Going the Distance
DATE: November 1, 2009
SCRIPTURE:
Ruth 1:1-18
Until I developed sciatica about ten years ago I was a runner. I loved it! I'd go out four or five times a week and run anywhere from three to five miles. My times were never very spectacular, but I loved to push myself and try to better my own record. What runners call their personal best. Two or three times a year I would enter a 10K race, that's about 6.2 miles, just to give me a goal, something to work towards. On race days I was always a bit nervous, a bit pumped up, but I'd make my way to the starting line and head off with the other runners. Some were much younger than me, some much older. Some were men, some were women. Usually a few were disabled, in wheelchairs and the like. But we were all there together, all headed for the same finish line, all hoping to go the distance. As a slow runner I took inspiration from those who whipped past me, leaving me in their wake. And as I never finished dead last, I assume I may have done the same for others.
Today in New York, tens of thousands of runners have lined up to run the New York City Marathon—more than 26 miles long! The marathon wends its way through the five boroughs of New York and eventually finishes up in Central Park. I was disturbed to read in the Times last week that there is an effort afoot, if you'll pardon the pun, to ban slow runners from the marathon. Some fast runners feel it diminishes the significance of the marathon. "Purists," writes reporter Juliet Macur, "believe that running a marathon should be just that—running the entire course at a relatively fast clip . . . Slow runners have disrespected the distance, they say, and have ruined the marathon's mystique." (New York Times, 10-23-09,) "It used to be that running a marathon was worth something," complained one runner, "there used to be pride in saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore."
The book of Ruth was written in response to such purists. Not marathon runners, but rather the religious purists of ancient Israel, who were appalled at the growing number of intermarriages. After the Jews returned from exile in Babylon, many leaders, including Ezra and Nehemiah, spoke out against the practice of allowing Israelite men to marry foreign women. So an anonymous author crafts this tale based on a true story. This tale of a much earlier time in Israel's history.
It is a time of famine. Crops have failed, there is nothing to eat. So an Israelite man named Elimelech moves from Bethlehem, to Moab where there is food. He goes there with his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. While there, Mahlon and Chilion both marry women who come from Moab, Orpah and Ruth. But then the unthinkable happens—Elimelech, Chilion and Mahlon all die, and the three women are left alone. In a time when a woman couldn't easily make her own way in the world, Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem, where she will be taken in by her family. She tells her two daughters-in-law that they should feel free to go home to their own families, that they need not feel obligated to move with Naomi to Bethlehem. Orpah decides to do just that, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi on her own. "Where you go," she says, "I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die—there I will be buried." (Ruth 1:16b-17a) In essence, Ruth tells Naomi, she'll go the distance. And so they go to Bethlehem.
As the story unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that Ruth, this woman of Moab, this foreign wife, is a woman of great faith. Her whole life is marked by kindness and deep abiding love for her mother-in-law. In time she marries a man from Bethlehem, and they have a son named Obed, and Obed has a son named Jesse, and then, the real punch line of the story, Jesse has a son named . . . David. The David. King David. It as if the writer of the tale is saying, "Look, if a foreign wife was good enough to be the great-grandmother of our greatest king, who's to say a foreign wife can't be good enough for someone in our day and age?" As one scholar writes, "Ruth's placement in the Hebrew Bible tends to support [the idea that] . . . the story of Ruth was developed in the fifth century BCE as a way of casting doubt on the wisdom of Ezra and Nehemiah's attempt to cast all foreign wives out . . . of Israel." (NIB, 894)
Ruth reminds us in a very powerful way that what really counts is not what someone brings to the starting line, but rather his or her willingness to go the distance. Ruth was a foreign wife, a woman from Moab, a woman whose nation often at odds with Israel—yet she was willing to go all the way with Naomi.
There are, of course, all manner of ways to apply this story in our own day and age. Who in our time is kept out of the running? Who is banned from the starting line? Who do we think ruins the mystique of being a Christian? Of being an American? Who is being sent home before the race even begins? These are challenging questions! They have implications for the health care debate; for immigration policies; for budgetary decisions made at all levels of government. They have implications for social concerns like civil rights at home and human rights around the world. These questions have implications for how the church welcomes those who may not quite fit our expectations.
Zoe Koplowitz would be one of those who purists would throw out of the New York City Marathon. In 2007 she finished the race in 28 hours and 45 minutes. More than ten times slower than the first place woman who ran it in under two-and-a-half hours. It wasn't her first New York marathon. In fact she's run the race twenty times. And back in 1988 she ran it in under twenty hours. Obviously her times are not getting better—in fact that they are getting worse. But she doesn't enter the race to gain a personal best; she enters the race to finish. She enters the race to go the distance.
You see over thirty years ago Zoe was told that she had MS. She also suffers from diabetes. Zoe wears back and knee braces, and as she makes her way along the route she is accompanied by supporters. Folks like Ruth who travel with her along the way. In 2007 she had to use crutches as well—crutches she painted purple. "I don't get any younger," the 61 year-old woman told reporters, "[and] my MS doesn't get any better . . . . " But for Zoe, just being able to finish is, in her words, "a total blessing." (NEWSDAY.com, 11-5-07)
Zoe Koplowitz was the last to cross the finish line in 2007. Just like every other year she was in the race. In fact, the finish line wasn't really even there—they take down the timers after eight hours and forty minutes. But she finished. She went the distance. And I have no doubt that every runner who passed her, whether fast or slow, was inspired by the sight of her chugging along. As were all who saw her valiant struggle.
And so it is in the race life. Sure, we could limit the action to those who we deem worthy of the start. We could limit the running to those who are swift and sure and pure, whatever we may mean by pure. But in the end, we not only deprive those who are left off the lists of official entrants, we deprive ourselves as well. For God often works through those we would cast aside. God often works through those we would turn away from the starting line. God often works through the Ruths and the Zoes of the race.
I don't know if Zoe Koplowitz was on the start line this morning. But I hope she was. And I hope all those who passed her by took a moment to reflect on her courage, and her tenacity.
And I pray that the day will come when the Ruths and Zoes are always welcome in the race of life. For their sake, for our sake, for God's sake. For God's sake indeed.
Amen.
John H. Danner