Ruth 2: Providence and Participation

Have you ever wondered how God provides? Pastor Justin Fung talks about how Ruth 2 shows us that God provides, in large part through people of compassion and commitment, who care for one another and the common good. Or to put it more personally: no matter our situation, we can be—we are called to be, we are needed as—instruments of God’s blessing, offering healing and grace to others. [Ruth 2] Creative Response To Glean | After Ruth 2 By Amy Sawyer To gather what is ungathered. Scattered scraps left for the penniless, homeless, manless, society’s less-thans, leftovers, to reap and not to sew, to walk along the edges where the plow won’t go. Her dirty hands comb through barley fields, a grain so rhythmically stitched in it you can see all Eden’s ideals. Her thumb strums the husk’s rough grooves as creation’s perfection unravels in her palms. We know that bit about dogs and scraps and the master’s table, we can reframe and explain, seeking dignity for “dogs”, but women know. Women know how a vinegar wine flows in our bloodlines, plow lines, food lines, picket lines. The bread we need now comes too late. Our blood and bodies given, our names unsung, we hold onto your story, named among the nameless, seed sown in us, Your blood in His. For she sings, we sing: batter my heart, harvest me, thresh me, glean me from what remains, for we remain to be saved on a grape and grain.