Where Do We Go From Here?

Ruth 1:19-22

This morning we complete the line of questioning we’ve been engaged in since Rally Day last month. And the first chapter of Ruth is a wonderful way to encompass all of the questions we’ve been asking, all of the sub-themes we’ve been exploring in this series:  Where are you from? Where does it hurt? What do you need? And this morning, where do we go from here?

The first chapter of the Book of Ruth and its main character provide an incredibly clear response to “where are you from”: they are from Bethlehem and Moab; “where does it hurt”: everywhere, for them; “what do you need”: to be alone, says Naomi – to be with you, says Ruth; and for this morning “where do we go from here”: back to Bethlehem, back – to begin again.

We should be familiar with the first chapter of the Book of Ruth from past readings, studies, and/or sermons, but just in case:  A woman named Naomi moves with her husband and two sons from Bethlehem to Moab. Here husband dies and their two sons take Moabite wives. Then, those two newly married sons die, leaving Namoi with two daughter-in-law widows, essentially still strangers. (And all that happens in the first five verses!)

In verse six, Namoi decides to go back to Bethlehem but tells her daughters-in-law they really should go back to their own “mother’s houses” with her blessing. Both initially resist, but one eventually says, “Okay.” The other – Ruth – insists on remaining with Naomi speaking some of the most well known words in all the bible: Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. (She says more, but these are the words that eight out of ten churchgoers could recite – including you now.)

When Naomi sees that this second daughter-in-law will not leave her, “she said no more to her” about it, and … this happened: Listen for the Word of God. Read Ruth 1:19-22. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

The book, of course, continues. By the end of the story Ruth has established a lineage with her new husband that will lead through King David right up to Jesus of Nazareth, according to our Bible. There are four chapters in total, but all we need for this morning is chapter one. Because the question we’re asking and responding to this morning, “Where do we go from here?”, is not meant to be the end of our journey. Instead, it opens us to consider and explore together what comes next. And for us, the last verse we read is particularly instructive: They came to Bethlehem “at the beginning of the barley harvest.”

Pray with me …

Naomi and Ruth have a shared past and a place. In that place, they have both been hurt. From that past, they have had their needs fulfilled – they have found another, each other. And in response to “where do they go from there?”, they joined together and stepped into a new beginning, a new life, a new time. But not just any time! Did you hear it?!  A time … of harvest. The harvest is a time to gather in what will sustain you for the future. So, as chapter one ends, we hear unmistakably that there is a future for these two, and so for us. There is ring of divine guidance in this transition, in the fact they returned to Bethlehem right when the gathering together to prepare for the future was beginning. And we should feel that, too, this morning.

We are gathered on this World Communion Sunday with Christians around the world, asking this question “where do we go from here” as our particular community prepares for the harvest of our annual Stewardship season. That begins in earnest next week. We have shared our origin stories – where we are from – with one another, if only a little. We have shared our hurts and expressed our needs in the past weeks. And so, as we ask, “where do we go from here”, we are able to do so with the promise of future – of the year ahead, of years ahead. And that’s not as common a promise as we’d like to think. So many of our sister congregations, in our own Presbytery – but across the country and around the world, as well – gathering around Communion table this morning, scared of what’s next, of where they’re going, of the year ahead – not even able to imagine years ahead.

I honestly do think we take what we have here in this community for granted. Pastoral leadership that is closing in on a combined thirty years of ministry in this place; Ruling Elders and Team Ministry chairs that have been worshipping here for decades and even generations; a group of financial stewards that month after month, year after year, don’t tell their Session “here’s what we’re able to do,” but ask us “what is it that we’re being called to do”; buildings and grounds that are not only being maintained, but that are being improved and enhanced; a new community outreach ministry housed in the oldest building on our campus, The Parish House; and a school in the largest building we maintain that nurtures babies, toddlers, and pre-Kindergarteners through the most developmentally active years of their life.

The fact that we can gather on a Sunday morning and ask this question of “what’s next” without feeling queasy or getting butterflies in our stomachs is a testimony to all those Elders, leaders, volunteers, members and participants laboring here at Pewee Valley Presbyterian. I suppose we are still pretty close to the 20/80 rule, where twenty percent of the congregation does eighty percent of the work. Maybe that’s inevitable, even if it’s not biblical. I’d love to lift up those twenty percent and share out loud how much they do, how much they give. But … I know that would upset them more, that’s not why you do it. I trust we all know.  And, in any case, here’s the thing: As we ask “where do go from here”, just like Ruth and Naomi, we too are coming to the time of a harvest in our church.  At this harvest, every single one of us will once again have the opportunity to give … of our time, our talents, and our tithes – our monetary pledges for the year ahead. We can once gin dream of a 100/100 rule – one hundred percent of the congregation doing one hundred percent of the work in the year ahead.

The year ahead … that’s where we are going. We all come from our past, with our hurts and our needs, asking still – in spite of and because of our past: What’s next?  We should look forward to finding out together in our time ahead – these next weeks of stewardship, these next months of church holiday tradition, this next year of Life together. Because that’s the place to which GOD is calling us.  We will gather around our common table with siblings around the world as we head out, grateful for our traveling companions and grateful that we have a future ahead of us. Let’s sing first.

Amen.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / October 4, 2026