Unlikely Heroes

I was reading through Matthew again this week and in going through the ancestors of Jesus I stopped at Salmon and Boaz.  For those who read the Bible and remember, Boaz became the husband of Ruth, the Moabitess.  I was thinking about this and decided to read the book of Ruth again.

It struck me how Ruth, though she was from Moab, when her husband (who was an Israelite) died – did not wish to stay with her birth family/country – but went on alone together with her widowed mother-in-law Naomi back to Israel.  Her widowed sister-in-law Orpah returned to family in Moab, but, Ruth did not.  You can see it was a strong desire and conviction on her part – to go forward to a land (one that Naomi and her husband had left to come to Moab because of famine) and make Naomi’s people her people and their God her God.  That took great courage.  Not knowing if she would ever be accepted, but risking everything to stand true to God and her husband’s mother.  She showed determination and great fortitude to do this.

The other thing that stood out to me was Boaz.  He was an older man – well respected and established in the community.  When he sees Ruth in his harvest field and hears about her story – he immediately has respect and compassion for her.  It would have been enough that Boaz found her unswerving faithfulness to her widowed mother-in-law (who is a relative of his) admirable – but, he favors Ruth very quickly and obviously.   He asks her to stay in his fields and not to go to others – he notes that his girls and people will protect her and she can stay harvesting behind and with his girls.  He then speaks aside to his men and asks them to not be harsh with her for gleaning and to allow her, even if it’s too close within the area they are still cutting the grain, and tells them to actually pull out and leave extra good grain stalks for her to pick up.  This is an immediate reaction by him.  I got to wondering why a man of such standing would even take notice of this woman or be so favorable so immediately to her.  Then, I remembered – as I was reading the ancestors I saw that Boaz’s mother was Rahab and it clicked. 

Though scholars dispute that Rahab, Boaz’s mother, is actually the same Rahab the harlot  that housed, hid and informed the spies of Israel about her city at Jericho, and who was spared along with her family because of it when Israel defeated Jericho – it would seem really possible that she was the same woman.  Wouldn’t that be just like God? His counter-intuitive way of weaving all sorts of people in and through Jesus’ ancestry.  Proves again God is not scared of our blatant and shameful sin (even to Christ’s human lineage).  It also would explain why Ruth may have found such immediate acceptance and protection by Boaz – even to the point of his doing everything necessary to marry her (though it meant carrying on her dead husband’s family line through her and potentially entangling his own family and property).  What a theme – two foreign women who saw immediately that embracing and holding fast to God (and His people), though He was foreign to their people, was worth risking everything.  Makes you think - could we be heroes?  I mean, the odds for them were never really good in their culture, but God.  They saw Him and what He offered and they (for their part) accepted Him and stood fast on that through swirling circumstances.  It's funny, it made them heroes, really.  The same is open to us! Trusting Him over everything else through it all.  He proved the very best risk and both of them (Ruth and Rahab) are referred to in Jesus’ ancestry!

I always find it fascinating, looking back on human history in the Bible, to see how God is so intricately and intimately involved.  Humans have their part, but, God has always known how to make tragedy into treasure.  Where those who see God's offer to them act and stand upon it - He makes them to be heroes in that partnership.  He’s done it before countless times and continues on making the most unlikely of heroes.