Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, January 5, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Ruth is one of three women mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew. What is significant about her is that she was not a Jew by birth (nor was Rahab, who is also included). Again, we are reminded that God regularly extends God’s welcome and love to people outside the imagined inner circle of God’s people. David, Israel’s most beloved king, had a great-grandmother who was an immigrant from a foreign nation. What does that make him, 1/8 Moabite? That’s not insignificant.
I’ve seen a few videos—over-dramatized to be sure, but still kinda fun—in which people who have participated in genetic genealogy testing find huge surprises in their heritage. People who believed they were 100% Norwegian discovering they are 75% Swedish (the horror!). I wonder what would have happened if these tests had been around in Nazi Germany—how many Nazis would have found they had Jewish blood? The point is that the myth of eugenics and being “pure” in any way has been thoroughly debunked a thousand times over and we are called, rather than to try to find out what distinguishes us from others, to notice all the ways we are interrelated—one people.
Jesus was a mutt just like the rest of us, and it’s beautiful.
Do I try to separate myself from others in order to feel superior?
