Esther was a punk; Ruth was a CHAMP

I get kinda frustrated and disappointed when I ask one of my sisters-in-christ who their favorite bible character is, and they answer with “Esther”.

Esther, the chick who effectively just stood there and looked pretty for a king so she could get married to him.

Esther, who’s greatest heroic action was to save her people from annihilation (very good), because her uncle Mordecai told her to (well, at least she was dutiful), risking death by approaching the king unsummoned, (okay, that’s heroic), by buttering up the pagan king for three days (okay, less risky), then buttering him up for two more days (alright, much less risky), by asking a favor of the king on behalf of herself and her national-hero uncle (are you serious?), to please, please, please, don’t kill her people.

Really?  That’s your favorite bible character?

Granted, there might be more going on there that I am not aware of, but at least from my cursory look at the circumstances, Esther isn’t really that impressive to me.

Ruth though, hoo boy Ruth.  She’s not just heroic, she’s heroinic.

Let’s start by setting up the scene for you:

Ruth was written after Judges, when the Isrealites were in the Promised Land, but before the coronation of David.  It was believed that Ruth was written in defense of David's right as king.

Ruth was a Moabite, and there was an injunction against Moabites from joining Israel up to the tenth generation.  David was Ruth’s great-grandson, and therefore not technically allowed to join isreal for at least another six generations.  This poses a conundrum to someone who is to be the new leader of Isarel.

But Ruth isn’t your typical Moabite: she abandons her gods, her ancestral home, and her family to stick with her mother-in-law, even after her mother-in-law’s son has died and Ruth has no reason to stay around (indeed, Naomi’s other daughter-in-law, Orpah, leaves Naomi, and Orpah is in deep distress to go, but she still takes her chance to exit when she could). 

Ruth is different: she is deeply convinced that Naomi’s god is the true god, and throughout the narative she understands that she has no right to the benefits available to Abraham’s descendents, and respects that boundary between the two peoples.  The sin of Moab was abandoning the Israelites when they most needed them, the righteousness of Ruth was completely distancing herself from her people, and staying with an Israelite even when she was asked again and again to leave.

A lot of people say God won’t make exceptions to extraordinary people.  For Ruth, God made the exception, and raised one of her descendents to be king of Israel, and later, the King of Kings.

Luke and Matthew record the genealogy of Jesus, and in Matthew (the gospel most likely written for a Jewish audience),Ruth is also included in the in this list (Matthew 1:5).  Most people accuse Christianity and Judiasm as being chauvenistic, but the fact that Matthew included women in the genealogy of the world’s savior shows that these women contributed greatly to the nation of Israel. Compounded with the fact that the genealogy is also pretty much a “highlight reel” of Jesus’s most important ancestors, this doubles the emphasis of Ruth’s importance to Israel’s history and Jesus’s heritage. (Also worth noting is that Esther doesn’t show up in there.)

Ruth was faithful, humble, diligent, and deeply loyal, enough to be included in the genealogy of Jesus and to exempt David from the injunction against the Moabites.  Next week, I’ll show you why this is true.

See you there.