Day 38 – Belonging

 Ruth clung to her… (and) said,

“Do not press me to leave you
    or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
    where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
    and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
    there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
    and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”
When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. 

(Ruth 1: 14, 16-18)
 

Ruth is a person who, beyond all prevailing wisdom or common sense, refuses to accept divisions, so her story is a challenging illustration of the cost and gift of ‘belonging’.  Her commitment breaches all boundaries of belonging.  By the end of her story Ruth, an outsider, is to be found at the heart of a community alive with new hope and has become the mother of a family line from which King David, and Jesus, will trace their descent. By her actions, Ruth challenges social, racial, ethnic and religious assumptions and divisions. We are called to be a community without boundaries. We are to be ‘bridge’ people and so become places of meeting, relating and healing. This requires a determined cleaving to each another, beyond our well-guarded frontiers of nationality, class, faith or friendship.
(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)
 
For Reflection
What might such a commitment ask of me beyond my own community and networks?
 
Prayer
Lord, may I help others to know what it means to belong, and in doing so find my own place within your community of love.