Naomi and Ruth: Reverse Mentoring

from my message on 9/15/13 from Ruth 1:15-22

We all need a little help sometimes.  Especially those of us who are of a certain age need some help with technology.  Consider this cartoon "Zits" from this past week where the prents are confused over how to use the remote controls for the TV, DVD, satellite, whether they are even the right controls....and their teenage son in the background chewing his arm off in frustration.

I went to our Breakfast Crew this past Thursday morning with some 8 youth before they headed off to high school.  I asked them if they had ever helped their parents or other adults.  There were lots of technology examples:  on the computer, showing them how to find files or to undo work with Crl + C; on smart phones, how to load apps, or turn off the alarm, or to send pictures.  There was an example of a daughter teaching her mom the cup song (you will see it in a few weeks).   Finally, one daughter offered fashion advice, "Yellow is not the new cool color."

This is reverse mentoring.  It was championed by Jack Welch of General Electric.  He found a younger person in the company to teach him how to use the computer and how to surf the internet.  This person gave candid feedback and a fresh persective on things in the company.  Reverse mentoring is not top down, not older to the younger, not more experienced to the less experienced, but exactly the opposite.

Today we find an example of reverse mentoring with Naomi and Ruth.  This is the fourth in my series on Life Coach, where we go to the Bible to find examples of how best to live with God and others.

There are only 2 books in the Bible named after women.  Today we have Ruth, written in simple Hebrew.  A short book, only 4 chapters, only 74 verses.  A Jewish scholar wrote it is like reading an afternoon soap opera.  He went on to say that Naomi is like  a female Job.

Here's the story.  Naomi and her husband live in Bethlehem. What irony, for Bethlehem means "house of bread," and yet there is a famine in the land.  Naomi's husband does not consult her, but simply uproots the family.  They go to Edom, on the east side of the Dead Sea, the wrong side of the lake.  The Edomites were considered cursed by the Hebrews.  When the Hebrews were trying to enter the Promised Land, the Edomites showed them no hospitality.  In fact, in the Hebrew scriptures it says that Edomites would be kept from the fellowship of the LORD unto 10 generations.   In Edom, Naomi's sons marry Edomite women, but no children are born to these unions.  Then her husband dies and 2 sons die.  You can see why Naomi whose name means "pleasant" wants to be known as Mara, "bitter."  NOw there are 3 widows in Edom.  I am sorry, but it was a partriarchal society.  Women had no standing outside of a male:  a father, a husband, or some other kinsman.  Therefore, Naomi wants to shed these 2 other vulnerable females, her daughters-in-law.  She begs them to stay in Edom while she returns to Bethlehem.  One daughter-in-law heeds her word.  One doesn't.  Ruth makes a vow, affirms her faith.  Say these words with me:

Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you!  Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.  Where you die, I will die--there will I be buried.  May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!

This is an example of reverse mentoring.  The younger shows the way for the older.  The less powerful to the more powerful.  The foreigner to the Hebrew.  The Moabitess Ruth mentors the Hebrew Naomi.

You want to know the rest of the story.  Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem.  They eke out a living getting gleanings from fields.  However, there is a kinsman, named Boaz, whose name means "man of strength."  Naomi encourages Ruth to go to the threshing floor at night where Boaz is asleep and get this...."uncover his feet."  Now maybe that's all that happened, but Boaz soon marries Ruth.  They have a son named Obed, who has a son named Jesse, who has a son named David.  We know him as king David.

We sometimes learn the most about God through reverse mentoring.  The teacher from the pupil, the parent from the child, the older from the younger.  This is the way it is with our God.

King David is an example of reverse mentoring.  He is not Samuel's first choice to be king.  There are 6 older brothers who are passed over.  David is the youngest, the runt of the litter.  He is God's choice to be king. 

Amos doesn't want to be a prophet, yet he goes at the LORD's leading to the other kingdom, and proclaims a word.  When confronted, Amos says, I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, only a herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees.  Reverse mentoring.

Jesus comes along, not being born into wealth or power, but as a son of a carpenter in a backwater village in an out of the way country.  Jesus practices reverse mentoring in his ministry.  Crowds are hungry on a hillside, and it is a child who shares his lunch who initiates a miracle of feeding the thousands.  Jesus tells a story of a man getting beat up and left for dead by robbers.  A priest (ouch!) and a Levite walk on by, and who stops to help?  A distasteful Samaritan.  We have come to call him the "good" Samaritan.  Reverse mentoring is maybe the best way we learn about God's ways.

I have a story of reverse mentoring that comes from the church I formerly served, Portland UMC down on the coast, near Corpus Christi.  In the month of October, we ran a pumpkin patch.  A big truck would unload a bunch of orange pumpkins on our lawn.  People would come by to purchase them.  Families would come by to get pictures of their children with the pumpkins.  One night, 4 youth came by, and emulated a musical group called "Smashing Pumpkins."  They got caught by the police.  Our church was nearly all white.  These 4 were of a different race.  I was at their hearing.  We came up with community service for their restitution.  They were assigned to help us in a program called Surving the Night.  Once a month, our church prepared meals for the homeless in Corpus Christi, much like Mobile Loaves and Fishes here.  For months, these youth worked alongside of our church members.  One month, the people from our church who came to do Surviving the Night were all first-timers, all "newbies."  They didn't know what to do.  The 4 youth said, "Here's how you make the sandwiches, fix the soup, prepare the drinks."  They went on the trucks and said, "Here's where you stop.  Here's how much you give each person."  The criminals, the youth became our mentors.

At the 9 a.m. service, Guy told a story, totally spontaneously of how his son got started at our church in the confirmation class.  About that time the tragedy of 9/11 hit.  The youth led a worship service sometime later.  Guy's son, Will, stood up and prayed for reconciliation between Christians and Muslims.  Guy thought, "I need to get my act together."  He started coming to worship here.  Now he plays bass guitar in the Foundation band.

At the 11:15 service, again spontaneously, Eddie told the story of his daughter Ruby, who agreed as a senior to watch over some incoming freshman girls from our church.  The "big" was supposed to take care of the "littles."  But Ruby has not been active in church.  Her littles invited her to Breakfast Crew.  Ruby attended this past Thursday.  The "littles" showed the way for the "big."

Sometimes we learn best about God from reverse mentoring.  Today we have the example of Ruth doing that for Naomi.  Our God is like a Moabitess widow clinging to her mother-in-law, sharing her faith, showing her the way.