Today we come to the end of our story. The tension over who will provide for Naomi and Ruth is resolved in a rather busy scene where we are introduced to a whole range of characters – there’s another relative of Boaz and Naomi, a group of 10 men at the city gate, as well as people gathering, and women blessing Naomi. Then the book ends with a birth and a whole list of names. But where, in all of this, is God? You might think this a strange question – after all, we’ve been looking at a book of the Bible, surely it’s all about God? One of the reasons the book of Ruth appeals to many is because it’s a very human story – we recognize the characters, the struggles and dilemmas facing them, and their emotions, but God appears to be strangely absent. In the whole story, God is only mentioned 21 times, and the vast majority of these times God is only mentioned in a greeting or prayer. There are no instructions from God, no-one hears God speaking. Only twice are we told that God actually does something – once at the start, when Naomi decides to return from Moab, because God has considered the people in Judah and given them food (1:6), and once at the end, when God enables Ruth to fall pregnant (4:13). Apart from this it seems as if God does nothing. Perhaps this is another reason why the story appeals to many. Isn’t this often our experience? It’s not always obvious that God has something to say and is trying to speak with us. It’s often not clear to us how, or even if, God is at work around us. We journey through life and many times God doesn’t seem especially present. And there are times, as Naomi and Ruth experienced, when it seems God has utterly abandoned us. Yet the testimony of the women who gather around Naomi after Ruth gives birth to Obed is that this is not the case (4:14). They praise God because they see that God has not left her without someone to care for her, provide for her, protect her. It’s perhaps not so much that God was absent, but that God was hidden. With all the tragedy that had befallen her, Naomi could not understand how God was at work, and she had given up trying to comprehend God’s ways. But Naomi’s inability to see God at the time within her circumstances does not mean God was absent, even if God was hidden. And such hiddenness is temporary. At the end of the story, as the women look back, it becomes clear how God was working. One of the messages of Ruth might well be to encourage us not to despair when it appears that God is doing nothing in a particular situation, but to continue to trust in God’s providence. To reassure us that even if we cannot see God at work, God’s hiddenness is not absence. But if God was not absent, how was God at work? How was God moving events towards the outworking of God’s plans? God’s hiddenness within the story reminds us that God’s way of working his purposes out is through people. God chooses people through whom God influences events in the world. Even if God’s presence is sometimes imperceptible, God continues to shape and love the world through people, through their actions, through their prayers. This is what we’ve been exploring over these last few weeks. Through Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi we have seen something of God’s hesed – his faithful, loving kindness – towards humanity. In Ruth’s struggle for justice, and the generosity of Boaz, we have seen God’s care of the vulnerable. Even in last week’s difficult chapter, with Naomi’s dubious, manipulative plan, we can see God working to redeem the situation through the response of Boaz. A response that comes to fruition in today’s reading. A fruition that indicates a much bigger horizon than Naomi had possibly imagined. Through the redeeming of her land, and of Ruth, Naomi was seeking provision for herself and Ruth, for a continuation of her husband and son’s name. But God was using her and Boaz’s actions for so much more; not just the redemption of one family, but of all humanity. That’s the point of the genealogy – the list of names – at the end of Ruth (4:17-22). It leads us into the bigger story; Ruth’s son Obed becomes the grandfather of David, Israel’s greatest king. A genealogy that the gospel writers continue for us, for from the line of David comes Jesus, the ultimate Redeemer, who saves us from our sins. But this journey into the bigger story only happens because God chooses to work through ordinary people. Although Ruth and Naomi are not named in the genealogy, the witness of the people at the city gate, and at the birth of Obed, make it clear that none of this would have happened without them. Most stories end with death, but the story of Ruth ends with a birth. It stands for the promise of life that God is working to bring not just for Ruth and Naomi, but for all creation. That God will continue to work through Ruth’s descendents to bring life in all its fullness to all people. In doing so, perhaps the ending of the story is suggesting that each of us is pregnant with God’s promise. If the story of Ruth reveals to us the wonder that God chooses to work through ordinary people, what of God’s plans and promises is pregnant within you? What is God wanting to bring to birth through you? How might God use our ordinary lives to lead people into God’s bigger story? How might God be present to us, working in the lives of those around us?