“For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge,
your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”   Ruth 1:16

Many years ago, after praying with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, I found myself drawn to move outside my corporate job into ministry.  Facing that decision began a massive wrestling match between my heart, (which told me ministry is where God was leading me) and my head (which quite logically told me that family and colleagues in a successful career would think I was crazy).  Both were true!

For me to leave my chosen profession for ministry was far outside my comfort zone and fear filled my brain.  This life change was so illogical, yet in prayer, it was a strong call in my heart.

Today’s readings are about listening to God to hear the call to move outside our fears and our comfort zones, beyond the familiar and ‘usual’ way of living.

In the first reading we hear the story of Naomi, who with her husband and two sons, had left the famine of their homeland in Judea to find food in the foreign land of Moab.  They established themselves there, and after Naomi’s husband died, her two sons married Moabite women.  Then the two sons died.

Naomi, who had lived in this foreign land for many years, wanted to go home to Judea and said goodbye to her daughters-in-law, Orpah, and Ruth.  But Ruth stays with Naomi not only because she loves her mother-in-law, but because she has found a home in her husband’s Jewish faith.  She has moved outside her comfort zone because her heart is leading her to what her “home” really is.

Ruth can only expect to live as a “foreigner,” and a pauper in that land. But by listening to what God was calling her to, she marries the wealthy Boaz and becomes the great-grandmother of King David, changing the course of history.

In the Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus faces another challenge by the Pharisees. Both the Pharisees and Sadducees held tight to commandments no matter how hard it was on the people.  A law was the law.  Then one of them asked Jesus, which of the laws was the greatest?

In his surprising answer, Jesus doesn’t quote law, but challenges them to think and live outside their comfort zones, telling them to love God with all their hearts and then to love their neighbor as they would themselves.

For religious leaders who like to separate and elevate themselves from their neighbors, telling them to love the people instead would probably have been way outside their comfort zones.

Jesus is teaching that the law is not the top priority – love is.  Love God.  Love others.  How would their lives have to change to do as Jesus instructed?  What they know is the law.  From all appearances, they are less comfortable with loving.

Each of us is being invited to move beyond our comfort level and to increase the love we have for others.  We are asked to pray for the ability to expand our hearts in new ways; to ask God for the courage to live and love in many new directions.

It’s an invitation to follow Jesus in loving and to continue that journey beyond the place in our lives where we are relaxed and at home.  It’s not always about moving to another land, as Ruth did, or even to a new job.   We are asked to love those in our lives who almost seem like foreigners:  the most annoying relative or the abrasive co-worker. We can stop avoiding the person whose politics make us so uncomfortable.  And as we pray to love God more deeply, we can ask for the help to love and forgive the person who has hurt us profoundly.

Loving God, give me the courage and passion to follow you and love beyond my limits.  Help me to find a home in serving others and to stop seeing the ‘foreign’ boundaries between myself and others in my life.