Tonight we're reading from the book of Ruth, chapter four, verses one through 13. And now, Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the close relative of whom Boaz had spoken, had spoken came by. And so Boaz said, come aside, friend, sit down here. So he came aside and sat down and he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here. So they sat down. Then he said to the close relative, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab sold the piece of land. which belonged to our brother, Elimelech. And I thought to inform you, saying, buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants and the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not redeem it, then tell me that I may know, for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am next after you. And he said, I will redeem it. Then Boaz said, On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance. And the close relative said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging. To confirm anything, one man took off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was a confirmation in Israel. Therefore, the close relative said to Boaz, buy it for yourself. So he took off his sandal. And Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech's and all that was Kilian's and Melon's from the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of Melon, I have acquired as my wife to perpetuate the name of the dead. through his inheritance, but the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from his position at the gate. You are witnesses this day. And all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses. The Lord make the woman who is coming to your house like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the house of Israel, and may you prosper in Ephrathah. and be famous in Bethlehem. May your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring which the Lord will give you from this young woman." And so Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And when he went into her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a close relative, and may his name be famous in Israel. This is the word of the Lord. We've been tracking with these two women who lost their husbands. One of the widows is older, she's past childbearing years, this is Naomi, and the other widow is young, it's Ruth. And Ruth is Naomi's daughter-in-law, and Ruth and Naomi live together, and they're poor. But as you remember, with God, everything that's happened in their lives, there are no coincidences, none. And in the working of God, Ruth, seemingly randomly connects with a man, a man who can pull their lives out of the hole. The man is Boaz. He's a close relative to them, to Naomi, and he's wealthy. He's also known in the community to be a good man, a man of faith, a man who is principled, and he's a reliable man. And to Naomi and to Ruth, Boaz is, the technical term is Goel. He is kinsman redeemer to them. In that culture and in the law of Moses, the kinsman redeemer had legal right and legal responsibility to help you when you were in trouble. whether it was legal trouble, whether it was criminal trouble, whether it was financial trouble or family trouble, all of that, your kinsman redeemer would be there to help you if your loved one was murdered. Your kinsman redeemer could bail you out if you were getting evicted. It was that whole full-orbed role of being there when you are in trouble. Now, in our culture, we don't really have something like that. We don't have a kinsman redeemer, but we do use the word redeem. We use the word redeem still. To redeem something means to buy it back, or it can mean, more generally, to bring something good out of a bad situation. So maybe Maybe if your team went to a soccer tournament, and the soccer tournament was just a disaster. You lost, your team ranked last in the tournament, but the bad trip was redeemed by a lot of team laughter and bonding on the long drive up and the long drive back. And the team finds that that whole disaster in terms of their game their performance, it was redeemed because there was just way more team camaraderie because of all the things that happened, all the jollity that happened during the drive. Now, we're gonna look at three things from our passage about a Redeemer, this kinsman Redeemer. First of all, we'll look at the need for a Redeemer, the need for a Redeemer, and then secondly, the cost to the Redeemer, the cost to the Redeemer. Then thirdly, the name. of the Redeemer. So the need for a Redeemer, the cost to the Redeemer, the name of the Redeemer. Okay, the first of all, the need for a Redeemer in verses one through four, the need for a Redeemer. We see Naomi and Ruth's need for a Redeemer. Now, you have to have some background for where their context is to fully appreciate Naomi and Ruth's need. For Hebrew people at that time, Every family was given a parcel of land in Canaan, in the Promised Land, and for all generations to come, that land that was divided up during the days of Joshua, that land was your family's land and it would be that way forever. It would just keep getting passed down generation after generation. When you died, that same land with the same boundaries passed to your sons and your name was forever tied to your land. The land could not be sold. The land could not be purchased by someone else. The dirt in that set of borders, the dirt was forever in your family. But the problem for these women is Naomi's husband, Elimelech, had died. And so normally that meant the land would be passed to his sons, Malon and Kilion. But those sons both died also, and they had no children, they had no heirs. And so that meant for this widow, Naomi, she faced a triple disaster. She faced financial disaster because without a man, without sons, Naomi severely lacked standing and lacked the ability to make an income. She'd lost her living. It was a financial disaster. It was also familial disaster. With no husbands and then no sons to that husband, the family name was at an end. The family name ended and that meant there was no heir. to take over the land. And with no living heirs, the land would revert to some other family. It would revert to the nearest relative. So it was a financial disaster, a familial disaster. It was also, it was just a friendship disaster, if you could call it that. Naomi and Ruth were now facing a lonely future. No men, no children, and the fear of aging with no one to care for them. That fear of dying alone one day. Now, to deal with the financial disaster, Naomi and Ruth need a kinsman redeemer. They need a redeemer. Naomi has got no income, so she decides, I can't sell the land, but I've got to lease the land. You are allowed to do that. You recall that they could not sell the land, not permanently. So what Naomi does, and this was stipulated in the law, she put her land, you could say, she put her land on the rental market, the commercial rental market. Maybe someone will pay her for the rights to farm her land. And that's what we read about in verses three and four. Boaz, a kinsman redeemer. He goes to the town square. It's like the city council as well as the marketplace of the town. And he finds the man who has first rights to Naomi's land lease. And so this is just introduced into their story. There's another kinsman, another relative who's even more closely related to Naomi. more closely related to Naomi's deceased husband. That relative also could serve as Goel. He could also serve as the kinsman redeemer, and that relative has first rights to this land lease. Now, why would that be that the kinsman redeemer would get first rights to lease the land? Well, it's because if Naomi were to die and there were no heirs, This man is the one to whom the land would revert. It would go into his possession. And so Boaz, the second in line, the second in line, kinsman redeemer, he finds this man. He says, Naomi is in a really hard place. She's selling her rights to lease the land. You are first in line by law. You will get the land when she dies eventually. Do you want to purchase the lease? And if you don't, I will purchase the lease because I am second in line. I hold second rights to her land. So in verse four, this unnamed kinsman redeemer says, yeah, I'll purchase it. I'll purchase the rights. It's going to be mine eventually, and I can make some money now starting working on the property sooner. And what this unnamed first in line person is envisioning is that this land all of our land. It's a generational financial asset. This land, for this man, it's going to increase his permanent holdings now and for the generations to come. This will be a step where he is growing his generational wealth. Now, let's look at Boaz. And I think we can say three things that are motivating Boaz in this situation. There's duty, there's pity, and there's love. There's duty. Boaz knows the law of God, and so he's taken up Naomi's case for her. She doesn't have a man to speak for her. She doesn't have standing in the town gate. And Boaz works it through the city council. It's kind of like the way some of you have agreed to serve as executor for an older relative who needs help pulling things together, final things together, figuring out their home care, maybe checking in weekly, daily to make sure like Aunt Dora is okay. Some of you have done this kind of thing. So Boaz does it, it's his duty. But he also, he has pity. Boaz, he has a heart for these two women. I mean, Naomi lost her husband, Naomi lost all of her children, and now she's going to lose her land. This is one of the signature values in Old Testament law, in Old Testament culture. It's this concern for those who are poor, for those who are vulnerable, for the widow, for the orphan, for immigrants. Deuteronomy 24, 17, do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, nor take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Are those core values for you also? Do you have a heart for the vulnerable the way it was an Old Testament value? Do you have a heart for the vulnerable the way it's also a core value in the New Testament? Places like James 1, 27, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. to visit orphans and widows in their trouble. So in Boaz, there's duty, there's also pity, but there's also love. Mixed into Boaz's motives, there's love. Boaz loves Ruth. And Boaz, as the second kinsman redeemer, he is working to make sure that somehow Ruth will get a man, Ruth will get a husband. And he's already told her. I will marry you if I can. That was in Ruth 3, verse 12. There is a relative closer than I. If he will perform the duty of a kinsman redeemer for you, good, let him do it. But if he does not want to redeem you, then I will redeem you. Now, if you're married or you're someone considering marriage, you want a husband like Boaz, a man who will pursue good for you. pursue your good. I mean, Boaz here is saying, I may not get to marry Ruth, but I'm going to make sure Ruth is not left alone. The call is for the husband to initiate sacrificial action, to initiate sacrificial actions to advance good for the woman. It means He does dishes if that will help her. It means he considers how she wants to spend the money. It means the marriage bed is about what is good for her. So we've looked at the need for a redeemer. Next, let's look at the cost to the redeemer. And here we're looking at verses four through nine. The way the writer has framed this narrative up to this point, whom are we rooting for? Who is it that we want to see together? We want Boaz and Ruth to be together. And it's what Boaz wants, he said that. It's what Ruth wants. I mean, earlier, he says, Boaz says to her, bless you, Ruth, for not wanting some younger guy. And so in verse four, Boaz approaches this relative, the one who has the first right of refusal as redeemer, and says, the land rights are up for sale. You've got first rights. Will you redeem it? And this closer relative says, I will. I will redeem it. And so at that moment, the hearer, the reader, you're in suspense. Your heart is probably sinking just a little bit, and you're wondering, well, how will Boaz and Ruth get together? So then verse five, Boaz fills out the full picture about redeeming Naomi's land. Verse five, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance. Boaz is saying, well, there's a lien on this land, there's a rider, there's an extra obligation with this land. If you take the land, you must also take the hand of the foreign woman as your wife. If you redeem the land, you must also redeem Ruth, and take her as wife and you must endeavor to have children with her and make an heir to the dead husband. So that's the cost to the Redeemer. Let's look a little bit more about what it's going to cost the Redeemer to do this. To redeem the land, to redeem Naomi, the Redeemer will end up, first of all, the Redeemer will lose, not gain. To accomplish this redemption, the redeemer will lose, not gain. So when Boaz brings up Ruth, it immediately means buying the land rights will mean losing investment. It will be a losing investment. It will just be a charity case if he purchases the leasing rights. Why? Because if Ruth has children, and she's young enough to have children, then the land will go to the child and to the dead man's name. The land will not be in the redeemer's name. It will go to the family of the dead man. Verse five, when you redeem the land, when you buy it from the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead. through his inheritance. And so the Redeemer, this will entirely be temporary. The Redeemer will end up paying for temporary land rights, paying for the financial support of Ruth and Naomi until they die. And in the end, the Redeemer will have to give the land back to another man's heir. The name on the land will be the widow's first husband, not yours. The Redeemer's got nothing to gain financially. and everything to lose in this. But there's also another cost to the Redeemer. To redeem the land and to redeem Naomi, the Redeemer will lose his name, will lose his reputation. Notice two things about what Boaz says in verse five. Boaz says, on the day that you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess. Those words, The Moabitess, those are trigger words for an upstanding Hebrew person. Because Moabite women, historically, from a Hebrew perspective, Moabite women had a reputation as being sexually predatory women, as seducers, as questionable women. A good Hebrew boy would not link up with a Moabite woman. And so this man, When he hears the full stipulations of redeeming this land, this man reverses course. Verse six, the close relative says, I cannot redeem it for myself. lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem, you Boaz, you redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it. The man says the cost to redeem is too high. The land isn't worth it. It would risk my financial situation. It would also risk my social standing. And so what he's saying is not pity, not duty, not love is enough for me to redeem it. Boaz, you, you can redeem it. So this close relative who declines to redeem the land, look at what his refusal says about him. Not about the women, not about the land. What does his decision to turn down the land and to turn down Ruth, what does it say about him? It says this, he won't marry down. He will not marry down. He's not willing to attach himself to someone who has baggage. He's not willing to attach himself to someone who will cost him more than she benefits him. He won't marry someone who has a past. He won't sacrifice himself. There's that famous English novel, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Isn't that one of the great flaws of Mr. Darcy? He's wealthy, he's noble, he's highborn, and he looks down on Elizabeth Bennet as a marriage prospect. She is a woman several steps beneath him on the social ladder, and he insults her. He hurts her by pointing out what a sacrifice it would be for him to lower himself and to be joined in marriage to her and to her family. But in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of God, it's all about marrying down, isn't it? Jesus marries down the son of heaven, takes a bride who needed to be redeemed, A bride whose sin and whose past ruined her reputation. The son of heaven joins himself to a people who are poor, who are utterly lacking righteousness. He takes a bride beneath him. And if Jesus does that, if Jesus does that for us, his church, well now we want, we want to be a place, we want to be a kingdom where anyone, where everyone, can come in. It doesn't matter your past. It doesn't matter your orientation. It doesn't matter the sins of your people. One commentator says, can people like Ruth find a similar welcome in our churches and in our homes? Are they places where the last, the least, and the lost can come? without feeling looked down upon. Each of us has a role to play in what people feel when they come through our church doors. Will we welcome them? Will anyone sit with them or speak to them afterward? Will someone make them feel special, important, wanted? No matter how messy their lives are, will you make them feel like a person of eternal worth and value? It's very easy to only pursue relationships that have the prospect of moving us up. It's very easy to only pursue relationships that have a high likelihood of improving our own position, and it's very hard, very hard to pursue relationships that pull us down, that require sacrifice. I want to refer again to this story that I've told before, the story of Pedro Claver. Pedro was born in Spain in 1580, and he served the people of Cartagena, Colombia for 45 years. And his ministry was nothing but heartbreak. Why? Because Pedro served a very specific segment of the population. Pedro served the sick slaves who arrived from Africa on slave ships coming into Colombia to be sold. Pedro called himself Pedro Claver, forever a servant to blacks. At the docks, Pedro received slaves and he gave them food and he gave them water. And when they had leprosy, Pedro hugged them and comforted them as their bodies were rotting to death. And when they died, Pedro carried out their corpses. His superiors thought he was an idiot. They thought he was a halfwit. And the townspeople thought that Pedro was dangerous because he gave food, he gave dignity, and he gave the gospel to a people who were despised and discarded, but not to him. Pedro held feasts on holidays for the slaves. He served them banquets. and at the end of his life, when Pedro himself was old and sick and paralyzed, and when he was dying, they carried Pedro to the docks for one last look, for one last look at the slave ships, the place of his ministry. And when he was there, Pedro wept. because he had become physically paralyzed and he could no longer help the slaves. Now, how about us? How about you? Whom can you help, even if you have nothing to gain? This is the cost to the Redeemer. It was loss, not gain, to redeem the people. Now, finally, we look at the name of the Redeemer. This is in verses five through 14. There's a literary oddity in this text. This close relative, the one who declines to redeem the land, the one who passes on taking Naomi and taking Ruth, the literary oddity is this. He has no name. They don't give his name. In Hebrew, in verse one, when Boaz finds this man in the town council square, The old King James version does a good job of representing this blank in the Hebrew. In the King James version, it captures this. Boaz says, hello, such a one. He's just called such a one, Mr. So-and-so. The Hebrew uses just this generic kind of filler word instead of the man's name. One commentator says, this is the man with no name. But as you look through the text, this part of the story, it is all about having a name, having a name for yourself. This passage centers on getting a name, getting a good name, getting a lasting name. Having a name concerned people back then, and perhaps even more so today, We want a name too. We want a lasting name, a worthy name. One way to illustrate how this comes up is not necessarily like I want to have a building with my name on it. I want to have a plaque that's on some kind of memorial with my name. It even happens in just the normal domestic life that we live. Like this week, I had a friend point out to me, when we hang out, We always do the same things. And my friend was glad enough to hang out with me, but my friend wished that we could do some of the things that were on my friends' list. Something like, it would be like, you know, when we hang out, we always go to coffee, and that's fine. But it would also be fun sometimes to go fishing together, or to watch a game together. My friend was right. My friend was right. But when my friend said this, I found myself irritated and I was somewhat ashamed. And I felt in my head, I was thinking like, I've been a poor friend. I feel like I have failed as a friend. And my lasting irritation and defensiveness showed how I want people to think well of me. I mean, if people It bothers me if people aren't thinking about me, like, he's just this nobody. I don't even like, who's that? It bothers me if people don't think about me, but it also bothers me if people do think about me, but they think poorly of me when they think of me. I want a good name. And after that conversation, this thought kept just stewing in my mind. You think I'm a poor friend. Now, that's not what my friend said. That's not what my friend thought. But that exaggeration in my head kept playing because I want a good name. This passage centers on getting a name, getting a good name, getting a lasting name, and in this story, the true redeemer risks his name in order to give Ruth a name. Now the first relative, when he was told, if you redeem this land, it's going to cost you your name, You're gonna have to marry Ruth, you're gonna have to raise a son, not in your name, but in the name of the dead man. And so this first man declines and says, I can't risk my name. I can't risk my name to redeem this, to redeem them. But Boaz II, the true kinsman redeemer here says, I will give up my name to give Ruth a name. I will lose my name so that she can have a name. And here's the great irony of this passage. That first man who wanted so much to keep his name, he goes down in history, in scripture, without a name. We do not know the name of the man who refused to redeem the land and the woman. But instead, Boaz gives up his name, and as a result, Boaz gets a name for himself that's known for thousands and thousands of years after he passes away. And they say, the blessing that's pronounced on them, May you be famous in Benjamin. May you be famous in Bethlehem forever. And so verses seven through nine, Boaz does the official handshake on the contract. Back then in that place, one man would pass his sandal to the other to seal the deal. It's probably a reference to how they walked off the perimeter of land when they made these land deals. And so giving the sandals, I'm giving up my right to this border. Then Boaz clearly says, as he shakes hands on this deal, he says, this is not for my name, but for the name of Ruth's family. Verse 10, Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Malon, I have acquired as my wife to perpetuate the name of the dead. Through his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from his position at the gate, you are witnesses this day. As a result of giving up his name, Boaz gets a lasting name. Verse 14, blessed be the Lord who has not left you, Naomi, this day without a kinsman redeemer. And may Boaz's name be famous in Israel. And it's Boaz whose name we know. Boaz has probably been in hundreds of thousands of wedding, Christian and Jewish wedding homilies. I'm sure of this. And we all think well of him. You and I want a good name. We want a lasting name. And we will screen our choices. We will avoid certain people. We will avoid even certain ministries. We'll avoid certain ministries in order just to craft a name that we think will last into the future. But congregation, don't you want to pour out your name and your love on people who have nothing to add to your name? I mean, how about connecting to people who will only be here for a few weeks because they're in town just for a class? How about connecting to people who will only be here for a short time, maybe temporary people who are maybe just students here for their master's degree for just two years, three years, or military, or sick people? How about ministry to people who can only ask and can't give? I mean, if you've ever served with tutoring, isn't that a ministry where you think, there's nothing in this. This is going nowhere. This is probably going backwards. How about having children? I mean, these days, people will marry, but they won't have children. For them, parenting is a huge sacrifice. And it gets in the way of them establishing their name. And in the end, even if you do have children, you may only have a disappointment and a blot on your name. Or how about a friendship with someone who smells bad? How will a smelly friend give you a name? And how can you How can you get the compassion and the love and just the freedom from self to give up your name for people who will bring loss and no gain? Boaz gave up his name out of love so that Ruth could get a good name. And in the gospel, Jesus Christ had the highest name, the Son of God, But Jesus gave up that name and made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a slave and coming in the likeness of sinful men. Jesus set aside his high name and took our name. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of our sin, it says. Jesus set aside his name. so that you and I could have a good name. On the cross, Jesus became sin, died for sin, so that we who believe could become the righteousness of God, so that we who believe are raised with him in glory. You, you believer, don't you remember what they said at your baptism? I baptize you into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You don't need to work for a good name. You don't need to worry about a good name. You have got a great name that lasts into the eternal day. And when you accept it, when you believe it, when you really have owned that name that Jesus obtained for you and gave to you, it doesn't bother you so much. when people complain about you, when people blame you, whether it's deserved or undeserved, because you've got the name that matters most. And when you've really got that name, you're willing to spend that name, spend your name for those who have no name. And so, brothers and sisters, spend your good name. To God be the glory. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, your name is the name above all names. And it's your name, every knee will bow. And you have put your name upon us. You've been gracious to us. And so Jesus, we thank you, we love you. And we pray, Lord, that we would be able to be Christ in this world now. May we give and spend ourselves as Christ spent himself for us, for those who are outside, who are without God and without hope in this world. Would you bring in the fullness of the elect? Would you fill this place? Would you build up your kingdom and may it advance to your glory, the glory of your name. We ask in the name of Jesus. the name that will prevail, Amen.