Borders and Belonging: The Book of Ruth - A story for our Times

Pádraig Ó Tuama and Glenn Jordan spent years working in Ireland and Northern Ireland trying to help opposing sides of political discord and discrimination listen to each other and, eventually, come to understand each other better. This beautiful work was done alongside a radical re-imagination of the story of the book of Ruth from the Hebrew Bible. Jordan and Ó Tuama frame this conversation around the Brexit vote in 2016, the aftermath of which caused new hurt and reopened old wounds. In 2021, Ó Tuama spent an hour and a half talking with Dru Hart and Jarrod McKenna (Inverse Podcast) about the vote’s ramifications and how it ties into centuries (almost 700 years) of England’s abuse of Ireland. For those of us on the west side of the Atlantic Ocean, this was new territory.

Ó Tuama’s and Jordan’s reconciliation work gave birth to this book. It’s a little volume, just over 100 pages, about a little story that takes up 3 pages in my twenty-year-old pocket Bible. The book captures just how subversive this story is in the Hebrew Bible. It’s about hardship, travel, migration, power imbalance, and ultimately how an immigrant woman—the “Moabite woman from Moab”— becomes part of the story of Israel, upending centuries of prejudice and hate for the sake of God’s lovingkindness in action.

The book is both a biblical commentary for a short story that is at least 2,500 years old and also a social commentary for us today, in our current geo-political moment with especially dehumanizing rhetoric toward immigrants. I live in Peru, and the last 5 years of increased migration from Venezuela has resulted in Peruvians on a whole becoming very hateful toward Venezuelans. Some of our best friends in Arequipa are from Venezuela, and we see the evil they (and their kids!) endure on a daily basis.

I lament the evil. I reject the racism. And I seek out opportunities to work against the prejudice.

If only the biggest, most populated country in the Americas could give a better public example of what it looks like to receive immigrants. If only our public rhetoric could be more humanizing—recognizing real people, made in God’s image.

If only we might see that we have something important to learn from the stranger in our midst.

“Stories have the power to face us with ourselves” (ix). The book of Ruth shows how an immigrant woman from Moab comes to Bethlehem and, through her kindness in action, teaches the people of God something about their God. “The book of Ruth demands that people in the here and now speak to each other, rather than about each other” (xii). In the authors’ words:

The book challenges us on welcoming the stranger; on redrawing our stereotypes through encounter with those who are ‘other’; on finding gaps where compassion can thrive in the midst of technical debates about law and tradition; on carrying losses that cannot be grieved. It presents us with questions of how to protect the rights of vulnerable minorities, particularly those who are politically and socially marginal, and it also challenges the careful reader as to the responsibility of those who are financially and socially secure towards the poor. This short narrative features those who are forced to migrate to another country because of poverty or famine and therefore encourages communities to face the question of what constitutes national identity and belonging.

It may therefore be the book in the Hebrew Bible that is uniquely suited to our time and place (4).

Between Preface and Afterword (both worthy of your time), Jordan and Ó Tuama alternate chapters, four each. Jordan’s are more ‘big picture,’ slightly more technical in terms of biblical studies, considering the liturgical setting of the book of Ruth, addressing stereotypes, the function of counter-narratives, and an incredible chapter called “Compassion and the Law,” wherein Jordan argues Ruth helps to reinterpret and humanize Torah by living out God’s chesed, ‘lovingkindness.’ Ó Tuama’s contribution is a bit closer to the text, walking through Ruth in four acts, following the book’s four chapters. It combines to form a brilliant and compelling deep dive into the book of Ruth and provides a way forward to having better conversations, asking better questions, and listening to and loving the ‘other’ around us more fully. They even include discussion questions and a prayer with each chapter for groups who want to read and discuss it together.

I believe that the true gift of travel is to learn to “see God’s image in one who is not our image” (a line I borrow from Rabbi Sacks). This book gives a spectacular example of that in Ruth, one that renews our imagination and commitment to love and acceptance because of the “transformative impact of kindness and generosity” (12).

I’ll close with a couple more quotes. Padraig Ó Tuama, on the suggestive, scandalous scene from Ruth 3:

The true scandal in this story is the experience of the border-crossers.
…
Ruth and Naomi are two women schooled in the ways of surviving in a world of men. They are demonstrating resilience, fortitude and determination by being leaders of their shared life. Not only this, Ruth the Moabite from Moab is seen as an image of God, seeking cover from a people not her own, and bringing them into the shelter of her kindness, while she trusts that they will bring her into the shelter of theirs. She covenants herself to them in a way that brings about her own redemption, and theirs; both through politics and lovingkindness (67).

Glenn Jordan:

One of the real surprises of the story is that the people of Bethlehem are enriched not by plundering their enemies but by finding space to welcome the stranger into their midst and to be changed—in practice and policy—by that stranger. In this way the traditional trope of flight from famine and being enriched in the strange place is radically renewed. The foreigner, who has options to remain at home, instead, because of her generosity, enriches the community that had once been impoverished by a famine of food and morality. This in its turn draws radical acts of generosity in response from the people (70-71).

And,

This is our big idea. Kindness. Kindness and grace overcome violence and division. Kindness can transcend division, sometimes by taking into itself the suffering.
This is our big idea. …
Kindness is never naive about how the world is. It is a choice to love in the face of division.
Kindness is courage lived out. …
Kindness subverts traditional divisions by bringing in those who everyone else seeks to keep out, and reaches out to those who others wish to keep at arms length.
Kindness is never constrained by the rules. Kindness changes the rules. And laws (79).

I’ll close with one of my favorite prayers, from the back matter:

Strange God:

You speak from clouds and burning bushes, from donkeys, death and devastating news.
You speak through stories of the past made relevant today.
You speak through mistakes we make
and through the things we do to keep ourselves alive.

If the far end of the horizon is no limit to you then surely neither are we:
ourselves, our lovers, our enemies, those we troll, those we denigrate, those we extol and lift to fame.

Whoever you are, speak to us, wherever we find ourselves. And again, and again.
Plead with us, open us up with little stories, small surprises that soften our guarded borders.

Because you are the strange voice that speaks from strange places, calling us—strangers all—towards each other and towards a justice that looks like love (104-105).

Listen to this excellent interview over at the Inverse Podcast while you’re waiting for your book to arrive.

℗