Major Ray Harris gleans guidance from Ruth

When I stepped into my office at the St John’s college [one of two training schools for officers in the Canada & Bermuda Territory… now closed] three years ago, my secretary started a conversation by saying, “So how does it feel to be a CFA?” I blinked, with my normal puzzled look, and she continued: “You are considered a Come From Away. You’re not native to Newfoundland and Labrador. You’re a CFA.” She was, of course, seeking to be a little lighthearted for our first conversation. For a moment, though, I wondered if I was really being viewed as an immigrant.

Would my lack of a “bay” dialect betray me? Would my ignorance of “toutons” prove to be my undoing? It didn’t take long before Cathie and I made ourselves at home in this unique province, and left it loving toutons, even if we still didn’t speak with a “bay” dialect.Not everybody experiences the same outcome as we did in NL. We live in an age where the movements of people globally are on the increase. There are many pairs of glasses through which we could view this phenomenon: national statistical agencies offer charts; board rooms of multinational corporations are planning with it in mind; passport policies are being renewed in light of it. But in this article I have been asked to help us bring our faith to bear upon the matter. It’s a task that could invite any number of approaches, but to keep it focused I would like to engage the issue through one biblical story. To offer a starting point I would like us to read the story of Ruth, and let this short story play around in our imaginations. In the spirit of this fascinating story, let’s “glean” some elements of Ruth’s story and interact with immigration in our day.

The Story of Ruth

You will recall that the story of Ruth in the OT actually narrates two kinds of migrations. In the first instance, a family from Bethlehem leaves that community because of a famine. Elimelech and Naomi take their two sons and travel to Moab, east of the Dead Sea, and a people with whom they were in tension. But they were taken in, their sons married Moabite women, then all the men died. Hearing there was food back in Bethlehem, Naomi decided to return. Despite her protests, Naomi agreed to let Ruth accompany her back to Bethlehem. Ruth became the immigrant making a new home for herself in that community. “As it happened” Ruth gleaned a crop for her mother-in-law, and the field belonged to a kinsman, Boaz. Naomi saw all kinds of potential in this relationship, so she plotted and Ruth played her part. The threshing floor became the scene of a proposal of kinds, and Boaz became conscious of Ruth’s loyalty to him. In his own integrity and shrewdness he made sure that all the other players on the field had their “first right of refusal,” then he made his move. He took off one of his sandals, gave it to a potential suitor, and confirmed that he was taking Ruth as his wife. The town rejoiced, Ruth conceived, and a son was born. Ruth, the immigrant from Moab, became a central figure in Israel’s story.

Obviously this is not the experience of all immigrants. But let’s play with this story in relation to matters of immigration today. In so doing, perhaps we can begin to sketch some contours of what might be called a “theology of immigration.”

Gleanings

1. The personal experience of immigration takes place against the backdrop of wider social realities.

The book of Ruth begins, “In the days when the judges ruled…” [1:1]. It was not a peaceful time. The book of Judges depicts it as a time when “the people did what was right in their own eyes” [Ju 21:25]. And as the book of Judges narrates, what was right in their own eyes could be quite violent!

The story of Ruth also begins with the observation that “there was a famine in the land” [1:1]. The irony here is that the name “Bethlehem” means “house of bread,” but in fact there was no bread. The desire to put food on the table for their children seems to be sufficient reason to uproot this family and migrate to another culture and land. But when the widow Naomi hears there is food once again in the “house of bread” she desires to return to her home and her people.

The movement of peoples in our world takes place against the background of social forces: tribal communities are in conflict; jobs are more readily available in some parts of the world than others; ethnic diversities are more tolerated in some parts of the world than others.

It seems to me that Canada is experiencing conflicting realities that impact immigration. On one hand there is a growing realization that Canada needs immigrants to fulfill vacant positions. This past summer The Globe and Mail [a national newspaper] did a major series of articles on Canada’s new economic reality: the new thing in Canada is its need for workers, not jobs. And home grown workers will not meet the need. On the other hand, we are experiencing tighter passport and border restrictions. Reasons for this are complex, but both of these realities lie in the background of any discussion about immigration.

How we name our social context is an important part of how we think about immigration. The flow of people in our times is set against the backdrop of economic and political realities.

2. Immigrants arrive in their new land with an important personal story.

The good citizens of Bethlehem barely recognized Naomi when she returned. Naomi is so full of grief upon her return that she doesn’t even acknowledge her daughter-in-law’s presence. Few of Bethlehem’s citizens would know that Ruth had married one of Naomi’s sons. They wouldn’t know that despite Naomi’s urgings, and despite her sister-in-law returning to Moab, Ruth made a promise. They would have no idea of the loyalty that Ruth had already expressed to Naomi out of her own freedom. An important story fed this moment when Ruth arrived in Bethlehem as its most recent immigrant. It would seem that in time the residents of Bethlehem learned the story of Ruth, for at one point Boaz says to her, “All that you have been for your mother-in-law since the death the death of your husband has been fully told me…” [2:11].

Immigration does not take place in a vacuum. Stories do not begin here; they continue something that already has created a sense of identity. Is that one of the functions of the church as a community formed by its own story? Might one of our contributions to immigrants be that we are a place where their story is heard and valued?

Some of us will recall Brigadier Betty Peacock. Because of Betty’s honour as a member of the Order of Canada, she could participate in the swearing-in of new citizens. And she took advantage of that to have some citizenship ceremonies conducted at The Salvation Army’s Territorial Headquarters, in Toronto. I would look at those individuals from around the world, and wonder about their story. What prompted them to come to Canada? Was there suffering behind their story? Did they have friends here who encouraged them to come? Were there expressions of loyalty, of promises made, that resulted in this moment?

Immigrants come with a story, and that story - even with its pain - may express something of God’s grace at work.

3. Immigrants need to negotiate the tensions of creating a new sense of identity.

When Ruth arrived in Bethlehem she had little guarantee of acceptance or welcome. She would have experienced a number of losses contributing to her sense of vulnerability: gone was her language, her streets, her favourite foods, her own family, and the ways of surviving in her own culture. Her sense of identity, formed by her story to that moment, was threatened at a number of points.

But Bethlehem also had a sense of identity. Judges notes it to be a place of violence and idolatry. Boaz seems to be aware of the potential for violence, for he specifically warns Ruth about dangers in fields other than his own. But Bethlehem is also the home of people taking their faith story seriously. Fields are harvested, but the method of harvesting reflects the practice of gleaning, whereby portions of the harvest are left for the poor and alien. When Boaz considers Ruth as a potential wife, he keeps faith with another tradition, that of the kinsman-redeemer. So this town of Bethlehem, this “house of bread”, has its own developing sense of identity. Whatever Ruth’s connection with Naomi, Ruth was a different person. And in her different identity she was vulnerable in the social world of Bethlehem.

The British Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has given good thought to this notion of “difference” in our times. We are, he believes,

entering an age of the politics of identity. That is why religion has emerged, after a long     eclipse, to become so powerful a presence on the world stage, because religion is one     of the great answers to the question of identity. But that, too, is why we face danger.     Identity divides. The very process of creating an ‘Us’ involves creating a ‘Them’ - the         people not like us. [The Dignity of Difference, 10].

A critical issue facing us, it seems to me, is how we canA critical issue facing us, it seems to me, is how we can be clear about our own sense of identity as Salvationists in Canada, yet big enough to appreciate clear differences that immigrants bring to this land. I would suggest, along with Rabbi Sacks, that a renewed reading of the Bible and its emphasis on all humans being made “in the image of God” is an important place to begin.

4. Immigrants encounter the traditions of their new home.

If the book of Judges believes that “everyone did what was right in their own eyes,” the Book of Ruth says, “well most everyone.” For there were those in Bethlehem who did what was right in the eyes of their faith tradition. When Ruth recognized the need to put some food on their table, she sought permission from Naomi: “Let me go to the field and glean…” [2:2]. Perhaps she saw others following up the harvesters with their gleanings, but Ruth probably did not know she was tapping into an important tradition in Israel’s communal faith. You may recall that Israel had been instructed to harvest its fields in such a way that the edges of the field and other gleanings were left over for the “poor and the alien” [Lev 19:9-10]. And despite the ethical chaos in the time of the Judges, Boaz and others had sustained this tradition of leaving the gleanings. This tradition served the purpose of justice, of providing for a widow and her alien daughter-in-law. When Boaz prays that God will reward Ruth for her deeds, he speaks of the “God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge” [2:12]. The sense of refuge, or shelter, even protection that Ruth experienced was found in part by the very tradition of holiness embodied in the practice of gleanings.

In this respect I am drawing on the thinking of Alasdair MacIntyre who speaks of tradition as a “socially embodied argument” [After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 207]. If Ruth came face-to-face with some of the violence of her times, she also encountered “socially embodied arguments” in the practices of gleanings.

When Cathie and I moved back to Winnipeg [a city in central Canada] last summer, one of the first things we did was to arrange for our new provincial health card. We sat in the government offices downtown, and recognized that others in the office were likely fairly new immigrants. It would be my hunch that they did not know the story that led to our health care plan: the work of a Tommy Douglas, or Roy Romanow. Even with its present tensions, our health care system is made available to documented immigrants. It includes those who are not citizens of Canada. Immigrants to Canada experience a “socially embodied argument” in the form of our health care tradition.

When immigrants encounter Salvationists, what “socially embodied arguments” - what traditions - do we introduce them to? In the violence of our times, how are we being faithful to those traditions that are life-giving? How do the traditions of Canada contribute to the welfare of immigrants?

Our social traditions can be viewed as part of the fabric of grace.

5. The greater purposes of God are being worked out through the stories of immigrants.

One of the fascinating observations of the story of Ruth is that God is very much in the wings of the stage. God does not speak in this story. Its narrator attributes the return of a harvest in Bethlehem, and the birth of the son to Ruth and Boaz, to God. When Boaz first meets Ruth he prays that she may find reward from “the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge” [2:12]. But perhaps the most fascinating way God is depicted in this story is through its almost “chance” encounters. When Ruth first went to glean crops for Naomi, the narrator says, “As it happened, she came to the part of the field belonging to Boaz…” [2:3]. And when the narrator winds up the story, he notes simply that “a son had been born to Naomi. They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David” [4:17]. From the perspective of time, this narrator senses the greater purposes of God being worked out through this marriage. God’s providential hand is at work through famine, the expressions of loyalty, the traditions of Israel, the plotting of Naomi and the desires of individuals.

Modern Canada has been built on immigration. One of my great-grandfathers came to this country through The Salvation Army’s immigration scheme. Three of my grandparents immigrated to Canada; southern Manitoba is characterized by the last century’s immigration of Mennonites. Some of this history has gone well, but we are also conscious of Canada’s treatment of the Chinese in building a railroad, and our refusal to welcome Jews in the 1930s. Canada’s history of welcoming immigrants is far from unmixed.

But we seem to be moving towards a time when our approach to immigration will be much more intentional. Universities will be seeking students; businesses will be seeking workers of different skills. At one level there are very real human considerations behind this shift. I wonder though if God is up to something not readily apparent to us from this vantage point.

Conclusion

It may be that our work today will be part of discerning something of those greater purposes of God. It may be that in this day of the “politics of identity” Salvationists are being called to understand who we are at the deepest levels of our identity so that we can welcome those with different stories, different cultures, and perhaps even different expressions of faith. What we do may not be readily apparent to the world’s stage, but like the book of Ruth will narrate a story of personal faithfulness to the grace of God in our times.

Writer: Major Ray Harris recently retired after thirty-five years as an officer. Those years of active service took Ray, and wife Cathie, to appointments across Canada. Ray has served in all of the Territory’s officer-training colleges and Booth College. He has a Master’s of Divinity from the University of Winnipeg, and a Doctorate of Ministry from Regis College, in the Toronto School of Theology. Earlier this month Ray was called out of retirement to join the staff at the College for Officer Training (Canada and Bermuda Territory) as the Director of Academic Studies.

This article was written last year as a presentation to the Social Issues Committee of The Salvation Army Ethics Centre.

Reprinted with permission from theRubicon.org.