This summer the scripture readings have been selected book by book from the Old Testament. Today we reach the eighth book, Ruth. Ruth is a small, domestic soap opera, significant because it speaks of an ancestor of King David. We learn from the story that Ruth, David’s great-grandmother, was a foreigner, an immigrant, a non-Jew, a pagan in origin. Woven into the most important blood-line in Israel — that leads eventually to Jesus — we have “the other.” The current political climate in the United States seems to reject “the other,” fear them. The immigrants, those who look, talk, believe differently than we do, are to be excluded. The example of the ancestor of King David (and Jesus!) is that “the other” enriches and benefits the family.
