Ruth part 6 God's foodbank!

18^th November 2018

P.A.Thatcher

The Mustard Seed Evangelical Church.

Series: “The best is yet to come!” {Lessons from the book of Ruth Part 6}

God's food-bank!: Ruth 1:22 – 2:23

Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, ‘Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour.’ Naomi said to her, ‘Go ahead, my daughter.’ So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, ‘The Lord be with you!’

‘The Lord bless you!’ they answered.

Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, ‘Who does that young woman belong to?’ The overseer replied, ‘She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, “Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.” She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.’

So Boaz said to Ruth, ‘My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.’

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, ‘Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner?’ Boaz replied, ‘I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.’

‘May I continue to find favour in your eyes, my lord,’ she said. ‘You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant – though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.’

At mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.’ When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, ‘Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.’

So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. Her mother-in-law asked her, ‘Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!’ Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. ‘The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,’ she said. ‘The Lord bless him!’ Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. ‘He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.’ She added, ‘That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.’

Then Ruth the Moabite said, ‘He even said to me, “Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.”’ Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, ‘It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.’

So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

As we have gone through the first chapter of the book of Ruth we have largely learned lessons from the characters involved and from how they reacted in the situation that we found themselves in. This week we will start to answer the question, “where is God in all of this?” I am currently re-reading Philip Yancey's book, “Where is God when it hurts?” In the book the author seeks to understand why God allows pain and suffering. I am sure that this is a question that each one of us asks in one way or another. It often comes in the form of, “why is this happening to me?” It is logical that the characters portrayed in the book of Ruth would each one ask the same question. Is that not what Naomi was saying when she made the statement that God had dealt harshly with her?

So today we will begin to address what God was doing, but for today, how He was doing it is the real essence.

We live in a day when food-banks are a vital part of British life. It is amazing how many people benefit from the use of the food-banks that are scattered all across our British Isles. The pleasing thing about food-bank is that it is a Christian vision and is run by Trussel Trust which is based on evangelical lines.

It is always a privilege to speak with Pam Stevens and her team in the food-bank that is attached to our church. Just the other day we had the opportunity to help somebody out through it's services. It is part of our ongoing ministry here in the Mustard Seed to provide the building for this important work. We must never forget that it was C.H.Spurgeon who said that to a starving man he would wrap the gospel up in a sandwich.

Where did Christians get the idea of a food-bank from?

Why do we support the local one here?

A challenge for us:

It is coming up to Christmas, we have finished the shoeboxes; why not collect food items for the Christmas food parcels that the food-bank here will be giving away?

To answer these questions we need to look into the Old Testament. It would be neat if the answer came from the book of Ruth. In part it does, but to fully understand the reasons for the turn of events in chapter 2 we need to go to the law of Moses. A couple of weeks ago, I threw out a challenge, to read the book of Deuteronomy. At least one person has done so and his testimony is that it has transformed a lot of his thinking, and it has been real food for his soul. We have a friend who in his youth was very tall and gangly. His fellow members of the university called him Deuteronomy, the reason being that they said he was long and boring. They were wrong on two counts. Mark was not boring and neither is Deuteronomy! It is in the law of Moses that God prescribes a food-bank for the poor among His people. It is this provision that Ruth, Naomi and Boaz have as the motivation for all that is going on in the chapter that we have read.

Let me explain:

In Deuteronomy 15: 4 God says: “there shall be no poor among you, for the Lord will bless you.” He is speaking to His people as they are about to go into the land. He was not saying that there will never be people in difficulties, but that there will be nationwide blessing for the people if they remained faithful to Him. Clearly some would come on hard times and become poor for all sorts of reasons, Jesus later said that the poor would always be with us. It is how God provides for the poor amongst His people that is the issue at hand today, how does He expect His people to show His love to His people? In Deuteronomy 15:7 – 11, God addresses the vitally important issue of those who become poor:

If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards them. Rather, be open-handed and freely lend them whatever they need. Be careful not to harbour this wicked thought: ‘The seventh year, the year for cancelling debts, is near,’ so that you do not show ill will towards the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed towards your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

Do you see what God is saying, there is blessing for all, but it comes in a variety of ways. The Levites for instance had to rely on the generosity and faithfulness of the people. God made provision for those who minister His word to be paid for their labours, and if you read the law of God. You will see, that it was not God's intention to “keep them poor in order to keep them humble,” as is the mindset of many Christians today! The Lord blessed His people adequately, and in this there is enough to support Godly ministry. This is an issue that we will face as we eventually seek a paid pastor.

But, it is more than just help to those in ministry, God in this passage is making a permanent provision for His people who fall on hard times. Now this is certainly a case where charity begins at home. God provided for His people in His land, He provided in abundance and as such He expected His people to be fair to each other. If we followed God's directives, there would be no poor in the church. But, there are poor people even amongst us, we have had some that have had to live on outside charity! That is quite wrong!

I am in a privileged position, in that I often know of circumstances that others are not privy to! In their difficulties we have been able to help some out. It is sad to say that there have been comments made that the person should simply pray and God will provide. This passage clearly tells us that we are the cheque book that eases their problem. We are God's answer, we are His provision for those who are hurting in any way, but in this occasion as it was for Ruth and Naomi, we must extend a helping hand, because God proscribes it! We must be generous, and then God says that He will bless us more, in order that we become even more generous. Dave Gilmore of Pink Floyd fame, once said that he had been brought up to give 10% of all that he had, to charity. His problem was that the more he gave, the more he earned and the more he had to give away. We cannot out give God, the sentiment is that we should seek to be as Generous as He is, His generosity is so abundant that we can never get near that, but as His children we should be known by our generous love to each other. But are we?

If we want real blessing in the church, then we need to be generous to a fault!

The way that this must be done is what we learn from this chapter in Ruth. Ruth and Naomi have returned to Bethlehem, at the very beginning of the harvest season, they are in need, and so Ruth goes out to glean. She goes to the fields, gains permission to pick up the left overs from the harvesters and is readily granted permission!

WHY?

The simple answer is that God had made provision for the poor to do this. We need to look at Deuteronomy 24:19-22 to find this:

When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.

What we are seeing worked out in Ruth chapter 2 is the law of God being applied. I was once preaching in Blaenllechai in South Wales and one of the mine owners grand-daughters, who was herself an old lady at that time, was in the congregation. I was speaking on this very passage! Afterwards she told me of the tradition of the mines in that valley. After the Welsh revival in the 19^th century, converted mine owners took this passage seriously and made the rule that any coal that fell from the machinery, or the delivery sack was for the poor people of the valley. They could go and collect as much as they needed for free. That had been abused in the late 20^th century, by unscrupulous people collecting the coal and selling it on. The practice has since been abandoned.

You see that Naomi had taught Ruth well in the law of God, Ruth knew what she should do and so she led the way. She asked permission of Naomi to go and do what the Lord had provided for them. Ruth qualified perfectly, in that she was a foreigner, she was a widow and also she had Naomi as a dependent! We would do well to learn from God's law that those new amongst us, as Ruth was in Bethlehem, are all of equal value to the long standing members of the church. In God's law all are equal and all deserve to be blessed by the ministry of the church! Boaz, the landowner, made sure that Ruth was provided for over and above, the letter of the law.

In this the law can be abused by us!

We can and ought to be more giving than the base requirements. If we are, then as with Boaz, I fully believe that our blessing will be a magnitude higher!

It was no surprise to see poor folks in the fields gathering enough food for their needs. The farmers ought to have welcomed them, but as always there are those who are not obedient to the law of God. We have them in the church today.

The critics, those who say, who are these unworthy souls, “what right have they to our blessing? This is ours, keep your hands off!” Boaz protected Ruth from such people. The leaders of the church are here to protect the poor in spirit amongst us, the marginalised in the church. The unwanted, those outside of the privileged few. We are here to make sure you enter into the full blessing that the Lord is pouring out on His church here.

There is one final thing from all of this that flies in the face of modern thinking and also that of charity ruling. It is something that I would maybe question even the food-bank about. It is the effort that God expects from those who are to benefit, where possible, they were to work for their provision. Ruth had to do a hard day's labour for the sack of grain that she took back, and the food that she enjoyed at Boaz' table! In the law of God, there is no such thing as a free meal. The worker deserves his wage. I believe the reason for this is that we are all made in the image of God, God is a Worker of extreme proportions and He expects us to work for our living. He put Adam and Eve to work in the Garden of Eden and that has been His directive ever since. There is nothing better than a good day's work for a good night's sleep!

To work for our living is good for our self worth and self respect, it is what we should do. It is what we need to do in the church, if we want blessing then it comes with the effort that God demands of us. The hard-working farmer deserves the benefits of his labours.

The Levites had to work hard in the temple for their provisions, the pastor must labour hard in the word and in prayer. When this happens you must supply His needs generously as did the nation for the Levites.

The poor members of the church are to be cared for, for some a loan might be needed because their circumstance is temporary. When it changes then they will be able to return what they have borrowed, But, did you notice that God made the provision, that said if their situation has not changed by a set time of seven years, we do not bring in the bailiffs, we write off the loan.

That is what God expects.

What a blessing that will be to the person, a burden off their mind and for the giver, there is blessing from God for using His resources generously. The blessing for Boaz was to be a beautiful wife and a name in history. If you have been able to do without it for 7 years do you really need it?

The capable poor person worked for their provision, for them they received the minimum wage, but for Ruth it came with bonuses and blessing beyond her wildest dream. The immediate blessing was food for the year to come, she also found herself sitting at the boss' table and enjoying magnificent food. Eventually she would have a new husband who was so much better than the first!

What do we learn from such a passage, God is the best provider for all of His people. He provides for all people everywhere and so our charity does not stop at home. It goes out into all of the world. The greatest benefit to the world is the gospel, but as with Spurgeon we need to at times wrap it up in a sandwich. That is our food-bank! The local Foodbank takes the gospel wherever they can, let us support them more in prayer than we do!

God provides for the church, and amongst us there should be no poor, we are expected to show the love of God in this very practical way, that in itself will be impressive to all who look in!

We must remember that it is by God's wonderful gift of Salvation, through Jesus that we are the church! All of us belong through His gift of faith. Therefore, as with the church in Acts 2 we ought to have all things in common. The outworking of this, is that there should be none of us who are struggling for our daily needs.

But yet there are!

Why?

Next time we will consider “Boaz, God's man for the time.”