Intro
Good morning! I’m so glad you’ve chosen to join us in worship of the living God this morning.
And it is a beautiful morning, isn’t it? Right after Christmas, April is my favourite time of the year. No, not because of the spring in the air, but because it’s the start of baseball season. I love baseball, specifically my Toronto Blue Jays. A regular season schedule includes 162 games, and I’ve watched every pitch of all 162 on more than one occasion.
I’ve of the opinion that baseball is like Chess. It’s boring to people who don’t get it, but absolutely riveting to people who do. And there are two types of baseball fans. Stat folks and Story folks. Stat folks know things about baseball that would boggle your mind. They don’t just know the big stats like Batting Average, Earned Run Average, or Walk and Hits per Inning Pitched. These are the kind of people who don’t care about an important inning-ending double-play because it’s a high-percentage outcome given the factors of the play. These are the kind of folks who are excited about a seemingly routine out because it is only the third time in MLB history that a player made a catch on a fly ball with a launch angle of 21° to Right-Center Field on a clear day, an hour from sunset with the humidity over 90%.
That’s not me. I’m a story guy.
And during my preparation for this week’s message, I came across an extremely interesting story from baseball’s history and I would like to share it with you. It’s about a man named [[[ Branch Rickey. ]]] Branch Rickey is credited with this amazing quote:
Luck is the residue of design.
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
He was both a player and a coach in college. He often talked about black man named [[[ Charles Thomas, ]]] who played catcher for the college team he coached. Rickey would often talk about what a great talent Thomas was, as well as the gentlemanly he conducted himself in the face of often vicious racism.
[[[ So, ]]] Rickey made his major league debut in 1905 for the St Louis Browns – the team we know today as the Baltimore Orioles. He had a largely unremarkable career as a player, thought at one point he was the General Manger, Manager, and Left-Fielder for the Browns at the same time.
In any case, once his time with the Brown was done, he moved on to the St. Louris Cardinals. A team he led to 4 World Series championships. How did he accomplish this great feat? By developing what we know today as a “Farm System”. This way he could acquire talent that wasn’t good enough for the Majors yet, and had a place to develop them into big-leaguers. The development of the Farm System is, somehow, only his second biggest contribution to baseball.
In 1943 Rickey was hired by the Brooklyn Dodgers to be their general manager. Rickey again set out to find the best possible talent for his team. And he saw something everyone else had been missing. At this point in time there was an unwritten rule in baseball, now commonly known as the color barrier. The color barrier meant that black folks simply were not allowed to play for Major League teams. Rickey thought about the catcher – Charles Thomas – who he had known years earlier and what a great talent the man was. Rickey knew that the Negro Leagures were teeming with talent that would make his team better.
Rickey needed a way to scout these players without raising the ire of other teams, or even those within the Dodgers organization. So Rickey created the United States League, which never played a single game, as a cover for scouting the Negro League players. And through his search to find a player of immense talent and steady temperment, Rickey found him. The perfect player to break the Color Barrier.
And that player was Jackie Robinson.
[[[ Paul Harvey – The Rest of the Story ]]]
And, you know, as I look upon this incredible series of events that had to happen for this history-changing funciton to occur, I can’t help but think… isn’t that lucky?
- Lucky that Rickey met Charles Thomas
- Lucky that Rickey was a below average player and manager
- Lucky that Rickey was forced into a role where he could hone his player development skills
- Lucky that Rickey came up with the idea of entire development leagues
- Lucky that Rickey found the man with the perfect combination of talent and temperament
- Isn’t that lucky?
Rickey was right. Luck IS the residue of design. Outside of that chance encounter with Charles Thomas, the rest of the pieces of Branch Rickey’s life follow a logical progression. One event setting up the next and the next and so on.
In Christianity we know this phenomenon as “Providence”. Sometimes we call it “the hand of God” moving in our lives. And as we continue our study in the book of Ruth, we’ll see God’s Providence shine through in an amazing and undeniable way.
Prayer
Let’s Pray
Verse 1:22
If you haven’t yet, turn with me to Ruth Chapter 1 and verse 22. I’m reading from the New Living Translation this morning.
So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by her daughter-in-law Ruth, the young Moabite woman. They arrived in Bethlehem in late spring, at the beginning of the barley harvest.
[[[ “At the beginning of the barley harvest”. ]]] Do you remember how the chapter starts? It starts, “In the days when the judges ruled in Israel”. We talked a couple weeks ago about how this is more than a simple datestamp. This sets the tone, the mood, the world that these events are taking place in. It establishes a cultural moment. The end of the chapter —- as we just read – serves a similar role.
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
Naomi and Ruth, both recently widowed, are on their own and left to eek out survival any way they can. And here they arrive in Bethlehem at the start of the barley harvest. Why, you may ask, is that significant?
Well, first of all, we need to remember that in these days there was no government welfare system. If you coudn’t take care of yourself, and you didn’t have family or friends who would, you were basically left to die in the street. It was a cold, hard world. But, Yahweh, the God of Israel, was not so lassez faire about people dying in the gutter. So he encoded into the law a provision. Let’s read it together from the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verses 9–10.
When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop.
It is the same with your grape crop —- do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground.
Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
And God was so serious about this, that he repeated it again in Leviticus 23:22, and again in Deuteronomy 24:19–22.
Think about this for a second. God tells the landowners. The people who acquired money to purchase the land. Who did the labour of sowing. Who tended the fields. Who invested the time and effort to yield a crop. God tells them to NOT harvest the edges. To NOT strip the stocks, vines, and branches bare. To NOT pick up that which they drop. But instead to leave it for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. God calls the people who did all the prep work, to leave some barley on the stocks. To leave some grapes on the vine. TO leave some figs on the tree, AND to let randoms come into their fields and take them.
BUT
And this is an important but… what does God NOT ask the farmers to do?
He never asks the farmers to give the widow, orphan, and foreigner anything. I know this is a subtle distinction, but I think it’s one that matters. God didn’t say, “pick the edges, the ends of the stocks, and take that which has fallen and take it into the city and distribute it to the needy.”
But why? Why is that? Why does God require that the downtrodden, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner come and work for their pittance? And please keep in mind that this would NOT have been a bountiful harvest for these people. It might be similar to eeking out a sustenance living by collecting soda cans. And even still, God calls them to toil for their scraps.
Here’s the thing; God has something for you. And it’s free, but it’s not. See, it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about the gift of salvation, or the call God has placed upon your life.
We say it’s free because you can’t do anything to buy it or earn it, you cannot do anything to merit your salvation, nor can you bribe God into giving you a better path through life. BUT, the way of the Lord does come with a cost. It costs everything. We need to be willing to lay down our careers, our friends, our families, and – indeed – our very lives for the sake of the cross.
The same is true of gleaning in the fields. That’s why no one says, “sit back and bask in what God has for you”, but rather we say, “step into what God has for you”. Amen.
So with the setting in place at the start of the barley harvest, let’s continue. Chapter 2, verse 1.
Verse 2:1
Now there was a wealthy and influential man in Bethlehem named Boaz, who was a relative of Naomi’s husband, Elimelech.
Gee. I wonder if this will matter later.
[[[ This ]]] opening line of chapter two reminds me of the opening lines from another famous story. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.
MARLEY WAS DEAD: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
Without this information, Marley’s appearance to Scrooge later that evening would hardly be noteworthy at all.
In the same way, learning now that there is a man named Boaz, who is wealthy and influential, who is, as some translations render it, “worthy” – an adjective applied to Ruth later in this story – who is a relative – or “kinsman” of Elimelech… all of these things matter, and none of them are lost on the Jewish readers of the story.
So to answer my question… yes, this will matter later.
Continuing on to verse 2.
Verse 2:2
One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” Naomi replied, “All right, my daughter, go ahead.”
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
Ruth makes a plan to take advantage of the Hebrew laws that allow gleaning, but notice her humility. She starts off not with a statement of intention, but with a request for permission. Ruth has made a calculated choice that this was the best approach, but she doesn’t go charging ahead without first deferring to the authority over her. She doesn’t say, “I’m going to do some gleaning, I’ll let you know how it turns out”. Going to glean is the sensible choice. It is the prudent choice. It is a provision guaranteed by the law, and yet Ruth still submits her plan to Naomi first. Ruth chooses chooses the path of humility, respect, and restraint.
[[[ BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE ]]]
Ruth says to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” By anyone who is kind enough to let me do it. Here again we see humility, repsect, and restraint by Ruth.
Even assuming she gets the go-ahead from Naomi, and has the law of the land on her side, and has the law of Yahweh, the Lord of Israel on her side, she still will again defer to the land owner, the farmer.
Sometimes we can press on, even when what we’re after just isn’t working. We want it, and we wish it was true, but it’s not happening. And we’d rather tell ourselves that ‘Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride, nobody’s gonna slow me down, woah-oh.’ than face the truth. Sometimes you’re not fighting the good fight, sometimes you’re fighting a losing battle.
But Conrad, you approachable theologian, I hear you ask, how are we to know the difference between obstacle and impossible?
This might sound trite, and I’m sorry about that, but I don’t know how else to say it. You ask me, “What the difference between obstacle and impossible?” and I will reply, “Is God in it?”. After all, what can we do though Christ? [[[ All things ]]]. We can do [[[ all things ]]] with Jesus Christ.
This is how I think of it, and how I also approach it myself. I will pray for God’s direction in a matter. I will seek out the counsel of those whom I trust the most. If at this point I do not feel any particular direction, I will make my plans – holding them loosely – and move forward. If God doesn’t want you somewhere, He’ll let you know.
Let’s move on to our final verse for this morning. Closing us off with verse 3…
Verse 2:3
So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father-in-law, Elimelech.
That phrase, [[[ “as it happened” ]]] means “chanced a chance” or “as luck would have it”.
There is no account of Ruth going to any other fields, and a conversation she will have with Naomi later indicates that this all happens on a single day… so we are left with no choice but to conclude that it just so happenes that Ruth stumbles upon the field of a wealthy relative of her deceased father-in-law.
Isn’t that… lucky?
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
Conclusion
See, here’s the thing. God has a plan for you. I know, I know, I keep telling you that. But I want you to understand that this is true! Just like we read in Proverbs 19:6 at the start of the service:
We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.
But as famed folk singer – and thoguhtful amateur theologian – Paul Simon puts it:
God only knows. God makes his plan. The information is unavailable to the mortal man.
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
And there’s truth in that. We do not always know that we know the will of God. But we do know – because I refuse to let you forget – that God’s will includes a plan for each of us. And we need to take a lesson from Ruth when we appraoch that plan. We need to take a lesson from Ruth when we approach that Providence. Really, we need to take two lessons from this story.
The first is that God wants you to put in the work. If you think you are going to recline in your Lay-Z-Boy with a cold beverage while God brings you fresh sammiches from the kitchen, you are in for some serious disappointment. Whether you have much, or little, you need to put in the effort. You need to put in the prayer. You need to make a plan. You need to execute the plan.
The second is that you need to have the humility to recognize that God doesn’t owe you anything. Indeed, the truth is that you owe God everything. I didn’t get my sons a Nintendo Switch, Lego, or a new bike because I owed them these things. And more than that, if they started demanding these gifts, I would stop giving them and take away the ones they do have! The reason my son has a Nintendo Switch with a small, but growing, library of games is beacuse I WANT to give him those things. The joy in his face when he shows me some new trick he learned in a Super Mario game is amazing. And he will ask me for things and sometimes I’ll say ‘yes’ and other times I’ll say ‘no’, because I know things that he doesn’t.
God feels the same way about you. Remember what we read in James 1:17:
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
[[[ ADVANCE SLIDE ]]]
So be proactive. Don’t wait for God’s blessing, don’t wait for His plan, but step out in faith. Do so without assumptions, but with humility. Without expectations, but with flexibility.
Follow Ruth’s lead and use the Bible as a framework to step out into what God has for you with humbleness and respect. Because, as Branch Rickey told us, luck is the residue of design… and I hope your act of faith brings you luck.