Generous Living
A sermon preached on Sunday 7th June, 2026 on Ruth 1 as part of the ‘Generous June’ series. Some material in this sermon is taken from the Diocese of Newcastle’s ‘Giving in Grace’ resource.
This is the first week of ‘Generous June’ – a chance for us to explore the themes of generosity, hope and loving-kindness in the book of Ruth.
So before we reflect on today’s reading, perhaps a little background would be useful.
Ruth is a short book in the Old Testament – it’s only 4 chapters – you’ll find it between the book of Judges and 1 Samuel. Blink and you miss it! But it is also a beautiful story of love and relationship in one family which helps us to reflect on the wider themes of love, relationship and generosity between God and his people then, and between God and us and those we encounter now.
One of the reasons I love it is for it’s smallness. I don’t mean the chapter length – I mean the way it deals with the realness and humanness of a widow and her daughters in law. The way it names with grief and sadness and costly love and seasons them with hope. There is a human story here, where generosity is reciprochal. Where, through the generosity shown in various forms: the generous, sacrificial, life-giving relationship of Ruth and Naomi that we are thinking about today; the generous integrity of Boaz who we will hear of next week; the generosity of Ruth’s choice of Boaz because she will not be separated from Naomi.
And in this story we see the fruits of this generosity too: Naomi the widow is gifted healing and wholeness. Boaz the rich man is gifted what money cannot buy: a ‘wealthy wife’ and a child. Ruth the outsider is gifted home and a place to belong. And through their stories unfolds the larger divine story of a generous God who feed his people, gifts them a King for Israel (more on that when we get to chapter 4!)- and inspires them to transformational generosity in return.
Which brings us to the start of the story that we’ve heard today.
The book opens with some family history. Many years ago Naomi and Elimilech had left their home in Bethlehem, driven to leave because of famine in the land, and sought refuge and hospitality in the land of Moab, a place and a people who had historically been hostile to the Israelite people, and who were considered very much ‘not our kind of people’ by the Israelites. And yet they had found a welcome there, and had stayed to bring up two sons who married local Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Elimilech died, and then so did the two sons. We’re not told why, but we know that soon after Naomi hears of God’s provision of a good harvest to Israel, prompting her to go home, so it is reasonable to assume that by this time Moab is experiencing famine in its turn. What we do know is that the three women were left alone in a culture and society where women could not have survived without a family around them, and where Naomi by birth and her daughters-in-law by marriage were outsiders.
The deliberations of these women, then, are told against the background of upheaval, scarcity and unbelievable loss. Naomi has lost her husband, her sons and the possibility of a future line. She has also lost her home and her security at a time of social struggle and uneasiness. All that she has left are her two daughters-in-law, tied to her through marriage.
Naomi is at her lowest ebb. We have an insight into her mental state when she no longer feels worthy of her name, which means ‘pleasant’ or sweet’, insisting instead ‘call me Mara (bitter) for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me’. But even in her lowest moment, Naomi shows remarkable generosity. She urges Ruth and Orpah to return to Moab to find a husband, a home and hope. This is not only a generous gift of permission to the younger widows. It is also Naomi’s final loss and her total isolation. If they leave Naomi will be ‘left without’ the two women who love her best.
This is generosity which is costly. Orpah, with no blame or judgement attached, takes her advice, and Naomi continues to demonstrate generosity in the blessing that she prays on the young Moabite woman – that she should remarry and the God of Israel ‘look kindly’ upon her and her family.
The richness of this blessing doesn’t really translate very well, but in Hebrew this blessing uses the rich biblical word hesed. Hesed is traditionally translated as loving-kindness. It is, ‘a covenant term, wrapping up in itself all the positive attributes of God: love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, loyalty; in short acts of devotion and loving kindness arising from the heart that go beyond the requirements of duty or law.’[1]Hesed is what God shows to Israel and expects of his people.
Hesed is more than just generosity, but generosity is a lived-out quality of Hesed.
Naomi lives it when she releases her daughters-in-law from their obligation to stay for the sake of their futures, even though it would harm her own.
And Ruth lives Hesed when she returns generosity with generosity of her own.
In deciding to stay with Naomi and travel with her back to her homeland, Ruth lays aside her own chance for security and comfort in a culture and with a people she knows. Instead she faces an unknown future in a foreign land where she will be an outsider from an enemy tribe. As Moabite in Israel she would have known that the chance of another marriage and the possibility of a child was almost nil.
Ruth commits to a strange God, discerned through the lens of Naomi’s life and loss and lament. But whereas Naomi is alone by force of circumstances; Ruth stands alone by her personal choice and commitment. Counter-culturally, Ruth commits not to the security of home and husband but to the life of an older woman.
Theologian Phyllis Trible captures the significance of Ruth’s choice and agency: ‘Ruth stands alone; she possesses nothing. No God has called her; no deity has promised her blessing; no human being has come to her aid. She lives and chooses without a support group, and she knows that the fruit of her decision may well be the emptiness of rejection, indeed of death. Consequently, not even Abraham’s leap of faith surpasses the decision of Ruth’s.
Ruth stays because she loves Naomi. Because she sees so much more in Naomi than a woman hollowed out by unbearable loss. Ruth knows that Naomi is so much more than the bitterness of her grief, and her generosity eventually leads to Naomi’s healing.
Generous living sees beyond the surface; doesn’t take our words of grief or anger to be the final word. Generosity allows for the undefended conversations that are so important to our healing. Ruth teaches us that generous discipleship is not just about what we do, but who we are, and who we are to other people.
Generous discipleship is hesed in action.
As many of you will know, Amanda and I are in a civil partnership, but we aren’t married. We aren’t allowed to be. And although we hope that that will change one day, it means that we also weren’t allowed to make the traditional marriage vows to one-another. So instead we have taken Ruth’s words as our covenant commitment to one-another:
Where you go, I will go.
Where you stay, I will stay.
Your people will be my people,
Your God will be my God.
Where you die, I will die
And there I shall be buried.
For us these words sum up the essence of Hesed- they are what living in a generous and sacrificial relationship framed by God’s loving kindness looks like in practice.
We chose Ruth’s words to frame our relationship to one-another. But they don’t have to be between romantic partners. Naomi and Ruth mark bonds of kin-ship and friendship. And the generosity and sacrifice behind these words – if not the exact words themselves – can be extended into all our relationships.
And so I invite you to think of some of the people you find yourself alongside. It might be family or a partner or a friend; it might be a wider group or community; it might be this church family, gathered here today with people you know well, and people you don’t know so well – people who you have been friends with for years and, yes, even people that you might not always see eye-to-eye with.
What does having a relationship characterised by generosity and reflecting the Hesed that God has for all of us look like?
It means not acting only out of self-interest, but for the good and building up of the other.
It means reaching out with hospitality and a helping hand, and extending that even beyond our nearest and dearest to our neighbours and those around us.
It means honouring one-another; and seeing God at work in each of us
It means standing alongside one another, whatever life throws at us
It means offering this without condition or expectation of a tit-for-tat recompense
And it means promising all of these things, not out of a place of security and certainty of what the future holds, but out of vulnerability and the resources that we have now, trusting in God’s Hesed to provide a hope-filled future.
Because that’s the generosity we are all called to in our relationships with friends and family, and even in our relationships with those that we don’t know or might consider, like Ruth the Moab, an outsider. And where we can do this – where we can respond with Hesed and sacrificial generosity, there will come transformation of our lives and our world.
[1] Daniel I Block Exegetical commentary on the Old Testament page 50
