August 9, 2026 Esther 5: Inspiring Acts of Faithful Courage

An insight was shared last Wednesday as we were discussing the ways individual faithfulness can inspire others to act. During that exchange, I remembered a film I saw years ago called Amazing Grace and Chuck. (Plot summary)   

There is more than a superficial connection between Amazing Grace and Chuck and the Book of Esther, even though one is a Cold War film and the other is an ancient biblical story. Both ask the question: Can one ordinary person's act of faithful courage alter cultural assumptions and behaviors?

The answer in both stories is yes, not because of an individual's power but, rather, one person's conscience can become a catalyst that awakens others'. Both Chuck and Esther begin as ordinary people. Chuck Murdock is not a politician or a celebrity. He is a twelve-year-old Little League pitcher.

Esther is not initially a queen in the sense of having political authority. She is a young Jewish woman living in exile who is swept into the Persian king's harem through what is essentially a beauty contest. Even after becoming queen, she has little real power. She cannot simply command the king or overturn Haman's decree. Esther seems insignificant compared to the political systems in Susa. Chuck faces the military-industrial complex.

Neither appears capable of changing history. Both refuse to participate in death.  Chuck's defining act is remarkably simple: "I won't pitch." He doesn't attack anyone. He doesn't organize a revolution. He simply refuses to lend his gifts to a world preparing for nuclear destruction.

Esther's defining act is also a refusal. At first she refuses Mordecai's request because entering the king's presence uninvited could mean death. But eventually she refuses something deeper: she refuses to let fear determine her actions. Her famous words, "If I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16), are not a cry of despair but a declaration that preserving the community's life is more important than preserving her own.

Both characters withdraw their cooperation from a system that accepts death as inevitable. And courage is contagious.

This is perhaps the strongest connection. In Amazing Grace and Chuck, Chuck's refusal inspires Amazing Grace Smith. Grace inspires other athletes. Athletes inspire millions. A private act becomes a public movement.

The same pattern unfolds in Esther. Mordecai first challenges Esther. Esther then calls all the Jews in Susa to fast, and the community joins her. The king's attitude changes. The empire itself is transformed. Neither story depends on a superhero. Both show courage spreading from person to person. God is hidden, and yet present. There is no miraculous intervention in either tale. History changes through seemingly ordinary choices.

For readers of Esther, this is precisely how divine providence often works. God's presence is discerned not through spectacular miracles but through faithful people acting with courage at the right moment. Chuck becomes, in a sense, an unwitting instrument of grace. Esther becomes a willing instrument of God's hidden providence. 

A theology of refusal. One fascinating way to take in these stories together is through the idea that sometimes faithfulness means saying "no." to compliance. Chuck says,    "I will not pitch." Esther says, "I will go to the king." These seem opposite actions, yet they are actually the same spiritual movement. Chuck refuses to participate in a culture of death. Esther refuses to remain silent in the face of death.

Faithfulness is not always doing more. Sometimes it is refusing to cooperate with evil. "For such a time as this", Mordecai's words to Esther propose something that may haunt us in today's world: "Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this," could almost be spoken to Chuck or us. in our time.

Chuck did not choose to become famous. Esther did not choose to become queen. Both discovered that the ordinary circumstances of their lives have become moments of extraordinary responsibility.

The question should not be, "Am I important enough?" The question is, "What is my faithfulness asking of me right now? Culture is often not changed not by the powerful, but by ordinary people who refuse to surrender their conscience. Esther teaches that one courageous "yes" can save a people. Amazing Grace and Chuck imagines that one courageous "no" can awaken a nation.

August 2, 2026 Esther 4:1-17 A Hidden God

The book of Esther begins with an absence.

We have finished reading Ruth, and we might expect another story overflowing with God's covenant love. Ruth sings with ḥesed (חֶסֶד), that steadfast, life-giving love that binds Ruth to Naomi, Boaz to Ruth, and ultimately reveals God's own heart. Every act of kindness builds up God's, and the community's, language of love.

Instead, we turn to Esther, a book of the Bible that never mentions God. Like Ruth, there are no prophets. No divine speech. No miracles. No covenant repeated. If someone removed God's name from every other book of the Bible, we would notice. In Esther, God's presence is unacknowledged.

It becomes a great Biblical invitation. Can God be recognized when God is hidden? Chapter 1 hardly seems like a promising place to begin. The Persian emperor Ahasuerus throws a lavish banquet that lasts for months. Wealth is displayed. Power is flaunted. Women become ornaments for men's prestige. Queen Vashti is summoned not as a partner but as another possession to exhibit before drunken guests.

When she says no the empire trembles, not because of an invading army, but because one woman refuses to surrender her dignity. The king's advisors panic. If word spreads that women can say no, they fear, the entire social order might begin to crack. It sounds strangely familiar. Power often fears dignity more than rebellion. God is never mentioned in this scene, yet God's values quietly emerge through the courage of someone who refuses to be humiliated.

Perhaps this is how the hidden God works. Not always by speaking from heaven. Rather, sometimes by strengthening someone to simply speak from earth. The absence of God's name does not mean the absence of God's character.

After spending weeks with Ruth, we recognize the pattern. Ḥesed is still present, though disguised. In Ruth, God's steadfast love appears through gleaning fields, shared meals, and risky acts of generosity. In Esther, God's steadfast love begins by honoring the God-given worth of a woman who refuses to be treated as an object.

Before anyone rescues Israel, someone first protects human dignity. That is where ḥesed always begins. God speaking through ḥesed implies a belief that God is present, 

Here, Esther does not even express that faith. Rather than saying, "God will protect me," she says in Chapter 4, "If I perish, I perish." This is an important biblical distinction. Faith is not confidence that everything will turn out well. Biblical faith may sometimes be expressed as obedience and faithful action amid uncertainty.

Like many who watched or plan to watch the new Christopher Nolan film The Odyssey.  I wonder about our cultural assumptions about God's presence. The Greeks believed their gods might disguise themselves and act in the world 

In The Odyssey, Odysseus survives storms, monsters, temptations, and shipwrecks. The film, like the poem, suggests that gods frequently intervene, redirecting Odysseus' path with visible power. Athena appears, and it is suggested that Divine hands are everywhere and can assume any form. However, unlike today, Homer's Greeks would ask what Joan Osborne questions in her cover of the song, "What if God was one of us?' The Nolan film shies away from the ancients' true beliefs.

Unlike now, most people then commonly thought that their gods might disguise themselves as "one of us" and act in the world. In Esther, no deities ever appear. Instead, ordinary people must navigate political danger without certainty, without visions, and without miraculous rescue. God's guidance is hidden within ordinary choices, quiet courage, and unlikely coincidences.

Our present lives and beliefs probably resemble Esther more than Homer. Most of us do not receive unmistakable signs from gods or heaven. We simply awaken each day wondering how to live faithfully amid complicated circumstances. And perhaps that is enough.

Another journey that I am examining through Greek myth is the Broadway musical Hadestown. In this Orpheus descends into the underworld believing that love is stronger than despair. Around him, workers endlessly build walls for a king who promises security while exploiting their labor. Fear becomes the currency of empire. Hope becomes an act of resistance.

King Hades and King Ahasuerus are not so different. Both build worlds where power demands obedience. Both surround themselves with displays of wealth. Both confuse domination with greatness. Yet Hadestown insists that its story "is a sad song, but we sing it anyway." 

Why? Because telling stories of hope keeps hope alive. 

Esther begins the same way. The first chapter appears to belong entirely to its empire. God is silent. Justice seems absent. Power dominates the stage, but readers already know something the emperor does not. Empires never have the final word.

The hidden God is already writing another story beneath the story. This may be the deepest gift that Esther offers for our own time. We also live in an age of dazzling displays of power. Wealth is celebrated. Fear is marketed. Some voices are amplified while others are silenced. It can feel as though God has withdrawn from the public square.  Yet Esther invites us to read history with different eyes.

We seek the people who quietly refuse to cooperate with injustice, for the community that protects the vulnerable. We seek the strangers who choose compassion over comfort and for those speaking a courageous "no" that makes a thousand faithful "yeses" possible.

That is where the hidden God can often be found. Like Ruth, God still speaks the language of ḥesed. Like Odysseus, we continue our uncertain journey toward home. Like Orpheus, we keep singing against despair because hope itself becomes an act of resistance.

And like Esther, we discover that God's greatest work often begins long before anyone notices. The first chapter ends without mentioning God. Perhaps that is precisely the point. Faith is learning to recognize God's fingerprints even when God's name is missing.

Esther 4:1–17 and today's Gospel Lesson, Luke 9:23–24, speak to one another across centuries. Although Esther never mentions "taking up a cross," her response to Mordecai's challenge embodies the same pattern of discipleship that Jesus later describes. Both passages ask the same fundamental question: What is demanded when faithfulness requires risking our own security? 

For the hidden God is never absent. The hidden God is already preparing courage. Already awakening dignity. Already weaving ḥesed through ordinary lives. Already composing a song that no empire can silence. And if we listen carefully, even in the silence, we can discover that God's quiet melody has been accompanying us all along.

Ruth, Esther, The Odyssey, and the Hadestown musical are all part of a deep contemplation regarding essence, human dignity, empire, and hope. Many either provide metaphors or examples of ḥesed as God's language, or ask us for consideration of a hidden God who writes another story beneath what may be seen as an everyday story or coincidence. 

Esther and Ruth function as companion books. Ruth teaches us how God speaks, through ḥesed, steadfast love. Esther teaches us how God remains present, even when silent. Together they offer a profound theology for our own age: God is revealed not only in miracles, but in ordinary people who practice courageous love in the face of systems that deny human dignity.

 Sermon 

July 26, 2026 Ruth Chapter 4 Hesed Evokes Hesed: God's Love Is Completed through Relationships

The way the story of Ruth both foreshadows what will happen and remains quietly astonishing as it ends. The story doesn't offer some dramatic miracle, thunder from heaven, a burning bush, or the parting of another sea. Instead, the climax comes in its final follow-through. It occurs in an ordinary village, at an ordinary gate, where ordinary people choose extraordinary faithfulness.

Limiting the end to a happy-ever-after, Boaz-marries-Ruth love song distracts from why Christ's genealogy is included. This is about ḥesed (חֶסֶד) finally completing its circle. Throughout Ruth, every act of ḥesed has invited another. Naomi receives Ruth's unwavering loyalty. Ruth receives Boaz's generous protection. Boaz receives the blessing of becoming a redeemer.

The women of Bethlehem receive hope as they watch despair transformed into joy. Finally, Naomi receives the child Obed into her arms, not as a possession, but as grace she never imagined she would hold again. 

What is remarkable is that none of these gifts could exist if someone refused to receive them. We often think that generosity is the difficult part. Yet receiving can be even harder. Receiving requires vulnerability. Receiving means admitting we cannot save ourselves. Receiving means allowing another person's love to change our story.

Where did the story start? Naomi begins the book insisting she has returned "empty." She cannot yet imagine that God's language is still being spoken around her. Yet Ruth is speaking it. Then Boaz is speaking it. The women of Bethlehem are speaking it. Little by little, Naomi learns not only to witness ḥesed but to trust it enough to receive it. Only then does the story become whole.

Perhaps this is why the genealogy recorded in Ruth matters so much. It is not merely a list of ancestors leading to King David. It is testimony that one act of faithful love never ends with itself. Every act of ḥesed becomes the beginning of another story. Love given creates love received. Love received creates love shared. Grace multiplies across generations. 

This is how God chooses to reveal God's own heart: not primarily through displays of power, but through relationships. The Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly describe God as "abounding in steadfast love", abounding in ḥesed. God's character is not revealed simply in commandments or miracles but in a way of relating to creation. God continually gives faithful love, invites trust, restores dignity, and creates communities where no one stands alone.

A hidden takeaway from this story is how the potential guardian-redeemer, who does not step up to the role, is presented in the story. That guardian-redeemer is not judged; he just remains unnamed, no longer part of this particular story.    

Ruth teaches us that this divine language is meant to become our language. Every act of kindness asks a quiet question: Will you receive what is being offered? Every gift of forgiveness asks: Will you let yourself be reconciled? Every welcome asks: Will you risk belonging?

The miracle of ḥesed is incomplete when it leaves one heart. It is completed when another heart says yes. Perhaps that is why Jesus so often placed receiving alongside giving. "Freely you have received; freely give." The order matters. We cannot offer what we refuse to accept. People who know they are loved become capable of loving. People who have received mercy learn to extend mercy. People who have been welcomed begin opening doors for others.

This is the beautiful rhythm of God's kingdom: ḥesed given, ḥesed received. ḥesed shared again and again. 

That rhythm echoes through Ruth until the child Obed is given, the grandfather of David. Christians hear another echo still farther ahead, to Jesus, whose life embodies God's steadfast love without limit. In him we discover that God's greatest act of ḥesed is not merely spoken but lived among us, inviting us not only to admire divine love but to receive it. And once received, to become its living voice.

Perhaps the greatest question Ruth leaves with us is not, "Whom should I love today?" It is also, "Whose love am I refusing to receive?" For the language of God is only fully spoken when ḥesed travels both directions, from one soul to another, and back again, until an entire community becomes fluent in grace.

That is how God changes the world, one relationship at a time.

Sermon 

July 24, 2026 Hadestown Film Review

HHadestown has been influential in my thoughts and in the Wednesday Bible discussion recently, so I will include a review of the film here. 

Watching the Hadestown pro-shot was a fascinating reminder that filmed theater is not simply a recording of a stage performance. It becomes its own artistic experience, inviting the audience to see familiar moments from new perspectives while revealing details that even devoted fans may have missed in the theater.

This production was filmed during the Friday, February 28, 2025 performance and both the matinee and evening performances on Saturday at London's Lyric Theatre. Although it reunited much of the original Broadway cast, whose Broadway run together ended in 2023, the actors were given an important instruction by the directors: they were not to recreate the performances they had given years before, but to play the roles as they would inhabit them now. That decision proved crucial. Rather than a nostalgic recreation, the pro-shot feels like a mature return to characters the performers know intimately but continue to discover.

One of the first surprises was how much more visible the choreography became. In prior videos I had seen, my attention often gravitated toward the principal characters or the emotional center of a song. The camera, however, continually revealed movement happening across the entire stage. Ensemble interactions, patterns, and transitions took on a richness I had not fully appreciated before. The choreography became another storyteller.

The camera also made it possible to follow the show's remarkable visual language. Small stage props that can easily disappear in a live performance became meaningful narrative threads. A single flower passing quietly from one character to another carried emotional weight because the camera chose to linger on it. These visual connections reinforced the musical's themes of memory, hope, and the way stories are handed from one person to the next.

Patrick Page's Hades offered another reminder that live theater is always an act of adaptation. Performing with his heel in a cast, he adjusted several stage movements, yet the production integrated those changes so naturally that they rarely distracted from the performance. Instead, they became another example of seasoned professionals shaping the show around present realities without sacrificing its dramatic power.

Amber Gray's Persephone felt especially moving. Knowing this reunion was a one-time gathering of the original company added an unmistakable emotional layer to her performance. There were moments when she seemed visibly affected, not in a way that broke character, but in a way that enriched it. Persephone's longing, weariness, and love all seemed informed by Gray's own awareness that this was likely a final opportunity to tell this story alongside this cast.

Her characterization also evolved in intriguing ways. "Our Lady of the Underground" leaned much more heavily into Persephone's sensuality, while also emphasizing her intoxication. The performance became simultaneously more playful and more tragic. The camera heightened this interpretation by following her into the stage pit during the number, placing viewers inside spaces that a theater audience can never fully enter.

One unexpected consequence of watching the pro-shot was that I could not do what I often do with recordings: skip ahead to favorite songs or scenes. Instead, I experienced Hadestown as a complete dramatic arc. That turned out to be a gift. Transitional scenes, quieter conversations, and songs I had previously regarded as bridges between highlights demanding my attention. The musical's architecture became clearer, and I gained a deeper appreciation for how carefully Anaïs Mitchell constructed the entire journey rather than merely a collection of standout number.

I remember a moment in  Flowers: 

"I remember someone / someone by my side, turned his face to mine / And I turned away into the shade. 

You the one I left behind / If you ever walk this way / Come and find me lying in the bed I made"

I hadn't made the emotional connection that lyric in Hadestown, her moment of remembering Orpheus, is of his first turning his face to her.. A lovely, haunting moment 

Perhaps the greatest revelation came in the ending. Every performance of Hadestown reminds us that tragedy repeats itself, that Orpheus will always turn, and that the story must be told again anyway. Yet this production struck me as noticeably more hopeful than the live performances I had previously seen.

After Eurydice quietly asks, "Anyone got a match?", the camera eventually cuts to a close-up of the candle. That cinematic choice transforms the moment. Rather than ending with loss alone, the image becomes an invitation. The story will begin again because someone is willing to carry the flame forward.

That visual emphasis also deepened the emotional impact of the closing encore reprise of "We Raise Our Cups." The song no longer felt simply like a farewell to the audience. Instead, it became a celebration of memory, community, and the fragile persistence of hope. Even after heartbreak, the light remains. Even after the ending, someone lights the next candle.

In the end, the Hadestown pro-shot succeeds because it does not attempt to replace the experience of live theater. Instead, it reveals another dimension of it. The cameras become storytellers themselves, uncovering choreography, symbolism, facial expressions, and visual motifs that can easily be missed from a theater seat. Combined with performances that have matured rather than merely been preserved, the result is not a museum piece but a living work of art. It was weird being in the film audience, watching the Lyric Theatre audience participate while internally clapping and singing while maintaining silence.

Anyway, as Hermes reminds us, it's an old song. But every time it's sung well, we hear something we hadn't heard before.

With tears in my eyes,

Gary

Interstellar; A New Review After Seeing Nolan's The Odyssey

 

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (2014) and his later adaptation of The Odyssey are connected by more than the obvious theme of a long voyage. Long before Nolan set out to film Homer's epic, Interstellar already explored many of the questions that have animated The Odyssey for nearly three thousand years. 

Both works ask what it means to leave home, endure unimaginable trials, and return transformed. 

The journey is ultimately about home. At first glance, both stories appear to be adventures. Odysseus sails home after the Trojan War. Cooper travels across galaxies to save humanity.

But neither story is primarily about exploration. Both are fundamentally about coming home which is a theological question and a question of identity.

For Odysseus, home is Ithaca, Penelope, and Telemachus. For Cooper, home is Earth, Murph, and Tom. Every obstacle gains its emotional weight because it delays reunion with the people they love. 

Time becomes the greatest adversary Homer measures the cost of Odysseus's voyage in years. Twenty years pass before he embraces Penelope again. Nolan intensifies this idea through relativity. Every hour spent on Miller's planet costs seven years on Earth. Cooper watches decades of his children's lives disappear through recorded messages. Both heroes discover that the deepest wound is not physical danger but lost time.

The hero survives through intelligence. Odysseus is renowned not for overwhelming strength but for metis, wisdom, ingenuity, and adaptability. Cooper succeeds for much the same reason. He solves problems under impossible conditions. He improvises during spacecraft failures.He continually adapts to changing circumstances.

Neither man wins by brute force. Their greatest weapon is the ability to think creatively under pressure. Strange worlds replace mythical islands. In The Odyssey, each island presents a different temptation or danger. The Cyclops tests courage. Circe tests identity. The Sirens test self-control. Calypso offers comfort instead of purpose.

Nolan translates these mythical encounters into science fiction. Miller's planet tests urgency. Mann's frozen world tests trust. Gargantua tests human limits. The tesseract challenges ordinary concepts of space and time.The monsters become cosmic phenomena, but the underlying questions remain remarkably similar. 

Love guides the voyage. Perhaps the strongest parallel concerns love. Odysseus refuses Calypso's offer of immortality because he longs for Penelope. Cooper risks everything to return to Murph.

One of Interstellar's most discussed ideas is Amelia Brand's claim that love "transcends time and space." Whether understood scientifically or poetically, the film argues that love is a force directing human action. Homer makes the same claim through narrative rather than dialogue. Odysseus repeatedly chooses love over power, comfort, and eternal life. 

Both heroes descend into another realm. Each story includes a symbolic journey beyond ordinary human experience. Odysseus travels to the Underworld to seek wisdom from the dead. Cooper enters the black hole Gargantua and finds himself inside the tesseract, a realm outside normal space and time.

Neither journey is merely spectacular. Both provide the insight necessary to complete the mission. The return is bittersweet. Neither hero comes home to the world he left. Odysseus returns disguised as a beggar. His household has been overrun by the suitors, and even loyal servants fail to recognize him.

Cooper returns to find that Murph has become an elderly woman while he has barely aged. The family reunion is moving, but the years they lost can never be recovered.

Both stories insist that every great journey changes the traveler forever. Providence and the unseen. A significant difference lies in what governs the universe. In The Odyssey, Athena, Poseidon, and the Olympian gods actively shape events.

In Interstellar, there are no gods. Gravity, relativity, and humanity's future descendants occupy the narrative role once held by divine beings. Yet both stories suggest that unseen forces are at work, guiding events toward hope even when the heroes cannot perceive the larger design. 

Nolan maintains a recurring vision. Seen together, Interstellar almost feels like a rehearsal for Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey. Both works share recurring themes that run throughout his films: Time is never merely chronological; it shapes identity. Memory keeps loved ones present across vast distances. The greatest acts of courage arise from devotion rather than ambition. Home is not simply a location but the place where love gives life its meaning. 

There is another compelling parallel in Esther, Odysseus, and Cooper all face moments when they must risk everything for others. Esther enters the king's presence declaring, "If I perish, I perish." Odysseus repeatedly hazards his life to reach his family. Cooper enters Gargantua believing he will almost certainly die so that humanity, and especially his children, might have a future.

Each story suggests that genuine heroism is not defined by conquest or fame. It is measured by the willingness to sacrifice oneself in faithful love for others.

July 18, 2026 Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

This film has been critically acclaimed, opening new ways of experiencing ancient texts. I include reactions to the film here.

 

Nolan wants to create on the cutting edge of film technology, so this film navigates between its aim to be a blockbuster cultural event and a thoughtful arthouse project. 

 

What is causing controversy in the internet reactions that are flooding in, which are heaping high praise or trashing it disdainfully as not understanding the work at all. Nolan said the success of Oppenheimer led to the budget to make this film possible. This brought to mind Star Wars and Joseph Campbell.  

 
I don't approach Homer as sacred canon that every adaptation must obey. Nor do I think of The Odyssey as literal history that filmmakers have an obligation to reconstruct. I see Homer like Shakespeare or Arthurian legends; the poem has survived because each generation discovers it anew. The question isn't "Was this exactly in Homer?" but "Does this version make the story live again?"

Nolan's passion is evident everywhere. What is striking isn't simply the spectacle; it is Nolan's obvious affection for the source material. Every creative decision feels as if it were made by someone who genuinely loves the epic. Nolan's writing reminded me of the excitement surrounding Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein adaptation,  an artist deeply in conversation with a classic. That's the kind of adaptation I enjoy.

Rather than simply retelling the plot, Nolan delights in details that many audiences may not even recognize. For instance, there's Argos. Including Argos wasn't merely fan service. The reunion with Odysseus' faithful dog before he dies is one of the most moving moments in literature. Seeing it honored onscreen communicates that Nolan understands where Homer's emotional center lies. Including the depiction of Odysseus' hunting scar early in the narrative resonates. The dog and scar carry memory, identity, and recognition simultaneously. Bringing it into the film respects one of the poem's greatest storytelling inventions.

I appreciated the Circe and Calypso sequences. Rather than reducing them to fantasy figures, they felt emotionally and psychologically significant. Each represents a different temptation: forgetting (with Calypso intentionally feeding him the lotus flowers, and therefore keeping him outside ordinary human life, and contributing to the difficult work of returning home. was brilliant to me. Circe turning the men into hogs was uncomfortable because it was not depicted as "magical". Both Circe and Calypso become mirrors reflecting Odysseus's own temptations.

The way Athena's presence was another favorite moment. Odysseus sees Athena's face throughout the story. Her face turns out to be the face of a Trojan woman who is beheaded as Troy is sacked. The reveal of that face, which Athena has been presenting to Odysseus, was devastating; I think it also captured something Homer often does through language: the gods are present, disguised, intervening, revealing themselves at decisive moments, but it gives a nod to the psychological impact the war is having on him. 

 
Obviously, myths survive because artists reinterpret them. Homer himself inherited stories that were already centuries old. Every retelling, from Virgil to Joyce to Emily Wilson's translation to Nolan's film, is another conversation with the tradition. I told you how much I liked her translation of him being a complicated man rather than cunning. She just gave an interview where she jokingly defended the word by quoting Shaft: "He's a complicated man that no one understands but his woman." Which fits both Penelope and Odysseus

I could go on (it is a 3-hour film) but, for me, Nolan's The Odyssey succeeds because it feels like an act of love rather than an exercise in obligation. I never needed Homer treated as untouchable canon. I wanted to see a filmmaker engage imaginatively with one of humanity's great stories. The care shown to Argos, the scar, Circe, Calypso, and the inspired revelation of Athena all convinced me that Nolan wasn't simply adapting Homer; he was conversing with him and adjusting pieces of the story for a modern audience. That's exactly what living myths invite us to do.

July 19, 2026 Ruth 3:1–13: Hesed (חֶסֶד) -Learning to Hear the Language of God through Relationships

There are moments in the Bible when God seems to split the heavens with unmistakable power, a sea parts, a bush burns without being consumed, a voice shakes a mountain. The next discussion, however, remains on our continuing Ruth examination, where God is presumably silent. We have discovered otherwise in our detailed readings over the last few weeks in our gleanings for meaning.

True, no miracles interrupt the story. No prophet appears with a divine oracle. No angel descends into the barley fields. Instead, the narrator invites us into kitchens and harvests, shared meals and whispered conversations, tears and laughter, risk and tenderness. The extraordinary continues to hide within the ordinary.

Phyllis Trible, an author included to our group's commentaries, reminds us that this silence is not the absence of God but another way of speaking. In Ruth, relationships become the language of God.

Perhaps the boldest act of hesed is Ruth's journey to the threshing floor. She walks into uncertainty carrying no guarantee of acceptance. She risks misunderstanding, rejection, and humiliation for the sake of securing life for both herself and Naomi.

Hesed is willing to become vulnerable. Every meaningful relationship eventually arrives at a threshing floor, a place the outcomes can't be controlled. It is the spouse saying, "We need to talk." It is the friend admitting, "I need help." It is the addict walking into the first recovery meeting. It is the church apologizing for wounds it has inflicted. Hesed prefers honest vulnerability over safe distance.

When Boaz awakens in the middle of the night and asks, "Who are you?" Ruth answers simply, "I am Ruth." Hesed begins here with truthful presence. She offers neither disguise nor manipulation. She comes as herself. This is the courage of introducing oneself without pretending to be stronger or more certain than one really is. Relationships deepen wherever masks become unnecessary. Ruth then asks Boaz to "spread your cloak over your servant."

This request is remarkable because Ruth becomes an active participant in redemption rather than a passive recipient. Hesed gives another person the dignity of saying yes.

Rather than manipulating Boaz, Ruth invites him into covenant. It resembles the tough courage of asking someone, "Would you walk with me through this illness?" or "Would you be my sponsor?" or "Would you mentor me?" Love respects another person's freedom. 

Boaz immediately recognizes Ruth's action as hesed. "You have shown greater kindness now than before."

Hesed evokes hesed. No miracle has occurred, yet everything has changed.

Here, hesed becomes God's vocabulary. Naomi's hope, Ruth's courage, and Boaz's integrity weave together into a tapestry of grace. None of them acts because a heavenly voice commands them. They choose compassion freely. They become living witnesses to the character of God.

This is a profound insight Trible uncovered for me this week. The narrator in Ruth never insists, "God caused this." Instead, Ruth happens to glean in Boaz's field. Boaz happens to arrive. Naomi happens to conceive a daring plan. Boaz happens to respond with generosity. The storyteller quietly invites us to discover providence not in divine interruption but in faithful human response. God is hidden, but never absent. God is woven into every act of courage that answers another's vulnerability.

Perhaps that is why Ruth contains so little religion as we often define it. There are no sacrifices upon altars, no elaborate rituals, no priests directing the action. Instead, holiness emerges in ordinary acts of hospitality, protection, and mutual care. The threshing floor becomes as sacred as any sanctuary because there people choose faithfulness over fear.

The story also reminds us that redemption is never a solitary achievement. Naomi cannot restore her future alone. Ruth cannot secure her own safety by herself. Boaz cannot fulfill his role apart from the customs and responsibilities of the wider community. Each person's healing depends upon another's willingness to practice hesed.

Redemption, before it is personal, is relational. Our culture often imagines spirituality as a private journey between the individual and God. Ruth offers another vision. Grace flows through networks of belonging. God's love takes flesh whenever people accompany one another through uncertainty with generosity and courage.

The New Testament echoes this same truth. Jesus tells his followers that whoever welcomes the least welcomes him. 1 John 4:12 declares, "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us." Long before those words were written, Ruth had already begun unveiling that story.

No one in Ruth sees God directly. They see hesed. They encounter God in the steadfast love of a daughter-in-law who refuses to abandon family. In the renewed hope of an aging widow who dares to dream again. In the integrity of a man who uses his power to protect rather than possess.

Perhaps this is how God most often speaks still. Not through spectacles that overwhelm our senses, but through relationships that quietly transform our lives. Someone stays beside us in grief. An oncology receptionist who will ask each patient she greets, "Where do you find joy?". A stranger is welcomed as family. As Alison commented in our discussion last week, when another person's dignity is guarded and treated with honor.

If we listen only for thunder, we may miss the still, persistent voice of God spoken in the language of hesed. These Ruth readings invite us to become fluent in that language, to discover that every act of compassion is a sentence in God's ongoing conversation with the world.

Ruth chapter 3 teaches that God's language is not spoken primarily through thunder or miracles but through countless relational verbs: to notice, to prepare, to trust, to risk to speak truthfully, to invite, to protect dignity, to bless, to provide, and to wait.

These are not merely human virtues. They are the vocabulary of God. Whenever people speak this language to one another, heaven quietly becomes audible on earth. The God who seems almost silent in Ruth is, in fact, speaking all the time, in every act of faithful relationship. Hesed is God's native tongue, and every gesture of steadfast love becomes another sentence in the ongoing conversation between God and humanity.

As I said, this comes from the perspective of biblical scholar Phyllis Trible and contemporary theologian Emma Nash, both of them cited in our additional commentary that Pastor Emillie provided last week Both, in different ways, draw our attention away from spectacular divine interventions and toward the ordinary, courageous, relational acts through which God's presence is made known. 

Perhaps the question we might ask is not, "Where is God?" The better question is, "Who, today, is speaking God's language?" And perhaps the answer begins with us.