Then we have a large number of persons, mostly women but some men as well, who have outlived their spouses and now they find themselves “living single” after 30 or 40 years. They are trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Should they go out on a date? Does it disrespect their deceased spouse if they move on with their lives? It may never have occurred to them that they would once again have to live single in a “marriage culture.”
Then, finally, we have a great many men and women who are old enough to be married, and who may very much want to be married, but they have never been able to enter into that experience. Society has historically been unkind to people in this group, and Antioch has been no exception. We ask them such hurtful questions as “what’s wrong with you that you are not married yet?” We tease them and taunt them and ask them if they “have any prospects.” Not uncommonly, it is persons who are involved in miserable marriages who raise these questions with unmarried people. It is almost as if “misery loves company.”
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There are people known to me who have left this church because they got tired of being reminded that they were not married. They knew they were not married. They did not need for us to remind them of that every Sunday. They needed us to say that single people are as valuable to God as married people. They needed us to say that there is more to life than being married. They needed us to understand what they understand, that many people who are married really do not have much of a life. One of the great challenges for any church is to find a way to provide ministry for all three groups: married couples, divorced persons and adults who have never been and may never get married.
Not surprisingly, this is an issue from which the Bible does not shy away. The text we are considering today from the 9th century BC takes us into the heart of this perplexing and agonizing reality of the 21st century AD. The story is 3,000 years old, but the issue is as current and relevant as this morning’s breaking news headlines. At the heart of the book of Ruth is what people are supposed to do when there are more women who may be looking for a husband than there are men who are available for that role. There are three single women introduced to us at the beginning of this story: Naomi, Orpah and Ruth. For reasons that were entirely beyond their control each of these three women found themselves living single in a “marriage culture.”
Naomi was a Jewish woman who went with her husband and their two sons to live in the country of Moab to the south of Jerusalem because a terrible famine had occurred in Judea. While living in Moab, Naomi’s husband, Elimelech died leaving her a widow. After a while her two sons married women from Moab: Orpah and Ruth. Ten years later, both of Naomi’s sons also died, leaving Orpah and Ruth as relatively young widows.