Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, May 24, 2026
Good morning. We celebrated Pentecost a little bit early last week. We got a little birthday-happy and went ahead and installed Reverend Wesley, read the story from Acts, and talked about the gift of the Holy Spirit — where folks began to hear each other in each other's difference as clearly as if every language was fluent to all. So we have this kind of floating Sunday where Larry and I talked, and we kept the Pentecost paraments up. And we have this Sunday, before we get into the summer, where I was thinking about the Pentecost story and the opportunity to preach about — or wonder about — a theme that I really have never heard preached about in church before. It's not a theme that's stigmatized. It's not a theme that holds shame. I just think it's a topic that goes overlooked in a lot of ways, because we as Christians take it for granted. And that is friendship.
After this crowd of skeptics and scoffers looks at the disciples, after they see that this Holy Spirit mayhem has occurred — that people are speaking in tongues of all kinds — they begin to sneer and actually think that what's going on is that the people are drunk. And Peter stands up. This might be the first time that Peter has addressed a crowd without Jesus standing by his side. Peter stands up and turns to them. And what I imagine is that his friends pop up, put an arm on his shoulder, as he says what he says about a spirit that sees visions and dreams dreams. What struck me about this line, as I reread Acts — just the first few chapters; I'm still making my way through it again this week — is that it says, "But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them." Peter standing with the eleven.
Peter didn't have to do it alone. He got to do it with eleven other people — eleven other friends that he made while following Jesus around. I like to imagine that gang of brothers together near him. I think they had probably really taken in Jesus's final discourse to them, some of the last things that Jesus said, that you heard Karen read again in the fifteenth chapter of John. Jesus said, "There is actually no greater love than this: to lay down your life for a friend." And it seems as though — in many moments when we don't give the disciples much credit — they knew exactly what he meant when he said that.
As Kevin DeYoung writes, "Friendship is the most important, least talked-about relationship in the church." The most important, least talked-about relationship in the church. And as someone who is not married, I can't tell you how many people have asked me, "Who are you dating? When will you get married? Who are you seeing?" Or even when I have been in a relationship: "How is your partner? When will you get engaged?" I wonder what it looks like to say instead, "How are your relationships? How is it with your friends?" It's a different question that gets to a different kind of answer. Marriage and dating, singleness and partnership — they are important. But what does it look like when we examine scripture through the lens of friendship? Proverbs talks about it. We have David and Jonathan, and many other examples of people who show up for each other, who teach us something about being a friend. Jesus was particularly good at that. But I thought about Ruth and Naomi — the friendship between these two women.
For some of you who don't know the story, it actually starts with grief. Naomi is married to a man named Elimelech. They are from Judah, but they live their lives in Moab. They have two sons, and both sons marry women — Ruth and Orpah. We learn very early on in the book of Ruth that Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi a widow. For ten years, Naomi — widowed — is living with Ruth and Orpah and their husbands. And then Ruth's husband dies. And then Orpah's husband dies. And the three women are left widowed. Naomi is heartbroken and distressed. She wants to go back home, where she grew up, to the land of Judah, because she has heard word that God has started to provide food for the people who have been experiencing famine.
"Go back to your mother's house, each of you," she says to Ruth and Orpah. "I have to do this part alone." And she kisses them and they begin to weep. "No, we want to come with you and your people," they say to her. "Turn back, my daughters," she says. "Why would you want to go with me? I have no sons in my womb for you to marry. And even if I did have someone I was married to, you're not going to wait until those sons are old enough. I am bitter." In this moment, Naomi actually picks a new name for herself. She says, "Call me Mara, not Naomi." Naomi means pleasant. Mara means bitter. "I'm bitter. God has turned against me."
And Ruth and Orpah weep aloud once again. And Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and then does what she says — she goes back home. And scripture tells us, "But Ruth clung to her." Naomi said, "See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people. Go with her." But Ruth said, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Don't you get it? Where you go, I go. Where you lodge, I lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die. There I will be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you."
The youth call that being a girl's girl. I would have to agree with them. It is perhaps the most unrelenting, steadfast example of the fierce and loyal love that God has for us. God's relational desire for us is always to be connected to each other. In fact, the Hebrew word for friend means "connect." God understood that and taught us that.
Naomi is really used to loss at this point, is she not? She's bitter. Her husband has died. Not one but two sons have died. "Just leave me alone. Turn away from me. Go back." But there is Ruth, clinging. Where you go, I go. Where you lodge, I lodge. Your people are my people. You are stuck with me.
It reminds me — I know y'all are going to go see Andor along with Grogu — and it also reminds me of another iconic fantasy series: Lord of the Rings. In the last scene of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo is on a boat heading to Mordor and he decides he's going to do it alone. And this is a very funny scene for those of you who remember. Sam, his best friend, begins running out into the water to get on the boat with him as he's paddling away. Sam cannot swim. And Frodo looks at him and says, "Go back, Sam. I'm going to Mordor alone." And Sam says, "Of course you are, and I'm coming with you."
Pastor Lee Finnegan notes that Ruth's sole purpose in this whole narrative is redemption — a fact reinforced by the repetition of that word twenty times in only eighty-five verses. Twenty times in only eighty-five verses. There is something to be said for a friend who wants to redeem another friend. Not fix her grief, not sugarcoat it, not ignore it or turn away from it — but cling to it, as if to say, "What you feel, I will feel. Your heartbreak is my heartbreak, and your pain is my pain. And sister, I am right there with you in it."
It's really no surprise, then, that when we open Matthew 1 and look at the genealogy of Jesus, Ruth's name appears — as if this fierce and steadfast friendship is embedded in his very DNA — because he taught us a lot about what it means to be a good friend.
Ruth the Redeemer. I wonder if you have someone like that in your life. A clinger. I have been redeemed by many Ruths, and I do not take it for granted. Many Ruths who have witnessed me in moments of great loss and showed me steadfast love when they could have turned around and gone back home. My friend Diana always says, "Margie, you walk to a wedding, you run to a funeral." Those are words to live by. My friend Megan, in a very difficult season when I was trying out medication, referred to it as my "vertical juice" — a way to help soften some of the stigma of being medicated. Friends who have sat with me eating Indian food on the living room floor as I howled after the loss of a family member. Friends who flew in just for a few hours to attend a funeral before flying back home.
Redeeming Ruths. I want to know about yours. Or maybe the ache of who you hope that person could be. They have showed up for me when I am bitter, when I want a name change because I don't feel too pleasant. And they didn't just kiss my cheek and walk home. They clung.
Friendship is so sacred, and it is so clunky. It is both a balm and a mirror. It's one of the most simple ways that I think God reveals God's love to us. It's a reminder that we can't do life alone — that we actually need two or more gathered for Jesus, for church to be there. That Jesus didn't even want to do it alone. He knew he needed people. And friendship is hard. There are times I have not been a good friend. I haven't known how to show up for someone in their grief, and so I have walked home. Or I have been flaky. I have let people down. We often speak of breakups — romantic breakups — but the breakups that keep me up at night are those of friends.
And yet Jesus welcomes me back. He always does. He offers a road map to stumble along and try again. He says: "I ate with people who denied me. I ate with people who betrayed me. I ate with fishermen who had serious body odor. And I ate with tax collectors who made a lot more money than me and could go on trips I could never afford. Some of my friends couldn't even show up for me in my final moments on earth — it was too painful for them." When Jesus appears after the resurrection, Thomas can hardly believe it's him. "Aren't you supposed to be perfect?" he seems to say. And Jesus says, "No. I have wounds. You want to see them?"
I think that's what good friends do. We take the risk to show our wounds to each other. Naomi unflinchingly looked at Ruth and Orpah and said, "Get away from me. I'm too bitter, too heartbroken, too in pain for you to be here walking with me through this." But Ruth shows up again and again. And so we must try to as well — even when we get it horribly wrong. Even when our envy or resentment or hurt gets in the way. And of course there's discernment there. Sometimes the right thing to do is walk home, away from a friendship that isn't serving us. And sometimes the invitation is to learn how to cling harder.
Jesus knew that he couldn't do life alone. And of the myriad miracles he performed, I wonder if he saw friendship as one of the greatest. Author Hanya Yanagihara writes in her book A Little Life: "Wasn't friendship its own miracle? The finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely."
Ruth's words echo throughout Jesus's life. Where we go, he goes. Where we lodge, he lodges. Our people are his people, and our God is his God. Like the eleven standing with Peter. Like the twelve eating with Jesus. Like Ruth — the one who won't let go.
I feel, and maybe you feel, convicted and comforted by these examples of biblical friendship that give us a way forward, to show up for our friends. Every new day — every blessed, broken day — we try again.
"I'm going alone," we may protest. Or we may hear someone say to us: "Of course you are, and I'm going with you."
Amen.