Masculinity - Loyalty

 "...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 I will be buried." Ruth 1:16 - 17

Loyalty is an aspect of masculinity in our culture we seem to value. We love the loyalty of a good pet like my dog Hank, and that extends itself into relationships. He's a loyal friend, we may hear of a person. He's loyal to his church or organization, to his group and to his team.

The "loyal to the team" notion perplexes me because in my life, more often than not, teams have no loyalty to anyone but themselves. Teams move (my Houston Oilers and the then-hated owner Bud Adams moving to Tennessee for example). Don't understand that? Let me drop a name for the Lubbock folks: Chris Beard. How dare he! we heard. Where was the loyalty there? Teams decide to shed payroll and be lousy for a period of time, like the Cincinnati Reds, and the owner recently told the fans angered by years of being bad who considered boycotting the game, "Where are you going to go?" Not to the Cincinnati ballpark apparently.

As we've noted, masculinity is generally a culturally defined aspect of manhood, so to look in scripture for a common definition of that is not easy. Loyalty is equally difficult in many aspects. We can certainly find disloyalty. Adam and Eve with God in the fall. David and Uriah after Bathsheba. Peter and Christ. Judas and Christ. All betrayed God. Disloyal to the person. 

So it is ironic that perhaps one of the best definitions of loyalty occurs in the book of Ruth between Ruth and Naomi. Ruth, a daughter-in-law, is all the family that Naomi has left after losing her husband and two sons. According to Jewish law, nothing bound Ruth to Naomi, and Naomi has asked Ruth to return to her land (Moab). Yet Ruth makes the declaration above to  Naomi that basically declares a bond of loyalty, a love between the two that nothing will break, not law or tradition. The story only gets better for Ruth and Naomi as their relationship grows until at the end of the short book when Ruth has a son, and as Naomi holds the son, we read, "A son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David." (4:17)

What we know about loyalty in faith is that God has always been faithful and loyal to his people, after the fall in fact. God has always had a plan of salvation that began after the fall and found its way in the unlikeliest of characters, like Ruth and Naomi. That plan of loyalty between God and His people continues today, and like God with us, we are to be with each other. Forgiving, loving, and merciful people of God sharing the gospel with others. As God has done for us, so we do for others.