Of Ruth and Lucy

I get to see Lucy again this Saturday. Sunday is her big day when she receives her name and blessing from her dad. We will be driving up from Las Vegas---a good six hour drive.

I've been pondering this occasion lately. Lucy is first of the second generation from my line, to be born in the USA. She is only one quarter Filipino. She is the second generation of deRama's (my line) to be born in the covenant. Because I am the only deRama who has children, my father's line lives on only through me. That means that my children don't have cousins on my side of the family.

Lucy has blue eyes. She doesn't resemble a Filipino baby at all. One day, she will say that she has Filipino blood...and that will reference me. I am that exotic or mysterious ancestor whose legacy can be relegated to an enthusiastic ice breaker at dinner parties: "I have Filipino blood" or "I have a great-grandmother who was Filipino."

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The story of Ruth has been told many times. It has been used ad nauseum to characterize loyalty and love. Ruth, after being widowed, decides to leave Moab with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Many laud her for being loyal to Naomi...for loving her mother-in-law as if she were her own mother. Great story.

But wait. Why would a woman choose to live with her mother-in-law when she has a mother? Is that not being disloyal to your own flesh and blood? What does this "betrayal" say about Ruth?

Here's what Naomi tells her two daughters-in-law:

And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother’s house: the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. (Ruth 1:7-8)

Clearly, both Ruth and Orpah had mothers....and families who would welcome them and love them. What about loyalty to their own mothers, siblings and families? Why would they be less important than Naomi who was not a Moabite but a member of the house of Judah? This definitely does not show loyalty. How can you leave your own mother to run off with your mother-in-law to live in a strange country? Where is her loyalty to her family, her mother, her family, her own blood? Is the story of Ruth and Naomi then, really about loyalty? Obviously, it is not. If not, then what?

Ruth, being a Moabite whose culture worshipped idols, was a convert to the belief system of the house of Judah. Like Naomi and her fallen husband, she believed in a Messiah. Naomi's household was of Jewish heritage living within the confines of idol worshippers in the land of Moab. And Naomi, being widowed, wanted to return to Judah to be with her own family so she can worship her God freely as a widow...as a woman without a husband. Remember that without a husband, women did not have a fighting chance to survive....much less in a foreign land and even worse, a widowed Jew living in Moab. Ruth, unlike Orpah, decided to leave her own family to be with Naomi: to embark on a long journey to Judah--a land she had never before lived in, to a culture unlike her own, to a people who spoke a language unlike her own. All this because she knew that living alone in Moab, without the support of a husband and now, a mother-in-law, she would face a difficult life living as a widow who believed in and anticipated the coming of the Messiah, the Jehovah of the Old Testament who would later be born, within a country who overwhelmingly did not share the same belief. And I'm not even delving into the details of the culture and role of a woman during these times. If we understood the culture and times, it would strike us even harder how difficult this decision had to have been for Ruth....and how acutely significant it was---ironically, another widow who would choose to live in a foreign land under the care of her mother-in-law who, I would gather, hoped that her family, her clan will take her back after years of living in Moab.

The story of Ruth and Naomi then, takes on a clearer and logical path: it is the story of a woman who had to follow her belief in the one true God---a woman who would leave the family and country she loves to be a stranger in a new land, live with a new people who worship the one true God. It then becomes a story of faith and testimony in the one true God.

In time, she will marry Boaz. And out of her loins, by her union with Boaz, three generations later would be born David who would be king. As we all know, Jesus comes from the house of David both via his 'adoptive' father Joseph and quite directly through Mary who also comes from the same ancestry.

Why am I thinking about this story? Because I can relate. I am living in a new land, speaking a language that is not my own, raising children in a new culture. And now, my children are having their own children. They are Americans. But somewhere along their genealogical line, I will pop up---like the Moabite, among the the house of Judah.

And Lucy is the first branch sprang from that fruitful bough.