You Are What You Love

Last week we mentioned the book You Are What You Love. The book is an attempt to help us revisit some of the observations of Augustine of Hippo. Augustine rightly noted that our loves direct our lives often more than our beliefs or our aspirations. We can say a number of things that express this reality. This idea has been expressed in many different ways such as “you become what you worship”.

Contemporary pop-wisdom likes to encourage people to “follow your dreams” or “pursue your passions” as a way of finding happiness and meaning. We should be careful with such advice because while the aphorisms sound clean and pure in reality they work out in unintended ways.

• The addict loves his drug.
• The wife beater loves control.
• Kings and Raiders fans love misery 🙂

If I am passionate about chocolate cake I may become diabetic and no long be able to enjoy it. If I am passionate about my looks I might impoverish my family by purchasing clothing.

If we see our loves and passions as directing our lives our main problem can be seen as disordered passions and loves.

Passions and loves are often seen as things in themselves, forces or gods that we are the victims of. Others will note that they develop often within our own stories. An insecure childhood produces a love of security and control. We complain that the beauty magazines in the grocery store check-out are creating passions for unrealistic body images for girls. Are our passions simply voices of the gods whispering to us through our feelings or are they psychological reactions to the inputs of our childhood?

CS Lewis in the beginning of Mere Christianity created an argument for God based on the fact that we have a hunger for something that this world cannot satisfy, therefore God must exist because we have a hunger for Him and a life that cannot be found in this world.

This business about loving is not so simple as some Facebook aphorism that suggests that wanting leads to having and having always and simply satisfies.

The Book of Ruth and Wanting

We’ve been working through the book of Ruth and one of the ways we might approach the book could be to ask what each of the characters want.

We might begin by looking at Naomi who is one of the principle characters if not THE thread around which the story unfolds.

What did Naomi want? 

Tim Keller in his work on idolatry often notes that the true love of our hearts is often the thing we are most afraid of losing.

We might imagine that young Naomi, like many other girls growing into women just wanted a flourishing husband and family. The threat of famine drove them to Moab where the dream was altered but not seemingly beyond grasp. Then of course it all came crashing down. Her husband and her sons died and she was forced to return to Bethlehem empty. Upon arrival she blames God for her tragedy. God failed to fulfill his end of the Deuteronomic bargain and now she is His foe.

We see her loves clearly within the frame of this world. She wants good things, common things, reasonable things but not terribly elevated things. She wants things subject to the age of decay and the age of decay does to her what it does to all of us, takes everything from us.

Victor Frankl 

Victor Frankl was a Jewish doctor who was interned in Nazi work camps during World War II. He lost his family to the Nazi war machine. While in the camps he decided to pay attention. He was surrounded by the cruelest of psychological experiments and decided to not waste the opportunity but instead to learn. He began to realize the truth of Nietzsche’s insight that you can endure almost any how if you have a why. Prisoners in the camp who lived for themselves were often the first to go. If life was about “their quality of life” they became easy victims because the Nazi’s had control over that. It was probably true for Frankl that his “why” became his study afforded by this Nazi atrocity.

In incident after incident he began to notice that the real drama was not so much the circumstantial realities of the work camps, but the relational layer.

Beatings occurred on the slightest provocation, sometimes for no reason at all. For example, bread was rationed out at our work site and we had to line up for it. Once, the man behind me stood off a little to one side and that lack of symmetry displeased the SS guard. I did not know what was going on in the line behind me, nor in the mind of the SS guard, but suddenly I received two sharp blows on my head. Only then did I spot the guard at my side who was using his stick.

At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.

Frankl, Viktor E. (2006-06-01). Man’s Search for Meaning (Kindle Locations 353-357). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

Later he notes after another story of seemingly senseless cruelty

The most painful part of beatings is the insult which they imply.

Frankl, Viktor E. (2006-06-01). Man’s Search for Meaning (Kindle Locations 364-365). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

We focus on the extreme circumstances, they focus on the relational economy and its implicit implications of worth.

We see Naomi here. She is not simply left alone by the death of her husband and sons, she is betrayed and therefore bitter and angry.

What does Ruth love? 

If Naomi is rather common or even banal, Ruth is a stranger creature. Ruth seems throughout the book to be almost completely submissive. While Naomi wallows in self-pity back in the Bethlehem hovel Ruth gets up to glean. Ruth obeys Boaz’ instructions in the field. She complies with Naomi in sneaking to the harvest floor and then to Boaz in his instructions to sneak away home again. She seems almost will-free throughout the story except for one episode where we find her defiant and willful against all challenges, the scene on the road back to Bethlehem where she refused to be parted from Naomi.

Ruth it seems only wants one thing, to be with her mother-in-law. Now this sounds like a very strange thing indeed and it seems initially strange and even stupid to all of us including Naomi. From Naomi’s point of view, where practical things are most important, Naomi is a bad attachment for Ruth. If Ruth wanted what Naomi valued she’d scurry back to Moab, find a suitable young man and have some children. This would be reasonable and attractive for Naomi’s loves.

How should we evaluate Ruth’s love? 

On one hand her love seems less practical but perhaps more elevated. We have the impression from Naomi that she didn’t care as much about Elimelek and her two sons as she did about what they could do for her. The tragedy was not so much that they died but rather that they were no longer available to her for what she wanted out of them. They were really not the object of her desire as tools by which she could acquire what she wanted for herself.

Ruth’s love of Naomi seems different from that. What Ruth seems to want more than anything is Naomi’s welfare. This is what energizes her to glean and to obey Naomi’s instructions for the threshing floor. Ruth is committed to Naomi and to her welfare and happiness.

Again, if we are to evaluate this we might decide that Naomi is undeserving of Ruth’s commitment. In our present economy of oughts we would probably tell Ruth that she should be MORE self-seeking and less committed to this unworthy Naomi. The irony of this admonition is that what we are really demanding is that Ruth be more like Naomi and less possessing of the qualities that we actually admire in her.

A mother’s love for her child is more like the love of Ruth for Naomi than the love of Naomi for her children. What can the child really do for the mother besides take yet few of us would suggest aloud that mothers are fools for investing in their children. What we actually see is that this kind of love that Ruth is displaying is a far higher love than what Naomi has shown. Naomi loves other for what they can do for her. Ruth simply loves others. Ruth gives Naomi a love that Naomi is either unwilling or incapable of giving. Ruth’s is the higher love. Naomi neither seems able to love like Ruth nor able to appreciate the quality of Ruth’s love to the degree that she might actually desire to practice it herself.

What Does Boaz Love?

When we first meet Boaz in chapter 2 we discover that he, unlike Naomi, can actually value the kind of love Ruth possesses. Even if Naomi, even as the recipient of Ruth’s love can’t see it or appreciate it Boaz can. Boaz sees Ruth’s capacity for love in her gleaning and providing for Ruth even while Naomi can’t seem to lift a finger for herself much less her daughter-in-law. Boaz sees this love and honors it, rewards it, protects it. We know right from the start that Boaz has a capacity for love that Naomi can’t appreciate even if she wants to appropriate goods and security from him like she once did from Elimelek.

In chapter three we see another quality of Boaz. When Ruth offers herself to him sexually he displays self-control. In the threshing floor scene he sees through the Naomi trap to the enduring quality of Ruth’s love even at that moment. He sees Ruth’s quality more than simply an opportunity for some sexual pleasure. He withholds himself from taking what he could have taken because he has other goods in mind, goods that require self-restraint, self-denial and patience. The love of Boaz is not impetuous. It pursues greater goods than can be simply taken in the moment.

Boaz loves a larger, ordered, complex and beautiful world where actors live with limitations and restraint so that other complicated goods can be realized. There is justice in his world, not simply desire. The world of Boaz is not simply living in the moment but creates space for good things in time.

Boaz and the Unnamed Relative

This brings us to chapter 4 in the story where Boaz, both denying himself and blessing Ruth heads off to seek what he wants. He wants Ruth because he sees her quality and won’t let anything stand in his way. He will act with both propriety and earnestness to get what he wants but he must do so in the right way because doing so in the wrong way would betray the higher goods he desires.

Ruth 4:1–12 (NIV)

¹ Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat down there just as the guardian-redeemer he had mentioned came along. Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down. ² Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, “Sit here,” and they did so. ³ Then he said to the guardian-redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelek. ⁴ I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.” “I will redeem it,” he said. ⁵ Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.” ⁶ At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.” ⁷ (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.) ⁸ So the guardian-redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it yourself.” And he removed his sandal. ⁹ Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. ¹⁰ I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown. Today you are witnesses!” ¹¹ Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. ¹² Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”

In this scene we see the full measure of Boaz. He is not only an determined lover, but a skillful scion of a noble but endangered heritage. He must give the kinsman-redeemer the opportunity but knows the playing field. Ruth is a pearl of great price for Boaz but she comes at a cost. Adding another wife and a set of heirs might in the future threaten existing sons and wives. Ruth can no be bought cheap. Boaz sees her quality, her capacity for the kind of love that gives life and wants not only to support and encourage it, but to be its object. If Ruth can love as unworthy a person as Naomi, who much more can she love Boaz and their children and their future together.

360 Degree Love

The attentive reader might at this moment find a bit of a crisis. Naomi’s love seems self-seeking. Ruth’s love seems self-less. Boaz’ love is both. He, unlike Naomi, can fully appreciate the selfless character of Ruth’s love, but like Naomi wants to possess Ruth, her love and the fruit that such a love can give. Is Boaz’ love therefore less than Ruth’s?

Let’s pause to ponder this point and then move on to the climax of the story.

Grace is for the Undeserving

I often hear the world “grace” be used as a churchy or spiritual synonym for “kind” or “nice”. This is a terrible and convenient misappropriation of the word. You cannot ask for grace while at the same time holding onto your self-esteem or your claims of status. Grace is charity, not justice.

The climax of the book comes not for Boaz, or Ruth but Naomi. The scene of chapter 1 had Naomi declaring her bitterness against God for leaving her empty. Now at the end of the book we see these same women declaring “Naomi has a son!”

Now we moderns would quickly wish to correct the text and declare “no, she has a grandson” but we would miss the point. The women are declaring that death has been undone for Naomi and it is the Lord that has done it.

Did the Lord do it? How was Naomi restored? Did she deserve such restoration? How are we to evaluate that restoration?

It happened first because Ruth gave herself completely to Naomi at great cost to herself. It came because Boaz, unlike Naomi who declared herself “empty” with Ruth standing beside her, saw Ruth’s qualities and wanted them for himself. He wanted Ruth’s love to be manifest in his life, in his home, in his future. She was the pearl of great price and would with self-control and cleverness acquire her and all that she could give.

Chapter 4 has a number of other key points to make. Ruth and Boaz are blessed by the town that Ruth be like Rachel and Leah, the sister-wives of patriarch Jacob. That Ruth be like Tamar who hoodwinked unrighteous Judah in to fulfilling his obligations.

We also see that the child Obed will be the father of Jesse who will be the father of David, the great King of ancient Israel. God has in fact used the love of Ruth and the quality of Boaz to put his mission back on track. Naomi, undeserving Naomi, the Naomi that spit out her bitterness toward God now receives what God has given without the slightest hint that she is aware of how undeserving she is. It is so often true that those who receive the most grace are blind to it.

Which Lover Are You? 

The story is a masterpiece because it works on so many levels. It also works in the way that the best stories work with us in that they invite us to find ourselves in the story. Where do you find yourself in this story?

Are you like Naomi? Do you put your love-stock into the things around mostly in terms of what they can secure for you? Do you see yourself as the center of all things and do you imagine that all things must align for your convenience, comfort and glory?

Naomi is the recipient of God’s grace in this story, must like Israel herself. We would hope that this grace given to her will inspire her to wish to practice higher loves than the common ones she trades in. We don’t know. While she in many ways is the central character of the story and the chief beneficiary of the grace of others is she who you aspire to be?

Boaz is a figure worthy of emulation in this story. Unlike Naomi he is not blind to Ruth or the love she is capable of. He has enough of Naomi in him that he wants to benefit from the love of Ruth but unlike Naomi he can see her quality beyond what it means for his own advantage. He is a full rounded character who is the image of flourishing. He not only employs and values the sacrificial love of Ruth but also the longing for harvest of Naomi. He is certainly worthy of our love. He both sees grace and dispenses it.

Why is the book named Ruth? 

We might argue that the book should be named Naomi because she in many ways is the central figure. She is Israel and she is us. The focus, however, is on how God saves Naomi and therefore how God saves us. It is Ruth’s love that is the answer to the question of death.

Ruth certainly in the end receives just as Boaz and Naomi do. Obed is Ruth’s son. Ruth now has a husband, and a great one, together with financial security and a future. These are givens but not highlighted. What is highlighted is Ruth’s capacity for self-less love. Ruth’s self-less love is in fact life giving to others first and to herself in the long run.

I think a good many contemporary readers would read Ruth and dismiss her. She is too self-less, not assertive enough, too submissive, too much the pawn of patriarchy. Ruth is a patsy and too much the loser.

Ruth is, as Christians will easily see, the mother of Christ just as Naomi is the mother of Obed. Ruth embodies the love of her most famous male descendant who will, like Ruth, be governed by his love for the undeserving. The book of Ruth declares, as the Gospel will declare, that such love is in fact worth possessing in and of itself and that this love is exactly what creates the future and brings the dead back to life.

So What Do You Love?