Ruth's Faithful Oath

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 12, 2025.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

"Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God."

Famous words, words that you perhaps have heard at a wedding. Words that are often asked for at weddings, and they're beautiful, and they seem to show us the dedication of a man and woman coming together to create a new family till death do them part.

But when I read this passage, it reminds me of something a little bit different. A different perspective that I had never encountered before.

Journey to the Holy Land

As a student in seminary, I had the enormous privilege of being able to travel to the Holy Land where the events, especially of the New Testament, but also the Old, took place.

We got to go all sorts of different places, and one of the things we got to do is spend nearly a week in the Old City in Jerusalem. My hostel, where I was staying with my classmates, was literally a hundred yards away from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the place that commemorates, it's the location built on the site where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. Just to give you the idea of the kind of history that we were just casually strolling by. It was just remarkable.

We got to do other things, too. It wasn't just visiting historical and religious sites, but it was also a cross-cultural experience. We got to go explore the Old City.

If you've ever seen Indiana Jones, the bazaar scenes in the Middle East where you've got people in stalls and stuff, imagine that only. The roads scarcely deserved the name "road." In fact, a lot of them, they're probably so narrow, you couldn't even get a single car down them, barely deserving of what we would call an alley here in the United States. Very narrow.

Then people, of course, would come and put the tables out and stack their wares. Sometimes there'd be places in the market where one guy would have his market stall here, and the other one would have his here, and literally you'd have two feet of space to squeeze between the tables.

It's packed and crowded and just remarkable. A very different experience than a trip to your local Walmart. Although I would say that some things never change, and some of the odd sartorial choices and body odor is the same.

The Ring in the Marketplace

As we went through the marketplace, a classmate of mine was thinking of proposing to his soon-to-be fiancée, and he found a jeweler. He found a ring that was very beautiful.

It was inscribed on the inside of the ring in Hebrew, an excerpt from the book of Ruth. "Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God."

He said, wow, what a beautiful sentiment. What a beautiful idea. He was going to be a pastor. She was studying for ministry as well. I don't remember if she was going to be a pastor or a deacon, but this would make sense to them.

He asked the jeweler how much it would be to buy this beautiful silver ring. The jeweler said, "Which one of you is converting to Judaism?"

Well, he was rather taken aback. It wasn't the point at all. He said, "Neither of us. In fact, we're both going to be Christian clergy."

The jeweler said, "I will not sell you this ring."

Well, why not? Because this is not an engagement ring. To the jeweler, this was a converting to Judaism ring. He wasn't going to turn it loose for any lesser purpose than that.

Ruth's Oath of Fidelity

Because think about what's happening here: This statement that Ruth gives, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go," et cetera. "Where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried." This is not being spoken to her future husband, in fact, she has not even met Boaz, her future husband.

Ruth is speaking this to her mother-in-law. With this, she is not merely pledging her fealty, her loyalty to her mother-in-law as a person. (That enough is a miracle!) No, she is pledging to make herself a part of the people of Israel.

She is saying, "I will become an Israelite. I will go back to the land of your birth. Your people, the Israelite people, shall be my people."

She wasn't an Israelite. She was a woman that they had met when they were living in Moab. She was a Moabitess. She was a Moabite.

It's important to remember that Moabites were not friendly neighbors. In fact, the idea that somebody from Israel would uproot his family, his wife and his two sons, and travel and settle in Moab is, in and of itself, a problem. But even worse, to go and settle in Moab and then to allow good Jewish boys to marry Moabite women. Totally unacceptable! Completely unfaithful!

Don't you know that the Moabites are hated others?! Don't you know we have been commanded not to intermingle with these people? They are not good people. Admittedly, they in some ways were not because they were worshippers of false gods.

A Jewish person hearing the story of Ruth and Orpah and their mother-in-law Naomi would start off hearing this story as a cautionary tale. Well, that's what you get when you, Elimelech, when you uproot your wife and your two sons and you go to Moab and you marry them off to Moabitesses.

You can expect that, yeah, God's going to be upset with you and he's going to strike you and your sons dead. How do you like them apples?

But that's not the story that God is telling here with Naomi and Orpah and Ruth. Yes, Elimelech and Mahlon and Chilion die, and that is a tragedy.

Naomi realizes there is food back in Israel and it's time to go home. There is no one there who will take care of her.

Remember, in these times, a woman with no father, no brother, and no son, and no husband was a woman who was in extremely desperate straits indeed, likely to be forced to turn to a life of sin in order to provide for herself and her children.

Her best bet is to take a chance to go back to the place of her husband's family and see what she can find there. Trusting God, she returns there.

As she returns, she tells her daughters-in-law, "Look, I have nothing for you. I'm an older lady. Do I have more sons in me? I mean, if I had a husband tonight, are you going to wait for him to grow up in order to marry you and keep our family together? It doesn't make any sense! How about you just go your own way and return to your households? And perhaps God will bless you with children by another man."

Orpah takes the hint, kisses her goodbye, and goes back.

However, Ruth instead swears an oath. How do we know it's an oath? Because of the way that it's phrased.

She says, "Do not press me to leave you or turn back from following you." And then she says:

• "Where you go, I will go."
• "Where you lodge, I will lodge."
• "Your people will be my people and your God, my God."
• "Where you die, I will die and there I will be buried."

She's becoming an Israelite. Then at the end, she signs her oath with a gesture. "May the Lord do thus and so to me and more as well" — this is an oath she's taking — "if even death parts me from you."

What's this thus and so business? You can imagine a gesture going with it. "May the Lord do thus and so." Have my neck cut and my guts spilled. It is a ferocious claim of faith! It is a courageous statement of fidelity.

In the fullness of time — I'm going to spoil the rest of the story for you — they meet a man named Boaz who is a distant relative. Boaz eventually marries Ruth. They live happily ever after the end.

But not before they have to trust God and travel a great distance. Not before Ruth has to demonstrate her faithfulness.

The Heart of Faithfulness

The faithfulness is at the heart of what it is to follow our Lord. Faithfulness is the quality that is in us that says, I will make this my priority, even to my hurt. I will do what is right, even if it is difficult or painful.

Fidelity says, "I will claim my faith in God despite all obstacles and those who would speak to the contrary."

This is what St. Paul is talking about in 2 Timothy when he says to young Pastor Timothy, "Remember Christ Jesus raised from the dead, a descendant of David. This is my gospel for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the Word of God is not chained. So I will endure everything for the sake of the elect so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."

Then he quotes a saying which may actually be either an early creed or an early hymn of the very first Christians. We don't exactly know how it was used, but it's a beautiful thing. "The saying is sure:

• If we have died with him, we will also live with him.
• If we endure, we will also reign with him.
• If we deny him, he will also deny us.
• But if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself."

It is calling us to trust and faithfulness.

Too often we imagine that to be a Christian is simply to say the right words, pray the right prayer, walk the aisle once in our lives, and feel some stirring in our guts.

I'm here to tell you that's not what faithfulness is. Faithfulness is to die to yourself and to live for Christ. For if we die with him, we will live with him.

Faithfulness is to endure hardship and the world's rejection, for the world is opposed to Jesus's gospel. But if we endure, we will be like kings and queens reigning at his right hand.

But if we deny him, he will deny us. There is a moment of decision. There is a time where faith must become practice, where the mercy of God which we have received must be expressed in the way that we live.

Yet even if we are faithless, God is faithful. If we are faithless, it doesn't reflect on the character of God, for God stands willing to receive us back, just as Israel stood ready to receive back with open arms Naomi and her new daughter.

For if we are faithless, he remains faithful. God is working in the world, doing miracles, bringing healing, converting hearts to believe the gospel of Jesus and to cause people to live that reality every day.

And that God desires to work that miracle for all people, that all may come to the knowledge of the salvation of Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Living in Gratitude and Fidelity

So then, people of God, what do we do? Are we like the nine sitting on the hinterlands and the border between Galilee and Samaria? Some Samaritans and some Israelites thrust together, though they hated each other, because they are lepers and having to live in a leper colony, when Jesus comes along and says to them, "You are healed, go and show yourself to the priest."

Do we consider ourselves one of the good people who got what we deserved and runs off to claim our prize? Or are we people who say, "I didn't deserve that and I'm so grateful for it?"

Do we turn to Jesus Christ and get down on our knees and worship him and say, "My Lord and my God, I am so grateful?" Because that gratitude is a true expression of a faithful heart.

How will we live? Will we trust the God who calls us back to Israel, who calls us back to his people, who converts our hearts and makes us part of his people?

Will we faithfully say to our brothers and sisters, "Where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God."

Because that's what assembles this congregation. That's what makes the church what it is, when we identify with each other as the people of God. This is the blessing to which God calls us.

That blessing bears fruit. In the lives of Naomi and Ruth, it bears fruit in this way because Ruth eventually marries Boaz and Boaz then and Ruth become the immediate ancestors of a man you might have heard of: King David.

King David, the great king. The man after God's own heart. Who gave us a number of promises that are then fulfilled in his descendant: our Lord Jesus Christ.

May you know the fidelity of God and may you live in God's fidelity for the sake of the people around you so that there is no hated other, but all are brought into this new people.

And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.