The Field

FCA is powerful because we can meet coaches and athletes right where they are – their fields and facilities – but there remains a significant problem. What if there isn’t a spiritual field - a place they can go, as they currently are, to glean and eat and explore, with the promise of safety and protection - for them to be liberated into the full potential of who God has made them to be?

Tucked in the early parts of your Bible – an interruption to the chronological narrative of ancient Israel – between the days of the judges and when Israel would get a king for the first time, is a short, 4-chapter story of a woman named Ruth. Now Ruth, though a short account, hold some very well-known moments. Like in the beginning of the story when she follows her mother-in-law, who is a widow like herself, to Israel and refuses to turn back to her home in Moab like her sister-in-law does. Ruth famously declares;

“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” (1:16-17)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Or later, after she catches Boaz’s eye while gleaning in the field, Boaz extends a kindness to her by calling her to continue to glean in his field;

“Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.  Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” … And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” (2:8-10, 14)

Here we see Boaz, who would eventually redeem this foreign, widow into the family of Israel through marriage, extending protection and a means to provide for Ruth. We also see a clear link to Jesus with the imagery of bread being dipped in wine at dinner.

As one more very famous portion of this story we have the account of Ruth and Boaz at the threshing floor in chapter 3. This is a confusing account, at first glance, due to the amount of ancient customs and imagery, but is also wildly impactful and holds many implications. Through it all, this scene culminates in Boaz agreeing to redeem, through kinsman redeemer laws, Ruth, should her next closest kin refuse his duty to do so.  

And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.” (3:10-13)

A beautiful picture of what Christ did for us on the cross – going to the uttermost to ensure we are redeemed and no longer have to live as widows and foreigners in God’s Kingdom, working in the field for all of our needs, but rather, by His sacrifice receiving an identity as the Bride of Christ, safe and secure in His presence, and given rest for our souls in His finished work. This is the gospel at work centuries before Christ becomes incarnate. Yet before there was the man to redeem Ruth, there was the place of redemption. The field.

• In the field Ruth had permission to NOT be an Israelite.
• In the field she wasn’t looked down on, or subject to abuse because of her status as a widow.
• In the field she was able to take and eat freely. Her being a widow and a foreigner is exactly what qualified her to glean – take and eat – in the redeemer’s field, according to Leviticus 11.
• In the field she could be as one in the people of God, though not yet fully redeemed through marriage.

Redemption in this story is akin to our salvation. And as much as we love when one more comes to a saving knowledge of Christ, how much more frequently are we, and those we minister to, in the field and not yet to the threshing floor of redemption (i.e.. salvation)?

These athletes and coaches are hungry. They are in this world of performance and seeking something that they don’t yet have words for. They are foreigners. Subjected to the demands of the job and the team, the standard of production and perfection, earning everything and striving to pass the person in front of them; they have no rest. As much as they accomplish, they never feel it’s enough. They are widows.

Foreigners and widows who are awaiting their redemption - longing for it – and, though, their Redeemer is always near, they have no field to glean in. Consider donating toward our $50,000 goal to help us secure a lease for a Field office that will serve as a gathering place for these foreigners and widows who are seeking respite and intimacy with their Redeemer, Jesus.