Living in the Spirit
November 3, 2015

Scripture Reading: Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.’ Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David. –Ruth 4:13-17

You just never know what you might find while researching your family tree. I think that is what makes it so much fun. I must admit, I come from a pretty vanilla family on all sides throughout the generations. I think I have one horse thief but I come from several long lines of hard working, church going, family-centered pioneers. No King David’s yet.

Besides being King David’s great grandmother, Ruth is one of four women listed in Jesus’ family tree according to Matthew 1. One of the more frustrating realities of doing genealogy is the loss of the identities of women among some ancestor groups. I have found it almost impossible to identify some of the maiden names of my female ancestors who were born before the 1850 census when all people in families, including the children, began to be listed. Why do you suppose it was important to the writer of Matthew to list just these four women? Two of them were foreign including Ruth. All of them dealt with trouble in their lives. The writer apparently wanted us to at least know this much.

How do we ostracize people today? How do we by our customs and traditions make people less than not equal to? And how do we overcome identifying the other as the other?

Prayer: Lord, it takes years and generations to form us into the people we become. Ideas of what is right and what is wrong are passed on to our descendants based on what seemed real at one time but may no longer speak the truth today. Help us discern wisely what we carry forth in our lives that is true and just and shed ourselves of those ways of being that are not. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.