The Angels Share.
Wasting Your Life Beautifully.
How to waste your time.
Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, ‘Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour.’ Naomi said to her, ‘Go ahead, my daughter.’ So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, ‘The Lord be with you!’ ‘The Lord bless you!’ they answered. Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, ‘Who does that young woman belong to?’ The overseer replied, ‘She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, “Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.” She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.’ 8 So Boaz said to Ruth, ‘My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.’ At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, ‘Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner?’ Boaz replied, ‘I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.’
Ruth 2:2-12
Jewish law required landowners to make provision for those without an inheritance in Israel [Leviticus 19:9-10 “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest… Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.”] However, it is apparent that, in making provision for Ruth, Boaz ‘wastes’ his harvest way beyond the requirement of the law [Ruth 2:16].
What do you find surprising (if anything) about Boaz’s actions in this story?
What do you think makes his actions unsurprising?
Is there anything that Ruth herself does that seem like a waste of her time and her life?
Boaz and Ruth later marry and have a son named Boaz, which means ‘worship’. In what way might that be significant?
In the 14th Century (when life was considerably slower than it is now) the English mystic, Julian of Norwich wrote, "My, how busy we become when we lose sight of how God loves us." Early 20th Century Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst Carl Jung (also the son of a Swiss pastor) wrote, “Hurry is not of the devil, hurry is the devil.”
So, what is so wrong with being busy and hurrying our way through life?
How do we slow down?
Genesis 2:3 says that “God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” In 1st Century Israel, keeping Sabbath was legally enforced in a way that missed the point. Jesus made it clear that the whole purpose of Sabbath was for the benefit of people [Mark 2:27].
In a world where we feel obliged to be ‘on’ all the time (or at least to have our phones on), how can we keep Sabbath?
Is Sunday really a Sabbath? Isn’t that when busy Christians get most exhausted?
How do you waste time well?
Closing Reflection.
Is there anything you will take away from this study and discussion? What has stood out that you can take into your week ahead?
Pray together (in pairs or small groups) for each other, in response to your answers.
