Unswerving, selfless devotion

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For nearly a decade, women in the eastern Congo have endured

unimaginable acts of sexual cruelty, leaving them shamed,

abandoned by their families, shunned by their villages,

and ignored by the world.

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Before the conflict, Seraphine Bulonza M’Mirindi, 42 sold fish.

Her husband went to the market three years ago and was

presumably captured by rebels; she hasn’t seen him since.

When the Interahamwe entered my room and raped me in January

of 2003, I was sleeping next to my 3-year-old boy. He tried to cover

me with his little body, but despite his size, they beat him.

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Four of them raped my oldest daughter until she was bleeding from

everywhere: the vagina, ears, nose, anus. She died two weeks later.

My son died the following day. After these events, I lost hope in life.

I’m living now with my surviving children in Bukavu.

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We spend some days without eating. The church gave me a small place

to stay, but they told me they must demolish it: I have nowhere else to go.

The kids are kicked out of school because I am unable to pay the fees.

I am trying to find a way to restart my life.

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It is the consummate story. Three women united by tragedy and grief. in the midst of their suffering, God is at work. It is a story told with the skill of master story teller. There are no jobs to be found. Food is scarce. There was a drought in the land for many years. It has been so long that the people cannot remember the wet feel of falling rain. And so a husband and father makes a difficult decision. He will take his wife and two sons and move to the land of promise.
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No sooner had they arrived in this new place, so full of promise and hope, the father died. No warning - his was a sudden death. Many years passed, and his widow, Naomi, was left with her two sons who had both married. Their wives were from a different background and culture. The wives were named Orpah and Ruth. After Naomi and her two sons and their wives had lived there some ten years, both sons died. There is some scant evidence that perhaps the husband of Ruth was not very healthy, probably both sons had inherited a heart condition that claimed the lives of all three, a father and both his sons.

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As you can imagine, Naomi was devastated. She had left her homeland full, a husband and two sons, but now life had taken a terrible turn, and Naomi was left feeling destitute, vulnerable, insecure and with out hope - Naomi, in her own words said, "she went away full, but the Lord had brought her back empty."

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As you might expect, in her grief and in the midst of terrible loss, Naomi, again using her words "was bitter’ for the Almighty had brought misfortune upon her.

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What is perhaps hard for us to grasp, is that in the midst of such terrible tragedy and human suffering, God is always at work. God’s plan and purpose is always the music that plays in the background of our lived. As the story unfolds, the author skillfully weaves a love story of unswerving devotion, loyalty and trust.

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These three women, brought together by life’s circumstances now share together, the mantle of widowhood. They are a support for one another.

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As we gather today, we remember those widows of the soldiers who laid down their lives in two great wars, in the Korean war, and today in Afghanistan.

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As these three women struggle with the loss of their husbands, and because of their culture and the time and place in which they live, they must each return "home" to their families, as they as women of their time and place have no visible means of support. For many women today who find themselves in such situations in the Congo, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Iran and in Iraq, they are often reduced to living as prostitutes or beggars unless their families take them back.

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Naomi knew that she must return home. She gave her daughter-in-laws permission to return to their homes again and perhaps even be married again. This is where Ruth comes to the fore. She simply refused to be separated from her mother-in-law. Ruth is totally devoted to Naomi and will not leave her.

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And so they both return to Naomi’s home village, a place called Bethlehem. Perhaps you have heard of it. It has a certain familiar ring to it. God is at work.

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When Naomi and Ruth both arrive in Bethlehem, the whole town is abuzz. and the women of the town ask, "Is this Naomi?" for as you might expect the events of the years have left their indelible mark on Naomi. Who among us could bear to lose both husband and sons? You can imagine the questions being asked.

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When the women of Bethlehem enquire what has happened, Naomi expresses her loss and grief in the words "Don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara, because the Lord has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty." The loss of both her husband and then her two sons is a great loss perhaps too great for any to bear without bitterness. But lest you have missed it, even though Naomi is bitter, and who wouldn’t be given the magnitude of her loss, Naomi still acknowledges that the Lord is still working in her life.

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Naomi is too old to remarry, but by trusting in the Lord, even in her bitterness, and who among us could say she did not have the right, she returns to the land of her birth. by so doing Naomi, unwittingly sets in place a series of events that will lead both her and her unswervingly loyal daughter-in-law from emptiness to fullness, for destitution and despair to security, hope and fullness once again.

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ven when we do not understand why we must endure the pain and loss of tragedy - my thoughts go out to the children of the parents killed in a terrible accident earlier this week. We cannot for the life of us see how God might be working there as the magnitude of the tragedy is overwhelming to our minds.

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But Naomi in returning to her country and hometown of Bethlehem, affords an opportunity for Ruth to meet a male family member named Boaz. God’s at work.

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With masterly skill, the storyteller weaves his incredible story. Ruth and Boaz meet and they are married and together they have a child whose name is Obed.

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Now Obed is not a name perhaps all that well known. Yet, he is the father of Jesse, who in turn is the father of David, who will one day become Israel’s greatest king. Our Lord Jesus Christ is descended from the line of David.

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God is at work. To our eyes we often only see the tragedy of any situation. We only ever can see the pain and suffering and are frightened of the loss. However, through the eyes of faith, there is another picture God wants us to see.

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There was a great article in Tuesday’s Daily Gleaner about a modern day Naomi who, through the eyes of faith is able to give witness "that God doesn’t give us more than we can bear." Let me quickly add, only faith helps us to say that.

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It is how even when terrible things happen, and we all know that bad things often happen to good people, God wants us to know that through faith, God can take even the most awful of tragic event s and use them for his own purpose and plan

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God took Ruth, a foreigner, a person of another faith, an emigrant and used her selfless devotion to give us a glimpse into the mysteries of how God works. But then God does that, if you take a look at the genelogy of Jesus there are several people there who if they were on our family tree we might want to keep them a secret. Like Tamar, who posed like a prostitute, Rahab, who was a prostitute, Bethsheba who committed adultery while her husband was away fighting a war,
And then there is Ruth, a foreigner, but who unswerving loyalty and selfless devotion would model the selfless devotion of our Lord Jesus Christ. God does indeed work in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

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I began this sermon by telling the horrific story of Seraphine Bulonza M’Mirindi. Perhaps you have forgotten already. Her husband was abducted, presumed murdered, she and her daughter both raped and her daughter later died as a result, as did her 3 year old son.
Sometimes we wonder out loud about sending our soldiers off to far away lands and to fight against an enemy and die for people they do not know. Already too many of our soldiers have died in Afghanistan. However, in these countries women are nothing. In some places cattle have more value than do the women.

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When we wonder out loud about soldiers dying, perhaps we need to remember that perhaps they are willing to fight and die so that others might enjoy the freedom and peace that we enjoy here in Canada. Our soldiers know better than anyone that the freedom and peace we enjoy was bought a terrible price.

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Well, perhaps the widows and mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters of those who have died in war know better than the soldiers - but all they know, like Naomi knew - somehow God’s at work. They need to know .... otherwise none of it makes sense.