Bitterness and God

Devotion: Ruth 1:19-22

Bitterness is unease with our circumstances left to fester. What results is disdain for other people, for the self and, most importantly, for God. Today that last one often takes the form of denying the existence of God as if one's declaration regarding God actually had an effect on His reality. Even if we do not deny God's existence or power or goodness or love explicitly, we do so practically by neglecting faith and faith's outward expression of worship. This is where the 'spiritual but not religious' crowd meets the 'I love Jesus, but hate the Church' crowd. Neither of these will actually help us deal with the pit of bitterness in our souls. Sure, we can hide behind lofty sounding words or strike back with sharp sarcasm or even numb ourselves with work or sinful pleasures, but in the end God will not be denied for He is the great I AM. So, if you cannot go around God, what is left? I think that is where our passage comes in this week with the continuing struggle of Naomi.

"So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, 'Is this Naomi?' She said to them, 'Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?'
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. " -Ruth 1:19-22 ESV

Naomi cannot see beyond her present circumstance. The town of Bethlehem is stirred up because this long lost relative has come home. While the text does not supply the emotion of those in Bethlehem it is hard for me to understand the women's question as anything but joy. They are happy that Naomi has returned to them. If there is one thing bitterness cannot abide it is joy. A surefire test for bitterness is how we interact with the joy of others. Indeed, as Christians we are called to weep with those who weep, but we are equally called to rejoice with those who rejoice. The women of Bethlehem, I wager, are rejoicing that Naomi, long gone and perhaps presumed dead, has finally returned to them. Naomi, lost in her bitterness can only curse their joy and curse God at the same time.
Cursing God is the real danger of bitterness. It is not that the Almighty will be thwarted in His purpose or even in His love and grace. Rather, it is the bitterness that fossilizes the heart and strangles any joy we may feel. Naomi has that kind of bitterness. She wants to be called 'Mara' (meaning bitter) not as a lament for the tragedy she has borne. We may understand her renaming herself if she is merely calling the women of Bethlehem to weep with her. Rather, she has taken her new name as a testimony against the Lord. She blames God for what happened to her. She blames God for her husband and sons dying. She blames God for having to leave her adopted homeland and return to Bethlehem as a beggar who can only hope for redemption. She blames God for her present circumstance. Yet, she cannot take the modernist route of denying God's existence. She knows too well the promises of God and how God has kept His promises. She cannot deny God, so instead she despises God.
In Naomi's despising of God we learn the most important thing about God. Despite our emotional reaction to God, if He has determined to love us, to save us, to redeem us, God will not abandon us. We can rage against the Almighty, we can curse His name, we can even blame God for everything rotten in our lives--not a single one of these things will turn God away from us. Naomi does not have God's point-of-view and neither do any of us. It takes the intervention of God to turn our most horrific circumstances (and Naomi's circumstance is horrific) into anything good. This is God's work and it is marvelous in our eyes. We will follow Mara as God transforms her back into Naomi throughout the next three chapters. Yet let us take away a few things:

1. Bitterness directed outwardly or inwardly is poison to the soul.
2. Denying or cursing God does not change His power or His love toward us.
3. The test of bitterness is if we can rejoice in each other's joy.
4. It takes God to intervene in our lives to save us from our bitterness.

If you are feeling bitter right now, talk to God about it, talk to a friend about it, seek prayer and support from a local church. Bitterness is soul-killing, but God can raise the dead.

News for You:

• Sign up now for our Fall small groups. We are studying "Your Church Experiencing God Together." You can find dates and locations at the Welcome Center at CPC or just call and we will help you out.
• Registration is full for Women's Paint & Pie event on Saturday, September 30 at 6:30 p.m. Thanks to all who signed up! Wow, what an overwhelming turnout!
• We are raising funds to help build the Okanogan Community Homeless Shelter. You can find out more at their website, okshelter.org!
• Are you interested in getting to know CPC better? Try the New Membership Class on October 1st following the Fellowship Hour. Lunch will be provided if you let us know you are coming.
• Our next community outreach event will be our annual Trunk-or-Treat. Decorate the trunk of your rig and help provide a fun, festive and safe experience for parents and kids on October 31. More details to come!

Determined Love

Devotion: Ruth 1:15-18

Pain can lead us down dangerous paths. Pain can take a person who has been getting along just fine in life and turn them to the demon of addiction. Pain can turn a person against friend and family and even God. Pain can lead us away from the life that God desires for us in community and lead us to isolation and self-destruction. That's the kind of pain that Naomi has.

"And she said, 'See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.' But Ruth said, 'Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.' And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. " -Ruth 1:15-18 ESV

Pain can close us off to the desire and ability of others to come along side us in our pain and offer the deep, healing balm of the love of God. Pain can lead to cursing our circumstance (and maybe even God) and the bitterness that follows that feeling of helplessness. Pain hems us in and dims the redemptive imagination even as it turns the heart and the mind from the powerful and fierce love of God. As a pastor, I see this all too often. I have reflected much on pastoral ministry in prayer with God over the last few months. I am tired of the idea that the pastor is to be a visionary leader, a strategic change-agent, a program-pusher or a mission-minded salesman. These concepts sound good, but they fail to actually help people in pain. Each of these identities creates anxiety and pain, and I am convinced that this is not God's will. Surely the Lord can call us to endure suffering for His glory, but He always goes with us through the pain. And in the comfort we receive we are to be a comfort to others. I am weary of the idea that people are to be used for a vision, a mission, a strategy or a program. People bear the image of God, even when distorted by pain. It is the call of the pastor and all who call on the name of Jesus, the innocent sufferer and bearer of our sin and pain on the cross, to meet people in that pain and walk alongside them in the presence of God. We are to practice the determined love of God on display in Ruth in our passage today.
I understand my role as a call to be a Ruth in the lives of the flock that God has placed in my care. I am to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to recognize pain and walk into it alongside the sufferer and not run from it. We have so much pain surrounding us--pain of alienation from God, pain of hopelessness, pain of lovelessness, pain of faithlessness, pain of isolation from true, life-giving community found in Christ's church. We try to fix the pain on our own, utilizing the good gifts of God in an improper way. Yet, in the end, God's covenant promise to be with us and through this promise, our promise to each other to be with each other through thick and thin, is really what we need.
Ruth walks into Naomi's pain. She does so at great personal risk, but she does so under the watchful eye of God. Ruth not only claims Naomi as her kin, but in doing so she claims YHWH as her God. I may be pushing the text too far, but Ruth can claim YHWH because He has already claimed her. Ruth's determined love of Naomi flows out of the Lord's determined love for her. It is this same determined love that Christ Jesus has for you and commands us to give to one another. You do not have to be a pastor to do this. We need only see the pain in those around us and determine, through faith in the Lord, to meet that pain in love in some pretty practical ways. More than anything else, I think that is the mission of the Church, to bring the love of God in Christ Jesus to bear on the suffering, pain and anguish of the world. It will not lead to flashy conversions all of the time (Naomi merely falls silent at Ruth's determination), but it does lead us to the deep love of God over and again and away from the destruction of isolation.

News for You:

• Sign up now for our Fall small groups. We are studying "Your Church Experiencing God Together." You can find dates and locations at the Welcome Center at CPC or just call and we will help you out.
• We are hosting a Women's Paint & Pie event on Saturday, September 30 at 6:30 p.m. Come enjoy an evening of pie, painting and fellowship and find out about the new Women's Ministry Program at CPC. Please RSVP by September 24!
• We are raising funds to help build the Okanogan Community Homeless Shelter. You can find out more at their website, okshelter.org!
• Are you interested in getting to know CPC better? Try the New Membership Class on October 1st following the Fellowship Hour. Lunch will be provided if you let us know you are coming.
• Our next community outreach event will be our annual Trunk-or-Treat. Decorate the trunk of your rig and help provide a fun, festive and safe experience for parents and kids on October 31. More details to come!

Decisions in Crisis

Devotion: Ruth 1:11-14

My wife has often remarked that I do not behave well in crisis. My usually sharp decision-making matrix breaks down and I start doing things that are not only rash, but out-of-character. I think it is the part of me that wants to make everything right and fix what is wrong that takes over and I stop doing proper analysis of the situation and counting the costs. While these are my personal hang-ups in crises, I do not think I am alone. I think that for many decision-making in a time of crisis or turmoil is difficult to do well and often leads to questionable results.
As we zoom in our devotional passage this week, it is worth remembering that we find three women (Naomi, Orpah and Ruth) who all now widowed in a culture where widowhood means becoming destitute. The situation is dire, the choices are desperate, and the decision-making is more emotional than rational.

"But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. " -Ruth 1:11-14 ESV

Naomi has been so devastated by the present crisis that she has no ability to imagine redemption. It is as if she faces the present circumstance and says, "The Lord has cursed me and there is no hope." The only way forward for her daughter-in-laws, so far as she knows, is to bear sons and let them grow up and then marry the two. Naomi knows this a pipe dream and so dismisses the option as quickly as she suggests it. At this point, she succumbs completely to bitterness and let's all hope run out.
Bitterness kills the redemption imagination and the reliance upon faith that God will bring good out of even the most devastating of circumstances. In her grief, Naomi cannot see beyond the current crisis and this, for her, is actually sin. She loses faith in the Lord and even goes so far as to assert that the Lord has acted specifically against her through the death of her husband and her two sons. Far from trusting the Lord to provide redemption and renewal, Naomi lays her crisis at the Lord's feet and asserts her wretchedness as the direct action of the Lord. This is wrong, as the rest of the story will make clear, but at the same time, it is understandable in the moment of crisis to wonder about such things. In light of fires, earthquake and hurricanes in our news recently, we may even be tempted to assert that the Lord has brought judgment in these acts, yet such a view does not come from wisdom. Wisdom would lead us to conclude that crisis and disaster befall us no matter our standing before the Lord, so our part is to be sure we are ready to meet our God should the circumstance lead to our death--and the only way to be ready is to put faith in Christ Jesus, the one who defeated sin, death and Satan, the one who makes all things new, and the one who redeems his own.
Crisis decision-making is never easy. When the decision-making is handed over by Naomi to Ruth and Orpah they will choose different paths. We will look at Ruth's path throughout the rest of this series, but at this point it is Orpah we need to put in view. Orpah chooses to return to her mother's house and, God-willing, take a new husband. While we can contrast Orpah's decision to leave Naomi with Ruth's decision to stay with Naomi and, therefore, pass judgment on Orpah for making the wrong decision, the Scripture makes no such claim or conclusion. Orpah chooses to return home and this is her response to the crisis. She is not necessarily wrong in making that choice anymore than Ruth is not necessarily wrong for NOT making that choice. She responds as best she can with the available information to the crisis at hand. I am uncomfortable with saying that she showed a lack of faith in the Lord, but certainly Ruth's more famous response seems to invite that thought.
Instead, gentle reader, let us take a sympathetic view of Orpah. She has just been told by her beloved mother-in-law to go home to her mother's house. She has been assured that staying will only produce more misery and condemn her to a lifetime of widowhood and the destitution that brings. Faced with the available information, she decides it best to do as Naomi says. This is not sin for Orpah, but rather a woman trying to do the best she can in a very tough spot. No, if there is sin in the passage it is in Naomi's bitterness and her lack of faith that the Lord will make a way where there seems to be no way. We never go wrong when we fall on the mercy of the Lord in faith, even, and perhaps especially, when in crisis.

News for You:

Fair Outreach Report:

We gave out over 800 bottles of water, talked with dozens of people in our community and enjoyed making our Savior's presence known. Thanks to all who helped. Our next big outreach event will be our annual Trunk-or-Treat. Start planning now for serving our community by providing a fun, festive and safe experience for parents and kids on October 31.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD. 

Small Groups to Launch the week of September 24

Our Fall Small Groups will be concentrating on, "Your Church Experiencing God Together," the follow-up to last Fall's "Experiencing God." Sign ups will begin shortly, do not miss out!

Weeping Together

Devotion: Ruth 1:8-10

The Apostle Paul instructed the Romans in 12:15 to, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." Knowing the difference is important. In times of mourning, it is inappropriate to rejoice. Imagine attending a funeral and someone suggests doing the wave or letting the kids have a go at a pinata. Death is a cause for weeping. It is the consequence of sin and even for the Christian it is a time for sadness at the loss of one we love--even if for the deceased it is entry into Heaven awaiting the great day of resurrection. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35) and this seems the right thing for the Christian to do with others in the face of death. I have been to one too many "Celebrations of Life," where it was unclear to me that anyone actually died. We try to move past the weeping and mourning so quickly that we do not really stop to deal with the real and devastating consequences of death. It is just these consequences that Naomi, Orpah and Ruth face in our passage today.

"But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, 'Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!' Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, 'No, we will return with you to your people.' " -Ruth 1:8-10 ESV

Without father, son or husband these women are destitute. Naomi's plan to return to her homeland is her last chance at securing her well-being. She asks her daughter-in-laws to return to their mothers because they have no future with her. The death of Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion has brought real and devastating consequences for all of the women, but Naomi will feel the sting the most acutely of the three. Naomi tries to send off Orpah and Ruth so that they may find a new husband and perhaps the rest and relief that was absent in the present situation.
Naomi wants to bear the burden of death by herself and in some ways we can see this as noble, but in others it is foolish. The trouble with failing to acknowledge and note a death with mourning and weeping is that those who will bear the consequence will have to do so alone. I remember some years back as I met with a grieving widow she stopped me as I was about to leave. The widow thanked me for saying her husband's name since no one else seemed to do so. I have often thought about that as I considered why that may be. The best answer I have is that we are afraid of death and speaking the name of dead person makes it real. We want widows and widowers, orphans and the bereaved to bear their pain and sorrow silently and nobly and, therefore, deliver us from the scary acknowledgment that life is fragile and death is always on the horizon.
Thankfully, both Orpah and Ruth linger with Naomi. She needs them to weep with her and mourn with her. We need others to weep with us in times of death and loss as well. We cannot ignore or hide the bereaved for any reason. We are clearly called in Scripture to come alongside those who weep and offer the comfort of presence, but also the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who conquered sin, death and Satan once and for all in his own death and resurrection. So weep with those who weep because the reality of death is it is sad. We can remember and give thanks for those who die, but do not confuse mourning and rejoicing, lest you forget that our fervent prayer is that God will wipe the tears from our eyes and turn our mourning into dancing.

News for You:

CPC at the Okanogan County Fair, September 7 – Sept 10

This year CPC will have a booth at the Okanogan County Fair.  This is an opportunity for our church family to be a sign of God’s Love, a source of Joy and a beacon of Hope to those who do not yet know Jesus.  We will have a brief training for volunteers following worship on September 3.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD. 

Small Groups to Launch the week of September 17

Our Fall Small Groups will be concentrating on, "Your Church Experiencing God Together," the follow-up to last Fall's "Experiencing God." Sign ups will begin shortly, do not miss out!