July 31, 2008

At the City Gates

Read Ruth 4:1-10

Some of us are familiar with gated communities but, unless we are history buffs, many

of us are unfamiliar with gated cities. As a child of the 50's, my images of city gates

came from the green, art deco gates to the city of Oz or the wooden entrances to a

thousand frontier forts in the cowboy movies I watched as a kid. Yet, city walls, and

thus city gates, were very common in the ancient world. The so-called "wall streets"

in various cities mark where these walls once stood.

Of course, city walls are testimonies to the fact that the world can be a dangerous

place. People put up walls to keep certain things in -- and other things out of -- their

lives. Gates are intentional holes in these walls, so they must be carefully monitored.

They are places where people choose to move from one set of rules and authority to

another. One set of rules applies inside the walls, another outside. Gates represent the

transition from one sphere of influence to another.

For obvious reasons, city gates were gathering places and it was natural for those

charged as the community's gatekeepers to take their places, guarding the community physically, culturally, and spiritually. It was a vital role, for the safety of the city

depended on their vigilance. For example, on the Lewis and Clark expedition, the

death sentence was prescribed for onlyone offense: falling asleep on guard duty. That

was because it was the only offense that put the whole corps at risk. In the cultural and

spiritual sense, elders are the sentries, charged with guarding the community's health and, indeed, its very existence.

Virtually every community honors its elders with this role. There are churches in which

the governing group is called "elders." The words "priest," "sheik," and "senator" all

mean "elder." The Old Testament gives witness to the special relationship between this

special place (the city gates) and these special people (elders).

The city gates were the place where people came for justice: When [a fugitive] flees

to one of these cities, he is to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state his

case before the elders of that city. Joshua 20:4

It was a place where people were honored: Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land... Give her the reward

she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Proverbs 31:23, 31

It was a place where domestic disputes were handled: -- his father and mother shall

take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.

Deuteronomy 21:19

The absence of elders at the gates was a cause for mourning: The elders are gone from

the city gate; the young men have stopped their music. Lamentations 5:14  

To be cast "outside the gates" was to be cut off from the people: And so Jesus also

suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

Hebrews 13:12  

Thus it was natural for Boaz, as a city elder, to take his place seated at the city gates.

(Ruth 4:1) Yet, on this day, he came not only as a senator, but also as a supplicant.

He came to make his case in hopes of winning the right to marry Ruth and to have this

right confirmed in public.

One final note -- the great messianic hope is that, when Jesus at last reigns as King of

kings and Lord of lords, there will be no need ever to close the gates of pearl that

adorn the new Jerusalem, for perfect love will have cast out all fear. "Your gates will

always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night -- (Isaiah 60:11)  On no

day will its gates ever be shut -- a world where safety and justice prevail.

(Revelation 21:25)

                                                                        Sam Pascoe