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Bearden: A Black Odyssey |
In our first summer series reading, Ruth arrives in Bethlehem with nothing. She is a foreign widow carrying no promise except the one she makes to Naomi. Yet in giving herself away, she receives what she never sought: a family, a community, and a place in the lineage of David and ultimately in the genealogy of Jesus.
She
begins her journey not by returning to her homeland but by leaving it.
Every practical reason tells her to stay in Moab. Her future would be
safer there. Her culture and family are there. Bethlehem
holds only poverty and the possibility of rejection.
Unlike Oprah, Naomi's other daughter-in-law, Ruth follows Naomi and promises, "Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God. Naomi responds by giving the following blessing:
"May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me."
The word translated "kindly" is ḥesed, which we've encountered before and is sometimes translated as lovingkindness. Naomi recognizes that Ruth and Orpah have already shown extraordinary covenant loyalty. Those
words are often heard as her declaration of loyalty, but they are also a
radical redefinition of home. Ruth understands that home is not first a
geography. It is a relationship. Home is found wherever faithful love, hesed, is practiced.
Naomi's name means "Pleasant" or "Delightful,". When she
returns to Bethlehem, she says, "Do not call me Naomi; call me
Mara." She believes pleasantness has become bitterness. Yet the narrative never adopts "Mara." It continues calling her Naomi, hinting that God is not finished restoring her joy. Ruth is to be part of that restoration.
For several weeks now, I have been rereading The Odyssey to prepare to watch Christopher Nolan's upcoming film this month. Today I am imagining Odysseus' journey if he had shared Ruth's understanding of hesed throughout his travels in Homer's epic poem.
In The Odyssey,
Odysseus measures every place against Ithaca. Even the paradise of
Calypso cannot satisfy him because it is not home. The Lotus-Eaters
threaten him because they erase the memory of home. Every adventure is
judged by whether it delays or advances his return.
Ruth would ask a different question regarding her destination. Not "How do I get back to where I once belonged?" Instead, she would have redirected to: "With whom and where will I practice faithful love?" Her compass is not nostalgia but covenant. This difference changes everything.
Odysseus
spends years trying to recover the life he once had. Greek society sought ἀρετή (aretē) in life to build their reputations. In the end, he is like Ruth walking toward a
life that cannot yet be imagined. At the beginning, Odysseus is pulled by memory. Ruth is primarily drawn by faith. Ironically, both stories end in restoration, but by different roads.
Odysseus
finally reaches Ithaca only after he has been stripped of pride,
certainty, and power. He arrives disguised as a beggar. He discovers that
home cannot simply be reclaimed by force; it must be recognized and
renewed through relationships with Telemachus, Penelope, and those who
remained faithful.
Perhaps the deepest lesson both stories teach is that home is never exactly what we left behind. Time changes us, loss changes us, and the journey changes us. The home to which Odysseus returns must be rebuilt. The home Ruth enters must be created.
This is where Ruth's story speaks most powerfully. Many
of us have spent years trying to get back, to a happier season, a healthier
body, a thriving church, a beloved relationship, We might be yearning for a friendlier America and maybe a younger version of
ourselves. Like Odysseus, we long for our own Ithacas of memory.
Ruth gently invites us to release that impossible task and recognize home is where we choose to love faithfully today.
It
is found in keeping promises when the future is uncertain. It is
discovered when you walk beside another person, rather than being intimidated or distrustful. It grows wherever strangers become neighbors, enemies become
friends, and grief slowly gives way to hope.
The gospel deepens this vision still further. Jesus
rarely speaks of home as a destination to be reclaimed. Instead, he
creates homes wherever people gather in love, forgiveness, and welcome.
He leaves heaven to dwell among strangers, making God's home with
humanity. Through Christ, home becomes less about arriving at a place
than participating in God's reconciling presence.
In that light, Ruth's journey becomes more than the story of one faithful woman. It becomes a parable for every disciple. Faith is not merely finding our way back. Instead, it is discovering that wherever God's steadfast love is lived, we already stand on holy ground.
When we think of homecomings, let's not dwell on the life we once knew, but rather discover that God has been
quietly building a home for us all along, not merely in a place, but in a
people.
Like Ruth, we may find that home is not behind us waiting to be
recovered. It is before us, waiting to be created, one covenant of love
at a time.
When we think of homecoming, our
imaginations tend to turn to Odysseus. For twenty years, he longed for
Ithaca. He survived storms, monsters, temptations, and wars, sustained
by a single hope: to return to the place where he belongs. Home is the fixed point by which he navigates every danger.
Home is something lost and must be recovered.
Ruth offers us a profoundly different understanding of home, one that Odysseus ultimately learns through his adventures. We can all urgently longing for a promised hesed, that northern star that guides each wanderer and then is found.
