Wherever you go, I will go

     At weddings there is a hymn/song that is sometimes chosen for its beautiful melody and powerful words.  The words go something like this: Wherever you go, I will go, wherever you live so shall I live, your people will be my people, and your God will be my God too. 

     Those words come to us from the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Scriptures, and were heard today.  They are the words of Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi.  With the death of her husband and then her two sons, she was left in a foreign land with her two daughter-in-laws.  She blessed them and sent them  home to their families as she prepared to return to her home in Bethlehem, now that the famine was over.  But Ruth had grown to love and respect her mother-in-law, and she spoke these words: "Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you!  For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God."  It is the beginning of the story of Ruth.

     Sometimes the witness that we give by simply living our lives with faith and love bears fruit.  Naomi was not out to "impress", but impress she did.  She inspired Ruth to leave everything and travel with her to a foreign land that she would call home, to a people that she would call family, and to a God that she would readily embrace.  She was ready to accept this new setting, for in it she found life ... and a home.

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     The story of Ruth is one of many biblical stories that have been brought to the stage at the Sight and Sound Productions in Lancaster in Eastern Pennsylvania.  They are wonderfully inspiring musicals that the local community there produce each year.  I have seen a number of those productions over the years [Noah, Ruth, Joseph, the Miracle of Christmas] on bus trips (about three hours East of here).  You always return uplifted.