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Ruth -- a vision of perfect community
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| David Robertson |
| Reprinted from the June 2004 issue of The Christian
Science Journal |
Many Bible readers are familiar with the story of Ruth, the woman who
left her own community in order to go with her mother-in-law to her homeland
after both of them had been widowed. It’s a moving love story, but it also
tells how people from different cultures can get along with each other.
Like most stories in the Bible, Ruth’s experiences can be applied and
interpreted many ways. For instance, they relate to women’s roles in community
affairs, to the value of extraordinary loyalty and to God’s loving care for
childless and destitute widows.
Another powerful insight that can be gained from Ruth’s story is how
community relations can be perfected. At a time of great transition and turmoil
in the history of Israel, the authors of Ruth, the story of an outsider, have
provided a recipe for the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind.
In English translations of the Bible, the book of Ruth is situated between
the books of Judges and First Samuel, historically a dark and bloody time
for both Israel and Ruth’s nation, Moab.
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| "A Hebrew short story told with consummate skill." |
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“The book of Ruth is a Hebrew short story, told with consummate skill,”
says one commentator. “… Ruth is silent about the underlying hostility and
suspicion the two peoples—Judahites and Moabites—felt for each other. The
original onslaught of the invading Israelite tribes against towns that were
once Moabite had never been forgotten or forgiven, while the Hebrew prophets
denounced Moab’s pride and arrogance for trying to bewitch, seduce and oppress
Israel from the time of Balaam on. The Mesha stele (c. 830 BC) boasts of the
massacre of entire Israelite towns.”
Ruth’s story doesn’t present an idealized human community, nor is it
macrocosmic; that is, it’s not trying to speak for the whole universe or to
reverse the whole history of wrongs that have been done.
But that doesn’t weaken its powerful message. By taking the microcosmic
route, dealing only with this one family and its one village, its message
becomes more powerful.
As another commentator puts it, “Readers are invited to envision an
ideal on a scale that can be readily related to their own life circumstances.
. . . because the picture remains on an easily recognizable human plane, the
picture itself has a ‘flesh and blood’ character to which readers can relate.
The future hope embodied in the story is more this-worldly than beyond our
earthly imagining. Furthermore, this kind of picture of future hope invites
readers to reflect on the relationship between their own actions and God’s
intention to bring forth the fullness of human community.”
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| Even cultural enemies can unite under mutual love for
God. |
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Stories like Ruth’s continue to hold out hope for humanity because they
show how even cultural groups who have lived as enemies can be brought together
under mutual love for God and for each other.
Thousands of years later, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “The Bible contains
the recipe for all healing.” This insight led her to glean from the Bible
a vision of perfect community.
She affirmed, “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes
the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor
as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in
social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes;
annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished
or destroyed.”
The authors of the book of Ruth would certainly have agreed with her.
David Robertson is a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science
in Stanfordville, New York
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| Ruth's healing recipe: |
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Science and Health:
406:1-2
340:23
King James Bible:
Ruth 2:11,12
Ruth 4:11-14
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