Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, August 20, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
The stage is set. We have the tragic back-story, the demonstration of strength and fidelity by our heroine, the feelings of abandonment proclaimed by her mother-in-law, and the time and place of the next act. Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
In a really good story, the end of a chapter makes you want to turn the page and start the next one, and this is a really good story. I care about Ruth and Naomi. I relate to both of them in different ways. I want to know what happens next.
Life is seldom as well laid out as story, except in hindsight. In the midst of tragedies and challenges it would be impossible—even insulting—to think of it as setting the scene or character development or foreshadowing. Reality is far too messy to hold up to literary analysis.
That being said, hindsight can help us make sense of the senseless. Perspective can help us to heal in time. And that, too, is where we find Naomi and Ruth—deep in the particularities of their present circumstances, unsure of what is going to happen next. A few chapters from now, we’ll have all the hindsight we need for it all to make sense. For now, we wait, a little excited, to see the story unfold.
When I look back at a difficult period in my life from my present perspective, what do I see? How have I changed or what have I learned as a result?
