“Cling Tight: The Radical Power of Accompaniment”

Ruth 1:1-18

Sunday,November 5, 2018
First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

I was placing a coffee order with my bag propped up on the counter. As she swiped my credit card the barista said, “I like your buttons.” I thanked her and sat down to wait for the person I was meeting. As I did so, I took at look at the various buttons on my bag….which I hadn’t really looked at in a while. One of them is pink and light blue and says “I’ll go with you.” I got it a few years ago when the first round of “bathroom laws” were being considered.

As I looked at those words, “I’ll go with you” I thought about all the accompanying that we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

And it strikes me that thinking about all of this accompanying is particularly relevant on All Saints’ Day because this is a time when we are already remembering those who faithfully accompanied us and the ways we are still connected to one another even when death separates us.

Telling a friend who is trans or gender-non-conforming that we’ll go with them into a public restroom to make sure no one bothers them is an act of accompanying. Rising before the sun to shield local high school students from hateful signs and protestors...showing up to make sure they get into school safely is another way we say “I’ll go with you.” Showing up for Shabbat on a Friday night to show our Jewish friends and neighbors we stand with them on the of love….this is how we accompany one another.

I am reminded of the text I received from one of our members last Sunday afternoon, asking me if I thought it would be appropriate to drop off flowers outside the Jewish Congregation’s building that afternoon. “I’ll go with you” reminds me of how some of you have told me that you’ve quietly pulled over to observe the interaction between a police officer and a person of color…..silently watching at a distance just to make sure everything goes okay.

Accompanying. Saying “I’ll go with you.”

In the face of hate, accompanying may seem like a small thing. It may seem like it’s not enough...not much of a plan at all. It’s not tearing down and overhauling systems. Accompanying may not change immoral laws. Sometimes it’s not even particularly effective. Sometimes we say “I’ll go with you” and people still get hurt, damage is still done.

But accompanying is no small thing. It’s a radical act of love. And I believe it has the power to change the world.

I know this to be true because of our sacred texts.

This morning’s reading from the First Testament is the opening of the Book of Ruth. In case you got a little lost in all those biblical names, let me briefly summarize what we heard. Once upon a time there was a couple, Elimelech and Naomi. They were from Bethlehem but had migrated to a foreign land, Moab, because of a famine. They took their two sons with them. Eventually, Elimelech died and Naomi’s two sons married two local, Moabite women - Ruth and Orpah.

It’s important to remember that in the ancient near east women were under the protection of men. Girls had their fathers to provide for them. They then married and were under the protection of their husband. If their husband died, they were to be cared for by their sons. A solo woman was vulnerable. Women had to be cared for by trusted male family members. It’s just how things were done.

This is important to know because of what happens next. Naomi’s two sons die leaving her and her two daughters-in-law alone to fend for themselves.

Naomi has heard that things have improved in her homeland so she makes the decision to return to Judah. Initially, her daughters-in-law go with her. But somewhere along the way, Naomi tells them, “You know, I think you should actually go back home to Moab. Nothing good awaits you in Judah. I don’t have any other sons to marry you. I’m too old to remarry myself. It’s going to be a hard life there. You’ll have better options if you stay here.”

The three women huddle together on the side of the road, crying. Eventually, Orpah kisses her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clings to Naomi, refusing to leave.

“I’ll come with you,” she says. “Do not force me to leave you. Wherever you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die and be buried there with you. May God seal these words as a pledge to you.”

Ruth, as a young woman living in a rigidly patriarchal society, did not have the power to change the entire culture swirling around her. Naomi didn’t either. But by clinging to her mother-in-law, Ruth did change the world. Together, these Ruth and Naomi were able to take care of one another and the outcome of this story was very different because they stayed together. We’ll be hearing more about that next week.

Sometimes the act of accompanying is small and quiet. Sometimes it catches other people’s attention and our solo accompaniment becomes a loud chorus of love and care.

In Billings, Montana, back in 1993 there was a quiet act of accompaniment that became a community-wide movement. On December 2 of that year, a brick was thrown in the window of five-year-old Isaac Schnitzer’s bedroom window because his window had a menorah stenciled onto it. Local police told Isaac’s mom that the simplest way to keep her family safe was to remove those overtly-Jewish symbols.

When another mom, Margaret McDonald, read this in the Billings newspaper, she was shocked. She couldn’t imagine how awful it would feel to tell her own Christian children that they couldn't have a Christmas tree or that they had to hide their faith.

McDonald called her pastor, the Rev. Keith Torney of First Congregational UCC and asked if they could make menorahs for the children in their Sunday School. If enough families around town hung menorahs in a show of solidarity, those who wanted to harm their Jewish neighbors wouldn’t know who to target. Rev. Torney called his colleagues around town and within a week hundreds of menorahs hung in the windows of Christian homes. The local newspaper ran a full-page drawing of a menorah and urged people to cut it out and hang it up. Before long, at least six thousand homes in Billings had menorahs in their windows. [1]

In the face of hate, we choose to cling to each other. When times are hard, we cling to each other. When life is good, we cling to each other. When we follow the example of Ruth, who accompanied Naomi even though it made no sense, we are walking in the ways of Jesus….the one who came to us as Emmanuel, God with Us, the Great Accompanier.

The entirety of scripture is the story of God choosing us, clinging to us, saying to us, “I’ll go with you.” When we are grieving, God clings to us. When we are elated, God clings to us. When we are sad, scared, goofy, confused, fired up...God clings to us.

God arrives in our ancient stories, made new each day as the world continues to spin and change. God arrives in the person of Jesus, Emmanuel. God arrives on the wind as the Holy Spirit is found closer than each breath we breathe.

God chooses us. God clings to us. And we are called to do the same. May it be so.

Notes:

[1] I found this story in Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, edited by Walter Wink. Pages 255-256.