The Book of Ruth
Today we read the entire book of Ruth. The story is not really about Ruth, and certainly not about "you should be more loving like Ruth." She is quite admirable, and there's value in learning from any admirable person, certainly. But the story is not about Ruth.

The story is about NAOMI and her redemption from bitterness.

"Naomi" means "sweet" or "pleasant" in Hebrew. Yet her experience losing her husband and two sons in the land of Moab reduced her to bitterness. "Call me Mara," she says, which means bitter. Ruth's extraordinary faithfulness is the instrument God uses to "redeem" (a word that appears 20 times in the 85 verses of this story) Naomi from bitterness through the birth of the child named Obed, who would turn out to be the grandfather of David.

I can't help but read this through eyes filled with images of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States. A mere 2 or 3 degree deflection to the west, and it could have been Houston. Certainly, there are those who share the devastation Naomi experienced. Property left behind. Husbands gone. Wives torn away. Sons and daughters dead or missing. My daughter, Michelle, is torn up over the number of pets separated from their owners. There is all the blaming going on. Was it racism? Incompetence? Just bad luck? There is plenty of bitterness to go around. To some extent, we are all Naomi.

Yet this story would say to us that it is through extraordinary acts of kindness and faithfulness that our bitterness will be redeemed. It is absolutely amazing to me -- and hopeful, too -- that 30,000 people in the faith community in Houston (Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, and "other") turned out last weekend at Second Baptist Church to be trained how to wash our thumbs so that we could serve food to the evacuees in the George R. Brown Convention Center, which now numbers just 1,300 folks. 30,000 people willing to extend acts of kindness to 1,300. So much food and clothing has been donated that the city warehouses filled up in just days.

Let's pray that God would again use Ruth-like acts of kindness to redeem Naomi's bitterness.