Living the heart of the law

Published in the Catalyst, Vol. 32, No. 3 - Summer/Fall 2009

Once upon a time there was a man named Boaz. You may have heard of him. Boaz lived in ancient Israel at the time of the judges. It was a time of increasing violence against women, tribal warfare and increasing economic hardship, for there had been a famine in the land.

As a result, it was also a time of poverty. There were women who had been widowed; there were men who had been injured too much to work; and there were refugees coming to the land.

Boaz, however, did not worry in difficult economic times. He was a leader in his village and had lands and labourers in abundance. And he had one more indispensable thing. Boaz had learned the laws of the God of Abraham and Isaac at his mother’s knee. He followed those laws and he trusted that God would provide all that he needed.

Because of this trust in God, Boaz knew that he had a certain role to play with regard to those who suffered want. He knew that during times of harvest he was to leave some grain at the edge of his fields for others to pick up and take for their own food. He knew that he was to be open handed with generosity to those who were hungry and those who needed clothing. He knew that he was to take in any of his own kin who had lost land and cattle and help them get back on their feet.

Boaz knew these things, and as a God-fearing Israelite he practiced them as best as he could. Occasionally he was troubled by the increasing economic injustice that he saw around him. He saw one of his neighbours take more and more land from bankrupt farmers. He saw other neighbours become bonded slaves in order to pay off debt.

This grieved him for he knew that the Torah was about generosity, not greed. At the city gates he tried to hold before the villagers their calling to care for the orphan and the widow. He reminded them that every seven years debts were to be forgiven and slaves to be freed, that once a generation all land was to be returned so that the economic playing field would be level once more.

Boaz was a very unusual man in Israel. Not only did he practice personal generosity, he knew that God had built a structural generosity into the heart of the laws of his community. And he was determined to see to it that his village practiced such generosity.

Then, one day, two new refugees came to Bethlehem. Boaz first heard of them when he saw one gleaning in his fields. He enquired as to who this woman was. “She is Ruth, a Moabite, who has returned with her mother–in-law Naomi,” he was told.

A widow and a Moabite. A widow he knew what to do with. She should be allowed to glean in the fields with the other women. But a Moabite? Boaz knew the law. There were some people forbidden to the Israelites, and Moabites were among them.

But there were stories about this woman, Ruth. It was told how she had refused to leave her mother-in-law to return to her own family. It was told how Ruth had cared for Naomi so deeply that she came as a refugee with her to a new land. She was a foreigner who practiced the same kind of generosity that Boaz himself lived.

Even as he knew the letter of the law, the spirit of the law had worked its way into Boaz’s heart far too deeply. He had for so long practiced an open handed and open hearted generosity that his response to this woman was spontaneous.

He knew that her age would make her a target for the men in his field. “Do not bother her,” he told them. He knew that she gathered not only for herself but also for her mother-in-law. “Leave some extra stalks for her,” he told his workers. Where others might have taken advantage of a young foreign woman, he sought to protect her and provide as much as she would need. He provided water for her, and he provided bread.

You probably know how this story ends, how Ruth was considered no more than a piece of property, the bit that went with a lucrative field. No doubt it is familiar to you, how the man with first rights to this property wanted the field but not the woman who went with it, and how Boaz bought the field and with it took responsibility for Ruth and with her, Naomi.

It was open hearted generosity to the end, in obedience to the laws that were to alleviate poverty for the orphan, the widow and the foreigner in Israel.

What would it look like if all the people of faith in Canada tried to be as faithful as Boaz? It would mean an open hearted generosity that goes beyond the letter of the law. It would mean an attempt to influence the leaders to make such open hearted generosity a part of the laws of the land. It would mean a glimpse into the heart of the kingdom of God.

Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat is an adjunct professor of Biblical Studies at the Institute for Christian Studies and the Toronto School of Theology. She lives on an organic farm in Cameron, Ontario.