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Sermon – We Follow Because We Must

Ruth 1:6-18; Galatians 2:19-21

Farmville Presbyterian Church

1/26/25

 

Do you remember what a map is?  I am not talking about a picture on your phone with directions and especially not if that screen is talking to you about where to go.  I am referring to the good ol’ folding paper maps that demanded we actually figure out how to get somewhere because that paper was not going to talk to us or light up a path or do any other kind of modern wizardry to help us get somewhere.  It is a little embarrassing to admit, but I used to have a map collection.  I really do not know why, necessarily, but maybe I liked the idea of seeing places (especially faraway places) and how to get there.  This was pre-internet, of course, and once GPS became a wide-spread experience, maps pretty much went by the wayside, including mine.  Maps are much rarer now, actually, other than maybe on the wall of a shopping center safely secured behind plexiglass.

I have no problem with GPS, but it makes us even less responsible for how to get places.  With GPS, we can go into a completely unfamiliar place and get to where we want to go with relative ease.  This does save time and trouble and alleviates us from having to carry a collection of maps.  Our trip to the UK and Ireland last summer would have been different if we had to rely on folding maps and our own ability at navigating.  I would not have wanted to be using a paper map, however, when crossing streets or jumping on the Tube.  I might still be stuck under a taxi somewhere, but I would at least know where I was.

Life does not come with maps, sadly.  The directions we decide or the paths we walk do not come with road signs, markers, or maps.  Life is wide-open.  Our options at times may seem to be limited, but I am not so sure that is the case.  I believe that all throughout our lives we have the free choice to go where we want to go and to do what we want to do and to be the kind of person we want to be.  Physical and financial limitations may change what our options look like, but there will still be options.  It is our journey to make, and that journey of our lives is something we will be following over the next several weeks.  This week I am considering what gets us going.

Because there are no maps to life, it can be intimidating for people who do not have a clear idea of where they want to go literally and figuratively.  Often our decisions end up getting made for us because of jobs or significant others – maybe children or spouses or friends.  We might be afraid to make a choice until something falls into our lap.  Nevertheless, life does demand that we do make choices about who we want to be and how we want to live.  Case in point is Ruth.

This passage is one of my favorites in the Bible and is one that I have used for years in terms of marriage.  While Ruth and Naomi are obviously not getting married, Ruth is binding herself (her life, her future, her faith) into Naomi’s life and future and faith.  There is no real good reason for her to do this.  The logical, expected thing would have been for her to return to her people as Naomi told her and Orpah to do.  There was no hope for them to stay with an older widow in a world in which women had very little precious voice.  In fact, they do end up basically begging for food.  If you are familiar with this book, Ruth follows the people harvesting grain and picks up the leftovers.  That is what gleaning functionally was, leaving food for the ones who did not have food.

Ruth had to make that choice, though, that we read today before she ever got to that point.  She was in a huge crisis.  Her husband, Naomi’s son, had died.  All the men in the family had died.  They had nothing but each other and some notion of faith.  Naomi certainly does not invite Ruth to follow her, though, as if she had faith God could do something.  Ruth’s choice was all hers to make.  She could go back to her family or she could follow her mother-in-law down an impossible path.  In Ruth’s mind, she had to follow Naomi.  There was NO going back.

Of course, this was the choice that made the story and why we know of Ruth today.  Her love for Naomi got her going on a journey that created history.  A few generations later, David, King of Isreal, would be born in this family.  For now, however, Ruth made a radical choice, one that seems to put her in a terribly vulnerable spot.  We might say she made her bed, and now she had to sleep in it.  Her vow expressed her heart – there was no going back.

This was also the issue Paul was addressing.  The journey, the choice, or the crisis was different in his day, though.  The biggest difference was that when Paul is writing, Jesus had been crucified.  In his eyes, the world had changed that day, and there was no joining back.  There was no un-crucifying him.

This is a theme that runs through the Bible that we can relate to.  Adam and Eve could not go back to the Garden.  The Israelites could not go back to Egypt after they left.  Once the Israelites demanded a king, there was no going back.  The prophets denounced the behavior of those who tried foolishly to leave God’s ways.  Jesus brought a Kingdom that could never be undone but demanded a new way of life.  This is the life that Paul lays out in Christ Jesus that we have through our Savior, a new life that will never accept going back to old ways.  The old system, the old expectations, the old demands, and old rules were no longer valid.  In the Book of Galatians, Peter and Paul are having issues.  Peter seems to be sitting on the fence, sometimes living as someone freed in Christ’s freedom for all people and sometimes living in old rules about with whom you are allowed to eat.  Paul will have none of it.  “We are on a journey, Pete,” he says, “its time to get going in the only real direction we have.  We have literally died with Christ, and we now live more abundantly through him.”  Even if we wanted to go back to the old self, we couldn’t.  Pretending doesn’t make it real.

Some of you are familiar with the idea of backsliding or falling back into the life we had before we are reborn in Christ.  There are Christian traditions out there that do believe we can go in and out of God’s family, that we can be saved and then unsaved and maybe later saved, again.  This is not at all what we uphold as followers of Christ Jesus in the Reformed, Presbyterian tradition.  Once saved means always saved.  You cannot un-save yourself, even if you wanted to.  I’m sorry.  This is one direction that is truly not an option for us.  Of course, those who are in Christ tend to find that a better way than life without him.  On the other hand, there are situations that can crush the best of human hearts, situations that push up past the breaking point and cause us to question and even doubt.  Thanks be to God, though, that God can hold every emotion that we can possibly create.  Even Jesus questioned whether God had abandoned him, but nothing that we can do or will ever do will make God love us one ounce less.  Being in God’s heart is for now and forever.

That is grace – God’s kindness that baffles the mind and imagination, but it is not a cheap grace.  It also costs us everything.  Life in Christ is actually more difficult than life without Christ, in a sense.  We are called and challenged by a higher calling, no longer willing to live for ourselves at the expense of our neighbor, the one in need, and even the enemy.  It is hard to live as a follower of Christ, but the world will NEVER follow Jesus.  Churches even have a hard time with this.  It is up to each and every one of us to walk in the steps of our Lord and Savior.  It is a journey for life.  There is no stopping, but there is also joy in the walk.  There is fellowship, peace, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, mercy, and love.  There is hope in where we are walking together.  We step in faith.

There are all kinds of ways of following Jesus and living in his grace, but following him however you choose is our best occupation.  Your following may not look like mine.  We can follow wherever we are and whoever we are and whatever we are doing, but this is a time to follow because follow we must.  To God be the glory.  Amen.