Scenes of Sacrifice

We might even say that Jesus learned his risk-taking, sacrificial way of life from his grandmother Ruth. That her small acts of love and risk and sacrifice are what he received and learned from, and came to inhabit, and learned in some way to imitate. That Christ himself took on sacrifice in the same way his ancestor Ruth did. And insofar as his sacrifice is for the life of the world, then maybe hers is, too. What seems in the moment to be an insignificant and maybe even foolish decision, over time, gives life to the whole world. And if Ruth’s choice of love and sacrifice can do this, then maybe, just maybe, yours could too. Maybe that’s how this whole thing works, little deaths and little resurrections.

Perhaps the invitation for us this morning is that, like Ruth, those of us who are exposed to real vulnerability right now, who are facing situations and suffering and loss and grief and not knowing where to go—that even now there may be some way we can act, some sacrifice we can make, that somehow, someday may reshape our entire lives and the lives of those around us. I’m not saying this needs to feel like good news. I’m just saying this is what happens in Ruth, and in the life of Jesus, and all throughout history. People who seem like minor characters, people who have no reason for their history to be recorded at all, sometimes take on some sort of sacrifice that reshapes their whole lives and the lives of those around them. We can change the shape of the world by making sacrifices. Sacrifices of loyalty, sacrifices of risk-taking, sacrifices of being a companion, sacrifices of forgiveness, sacrifices of putting love where it is none.

Go and find a scene where there is no love. Put love there. It’s a risk, I know, it’s a risk. But it’s where Christ is.

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From a sermon on Ruth 1.