An Open-Handed Future

West End UMC Podcast Audio Podcast

An Open-Handed Future – Today we are following the story of Ruth that we began two Sundays ago when Ruth, leaving her own land, went with Naomi, her mother-in-law, to Naomi’s home in Judah. Ruth, an immigrant in the territory of what had been the enemies of her people, was there out of love for mother-in-law, Naomi. Delivering the sermon on the second part of the Ruth story, Rev. Will McLeane, our Pastor of Spiritual Formation, says that, as widows, they were among the poorest of the people, and Ruth had begun gleaning in the fields in an attempt to provide food for them. Naomi encouraged Ruth to establish a relationship with Boaz, in whose fields Ruth was gleaning, and that cultivated a marriage of Ruth with Boaz that resulted in a son who would end up being the father of Jesse who was the father of David. As unlikely as all of this was, it was love that changed the courses of those lives through a radical openness to receive another. And that is the path of Jesus. We can’t control or predict where love will lead when we are accepting of others. And when there seems to be no way forward, through love God will make a way.