Nowhere But Up

Scriptures:     Ruth 2:1-23, 3:1-5, 4:13-17,  Psalm 146    Hebrews 9:24-28       Mark 12:38-44

 Some slightly “cleaned-up for church” lyrics from an old Jim Morrison song, released in April 1971, just a few months before his untimely death:

Well I’ve been down so long that it looks like up to me.

I’ve been down so very long that it looks like up to me.

Why don’t one you people c’mon and set me free

I begin with these lyrics, not only to stir up memories for the hippies among us, but to ask a question….What does it feel like to hit rock bottom? …. And not only to hit rock bottom, but to be stuck at rock bottom, to be held to rock bottom with Velcro or even crazy glue, to have “been down so long that it looks like up” to me, to you?   What does it feel like to grasp here and there for straws of hope, only to have them break off in our hand, and then have someone else’s boot come down to smash our fingers because we dared to hope for something better? 

Of course, in twelve-step programs, it’s common wisdom that recovery cannot begin until a person has hit bottom….and “bottom” can comes in all shapes and forms.  I’m told that at one time in some AA circles, the joke went that in wealthy Chestnut Hill, one was considered to have hit bottom when the maid quit.  But in all seriousness, addiction takes people terrible places, cutting addicts off from family and friends, driving them to theft and prostitution and worse, with “jail, institutions, and death” at the journey’s end.

But people hit bottom in other ways, and often from circumstances beyond their control….the death of a loved one, a devastating illness or injury, extended unemployment, especially if our skill set no longer has a place in today’s job market.  Our country’s treatment of our injured and disabled veterans is appalling, an abomination, and I think of Brian, a vet that Mark and I know, slumped in his wheelchair by the side of Knights Road just off Woodbourne Road in the Northeast, or Matt, a vet I see at my SEPTA stop near work, missing an arm and a leg – though he has an artificial leg – from his military service.  Matt told me once that despite multiple surgeries, he’s in constant pain every minute of every day, and yet he does what he can for himself, taking the train from Norristown to Philadelphia and back most days to collect and sell scrap metal to a friend in Philly with a scrap metal business.  What does “up” look like for him, or for Brian?  What would it look like for them to have restored to them at least a measure of what their military service took away?

Our reading from Ruth and our reading from Mark’s gospel tell of women who have been down, who due to circumstances beyond their control have hit rock bottom.  In our reading from Ruth, both Ruth and Naomi have been widowed, Ruth quite recently.  While Naomi and Ruth had been living with their husbands in Ruth’s homeland of Moab, they’ve just made the journey to Bethlehem, the home of Naomi’s late husband.  They’re grieving hard, they’ve been dislocated from the place they’d been living, and they’re destitute.  And, just to make things worse, as a Moabite, even though Ruth is with Naomi, she’s somewhat suspect, because relations between Moab and Israel had sometimes been hostile.  In today’s terms, imagine an aging Israeli widow who had been living for years in Palestinian territory with her late husband and family, and who has just arrived home in Israel with her widowed Palestinian daughter-in-law – and  you might get some sense of the side-eyed glances and whispered conversations that Ruth’s presence would have generated.

So Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem, Ruth as a somewhat suspect stranger in a strange land, and Naomi deeply embittered by all that had happened to her family.  But they had to eat.  Part of the social safety net of the day was provision for what was called gleaning, according to texts such as Leviticus 19:9-10:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of y our field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

So, risking hostility from the landowner or his servants, Ruth, who was both poor and an alien, looked for a field in which she could glean, that is, gather any heads of grain that had fallen to the ground or that the harvesters had missed.  We’re told that, quote, “as it happened” – and there’s a lot of room for divine intervention in those words – “as it happened”, Ruth gleaned in the field of Boaz, who turned out to be both wealthy and a member of Naomi’s extended family.   Ruth’s care for Naomi inspired Boaz to act with compassion; he not only instructed Ruth to stay with his workers, but then instructed his workers to be a little extra sloppy in the harvesting, leaving more than usual for Ruth.  It’s at this point that Naomi snaps out of her bitterness and begins to stage manage matters for Ruth so that Boaz will think of Ruth not only with pity, but also as a potential love interest…and the story ends happily ever after, with the descendants of the union of Ruth the Moabite and Boaz the Israelite including not only King David, but Jesus.

“Well, I’ve been down so very long that it looks like up to me.”   Naomi and Ruth had hit bottom, were down, down, and down some more.  The Lord did not forget Naomi and Ruth, but provided for them through their own resourcefulness – Ruth’s in taking the initiative to glean, and Naomi’s in recognizing and working her family connections - but also through the kindness of the community.  But in so doing, the boundaries of the community itself became wider.  Suppose Ruth had followed Naomi’s initial advice to go home to her own people in Moab, as Orpah had done. Opportunities for blessing would have been missed, and none of the “happily ever after” stuff at the end would have happened.  Suppose Boaz or his workers had objected to Ruth’s being a foreigner and driven her away from the field?  None of the blessings at the end would have come.  Or, even allowing that Boaz let Ruth remain in his field, suppose he had been a stingy person and instructed his workers not to leave anything for the gleaners.  None of the blessings at the end would have come.  Naomi and Ruth were down, had hit rock bottom, and at that place were met by God and blessed by God in unexpected ways, and became a blessing for others.

When we hit bottom, God can also meet us where we are and bless us, sometimes through the generosity of some of the most unlikely people.  The other alternate Old Testament reading for today, in which the prophet Elijah lands on the doorstep of a widow and her son who were preparing to eat their last bit of food and then starve, requested and eventually got hospitality from the widow, and in response God provided that the grain and oil would be sufficient for all three, tells a similar story – a prophet of Israel blessed by a widow from outside the community.  Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan tells a similar story, of a Jewish traveler being ignored by the religious leaders of his community but cared for by a Samaritan passerby, someone outside his community to whom the Jewish traveler likely would not have given the time of day.

God can bless us in unexpected ways, and God can use us in unexpected ways to be a blessing to others….if we’ll allow it, if we approach our lives with generous spirits and open hearts and hands.  Our stewardship, our tithes and offerings given to this church, is not meant only to keep the church itself going…important as that is, and as small as we are, it been through the hard work and dedication and generous giving of a faithful few that the doors have stayed open at all.  But the blessing in that is not for ourselves alone, but for the wider community.  And as we’ve opened our doors to more and more people, we’ve blessed others, and we’ve been blessed.

We have a story of this here at Emanuel just this week.  You may have noticed the announcement in the bulletin about Maritime Academy’s intention to donate a slew of canned goods to our church.  Our mini food cupboard has been going for almost a year, and has helped out four of our families along with occasional as-needed assistance to others – but it’s a very small operation.  Prior to this week I’d never even heard of the Maritime Academy, but they’re located in the Arsenal Business Center on Bridge Street near 95, and they describe themselves on their website as a charter school that provides students in grades 3 through 12 with a rigorous academic program with a special theme of maritime studies, including nautical studies and maritime business.  I got a call from Kathy White this week saying that the students at the academy, over 300 of them, are collecting nonperishable food - at least one can per student and maybe two or three cans or more - and want to donate it to our church.  And my first thought was “why us?  We’re so tiny?”  But one of the leaders at the academy was with us for the baptism of Kathy’s grandson Benjamin, and she remembered us.  And now we have a different challenge…what to do with potentially hundreds of cans of food – but that’s a nice challenge to have.  And beyond the can drive, the students  want to continue to bless us by preparing hot meals for our members.  We’ve welcomed Jim and Kathy and their family and friends, and in blessing them, we’re being blessed ourselves.

Which brings me to the other woman in our readings who has hit rock bottom, the widow who gave her two small copper coins to the Temple treasury.   This woman has been held up as a model of faithful stewardship, giving what little she had and trusting God to provide.  And we are called to step out in faith, to tithe and to trust that God will provide.  All of that is true.  And yet, the woman’s giving comes in the larger context of Jesus’ criticizing the religious leaders of his day for their false piety, in making long prayers in public while devouring widows houses in private.  Just as he’s speaking, along comes this widow to prove his point that while the wealthy gave out of their abundance – out of their leftovers – this widow gave all she had to live on, even though it was such a small amount that the Temple folks probably wouldn’t notice it one way or the other.  We have to trust that God blessed the widow for her giving, but Jesus did not bless the Temple for its receiving….indeed, in our reading next week, Jesus proclaims that the Temple is doomed to destruction.  Those who benefit others are blessed, but those who in their greed grab everything for themselves are condemned.  

“Well, I’ve been down so long that it looks like up to me.”  When we’ve hit bottom, may we trust in God to provide, perhaps in unexpected ways from the least likely people, and may we open ourselves to being used by God to provide for other sisters and brothers who have fallen on hard times.  May we be a blessing to our neighbors, and in so doing, may we be blessed. Amen.