Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, August 16, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
These were some brave women, I tell you. Without any protection from husbands or sons, they pick up and head for Judah. Naomi had some idea of what they might find there—it is where she had grown up after all—but the other women were Moabites, not only unfamiliar with the culture of Judah, but also probably well-aware of Moab’s reputation among the Hebrews (it wasn’t good). Would any of them be welcomed? Would it be worth the dangers of the journey to get there as women traveling unaccompanied?
Truthfully I wonder why the daughters-in-law agreed to go in the first place. I don’t know anything about the Moabite culture, but surely there would be something for them in their homeland with their parents’ families. Yet when Naomi said, “I’m going home,” they said, “Okay. We’re coming, too.”
Again I would invite you to put aside what you know about how the story turns out, and put yourself in the place of these brave women setting out on a journey with an unknown ending. Think about the act of faith it was to do so—in spite of the fact that, to Naomi’s way of thinking, she had been abandoned by God in her tragedy. Walk alongside these women in their anxiety and hope, open to what might be next.
When have I had to muster the courage to take a scary step in my life? What got me through?
