As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
19And
they went both of them until they coming into Bethlehem. And it was when they
coming into Bethlehem. And the all of the city was moved because of them. And
they said, “This Naomi?” 20And she said to them, “Do not call me
Naomi. Call me Marah, because Shaddai has caused me to be very bitter. 21I,
I went full and the LORD has caused me to come back empty. Why do you call me
Naomi and the LORD has crushed me and Shaddai has caused to hurt me?” 22And
she returned, Naomi and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, one
returning from the fields of Moab. And they came into Bethlehem in [the]
beginning of [the] harvest of barley.
I suppose this is going to be a little different kind of
post. As I have read many, many commentaries on these verses, people have
pretty much unanimously criticized Naomi for her bitterness, diagnosed her
lapse of faith, and recommended the particular points where she should correct
her thinking.
As I have read these thoughts it all reminded me a lot of Job and his “miserable
comforters.” The book of Job has been around for something like 4000 years, yet
I wonder if we’ve ever learned its lessons. The Lord specifically said at the end
He was angry with Job’s friends. As I have read the book many times, I can’t
help but notice there was much truth in what they told him. Most of the time I
find myself ready to agree with them. They accost him for his hard thoughts
toward God, just like pretty much everyone does Naomi. And it seems like
someone should have “called his hand” on his seemingly bitter accusations
against the Lord. Yet, when it was all over, it was the friends the Lord was
angry with, not Job.
I’ve puzzled over all of this for years. Over time I have
been leaning toward a conclusion and I think perhaps Naomi draws the knot. Prov
25:20 warns us not to “sing songs to a heavy heart.” Certainly Job and poor Naomi
both qualify as “heavy hearts.” Both have suffered horrifically, Job losing all
ten of his children in a single day, then his wealth, then his health. Naomi
had to bury her husband, then both of her sons. By the time we meet her, she is
apparently impoverished (as evidenced by Ruth gleaning grain behind Boaz’s
workers – that’s what destitute people did).
Everything I read people writing about Naomi is the same as
what Job’s “friends” told him. And, again, the Bible specifically tells us the
Lord was angry with them.
I remember once I saw a little pamphlet entitled something
like, “Lament for a Son.” Apparently this fellow had lost his son and in his very
deep grief wrote this pamphlet. As I read his words he said some things right
but then seemed bitter and angry at God. My first thought was, “This guy isn’t
handling life very well,” and I could have offered him all the same criticisms
and corrections. Then it occurred to me that what I was reading sounded an
awful lot just like the book of Lamentations. … and that’s Scripture! In that
book, Jeremiah is recording his thoughts in the midst of his grief at the
horrific destruction of Jerusalem. … and he talks just like Job, and Naomi, and
the poor father of the pamphlet. At the time I was standing there reading the
pamphlet, I didn’t know what to do with it all, I just knew there was something
seriously lacking in my spiritual maturity.
I’m not sure I’ve got it yet, but here is what I suspect:
There are two great commands – love God, love people. Jesus said if you’ve done
that, you’ve done it all. So love is the first thing I need when dealing with
another human being in the depths of grief and loss. Is it possible that is
what Job’s friends were missing … and me as I read that pamphlet … and people
as they comment on Naomi? Are we all forgetting to love the people? I know a
lot of people would say it is loving to correct their anger and bitterness.
Maybe. But you can also speak with the tongues of men and angels and still not
have love. Just because what you’re telling them is “right” doesn’t make it
loving.
I guess I just wonder if we aren’t so easily offended by
their harsh language, we forget to pause and see them in their humanness, in
the horror of their grief. And then, if what’s going on in our own heart is not
love – then certainly what comes out of our mouth won’t be pleasing to God or
helpful to the person.
There is one more thought I’d like to record. I also expect
it possible in all these cases, there is a relationship going of which perhaps
we know nothing. Is it possible that God can handle it? Is it possible that Job
and the Lord were so close, they could talk to each other in ways the rest of
us don’t understand? The Lord is a God, not a man. But He made Job, and Naomi,
and the poor father, and He made them humans. He made them as people who hurt
deeply at loss. And He knows that is how He made us. Is it possible He can
handle it when people lash out at Him in the depths of their despair? Is it
possible that what He gives them at that time is not correction but love? And
when we step in and think we’re going to do the correcting for Him, then we
aren’t representing Him at all? We’re actually misrepresenting Him! No wonder He’d be angry.
This all seems very complex to me. I know it is important to
keep my thinking right and I certainly want to encourage people around me to
think rightly too. It is sad to hear someone lashing out at God, when I know He
is a God of amazing love and kindness. But when I cross paths with people in
their grief, maybe I need to slow down and more deliberately try to be
God-connected myself. I need to see them as He sees them. I need to speak to
them what He would speak to them. Thinking about that, I don’t know how I could
be speaking anything but a love language to someone crushed under grief. And
perhaps I also need to grant them the respect of letting them have a personal
relationship with God – something I don’t necessarily need to understand, just
to respect.
A lot to think about.
Read Naomi’s words in this passage again and see what you
think.
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