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Context No. 1726 of 4322 · Ruth

Context · Reflection

Ruth 2:6-10: in context

6The servant who was set over the reapers answered, “It is the Moabite lady who came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab. 7She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ So she came, and has continued even from the morning until now, except that she rested a little in the house.” 8Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Don’t go to glean in another field, and don’t go from here, but stay here close to my maidens. 9Let your eyes be on the field that they reap, and go after them. Haven’t I commanded the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, go to the vessels, and drink from that which the young men have drawn.” 10Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take knowledge of me, since I am a foreigner?”

Ruth, a poor Moabite widow who has come back to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law Naomi, goes out to glean in the fields, gathering the leftover grain that the law allowed the poor to take. She happens onto the field of Boaz, and when he learns who she is, the foreigner who came back with Naomi, he shows her marked kindness. Stay in my field, he tells her, close to my young women; I have ordered the men not to touch you; drink from the water they have drawn. Overwhelmed, Ruth falls on her face and asks, why have I found favor in your eyes, that you take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?

What Boaz does for Ruth is quiet and generous, and Ruth's own words name what moves her most: you take notice of me, though I am a foreigner. Ruth was, by every measure, easy to overlook: a widow, poor enough to be gleaning leftovers, and a foreigner, an outsider without the claims of kin or citizenship. She was the kind of person who could pass through a field unseen, tolerated at best. And Boaz noticed her. He saw her, spoke to her with kindness, protected her, made provision for her, treated the overlooked outsider not as a nuisance to be tolerated but as someone worth his attention and care. Ruth's astonished question, why have you taken notice of me, is the response of someone unaccustomed to being seen. There is a call in Boaz's example for how we treat the overlooked among us: the poor, the outsider, the newcomer, the ones easy to pass by unseen. It costs something to notice them, to see the person the world overlooks and extend real kindness and protection, as Boaz did. And it means a great deal to those on the receiving end; to the person accustomed to being unseen, simply being noticed, taken account of, treated as worth attention, can be startling in its kindness. Boaz did not merely toss Ruth some grain and move on; he saw her, spoke to her, made her welcome and safe in his field. To do likewise, to notice and care for the overlooked and the outsider rather than passing them by, is to show something of the God who sees the ones the world does not, and who takes notice of the lowly.

Who are the overlooked ones I pass by unseen, the poor, the outsider, the newcomer easy to ignore, and can I do as Boaz did for Ruth, taking notice of them, seeing them, extending real kindness and welcome, so that those unaccustomed to being seen find themselves, to their surprise, noticed and cared for?

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