2025.09.07 | Patterns of Belonging

“Patterns of Belonging” 
Weaving Our Story 
Ruth 1:16–17; 4:13–17
Preached by 
Rev. Dr. Marvin Lance Wiser Naomi
Eden United Church of Christ  
Hayward, CA 

Ruth’s words to Naomi are famous: “Where you go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” These verses are often read at weddings or moments of covenant commitment. We usually lift up Ruth’s courage—her boldness to step into a future that is uncertain, to bind herself across culture, ethnicity, and even survival. And rightly so. Ruth’s declaration is radical solidarity. 

But today I want to shift the angle here a bit. I want us to see this story through Naomi’s eyes, and through the women of Bethlehem who, at the end of the story, declare Ruth to be better than seven sons. What does it mean not only to offer loyalty, but also to allow belonging?

Rut declara a Noemí: “Tu pueblo será mi pueblo y tu Dios será mi Dios.” Usualmente celebramos la valentía de Rut y su solidaridad radical. Pero también la historia invita a ver con los ojos de Noemí y de las mujeres de Belén: ¿qué significa no sólo ofrecer lealtad, sino también permitir pertenencia?

Naomi’s name means “Sweet” but by the time she returns to Bethlehem, she asks to be called “Mara,” meaning bitter. She has lost husband and sons, she is bereaved, displaced, and impoverished. She is vulnerable. But perhaps what is most stunning is that Naomi allows Ruth’s declaration to stand.

She could have refused. She could have said, “No, you don’t belong. You are a Moabite, and Moabites are not welcome among us.” After all, Deuteronomy 23:3 explicitly forbade Moabites from entering the assembly of the LORD. During the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, we read about the purity or race laws, sending away foreign wives, trying to “Make Judah Great Again” by excluding outsiders. The pressure to conform to these boundaries would have been very real in returning to Judah. The threat of violence was real. So, I wonder how a Moabite migrant in Judah felt around this time? How did children in mixed status families feel? Unfortunately, we don’t have to wonder.

But, just as Ruth resisted, Naomi negated. Naomi negated bigotry and exclusion, and political pressure. She does not silence Ruth, she does not dismiss her, she does not send her away. Instead, she receives Ruth’s radical loyalty and makes space for it. Naomi’s accommodation toward eventual integration here is as bold as Ruth’s commitment.

El nombre de Noemí significa “Dulce,” pero al volver a Belén pide ser llamada “Mara,” es decir, amarga. Ha perdido esposo e hijos; está en duelo, desplazada y vulnerable. Lo sorprendente es que permite que las palabras de Rut permanezcan. Pudo haber dicho: “No perteneces, eres moabita, y los moabitas no son bienvenidos.” La ley lo prohibía, y en tiempos de Esdras y Nehemías se reforzaban leyes de pureza y exclusión. La presión y la amenaza eran reales.

Pero así como Rut resistió, Noemí negó la exclusión. No la silenció ni la rechazó. Al contrario, recibió su lealtad radical y le abrió espacio. Su gesto de acogida fue tan audaz como el compromiso de Rut.

Notice that the story is not about Naomi merely “tolerating” Ruth. It is not simply that Naomi allows Ruth to tag along. No, the whole arc of the book bends toward shared sufficiency and interdetermination. Ruth gleans in the fields, Naomi concocts strategy with her, they survive together, they shape a future together, and ultimately co-create a space of integration and belonging with the help of Boaz.

And at the end, when Ruth gives birth to Obed, the women of Bethlehem do something extraordinary. They do not erase Ruth, nor do they minimize her foreignness. They declare that this Moabite woman has been more faithful than seven sons. They affirm Ruth as a full and vital part of Israel’s story.

This is neither a story of deportation nor assimilation, where Ruth must give up her identity to belong. It is a story of accommodation, of weaving together differences into a shared fabric. Naomi and the women make space for Ruth, and Ruth in turn redefines what belonging looks like.

La historia no muestra a Noemí simplemente tolerando a Rut: juntas crean futuro y vida compartida. Al nacer Obed, las mujeres proclaman que esta moabita vale más que siete hijos y la afirman como parte vital de Israel. No es deportación ni asimilación, sino tejer diferencias en un mismo tejido, donde Rut redefine lo que es pertenecer.

The genealogy at the end of the book is easy to skip over—ten names leading to King David. But it is a theological thunderclap. By inserting Ruth into the line of David, Scripture makes an explicit claim: the greatest king of Israel, the ancestor of Jesus, comes from a line that is interwoven with a Moabite woman.

In other words, exclusivist campaigns like Ezra and Nehemiah’s are already answered and undermined by Ruth’s story. Israel’s identity is not purified by exclusion but deepened by diversity. The “Holy Seed” is a hybrid one. The mestizo child Obed—whose very name means “worshipper”—embodies Isaiah’s vision that foreigners will one day be welcomed in the temple of the LORD.

And of course, when we follow that genealogy forward, we see Jesus himself—born in the same small town, who was carried to Egypt as a refugee, who crossed ethnic boundaries in his ministry, who embodied God’s embrace of those considered outsiders.

La genealogía que lleva a David es un trueno teológico: al incluir a Rut, muestra que la grandeza de Israel nace de una mujer moabita. La identidad no se purifica con exclusión, sino que se enriquece en la diversidad. Obed, el mestizo “adorador,” anticipa la visión de Isaías, y en Jesús—refugiado y cruzador de fronteras—vemos la plena acogida de Dios a los forasteros.

Esto significa que la pertenencia es más fuerte que la sangre: se elige y se afirma en comunidad. La iglesia no sólo acoge, deja que su historia sea transformada por quienes Dios envía. En un mundo que excluye por fronteras y purezas, somos llamados a resistir y abrir espacio para la verdadera pertenencia.

What does this mean for us?

It means belonging is always thicker than blood. Families, as with communities of faith, are not just made by biology but by choice, covenant, and community. Ruth chose Naomi; Naomi allowed herself to be chosen; the women of Bethlehem affirmed their belonging together.

It means that the church is not simply a place of hospitality where we invite others to join “our” story. The church is a place where we allow our story to be changed by the people God sends us. True belonging does not erase difference; it weaves difference into something stronger, more beautiful, more resilient, more sufficient.

It means that in a world where boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, and citizenship are still wielded to exclude, God’s story calls us to negate exclusion, just as Naomi did. To resist the campaigns of fear and purity that still echo in politics today, and to wield our privilege to do so. 

Like Ezra, there are those who would rather forget parts of their past. There are those who would deny their own family stories of migration, cultural hybridity, and hyphenated identities in order to consolidate power and wield control. And then abuse that power to tear asunder God’s tapestry of peoples and communities.

Today, we, like Naomi, are called to resist and negate in the ways that we can, whether that be representing in one of our many coalitions, protests, assisting with the NNC’s Interfaith Accompaniment Network or volunteering as a rapid responder with ACILEP. 

Karen González, in her book The God Who Sees, writes about immigrants not as guests in God’s household, but as beloved members of the family of God. In Beyond Welcome, she presses the church to move beyond hospitality to shared power and sufficiency, belonging. That is precisely what Ruth and Naomi’s story embodies, and what the church needs today.

They are not simply surviving. They are weaving a pattern of belonging that transforms their community. Their lives interwoven become the seedbed of God’s promise—not only for Israel, but for the nations. 

And so too, we are called to become a community where people are not merely tolerated or welcomed, but where their presence reshapes who we are. Where loyalty across differences is met with accommodation and affirmation. Where shared sufficiency replaces scarcity, and where our story is constantly being rewoven by the Spirit of God.

Karen González nos recuerda que los inmigrantes no son huéspedes, sino familia en la casa de Dios. Ella invita a la iglesia a ir más allá de la hospitalidad hacia el poder y la suficiencia compartidos—tal como Rut y Noemí lo encarnan. Ellas no sólo sobreviven; tejen pertenencia que se convierte en semilla de la promesa de Dios. Así también nosotros somos llamados a ser una comunidad donde la diferencia nos transforma, donde la lealtad se encuentra con la afirmación, y donde el Espíritu re-teje nuestra historia. Somos una iglesia tejida con muchas diferencias—de lengua, cultura, historia y vida. Como Rut y Noemí, estamos llamados a resistir la exclusión y abrir espacio unos para otros, soñando juntos un futuro compartido.

Beloved, we are a congregation woven together across many differences—of language, culture, history, and story. Like Ruth and Naomi, we have the opportunity to resist exclusion and to make space for one another as we dare to dream of co-creating a future together.

May we become a community where, when someone declares, “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God,” we respond not with hesitation but with embrace. May we be like the women of Bethlehem, proclaiming that God’s promise is born among us when we affirm one another’s belonging, like we will next Sunday when we once again receive new members into our covenant community, or right now: I invite you to turn to your neighbor in the pew and say, “you belong here.” Te invito a que te dirijas a tu vecino y le digas: “tú perteneces aquí”.

For from the first threads of creation until now, God has been weaving us together. The story of Ruth represents a pattern of belonging that was not welcome by Ezra and the dominant political group at the time. God’s pattern that is still emerging though is not one of ethnic or racial purity but diversity, not exclusion but embrace, not fear but faith, not isolation but love. 

This is the living fabric of our community today. This is the story God weaves with us and we are weaving with God. Amen.