Left-overs or harvest?

Here's my magazine article for October:

In our BASE (Broughton At Seven in the Evening) services this year, we've been looking at the Old Testament story of Ruth. Ruth was not an Israelite but was from Moab one of Israel's enemies. She married an Israelite whose family had moved to Moab because there was a famine in Israel, due to the Israelites disobeying God's commandments. However her husband, and his brother and father all died, causing Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi, to return to Israel. Despite Naomi trying to dissuade her, Ruth insists on going with her. They arrived in Naomi's home town of Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning, so Ruth unknowingly goes to glean in a field belonging to Boaz, a relative of her late father-in-law.

The whole story is an amazing one about loyalty to family, God and his laws, but this detail about Ruth gleaning is one that often gets overlooked by the grander narrative, particularly as it's a practice that is strange to us. We usually use the word 'glean' to mean learning or finding something out little by little, but it actually has agricultural origins, and a particular significance in the Old Testament.

In Leviticus 19:9-10, God commands the Israelites to not completely harvest their fields. They were to “cut corners” in harvesting, and always leave some behind for the poor and the foreigner. This was a great form of welfare: it commanded the farmers to have a generous heart, and it commanded the poor to be active and work for their food so they could provide for their own needs with dignity. And this generosity was also extended to foreigners because the Israelites had once been mistreated foreign slaves in Egypt, so they were not to do the same to foreigners in their land (Deuteronomy 24:22).

Boaz however notices Ruth and, finding out that she had been working diligently all day and was also a relative, he ensures her safety by warning his young men not to touch her and telling her not to go to anyone else's field. He even commands his men to take out some of the stalks from the sheaves for her to pick up. There is another Old Testament law that plays an important rôle in Ruth's story and that is that Boaz, being a close relative, is a 'Kinsman-redeemer': a man required to help a weaker relative in need or danger, including sometimes marrying a widow. So Boaz marries Ruth and they become the great-grandparents of King David, and ancestors of Jesus.

This is a great story in itself but it foreshadows an even greater story. Because of our sin we are enemies of God and not part of his people (Colossians 1:21) but even in that state we can still 'glean' from God's blessings (Matthew 5:45) and some are content with these 'spiritual leftovers'. However God wants more for us than that – he wants us to accept Jesus as our Kinsman-redeemer through his death (Titus 2:13-14), and become part of his Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32). He doesn't want us living on spiritual scraps – he wants to give us the whole field!

Image: Ruth gleaning. Contributed to freebibleimages.org by Sweet Publishing