celebrating the connection. It is this sense of mutuality in the story of Ruth and Naomi, and that leads us to cite it so often at weddings and commitment services- because it is such mutuality we hope for in our most intimate relationships. And then Jesus invites us to turn those hopes outward towards all whom we encounter in our world. It is mutuality that leads me to know, when I look into your face, that the Messiah is among us.
And it is this sense of
mutuality that the world so desperately needs.
Today in
When the Christian faith is celebrated as the Three Great Loves- love of God and neighbor and self- we are reminded why we gather and what we hope to take from this place: a love which, lived by the grace of God, can indeed change our world. A love that seeps into all we do- so that when we make covenants with each other, when we describe our faith to one another, when we walk and work in our world, it is love that guides us. When we revitalize a building in this place, as we celebrate this morning, we dedicate it to love, not only of ourselves, but love that reflects mutuality with all who live in our neighborhood and most specifically with those in need. When we pass a budget that will guide our financial stewardship this year, we ask that mutuality be present there as well. To the extent that we refuse to turn our neighbors or ourselves, or even God, into an object designed solely from our own experience to meet only our own self-focused concerns, we are keeping the seventh commandment. And I would suggest, it is keeping this commandment- remaining faithful- that will become the foundation of these last three commandments.
And so in the midst of our lives, we can open ourselves to this sense of connection that longs for connection, knowing that ultimately as we understand it and articulate it in this place, even God longs for mutuality and takes the first step toward us in relationship. And, Paul reminds us, nothing separates us from that love of God which we have come to know in Jesus, God’s love in flesh. So with the Buddhist I cry “Namaste,” as the holy in me greets the holy in you. I and Thou, together acknowledging a mutuality that can save our world. The messiah is indeed among us.