Ruth: the Story of Biblical Border Crossings ~ Ruth 1:1-10

 

Many of us recognize the wisdom of this proverb: Don’t tell me what to do. Tell me a story. We know it because stories don’t merely inform us—they form us. Stories slip past our defenses. They soften certainty. They unsettle assumptions we didn’t even realize we were carrying. Rules tell us what is required; stories tell us what is at stake. Rules offer binary categories (right/wrong; legal/illegal; legitimate/illegitmate); stories offer complicated contexts. There’s a tension here, for sure. And we need both. And yet often, the word story gets reduced to something childish or imaginary, when historically it meant something far more serious. The root of the word carries meanings of wisdom and seeing. To tell a story well was to see clearly—to look at the world in a way that revealed truth rather than obscured it. No wonder Scripture is saturated with stories. Elie Wiesel once said, “God made human beings because God loves stories.” So here is the question that matters deeply in this moment of our shared life: 

 

For the next few minutes, we are going to sit with a story that refuses to remain abstract. A story that disrupts easy categories and resists tidy conclusions. A story that demands listening. It is the story of Ruth—a story of border-crossers, refugees  from enemy nations, and an immigrant woman whose ethnicity alone excluded her from belonging, and yet who becomes indispensable to God’s work and our future. Ruth is not a metaphor nor an issue. She is flesh and blood. And her story insists that we lean in close enough to hear it.

When Home is the mouth of a shark (vss. 1-2)

The book of Ruth opens the way many immigrant stories still begin: with failed politics, scarcity, and fear. “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.” This was a time of social collapse—violence, exploitation, chaos. The Book of Judges describes a society unraveling, and now famine sits on top of it all. Bethlehem—literally meaning “House of Bread”—ironically has no bread. And a house with no food is no home. So a Jewish family leaves. Not because they are adventurous. Not because they are irresponsible. Not because they want to threaten anyone. They leave in order to live. This remains true today. No one crosses borders casually. They cross because the alternative is hunger, violence, or death. According to the United Nations, the vast majority of displaced people are fleeing conflict, persecution, or economic collapse—not seeking advantage, just survival. The journey itself is often traumatic—physically, emotionally, spiritually, even in the best of circumstances. The poet and refugee Warsan Shire gives voice to that reality and this Jewish family’s plight:

 

no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well . . .

you have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land

no one burns their palms

under trains

beneath carriages

no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck

feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled

means something more than journey.

no one crawls under fences

no one wants to be beaten

pitied

 

Warsan Shire and this Jewish family understand: no one leaves home unless they have to.

Notice something subtle but important about the beginning of Ruth, chapter one: at first, the Jewish refugees have no names. A man. A wife. Two sons. That anonymity mirrors how immigration is often discussed today. We speak in impersonal categories—migrants, illegals, refugees, aliens. When we do that, stories can disappear. Complexity flattens. And fear rushes in to fill the gap. But Scripture refuses to leave them nameless. So let us say them aloud: Elimelech. Naomi. Mahlon. Kilion. And later, Orpah and Ruth. Naming is a holy act. In the Bible, to name is to acknowledge full humanity. To name is to resist erasure. Names can also speak of trauma – Mahlon means “Critically-ill”; Killion, “Terminally-ill.” Most of us, if we trace our histories honestly, descend from people who crossed borders with names that also name trauma; that were mispronounced, shortened, changed, or ignored. And for many of us, immigrants are not theoretical—they are family. Spouses. Children. Friends. Worship partners. Immigration stops being abstract the moment someone you love has an accent. Say their name.

 

When Policy Meets Pain (What’s the mental background and legal history for this story? – Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Numbers 22 & 25)

This Jewish family is so desperate that they settle in enemy territory—Moab, a place thick with historical resentment. Every Jewish listener would have known this bitterness. It was codified in Scripture itself. Deuteronomy 23 makes it clear: Moabites and their descendants are excluded. No exceptions. No pathway to belonging. This is policy rooted in national memory and inherited trauma (Deut. 23:4-5, cf. Numbers 22 7 25). Moab once failed to show hospitality, so Israel responded with permanent exclusion: “Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live” (23:6). But here is the uncomfortable irony Ruth invites us to face: the people once condemned for their lack of hospitality are now the ones offering it. Moab becomes refuge. Moab becomes home. Moab becomes the place where survival is possible. Moab, the enemy, becomes family. The sons marry Moabite women—Orpah and Ruth—and then tragedy strikes. All the men die. Famine drove them to Moab; death threatens to strand them there. Three widows. No protection. No income. No future security. Naomi decides to return to Judah – to “home,” (vs. 6) but as we heard last week, home is a tricky thing for immigrants. Bethlehem may be home for Naomi, but she quickly remembers it is not home for Orpah and Ruth (of the 5 appearances of “home,” four are used by Naomi to tell Orpah and Ruth NOT to come with her even as she calls them “daughters.”)

 

The Danger of a Single-Story and a Stereotype (vss. 3-7)

To the original audience, the deaths of the sons would not have been surprising. It would have felt inevitable. Of course the men died. Of course the marriages failed. Numbers 25 taught that Moabite women were dangerous—sexually immoral, unfaithful, and spiritually corrupt. Stereotypes are powerful storytellers. They offer simple explanations and quick certainty. We know who these immigrants are. We know how this story ends. We know who God favors. We know how God treats the unfavorable. Certainty often precedes cruelty. A Louisiana pastor recently told the New York Times that he would never knowingly offer communion to an illegal immigrant visiting his church. Apparently, Jesus dying for sinners isn’t enough, if communion requires papers. Naomi urges Ruth and Orpah to stay behind—not because she does not love them, but because she knows what cruelties might await them. Foreign women. From the wrong nation. Carrying the wrong history. When we believe we already know someone’s story, we stop listening. When we reduce people to a single narrative, compassion becomes unnecessary—and even suspect. This is not just ancient history. This is how fear and stereotypes still work –Latinos are gang members and drug smugglers, Somalis are thieves and hucksters, etc. Carlos reminded us last week that even though he doesn’t really remember the Philippines, even though he fully understands the US to be his home; his own racialized experience of not being white – leaves him, in real ways, an outsider.

 

An Immigrant Blessing (vss. 8-9)

And yet, despite all of this fear and uncertainty, Naomi does something astonishing. She blesses them: “May the LORD show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to the dead and to me.” Did you catch it? She will marvel at their kindness and asks God to be kind like them. The Hebrew word for kindness is chesed—meaning fierce loyalty, covenantal love, compassion that acts. It’s often translated “loving-kindness” and two-thirds of its usage in the OT is solely with respect to God’s character. And here is the theological earthquake: God’s kindness is revealed not through insiders, not through law—but through two foreign women from a despised nation. God never speaks in the book of Ruth. God performs no overt miracle, save ending the famine. Instead, God shows up embodied in the kindness of people an entire community had written off.

 

A Kindness that Repairs the World

In the Old Testament, chesed is central to God’s mission of tikkun olam—the repairing of the world. Not fixing people. Not winning arguments. But repairing what fear and exclusion have broken. 

 

Ruth—the excluded—becomes the great-grandmother of King David. Her words to Naomi become the standard promises that we save for weddings (vss. 16-17). And she even becomes part of the lineage of Jesus. God’s salvation story runs straight through the life of an immigrant woman whose story, according to the rules, shouldn’t have been included.This is the invitation Ruth places before us. Not to agree on every strategy. Not to simplify a complex issue. But to see, to listen, to learn names, to allow real stories to complicate our certainty and challenge existing policy. And to open ourselves to the unsettling possibility that God is at work through the excluded and despised. Friends, God loves stories because God puts people first and compassion does not begin with rules. It begins with attention to real lives, real promises, real kindness. The real challenge, friends, is whether any immigrant might say of us, “And now I see that God is kind like you.” Amen.

Learning to Talk like Jesus: How to have a hard conversation ~ Luke 7:36-50

 

I love reality TV shows—especially the ones that showcase skill. Cooking competitions. Talent shows. Home renovations. Survivalists contests. There’s something compelling about watching someone who really knows what they’re doing.

If you watch closely enough, you start to learn. You notice patterns. You see instincts. You realize that skill isn’t just explained—it’s modeled. Over time, you discover that what seemed mysterious can actually be practiced.

That matters today, because we are about to step into a series that deals with a sensitive, difficult, and deeply spiritual topic - immigration. And many of us might feel anxious about that—not because we don’t care, but because we don’t know how to talk without things falling apart. As a broader society, we feel less comfortable being able to hold space for friction, disagreement, or challenge.

So before we discuss ideas, Jesus invites us to learn a skill. Our first value, “Grounded in Jesus” means that Jesus is not only our Savior; he is our teacher, as well. And he promises that “the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher” (Luke 6:40). If that’s true, then one of the most faithful things we can do is watch how Jesus handles hard conversations. When we do that, Luke 7 seems to address a pressing question for our time: How do we speak to one another in a polarized world without tearing each other apart?

Let’s be clear. Jesus does not offer a technique for winning arguments. He offers a way of seeing people—and that way of seeing seeks healing, dignity, and restored relationship for everyone involved. Jesus modeled what many now refer to as nonviolent communication: a spiritual commitment to express oneself honestly, to listen emphatically, and foster compassion and collaboration with God for others—even when conflict is real. I would like to speak about four things that Jesus does that will help us also talk and heal the world [Caveat: this isn’t all we can say on the topic but it’s a good start].

Step One: Presence Before Persuasion

The story begins with something surprisingly hopeful. A Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to dinner—and Jesus accepts. That detail matters.

Pharisees and Jesus often clash in the Gospels, but here Simon does something courageous. He opens his home to someone he disagrees with. He doesn’t cancel Jesus. He doesn’t caricature him. He believes that Jesus is worth a conversation and a meal. This takes place in a world full of political unrest, religious tension, and social division—sound familiar? And yet the first move is not debate. It’s presence.

This is the first principle of Jesus-talk or nonviolent gospel communication: Transformation begins with conversation. Jesus teaches us that transformation starts not with arguments, but with showing up, sitting down, and staying at the table – even ones that feel tense or fraught. Friends, we must be realistic about what’s happening in our technological world. The internet, cell phones, and AI basically remove every friction possible. And that means that we are losing the social skills and muscle of sitting with challenge, uncertainty, conflict, and disagreement. Jesus reminds us, you cannot connect with hearts you refuse to sit beside.

If we are going to talk like Jesus, we must be willing to eat with people we struggle to understand, people who think differently than we do, even people who frustrate or unsettle us. We need to resist the culture of shame and destruction that has taken hold in so many of our conversations. We no longer merely disagree; we despise. We no longer seek understanding; we seek victory. We no longer hope for transformation; we imagine cancellation. Our culture trains us to destroy our opponents. Jesus trains us to eat with them.

Friends, dinner and open discussion are not distractions from discipleship; they are demonstrations of it. Jesus shows us that even those we disagree with are capable of kindness, hospitality, and genuine curiosity. Even our perceived opponents can extend grace and are worth a meal.

Step Two: Curiosity before judgment

As the meal unfolds, a woman enters the room—one known as a “sinner.” She approaches Jesus with raw vulnerability, washing his feet with her tears and anointing them with perfume.

And Simon watches—and Luke tells us something crucial: Simon says nothing out loud. Instead, he “said to himself. ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him.’” (vs. 39)

Simon doesn’t address Jesus or the woman. He retreats inward. This is where so many conversations break down—not because of what we say, but because of what we silently rehearse. We assume motives. We finish sentences. We assign intentions without checking them. We interpret actions through the lens of past wounds, unspoken fears, made up stories. And while someone is right in front of us, we are no longer actually present with them we are talking to ourselves.

In the language of Nonviolent Communication, this is when observation turns into judgment. We stop naming what we see and start telling ourselves stories about what it means. And here is the danger: You cannot listen to another person while arguing with them in your head.

Jesus interrupts Simon’s inner spiral: “Simon, I have something to tell you.” He refuses to let Simon disappear into his assumptions. And then he asks the question that becomes the turning point of the story and the key element of Jesus-talk: “Do you see this woman?”

That question is not about eyesight. It’s about attention. It reveals something crucial. What we see shapes how we speak. And what we fail to see can distort everything we say. To talk like Jesus, we must learn to stop talking to ourselves long enough to truly see the person in front of us. And that’s truly one of the skills of Jesus to never talk about issues but always about real people – real lives – flesh and blood realities and not abstract concepts. It’s a challenge of empathy – to imagine what another’s life is like. That requires mindfulness, patience, and a willingness to remain present to a person —even when it feels uncomfortable or challenging.

So Jesus-talk, nonviolent communication, insists that we resist the temptation to label people as enemies. Jesus does that here. He pulls Simon back into presence. He teaches him—and us—that the first step toward peace is actually seeing the person in front of you, not the judgment you’ve created about them.

Step Three: Speak Truth Without Shame [OR, Hold people, especially the powerful, accountable.]

Jesus then tells a short parable—not to shame Simon, but to tell the truth and invite change. This is another key nonviolent practice: challenge without contempt. You can’t get someone to see while poking them in the eye.

Jesus does not attack Simon’s character. He does not ridicule his theology or question his motives. He does not embarrass him publicly with name calling. Instead, he tells a story and names the personal impact of Simon’s actions. He does not dismiss Simon as a lost cause. He invites him to see again.

Turning toward the woman, Jesus speaks to Simon: “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, no kiss of greeting, no oil for my head.” (vs. 44) The issue Jesus raises is not about theological correctness, but relational neglect. Simon invited Jesus into his home, but failed to treat him with basic courtesy and care and Jesus says so directly.

This is one of the great ironies of the passage. What seems at first to be a debate about theology turns out to be a lesson about love. Jesus reminds Simon—and us—that we cannot separate content from courtesy or theology from hospitality. Courtesy, attentiveness, and generosity are not optional extras; they are expressions of faith.

Jesus models a powerful sequence:

• He observes behavior without exaggeration and assuming intent.
• He names his personal experience.
• He connects it to love and relationship.

This is crucial: Jesus-talk, a holy conversation, nonviolent communication, does not mean avoiding hard truth. It means speaking truth in a way that leaves room for recognition, growth, and dignity. That’s the goal. Jesus confronts Simon, but he does not discard him. The goal is not to defeat the opponent, but to win their friendship and understanding. Jesus-talk means that we must “hold people accountable” for what they say or do. We must tell the truth. We must talk about harm. We must move toward justice. We must help heal and that always requires truth. The activist Kazu Haga says it best: 

“If our goal is simply to punish someone for the sake of punishment, if our goal is to banish someone from the web of humanity, if our goal is to simply let the person know how horrible they are and shame them for their actions, then responding to harm with more harm is perfectly effective. But if our goal is accountability and the healing of relationships, we need to create space for people to be held.” 

When people talk about “holding someone accountable,” perhaps the key word should not be “accountable,” but “holding.” What does it mean to hold someone? At the very least, it must always mean that even perpetrators need healing; and the awful truth that “hurt people hurt people.” It’s the holding – much more so than accountable – that leads to people being able to see and heal. That is exactly what Jesus is doing.

Step Four: Let Love be the Evidence

Jesus always questions the powerful. But the woman, the marginalized, meanwhile, is not interrogated. She is not asked to justify herself. She is not required to prove her worth. Her love speaks. And Jesus calls it “faith.”

“Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” This is a radical redefinition of religious belief. Love—not might or correctness, not status or control—is the measure of faithfulness. And that should raise a final, uncomfortable question for us: If love is the evidence of forgiveness, how are our conversations going?

Are our words creating peace—or just winning points?
Are we leaving people more human—or more hardened?
Are we practicing the way of Jesus—or the habits of our culture?

This story does not tell us that agreement is required. Jesus clearly disagrees with Simon. But it shows us that disagreement does not require dehumanization.

Sin pulls us inward—into fear, defensiveness, and isolation. Jesus moves us outward—toward curiosity, listening, and courageous love. So Jesus leaves Simon and us with a question that echoes into the present: Do you see?

Do you see the person in front of you?

Do you see your own inner monologue when it takes over?

Do you see that learning to talk like Jesus may be one of the most faithful practices we can take up right now?

Do you see that the courtesy of our love is considered the character of our faith?

As we enter difficult conversations together, may we commit ourselves to the way of Christ:

• Presence before persuasion
• Curiosity before judgment
• Speak truth without shame
• Demonstrate love as the goal

Because the goal is not to win arguments. The goal is to heal a world that is breaking, through a loving faith that saves. And that kind of conversation is not only possible—it is teachable. Amen.