Golf Etiquette, Grace, and Boaz of Elimelech’s Clan

By chance, Ruth found herself working in the field belonging to Boaz of Elimelech’s clan. And

behold, just then Boaz arrived and greeted his workers:

            Boaz:        “May the LORD be with you!”

Reapers:    “May the LORD be with you!”

Boaz then spoke with his young straw boss who was in charge of the reapers saying,

            Boaz:        “Who is that young woman?” (Ruth 2:4-5)

I thought of Boaz’s simple greeting to his workers while waving a golfer up on the 5^th hole. At first, it looked like Ron and I had the fairgrounds nine hole par 30 golf course to ourselves. That’s good because we poke along. Our twosome can hold up foursomes. Ron is slow of foot. It takes me several tries, with my Parkinson grip, to get the ball properly balanced on the tee. We try, as we slowly lumber about the course, to be attentive to others.

So it was that we soon discovered there are others on the course. We knew enough golf etiquette, while looking for our golf balls scattered about the fairway on the 5^th hole, to wave the lady golfer up—to allow her to “play through”. She’s good. A beautiful swing puts the ball just inches off the green. I pull the flag. She pars with ease—says a few nice things and we to her, and moves on through us to the next hole.

There was nothing special about it. We simply practiced golf etiquette. Yet through this ritual grace flowed. We were attentive to her and her to us. She saw our lumbering game and scattered shots; and yet, she treated us as if we were real golfers.

Boaz wasn’t golfing. But, like us on the course, he adhered to those simple social rituals greeting his workers with “May the LORD be with you!”  He noticed them—how they gathered grains and bundled them into sheaves. Boaz even encourages his workers to slack off some so the young alien gleaner he noticed might glean some extra grain. Grace flowed. Who could have imagined that Boaz’s grace would flow through history all the way to the Christ Child?