God Shows Up | Circles of Compassion

Summary

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Brew City Church Podcast

Episode: God Shows Up | Circles of Compassion
Date: January 4, 2026
Speaker: Megan (congregation member)
Theme: Radical Inclusion through Ruth and God’s Circles of Compassion

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the biblical concept of radical inclusion by focusing on the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew, especially the unusual inclusion of outsider women like Ruth. Through the lens of Ruth’s story and Matthew’s genealogy, Megan challenges prosperity gospel thinking, invites listeners to reexamine ideas of belonging versus mere inclusion, and imagines “circles of compassion” where no one is left out.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: Four-Part Roadmap

• Grounding in Hymn Verse: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"—focus on the rarely sung verse invoking the “Branch of Jesse’s stem.”
• Bible Quiz: Quick engagement, tracing Jesus’ lineage to King David and Jesse.
• Bible Mechanics: How the Gospels are constructed with intention, audience, and purpose.
• Ruth’s Story: Deep dive into Ruth’s inclusion and its implications for inclusion, belonging, and living out chesed (unimaginable generosity/kindness).

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1. O Come, O Come Emmanuel: The Branch of Jesse (03:50)

• Reading the less familiar verse on Jesse’s branch.
• Setting up the importance of Jesus’ lineage through David and Jesse.

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2. Bible Quiz & Genealogy Deep Dive (04:09–13:09)

• Engages congregation on David’s significance and Jesus’ Davidic roots.
• Explains significance: “Jesus didn’t just poof out of nowhere. Jesus is part of a family, part of a tradition. And that matters.” (07:27)
• Genealogy in Matthew: Notable and unusual for listing five women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba (Uriah’s wife), and Mary. Many were outsiders, non-Jewish, or involved in unconventional circumstances.

“When writing the genealogy, the author of Matthew did not have to include these women's names... In fact, in other genealogies, the women aren't mentioned at all.” (13:20)

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3. The Subversive Inclusion of Outsiders (14:10–17:19)

• Context: In Jewish culture, identity follows the mother (matrilineal).
• Megan points out the women mentioned are often outsiders ("at least two... pregnant under really dubious circumstances.") and non-Jewish—contradicting Deuteronomic laws that exclude Moabites.
• The inclusion is “to Matthew’s detriment”—purposefully making the Messiah’s lineage messy, subversive, and welcoming.

“Including Ruth, along with all of the other women in the genealogy makes Jesus’ lineage illegitimate four times over. Before we get to Mary. It challenges me to think about how I practice inclusion or crossing lines in my own life.” (29:08)

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4. Ruth: Subverting the Prosperity Gospel & Living Out Chesed

Recap of Ruth’s Story (18:03–22:25)

• Ruth, a Moabite widow, follows Naomi back to Bethlehem, joins a people commanded by scripture not to befriend her.
• Through Naomi’s guidance, she marries Boaz—becomes great-grandmother to David.

Breaking Down Exclusion (22:37–24:05)

• Deuteronomy explicitly excludes Moabites.
• Ruth’s narrative undermines religiously sanctioned exclusion.

Prosperity Gospel Challenged (24:15–26:31)

• Megan critiques “prosperity gospel” logic:

  “Prosperity gospel... turns God into an algebra equation. Basically, you put these things in, God puts these things out... but that's not true. That's not how life works.” (25:36)

• Ruth’s story disrupts narratives tying blessings to compliant, exclusive living—it models blessing through community and inclusion.

Chesed: The Unimaginable Generosity (36:14–39:18)

• Explains chesed, used of God’s character (Ex 34:6; DT 7:9; Psalm 36; Lamentations), but uniquely embodied by Ruth.

“Ruth demonstrates chesed. This is what God looks like.” (38:52)

• God is active “in the way that people behave toward one another” (39:21).

Living Out Radical Belonging (31:05–33:24; 34:36–44:16)

• Differentiates “being allowed in” versus “belonging”—using the analogy of house guests who feel at home enough to help themselves.
• Ruth chooses to belong, not just be present, even with those she’s been religiously told to avoid.
• Megan expands this to Jesus’ way: “We’re trying to be Jesus shaped people. That’s the shape—the shape is: That’s weird. Why are you doing that?” (28:12)

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5. Circles of Compassion: Practicing Inclusion (43:13–46:57)

• Refers to Mother Teresa and Father Greg Boyle’s call to “imagine a circle of compassion and then imagine nobody standing outside of it.”
• Applies to individual lives, churches, and broader society—“Our task... is to say there’s not another pattern. It's just a big old weird circle and nobody stands outside of it.” (45:55)
• Invites self-examination: “How can you imagine a circle of compassion for yourself, your family, at your job, in your neighborhood?” (45:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The blessing that happens in Ruth is not an act of God. It’s how people show up for one another, and then God works in and among them.” (27:05)
• “God happens when we love one another.” (39:47)
• “This one anothering that God invites us to practice is the way we get out of hell and overcome the grave.” (43:09)
• “Mother Teresa... said the ills of the world likely stem from the fact that we've forgotten that we belong to one another.” (43:13)
• “There’s a difference between being allowed and belonging.” (31:32)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening Prayer & Introduction: 00:22–03:09
• Hymn Verse & Bible Quiz: 03:50–05:18
• Genealogy, Women Outsiders: 09:58–17:28
• Recap of Ruth: 18:03–22:25
• Inclusivity vs. Prosperity Gospel: 24:15–26:31
• Belonging vs. Inclusion: 31:05–33:24
• Chesed in Ruth: 36:14–39:18
• Lewis’ "Great Divorce," Hell as Isolation: 40:38–42:33
• Circles of Compassion Application: 43:13–46:57

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Tone and Final Takeaway

Megan’s message is warm, candid, and self-reflective, blending biblical study, humor, and contemporary relevance. The challenge is to shift from inclusion as mere permission, toward belonging and deep compassion—modeled after the “weird, illegitimate, outsider” lineage of Jesus, and embodied in everyday acts of kindness and risking community.

Final reflection:
“It’s just a big old weird circle and nobody stands outside of it.” (45:59)

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Brew City Church Podcast. We are a Christian church following in the way of Jesus and located in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. We're glad you've joined us, and we hope you enjoy this week's message.

[B]

Good morning, everybody. Happy New Year.

[C]

If you have not met me before

[B]

or this is your first time here, my name is Megan. I'm a member of the congregation here, and I get to do this a few times a year to make sure that I'm not catching myself anymore. Let's take a breath. Whether you just got caught in your chair or you got caught in traffic or you haven't had enough caffeine or you've had too much caffeine, it's a very fine balance. Let's take a breath. Come into this space. Lord God, we are thankful that you have drawn us together in this space. Maybe that gratitude is tinged with grief, with concern. Maybe we are overjoyed. Maybe we have darkened the doors of a gathering of this kind for the first time in months or years, and we're just not even sure quite why we're here. But we're grateful that we get to do this, that we get to encounter you, encounter one another. Holy Spirit, would you be in and among us today? Would you stir us up where we need to be moved? Comfort us where we need to be comforted? It's in your name we pray. Amen.

[C]

I'm going to give you a roadmap for today before I get started, because I'm doing a lot of things which isn't unusual.

[B]

I do a lot of things anytime I get a chance to do this,

[C]

but I don't want us to get lost in the sauce. So I'm going to tell you what

[B]

the four things are that we're going

[C]

to do so that you know what

[B]

I'm doing and so I remember what I'm doing.

[C]

Okay, first, we're going to ground ourselves

[B]

in the verse of O Kamocum Emanuel that we're looking at for today. If you've been here through Advent, through Christmas, we're now in the season of Epiphany, which is my least favorite season of the church calendar.

[C]

But also I managed to preach during epiphany every year. I feel like this is.

[B]

Okay. All right, whatever.

[C]

We've been working our way through O Come, O come Emmanuel.

[B]

So we're going to ground ourselves in the verse of that for today. That's thing number one.

[C]

Thing number two, we're going to do a little bit of Bible quiz quizzing. One of the Things that I love

[B]

about Brew City is all of my rivals from my childhood go here. Apparently, I would have beat all of y' all back in the day. But today I'm doing this side, so

[C]

I'm just gonna ask you to fill

[B]

in some blanks for me.

[C]

Third, we're gonna talk a little bit about the mechanics of the Bible. How do we get the Bible right? We're gonna talk a little bit about that today, and then we are going to talk about one of my favorite

[B]

stories in the Bible and how it may help us get out of this hellscape of life that we find ourselves in.

[C]

Okay? Those are the four things.

[B]

That's where we're going to be.

[C]

Everybody. Good.

[B]

Excellent. Great.

[C]

You want to go ahead and bring up the verse of O come, O

[B]

come, Emanuel for today? Excellent.

[C]

I'm just going to read through this

[B]

instead of having somebody sing it or sing it myself. I can sing, but that. I don't want to stress out the soundboard, because that's different than talking.

[C]

This is a verse of O come a come, Emanuel. That if you are used to singing

[B]

Christmas hymns, Advent hymns, things like this,

[C]

we don't always sing this one. This is a commonly skipped one. Some of you are like, I didn't

[B]

even know this one.

[C]

Was it anybody?

[B]

I've never seen this verse before. You didn't know it was there?

[C]

Okay, a couple of you.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

O come, O branch of Jesse's stem

[B]

Unto your own and rescue them from depths of hell. Your people save and give them victory o' er the grave. And then you go into the Rejoice. Rejoice, Emmanuel. Oh, come, O branch of Jesse's stem.

[C]

Okay, Bible quizzing time. Who is Jesse?

[B]

Hmm?

[C]

Father of the 12.

[B]

No, who's Jesse?

[C]

David. I heard it over here. David's father. Okay, question two.

[B]

Why does David matter?

[C]

Who. Who is David? Why is he.

[B]

Why does he matter?

[C]

Jesus is in his blood. Bloodline.

[B]

You're, like, straight to the point right there.

[C]

Yes. Good. Jesus is in his bloodline.

[B]

Before we get to Jesus, why is David important? Why does David.

[C]

He's the king. Yep. King of Israel. Man after God's own heart. I wrote a whole paper in seminary about why. I think that doesn't mean what we

[B]

think it means, but.

[C]

Yes. Killed Goliath. Good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both from Bethlehem. So we have both this, like, same bloodline, same town. Good. David is really important in our arc of where we're going.

[B]

In the Bible, you get David as

[C]

one of the kings of Israel. There were three kings that Ruled over

[B]

Israel under a unified kingdom. Like when things really good. Saul, who arguably not so good, then you get David and then Solomon, and then after that, the kingdom splits, the people go into exile. It all just crumbles from there.

[C]

But David is remembered as this really great king.

[B]

Like I said to Eric, I have

[C]

my own feelings about that. It's complicated. But David is remembered as this really important good king. And part of David's legacy is he receives this covenant from God.

[B]

It's in Second Samuel, but if you

[C]

go back and you read.

[B]

We're not going to read the exact title, because I'm just summarizing real quick.

[C]

David receives this promise from God that he will essentially fulfill all these other

[B]

covenants, all these other promises that God has made to the people that they

[C]

will have a land that is theirs to flourish in, that they will have prosperity that's not just for themselves, but to bless the whole world. And there's this layer that gets added to David's purpose promise. That's like your family line will rule forever. Your I won't take my love and

[B]

my favor from you the way I did from Saul. Your family line will reign forever. And so over here, you know, we

[C]

get this like, Jesus is in his line.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So tying Jesus to David is really

[B]

important, especially as we kind of work our way through script that Jesus carries on this lineage of faithfulness, of favor, of promise. And so it's important.

[C]

So that's what the.

[B]

What the songwriter is appealing to here.

[C]

Oh, come oh branch of Jesse's stem. He's pointing us back to Jesus didn't just poof out of nowhere. Jesus is part of a stone, part

[B]

of a family, part of a tradition.

[C]

And that matters. So we're going to look at that today. In each of the Gospel accounts, particularly

[B]

Matthew, Mark and Luke, we're in the mechanics part for keeping score at home.

[C]

In each of the Gospels, we have

[B]

authors who are doing a very specific thing. So my view anyway is that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, these

[C]

people, mostly men, are writing down these accounts. They're sharing some source material. Scholars of the Bible have looked and

[B]

they've looked back and they've said, okay,

[C]

these guys all had this document and this document, and these guys had this one and this one. All of them seem to have had

[B]

this one, and they're compiling those together. They're writing stories, writing these accounts with intention and purpose.

[C]

Growing up, I had a version of

[B]

the Bible similar to what Randy alluded to earlier. It was just like, well, God wrote

[C]

it and now we have it, and that's why it matters. And I believe that the Holy Spirit inspired it. Right. I believe that scripture is inspired and somebody had to write it down. And any person who does a lot

[B]

of writing, does good writing anyway will

[C]

tell you you need to have a

[B]

purpose and you need to have an audience in mind.

[C]

Each of the gospel writers did that. And so for Matthew, we're going to

[B]

look at Matthew a little bit today.

[C]

Matthew's gospel was written to Greek speaking Jewish Christians. So people who smell, spoke Greek were Jewish, both ethnically and were raised in this Jewish faith. But we're following Jesus now. We have to remember that at the outset of this, these were not two distinct religions.

[B]

Nobody was setting out to start a new religion. You had people who followed Jesus, they were Jewish.

[C]

So that's Matthew's audience. So when Matthew is writing his gospel

[B]

or the author of Matthew is writing his gospel, that's who he's talking to.

[C]

People who are deeply steeped in and

[B]

deeply respectful of their Jewish tradition and

[C]

figuring out how Jesus fits into that. How do we hold this together? So we're going to read a little bit of Matthew's genealogy.

[B]

I know, that's why everybody comes to church. You love a good genealogy.

[C]

Unironically, I love Matthew's genealogy. I could go like six weeks of

[B]

sermons on just the genealogy. That's not what Randy asked me to do. You only have to suffer through today. It'll be fine.

[C]

All right. Matthew, verse one, chapter one. This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So right from the outset, right from the outset, the author of Matthew is saying, here's the family line of the Messiah, which again, that's not just a

[B]

word that gets applied to Jesus.

[C]

Lots of different messiah figures that were

[B]

coming to the surface, raising up during this time.

[C]

People of Israel were in exile. We talked about that at the beginning

[B]

of this sermon series.

[C]

They had been removed from their land and then went back to their land. And in this time, as Matthew is

[B]

writing, they're living under the Roman Empire. Not a great situation to be in unless you were Roman.

[C]

Right. But the audience right is not Roman.

[B]

They're Greek speaking Jewish Christians.

[C]

Okay? Not a good time for them living

[B]

under the Roman Empire.

[C]

Messiahs were raised up or came to prominence. They were political, military figures that people looked to to say, you're gonna throw this empire off of us. Notably Maccabeus, Judas Maccabeus, big one.

[B]

That's a whole other thing.

[C]

But when Matthew's Author says this is the family line of Jesus the Messiah. That audience is not hearing that as a. This guy's going to save your soul

[B]

for when you die. No, this is the person who is

[C]

going to liberate us physically from a system that has oppressed us, is taxing you out of your mind and that you can't live under.

[B]

Imagine. Imagine. Try.

[C]

Okay. Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron the father of Ram. Ram the father of Amminadab. Amminadab the father of Nishan. Nishan the father of Samantha.

[B]

Are you loving this? So great.

[C]

Okay. Saman, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz, the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed, the father of. Hey. And Jesse, the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife. That's Bathsheba. If you.

[B]

If you are not super grounded in your. In your Bible, Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.

[C]

Isn't that great? Isn't it great? I love this genealogy so much.

[B]

Do you notice anything weird as we were reading? Anyone that got mentioned that you were like, wait a minute, one of these things is not like the other.

[C]

The women. The women. There's women that get mentioned in Matthew's genealogy. Five of them, to be exact. There were three here. Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth.

[B]

And then the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba there at the end. And then Mary gets mentioned, obviously at the very end.

[C]

When writing the genealogy, the author of

[B]

Matthew did not have to include these women's names.

[C]

In fact, if you're reading in other

[B]

parts of the Bible, the genealogies don't mention the women. They're not important when we're talking about kids getting into the world. Moms, not important.

[C]

Matthew's author didn't have to mention these women. Now, it is important for us to

[B]

acknowledge and to remember that in Judaism,

[C]

it's a matrilineal culture, meaning how Jewish you are depends on who your mom is. Right. So in some cultures, your identity follows

[B]

your dad, your dad's family line, things like that. When I started dating Ben, his grandma asked me if I was Dutch, and I said, I don't know because I

[C]

grew up down south. And, like, that's just not a.

[B]

People don't talk about their European ancestors that way. Who are you?

[C]

Dutch?

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

She's like, oh, you would know. Okay.

[B]

Some of you were laughing because you've met Dutch people.

[C]

I didn't know.

[B]

I didn't know what I was walking into. I don't actually know if being Dutch

[C]

is matrilineal or patrilineal. But anyway, you would know. First for Jewish people, how Jewish they are, follows their mom. If your mom is Jewish, you're Jewish. If your dad is Jewish and your mom is not, it kind of depends

[B]

on who you ask. Maybe you are.

[C]

Some people are cool with it. Some people. Philo, the philosopher from way, way, way, way, way back ancient times, called you a. So by including the women, Matthew is

[B]

unnecessarily making this complicated for his intended audience. Right. Who are Greek speaking Jewish Christians.

[C]

And Matthew is specifically calling out certain

[B]

moms, and not just any moms, but very specific moms.

[C]

Rahab. Do you know her name?

[B]

Where do we see Rahab show up in scripture?

[C]

Jericho. Right? She's the prostitute who hides the spies. And she's not Jewish.

[B]

So she's a sex worker who's not Jewish.

[C]

So that's complicated. Then we get Ruth, who we're going

[B]

to talk about more today.

[C]

Ruth, not Jewish, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite.

[B]

Bathsheba, probably also Hittite, probably not Jewish.

[C]

And that was a whole thing there. Of the five women mentioned in the genealogy, three of them not Jewish, at

[B]

least two of them pregnant under really dubious circumstances.

[C]

And that's before we even get to Mary. So the author of Matthew, if he's trying to build a strong case, this is Jesus, the Messiah, this is the guy. He's not doing a very good job

[B]

of building that case.

[C]

This is a really weird way to

[B]

make your argument, and I think that that's so cool.

[C]

I think that's one of the things that makes me obsessed with scripture even

[B]

now, even as somebody whose faith has shifted a lot.

[C]

So as we consider what it means to highlight this weird verse of a

[B]

hymn, oh, come a branch of Jesse's stem.

[C]

We're gonna hang out with Ruth a little bit today because obviously when the

[B]

line is about a man, let's find the woman to talk about. Am I right? Ruth is a short story in the Old Testament.

[C]

It's one of my favorite books of the Bible.

[B]

It's only four chapters long.

[C]

You should just read it. Just read it later today if you've got time this afternoon or at some point this week. You can read the whole thing in like 20 minutes.

[B]

Okay?

[C]

Just sit down. Read the book of Ruth. We're not going to read it all today. We're going to recap. Okay, so what do we know about Ruth already?

[B]

This is another participation time.

[C]

What do you know about Ruth? She's a Moabite. Good. Yes. Her husband died. Good. Yes. She and her mother in law traveled and then her mother in law renamed herself Bitterness. Like you think you had a bad year.

[B]

Have you ever felt like I just, you know what? Throw my whole name away. My name is now Bitter.

[C]

Whoo.

[B]

That is rough. Anything else we know about Ruth,

[C]

Boaz?

[A]

Boaz.

[B]

Yeah. It's a whole scene. Go uncover his feet. He'll tell you what to do.

[C]

All right. Anything else?

[B]

Okay.

[C]

All right. Pretty good. Pretty good. Ruth's story occurs during the time of the Judges. If we read the Book of Judges.

[B]

Don't read that one. Skip that one. That one's really complex.

[C]

You want to feel weird about the Bible, The Book of Judges will make you feel weird about the Bible. But Judges is this really violent, conflictual book where the theme that comes up time and time again is it was the time of the Judges and everybody did what was right in their own eyes, essentially. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew what was right or wrong.

[B]

And people were just trying stuff, sometimes

[C]

more effectively than others.

[B]

That's our time setting from what the author of Ruth tells us.

[C]

Right. During the time of the Judges, there's a famine in the land.

[B]

They didn't have enough to eat, so

[C]

this guy, Elimelech and Naomi moved from Bethlehem to Moab with their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.

[B]

Fine.

[C]

Right. That makes sense.

[B]

Move somewhere where you can get food.

[C]

Mahlon and Kilion marry Moabite women. Put a pen in that.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Elimelech, Mahlon and Kilion. All the dudes end up dying. We don't know why.

[B]

We're given no information about how they

[C]

died or why they died, but they all died. So Naomi and her two daughters in

[B]

law, Orpah and Ruth, decide after the famine ends, we're going to go back to Bethlehem. Prospects must be better there. This is when Naomi renames herself Mara, which means bitterness. She's like, life has been bitter for me. It's been terrible.

[C]

So they start traveling back. On the trip back to Bethlehem, Orpah

[B]

decides to return home at Naomi's urging.

[C]

That's fine. That's a totally reasonable decision.

[B]

There's nothing for her in Bethlehem.

[C]

Those aren't her people.

[B]

She doesn't know anybody.

[C]

Naomi's old.

[B]

She's not going to have more kids. For her to marry. Fine.

[C]

Back in Bethlehem, Naomi helps Ruth navigate this new culture that she finds herself in.

[B]

She sends her out gleaning, which is

[C]

this practice, practice of, like, gathering up the grain that was left on the sides of the field.

[B]

So if you were harvesting rows, right? Like, if this carpet is a grain field and you're harvesting by rows, there

[C]

would be little bits left along the

[B]

edges when you turn right.

[C]

Gleaning is the process. If you go, you get the extra

[B]

from the edges, you get the things that people drop.

[C]

You subsist on the leftovers. So Ruth goes out, she's gleaning. She gets hooked up in the fields on Boaz's property. Naomi's like, oh, he's our distant relative. This is good.

[B]

Long story short, or short story made even shorter, really.

[C]

Naomi coaches Ruth through how to get her man.

[B]

Ruth and Boaz get married.

[C]

They have a son, Obed.

[B]

Obed grows up, becomes the father of Jesse. Oh, come, O branch of Jesse's stem.

[C]

What we need to think about when we think about Jesse's stem or David's line or this illustrious lineage, is that Jesse's stem is inherently, intentionally inclusive of those who were not just incidentally outsiders, but who were explicitly excluded. Explicit. Go ahead and bring up Deuteronomy 23. Yeah, yeah, we're doing all the greatest hits today, right? Genealogies, Book of Deuteronomy.

[B]

This is why people come to church.

[C]

No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the 10th generations. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt and they hired Balaam, son of Beor, from Pethor of Aram.

[B]

I'm not going to try to pronounce

[C]

that, to pronounce a curse on you. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.

[B]

Those Moabites, not part of God's community.

[C]

In fact, this isn't just like an oversight. Thus says the Lord, don't be their friend. Those people. Absolutely not.

[B]

And here comes Ruth.

[C]

You see, there are ways in our lives that I think were very similar

[B]

to the ancients in the Old Testament.

[C]

If we're being honest, if we really

[B]

stop to think about it.

[C]

Like, if we think about the things that we grew up with, things that we were told in church growing up, many of us were formed by a story of faith and religion that says if you follow this set of rules and you have this set of friends

[B]

and you don't associate with those kinds of people, right?

[C]

Then God will bless you, and you will have a happy marriage and a happy family and a successful job, and everything will work out for you. I grew up in the south, and

[B]

so there was this saying where it was like, don't drink, smoke, chew, or

[C]

go around with those who do. Did that make it to the Midwest?

[B]

Some of you are nodding. Some of you have the same trauma as me.

[C]

Cool. But there's a type of people you should be with, and there's a type of people you should not. A phrase that we can use to describe this kind of thinking where if

[B]

you do these things, God will bless you. If you associate with these people, God will bless you. If you don't do these things, God will bless you.

[C]

A way we can refer to that

[B]

kind of thinking is prosperity gospel. Prosperity gospel, it turns God into an algebra equation.

[C]

Essentially, you put these things in, God puts these things out, which would make life so much easier. But that's not true. That's not how life works. Many of us also, we could kind

[B]

of go around the room probably and

[C]

say, yes, I was told, do all

[B]

these things, associate with these people, have these kinds of relationships.

[C]

Don't do these things. Good things will happen. And I did all the things, and guess what? It didn't work. And then when you say, wow, that didn't work.

[B]

How do people respond to that? Well, you must have done something wrong, right? God doesn't let bad things happen to good people.

[C]

What Ruth does, though, is it resists

[B]

this narrative of reward and punishment for faithful or unfaithful living. The that's so prevalent in our prosperity gospel shaped imaginations. Ruth makes us resist that, and instead

[C]

it commends a style of living in which blessing is possible. Yes, but it just sets life up, constructs life in the way that God

[B]

would have it among God's people.

[C]

The blessing that happens in Ruth is not an act of God.

[B]

It's how people show up for one another, and then God works in and among them. But God's not the direct actor.

[C]

So when we consider what kind of life God is leading us to, what kind of family or legacy that God would work through, how we make our days count, right? All these good questions that we ask

[B]

ourselves at the beginning of the year,

[C]

what kind of life should we live? What would a messiah from Jesse's line

[B]

that we shape our lives around look like?

[C]

It should mean that we're not just

[B]

okay with outsiders, however we define that, breaking conventions of how to get the good life rethinking what we think a good life even means. We should be borderline fanatical about it.

[C]

Not just like, oh yeah, I'm kind of into that. That's the shape of the whole thing. We're trying to be Jesus shaped people. That's the shape the shape is. That's weird. Why are you doing that? That's is to Matthew's detriment that he mentions Ruth. Her inclusion means that Jesus lineage isn't perfect. It's not this flawless parade of Jewish mothers who kept all the rules, did all the laws, offered all the sacrifice. This person we aren't even supposed to be friends with, that's his great grandma. Including Ruth, along with all of the other women in the genealogy makes Jesus

[B]

lineage illegitimate four times over. Before we get to Mary, before we get to Mary.

[C]

It challenges me to think about how

[B]

I practice inclusion or crossing lines in my own life. Right.

[C]

As somebody with a lot of relative like privilege and power in this world, it's easy for me to be like,

[B]

I want to include voices.

[C]

But what this calls us to is not just I want to include voices. It says I want to reorient my life in ways that are detrimental to me potentially in doing so that I'm going to be shaped by who I

[B]

think is an outsider.

[C]

I'm going to be shaped by, formed by reoriented around the people that my community thinks.

[B]

I shouldn't even be friends with the people who are dangerous or outside in some way.

[C]

I have to gamble if I take Ruth's secret seriously with letting go of

[B]

this prosperity gospel myth that has formed me.

[C]

Because it's one thing to think, okay, sure, I don't really think that God rewards good and punishes bad. And I don't really believe that anymore. It's another thing to live your life

[B]

in a way that reflects that, to decide.

[C]

I don't actually think it matters if I keep all these rules.

[B]

I've been told if I do all these exactly correct things, I think God is probably in those boundary crossing moments. God exists and dwells there.

[C]

You see, there's a difference between adding

[B]

voices and reorienting values.

[C]

Ruth reorients the family line of David and in turn the family line of Jesus. To say not just we want to include these other people, but to say the whole thing is going to be a different shape. And it may mean that people don't

[B]

take me as seriously.

[C]

They may not buy into what I'm

[B]

doing because I said you are a part of this too,

[C]

but that's a risk.

[B]

I'm going to take.

[C]

Not because I feel like it's the nice thing to do, but because there's not another way to do this. This is the shape of how God works. There's a difference between being allowed and belonging. And anybody who's walked into a high school cafeteria knows that in your body, right, you know that you can walk in and it's like, oh, yeah, you

[B]

can sit with us. Versus those are my people.

[C]

We're coming off of the holidays, and there were lots of people in our

[B]

house for a few days in that mix.

[C]

And we had a big, like, open house Christmas party situation one day, and there were.

[B]

There was food everywhere, there were drinks everywhere.

[C]

And then I walked down at one

[B]

point to the basement to, like, the

[C]

laundry room side of our basement, right? Not the cool hangout side of the basement, but, like, the laundry part, which is where I keep, like, Lacroix and

[B]

Bubblers and things like that, which I had some sitting out, but not all of them.

[C]

And I look and Cadence's friends have, like, gone into the laundry room and helped themselves to other drinks that weren't even the drinks we had out. And I was like, fantastic.

[B]

This is so good.

[C]

Because I don't want people to feel like they're allowed to come to my house. I want them to feel like they

[B]

belong in my house.

[C]

Belonging says, you can go in the laundry room and get the drink that's still warm, and then you can go put it in the refrigerator. Because you're like, you know what? I'm just feeling pompomouse Lacroix right now. Because sometimes you are. That's belonging, right?

[B]

Sorry, I didn't ask your permission to tell that story.

[C]

There's a difference between I'm allowed and I belong. And if we think about it, anyone who's been allowed to be one place

[B]

can tell you they didn't belong there.

[C]

What Ruth's story invites us to do is to be people of belonging. And that's going to be uncomfortable for everybody involved, because when you decide we're not just going to, like, tolerate each other's presence, we're going to belong to one another. We're all going to have to confront

[B]

some things in ourselves.

[C]

We're all going to have to be

[B]

shaped in different ways by one another,

[C]

and that's going to feel weird.

[B]

We don't like to talk about that. I got to figure out where I even am. I just got rolling.

[C]

I think that this move toward radical

[B]

reorientation, toward belonging gives a lot of insight to the end of this Verse, too. If we bring up the verse to the. To the song again,

[C]

from depths of hell your people save and give them

[B]

victory o' er the grave. What does it mean to be saved from hell? To have victory over the grave?

[C]

Scholars note that Ruth is a story of goodness. There's no villains in Ruth's story. And I think that there's some clues in the structure and themes of Ruth for what it looks like to live

[B]

in this saved and victorious life that's described at the end of the verse of the song, right?

[C]

Ruth is a story of goodness.

[B]

Even Orpah, who sometimes gets cast as this, like, bad sister because she turns around and goes back to Moab.

[C]

She's not bad. She's not. She makes a totally rational decision at Naomi's urging, right? Naomi's like, this is so nice of

[B]

you to be journeying with me, but

[C]

you really like, this is too much.

[B]

You don't have to do this. And Orpah's like, you know what? You're right.

[C]

Okay, that's fine. That's fine. There's no bad guys here. She's just less good than Ruth, but not bad, not wrong. Scholar Ilana Pardes notes, in Ruth, there is a quote, unique light, an unimaginable generosity that compels all who surround the characters.

[B]

Unimaginable generosity.

[C]

The word here for unimaginable generosity is chesed. Hesed is this Hebrew word that often

[B]

gets translated in our English Bibles as

[C]

faithfulness or kindness or. Or goodness. It's all of those things.

[B]

Actually, English is a really limiting language. It's all of that kindness, generosity, love, goodness, and so much more.

[C]

When God passes in front of Moses

[B]

on Mount Sinai, right? And kind of does this, like, moment of like, I'm going to show you who I am.

[C]

Hesed is how God self describes God's character.

[B]

Bring up Exodus 34, verse 6. And God passed in front of Moses,

[C]

proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding

[B]

in chesed love and faithfulness.

[C]

This is how God describes God's self. And in fact, this phrasing from Exodus gets quoted more than any other in the Old Testament.

[B]

Within the Old Testament, it's really central

[C]

to understanding how God reveals God's own character. What is God like?

[B]

Chesed?

[C]

God is like this unimaginable generosity and kindness and faithfulness and goodness that never stops. Most instances of hesed in the Old

[B]

Testament are about God's power posture, God's character toward humanity. Roughly about 75% of those usage refer to God. Look at some examples. Here's how it's usually talked about. We're just going to fly through these.

[C]

Deuteronomy 7, 9. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God. He is a faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations

[B]

of those who love him and keep his commands. Go ahead to the next one.

[C]

Psalm 36. Your love, O Lord, reaches to the

[B]

heavens, your chesed to the skies.

[C]

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains. With justice, like the great deep, you, Lord, preserve both people and animals.

[B]

Psalm 103.

[C]

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his hesed for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed

[B]

our transgressions from us.

[C]

Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed.

[B]

For his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. From Lamentations.

[C]

75% of the times that this word chesed is used, it's things like this talking about God's great love, God's great faithfulness. But guess what? In Ruth, she is the one who demonstrates chesed. There is no this is God showing hesed through Ruth. Ruth demonstrates chesed. This is what God looks like.

[B]

Scholar Edward Campbell notes in his commentary

[C]

on Ruth that God is present and active in Ruth's story, especially in the way that people behave toward one another. We see God's action in Ruth not because we get this great description of here's how God is working in the midst of all these terrible things happen. We get God's work in Ruth because of how people treat each other. One of my favorite scholars, one of

[B]

my favorite theologians, Thomas Halleck, the Czech scholar, says God happens when we love one another. God happens.

[C]

And so often, I think, when the world is sideways, if you can imagine, we're looking around for like, oh my

[B]

gosh, what is God going to do?

[C]

You? God's doing you. You're the plan. You and this weird circle that we're going to build where we want another, each other, where we choose one another, where we reorient our lives and our values around one another in ways that feels weird, in ways that discredit us, in ways that make us less likely to achieve our goals.

[B]

That's where God works. That's where God works.

[C]

In C.S.

[B]

lewis's classic fictional work the Great Divorce,

[C]

he describes hell as this shadowy plain in which people just keep moving further

[B]

and further and further and further away from each other, that there's this open field.

[C]

And people get mad at each other. And so then they move further away because I can't stand that person. And it just stretches to the horizon,

[B]

People moving further and further away from each other as far as the eye can see. Can you imagine?

[C]

And the character, the main character in the story takes this bus trip up to the high country where he travels through the mountains. And he's confronting different things in his lives and being restored, all these wonderful things. And he has this moment where he's like, well, couldn't the people below choose to do this too?

[B]

And the answer is yes.

[C]

They've chosen this hell for themselves.

[B]

They've chosen to keep moving further and further away, isolating more and more and more instead of a different path. So when I think about when we move toward one another, like in Ruth, what does it mean to be saved from the depths of hell? Maybe it means we practice hesed

[C]

that

[B]

we refuse to move further away.

[C]

That instead I say, I'm going to show up and choose you with all

[B]

the gusto of like a Pokemon character. I choose you anyway. That it's this practice of one anothering.

[C]

This is the way we get out of hell.

[B]

The hells of our own choosing.

[C]

There's another way, but it's a way that we have to.

[B]

To walk and choose for ourselves.

[C]

We have to move toward one another, living in this hesed goodness that's modeled in Ruth's story. That comes with a cost that's going to shape our identity in ways that maybe we don't even necessarily want, that we're not aware of when we sign up for it. That this one anothering that God invites us to practice is the way we

[B]

get out of hell and overcome the grave.

[C]

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is credited with saying that the ills of the world likely stem from the fact that we've

[B]

forgotten that we belong to one another.

[C]

And building on her words, Father Greg

[B]

Boyle, a Catholic priest working in some

[C]

of the most difficult neighborhoods in Los Angeles, wonders, well, how do we stand

[B]

against this forgetting then?

[C]

And for Father Boyle, he imagines that

[B]

it's imagining these circles of compassion and then imagining that nobody stands outside of it. We can always imagine a bigger circle.

[C]

And what does it look like if

[B]

we imagine a circle that no one stands outside of? That no one stands outside of.

[C]

For Ruth, she embodies this belonging by following Naomi back to a land she doesn't know. To live with a people who were commanded to not even be her friend. Not an accidental exclusion. God told me not to be your friend.

[B]

Can you imagine, but she imagines a circle of compassion and no one stands outside of it.

[C]

I said for Father Boyle, his own imagining of this circle of compassion looks like over 30 years of work in

[B]

South Central LA, living and working with

[C]

gang members and running what's now the

[B]

largest gang intervention and recovery program in the United States. There's a circle of compassion. No one stands outside of it.

[C]

So here's what I want to leave us with. How can we imagine a circle of

[B]

compassion here at Brew City where no

[C]

one stands outside the circle and we are not only shaping the circle, but

[B]

being shaped by whoever is standing with us in that circle for our own lives?

[C]

How can you imagine a circle of

[B]

compassion for yourself, your family, at your job, in your neighborhood? As I list through some of those,

[C]

some of you are like, that part

[B]

yes, that part no. You don't know who I work with. Mr. Rogers did not prepare me for my neighborhood.

[C]

Right. But we don't get to choose where

[B]

we build those circles of compassion.

[C]

Our task, if we want to be

[B]

shaped by this branch of Jesse's stem, this messiah that comes from this line, is to say there's not another pattern.

[C]

It's just a big old weird circle

[B]

and nobody stands outside of it.

[C]

As followers of Jesus, we choose to align ourselves with Christ, to imitate our older brother in this new creation. We choose this family line that includes people that discredit us, that includes people that make it weird, that we don't like, that we were maybe commanded not to even be friends with, let alone love, that we will be the people, not just allowing outsiders and once condemned, but being shaped by them.

[B]

Imagining circles of compassion, chesed living, inspired by our foremother Ruth, everywhere we go and chipping away each day at every hell we encounter. Let's pray.

[C]

Lord, I thank you for weird genealogies and awkward parts of the Bible that we skate past. But then when we take time to

[B]

pause, we see this beautiful pattern of what you're doing in the world that's complicated and weird. I thank you, Jesus, that you showed us first what that kind of living looks like. That when you called 12 people around you, you also chose a weird circle for yourself. May we follow you in those regards to practice. Faithful, generous, hesed love. Holy Spirit, we thank you that you strengthen us and abide with us so that we don't have to do this work alone. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

[A]

Thank you again for being with us. We would love to have you join us if you are ever in the Milwaukee area and we hope you have a healthy place to gather. Wherever are you are from?