Naomi, you see, is playing match-maker, and for the highest of stakes – survival. Naomi has Ruth get ready for the big night by taking a bath, putting on perfume and make-up, donning the Biblical era equivalent of a little black dress. Then it is off, in the dark of the evening, to the threshing floor, where the harvest is beat out, separating the wheat from the chaff, by the strapping young men of the village. In those times, the threshing room floor had an association with sexual activity; the modern equivalent might be the euphemism, “a roll in the hay.” Naomi tells Ruth to wait until Boaz has had a good meal and lots to drink, and then she is to make herself “known” to him – “knowing” being a euphemism for sexual intimacy. And to emphasize what she is to do, Naomi tells Ruth to “uncover his feet and lie down”, which makes no sense until you realize that feet is a euphemism for genitals.

Make no mistake – what Ruth is to do here, what she does, is completely scandalous in the eyes of her world. If the plot does not go entirely as hoped – if Boaz has his way with her, and then rejects her, if he has his way with her, and then “outs” her as a woman with no morals, if he simply rejects her outright and makes a stink accusing her of sexual license, it is all over for Ruth. It was not just in Jesus’ day that women were stoned to death for engaging in sex outside marriage.

Ruth undergoes a great risk, for her security, but also for Naomi’s security as well, for Ruth is Naomi’s one hope. It is, indeed, an act of loving kindness and faithfulness, echoing the faithfulness that Ruth pledged to Naomi back in Moab, where she told Naomi that she would never leave her, that where she lodged, Ruth would lodge, that Naomi’s God, would be Ruth’s God. And it is a faithful act that bears rich fruit when Boaz acts with honor in marrying Ruth, even though she is a foreigner, and when Ruth bears a son who will be the ancestor of Israel’s greatest king, David.

What Ruth did was scandalous in the eyes of the world, and the risk she took placed her well outside the bounds of acceptable behavior in her society. And yet, it was at the same time an act of loving kindness and faithfulness, an act through which her entire community – all Israel, down to King David himself – became blessed.

God still calls God’s people to seek restoration for the community. God still calls God’s people not to just look out for themselves individually, but to work for the commonwealth, to seek restoration for those who are vulnerable, injured, on the margins.

Just as Ruth and Naomi wrestled with economic survival, communities today wrestle with economic justice. Just as Ruth and Naomi wrestled with gender and racial prejudice, communities today struggle with the consequences of discrimination based on sex, on race, on national origin.

The question for God’s people then, and for God’s people today, is what canons of socially acceptable behavior might we be willing to defy to be faithful? What might we, in our day, be willing to risk or give up for the sake of those in desperate need?

Compared to Ruth, the risk-taking we might be asked to do may seem to be small potatoes. But small does not mean unimportant. Even the example one sets for others might have the most profound impact on them, changing their lives, and even leading to a wider change beyond all our powers of foretelling. I think here of four African American college students who on February 1, 1960, broke the rules of society when they sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance and peaceful sit-down demand helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South.

I think here of Rosa Parks, one day deciding that she would risk not taking that long walk to the back of a bus; her courage in standing up to unjust societal norms by sitting down sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a milestone in the road to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I think here of Greg Mortenson, and the risks he took on behalf of the wider community, on behalf of school children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as detailed in his book “Three Cups of Tea.” After an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, the dangerously ill Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by a small Pakistani village. In return, this son of Lutheran missionaries to Africa promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Along the way he faced incredible risks, including kidnapping and threats from the Taliban, and ruffled more than a few feathers in our State Department. And yet through his work, meeting and helping the rural people of Central Asia on their ground, Mortenson has perhaps done more for the cause of peace than the hundreds of millions spent on military solutions.

I think here of the members of this congregation and the wider community who picked up signs and stood at the Airport Rotary protesting the rush to war in Iraq, and who endured verbal abuse and threats in return for their efforts to call attention to a war of choice that has since costs this nation almost $700 billion, over 4300 dead, over 30,000 injured.

I think here of James Lowell, who in 1845 wrote a poem titled “The Present Crisis”, later made into a hymn, protesting what was clear to him to be a trumped war against our neighbor to the south, Mexico. An ardent abolitionist at a time when popular sentiment favored slavery, Lowell feared that the acquisition of the territory known as Texas would only enlarge the area of slavery. All too aware that popular sentiment and custom often intimidate us from choosing good over evil, in the final stanza Lowell offered this reminder of who is ultimately in charge of history, and who will write the last chapter:

Yet that scaffold sways the future And, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above his own.

At great person risk, Ruth took action to preserve life, to enhance community, to make a difference. Our call as followers of Jesus Christ, of the one who gave up all, all the way to the cross, for the entire human community, is to do likewise, is to take courageous action on behalf of our communities.

May our courage to choose the right, to risk our security and our private gain for the wholeness of our communities, be strengthened by this knowledge, that when we act in God’s loving way, we can be sure that God is at our side, our rock, and our salvation – keeping watch above his own.

Amen.