There's always a reason...

"Jesus' message about the kingdom of God lived out in this life has powerful implications for how we prioritize, peace, reconciliation, and enemy love in relationship with God and with others.  Ignore this aspect of gospel, and we are left with a religion that proclaims love and forgiveness while it advances through violent attitudes and actions." -- Bruxy Cavey in Reunion

The book of Ruth begins with this innocent phrase "During the days when the judges ruled".  While it gives us chronological context (roughly 1400 to 1000 BCE) its purpose in the narrative is to give us cultural and political context.  The book of Judges documents the often violent, warring, and scavenging existence that coexisted with the spiritual bankruptcy of the people at the time.  The story of Ruth begins in famine in a time where the people of ancient Palestine were often vying for scarce resources.  This scarcity, led to violence.  In fact, one can look at contemporary society and see where there is scarcity, violence and exploitation are not far behind. 

Ruth is a young woman from Moab (Now western central Jordan) who marries an Israelite who had immigrated from Israel to Moab.  We tend to minimize the severity of the situation because we live in a mobile society where we simply move when economic conditions are adverse.  From the insight we have in the book of Judges, there was continued violence within Israel and Moab due to control of resources like food and water.  Complicating matters, Moab and Israel were long term enemies.  The time of Judges also predates the idea of nation-states with infrastructure and political participation by citizens in the policies of a nation.  Think, more like present day Somalia with local warlords and coalitions of warlords through families.  

In this context, a foreign widow (Ruth) supported her mother-in-law to return to Israel after all the males in the family died while living in Moab.  The degree of courage that Ruth displays in going is worthy of Abrahamic-faith honors.  She leaves her home and her familiarity with its customs and culture. She is going to a nation that reviles her ethnically.  She is going to nation where women had very few rights and privileges.  She is going to a place where her exclusion from society was divinely sanctioned.

Yet, as her story reveals, she would go and remarry a man who was a relative of her deceased husband and through that new family, would the lineage of legendary King David and eventually Jesus come. 

The scripture in Deuteronomy gives a reason for the exclusions of Moabites to the assembly.  It us because they did ______ and _______.  I am sure that if we were able to survey Moabites during that time, they would denounce the Israelites because they remember the time that the Israelites did _______ and _________.  I have left the reasons, which are legitimate blank on purpose because there could have been hundreds of other "reasons" to support their exclusion.  This is a dynamic that causes dehumanization of the "other" long past the time in which the people who participated in the initial offense have long departed the Earth.  

Why can't contemporary native Palestinians have the same rights and privileges as immigrant Jewish people in Israel.  The answers come fast and furious, depending on who you ask.  It's because "they" did ________.   Why can't Central American immigrants find a safe, inexpensive means of coming into the US.  Some US politicians declared that we can't because they were thieves, murderers, and rapists.  Again, an answer can always be found to support racist, sexist, and xenophobic beliefs and practices, that always deflects away from our own prejudices.

Christian churches remain some of the most segregated spaces despite the call by Jesus to minister among all people. The segregation is not simply ethnically but can be cultural, socially, and economically. While some defend this based upon the idea that people simply love to be with people who are like them ethnically and socially, it is indefensible when reading the teachings of Jesus and the practice of the early church.    There was a call to become promote reconciliation, to practice loving enemies, and to excel in peacemaking.  This meant bringing together enemies, sowing peace in the midst of adversity and violence and seeking healing of what seems to be unreconcilable difference for the promotion of community.

Ruth literally humanized the image of the Moabites among Israelites.  All of reasons for exclusion and dehumanizing narrative, did not hold up to the reality of her humanity, loyalty, and care for her well-known mother-in-law.  Justifying hateful treatment because "they did _______ and __________ no longer seems, and more importantly, no longer feels feasible. 

Jesus came to reconcile (restore healthy relationship) between God and humanity, and humanity with itself.  Jesus knew that everyone has done something sinful to another and that based upon the law of an eye for an eye, there would never be reconciliation.  Love is the currency that demands an honest and collective telling of the truth of the past, the conditions of the present and the possible restoration of the future.  Love makes forgiveness possible.

Think about all of the separations you have experienced where you have told yourself that this separation is justified because "they" did ________.  This is not to question those who are abuse survivors who fled all kinds of violence and cruelty.  This is asking if you go to a church, who is not there who is also in your community?  Why are they not there?  Are there reason's that pop into your mind? 

As I have written before, proximity is the key to reconciliation, peacemaking and community formation.  These are signs and symbols of the Kingdom of God.  As long as your opinion about "others" is constructed by media, confirmed by hearsay, and created to justify your disobedience to loving your neighbor, you will aways find a reason.

The cliche of Christmas is the "Jesus is the reason for the season" and that is true.  Jesus is also the reason that all of the other reasons for "othering" no longer will do.  

It's time to look at your community and renounce every reason that keeps you from act upon the Jesus-Spirit impulse to make "we" out of all of the "us" and "them", no matter what "they" have done or rumored to have done. The story of Ruth embodies this.  And it will take Ruth-sized courage to confront this!

"Jesus demands that we replace conflict, sexism, classism, violence and racism with peace, forgiveness, love and reconciliation." Grace Ji-Sun Kim in Healing Our Broken Humanity