Ruby Turpin was a good Christian woman. She went to church every Sunday with her husband Claude. They tithed every year. She and Claude worked hard to get what they had. She always felt a tremendous degree of self- satisfaction regarding her own position in the world. Her social classifications boiled down to race, ownership of land, and how you used your money. She and Claude have some land, a house, and they raise pigs. She considered herself obviously superior to people who only own a house. And since she is white, she considerec herself superior to any blacks, regardless of how much property they owned or how much education they had. She was always thanking God that she was who she was: "If its one thing I am its grateful. When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, I just feel like shouting, THANK YOU JESUS for making everything the way it is. It could have been different. I thank you I ain't poor white trash or black. It could have been different, O THANK YOU JESUS, THANK YOU !!!
Ruby's story begins in the waiting room of a doctor's office, where she is waiting for Claude, who had been kicked by a hog on Monday and his leg was infected, and was now being treated. As she sat in the Doctor's office she surveyed the room filled with patients waiting to see the Doctor.
There was the young girl, with scruffy, dirty blond hair waiting with her crying baby with the runny nose, in her dirty tee shirt and dirty torn jeans, obviously poor white trash looking for help. And then there was a stranger sitting there with her rather plain looking daughter whose nose was stuck in a book called "Human Development" of all things. As she looks at all of them ranged around the office, she thinks to herself: : What to do with these people who have a lot of money but are so common, or have "good blood" but have lost their money and have to rent. As she sits there looking at the group she strikes up a conversation with the stranger. It seems they have just moved to town, their daughter is enrolled at the local college, majoring in psychology. Inevitably, Ruby's thoughts and reflections break into speech.
If it's one thing I am, its grateful. When I think of who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, I just feel like shouting, "Thank you Jesus, for making everything the way it is! It could have been different… O Thank you Jesus."
At that moment, Mary Grace, the daughter, apparently can't stand this self congratulatory blather any longer and launches her book at Ruby's head, hitting her in the eye. Mary Grace then hurls across the waiting room and clamps her fingers around Ruby's neck and begins to choke her. The doctor and nurse come rushing in and subdue Marry Grace who then falls into some kind of fit. Mrs. Turpin leans over the girl on the floor and "the girl's eyes stop rolling. "What have you got to say to me? She demands of the girl.
The girl responds with focused eyes, "Go back to where you came from, you wart hog from hell!" Seems like a peculiar question to ask someone who is have a seizure, but there are two explanations for Ruby's demand. The first most obvious one is that Ruby is unable to see that girl is ill. She is able only to see that the girl has affronted her and now Ruby is seeking an apology. On the surface this explanation is consistent with Ruby's personality, and seems to work in the context of the story.
On a deeper level however, Ruby's question may have something to do with the nature of the epileptics relationship to God. In many primitive cultures, the ecstatic states of shamanism and the medicine men, are brought on, preceded by or characterized by convulsions and fits. Seen in this light, Ruby's questions is one of what is God trying to say to me.
Ruby sits back in shock. "A Wart Hog form Hell!! How can I be Wart hog from Hell and be me too. I'm a good Christian woman. I tithe, I work hard at church, go every Sunday. I Help when I can. Didn't I just give that poor farm worker food this morning, cause he hadn't eaten before he came to work? Ruby is in a state. "How can I be a Hog and me? How am I saved and from Hell at the same time? Her perfect world has begun to fall apart. All the certainties of her life, her assumptions, her beliefs about herself and God and humankind have been challenged. As she struggle to make sense of the girl's response she takes her anger and frustration out on the hogs, down in the pig parlor.
In Many ways Ruby is indeed a hog, just like the ones she and Claude raise. Who live in a pig-parlor, sheltered from the real world, whose feet never touch the ground. While at the same time she is saved , saved by the eternal grace of God. Yes, Mrs. Turpin is neat and clean, pleasant to the black help on the farm, pleasantly distant from the poor white trash that live across the tracks, and socially polite to those who are from another state. But it is not her niceness, her Christianness that ensure her salvation. It is God alone.
As she stands by the fence hosing the hog's down, with a fierceness that would scare most people, Ruby has a Revelation, a revelation about the grace of God. As she stands there fuming and steaming, she see the sunset.
In that sunset, she sees a great rainbow with people marching across it toward the light of the Sun. At the head of the parade are those whose skin is a different color, then those who are poor and needy, then the blind and the lame, the epileptic and the old and infirm, then come the stranger and the alien, and finally comes Ruby and Claude bringing up the rear.
What is going on here? We are shown that God changes reality. God transforms our expectations. God is being God. God is loving and embracing all who will fall short, all who will stumble, all who will sufferr, alls who will know the misgivings of this world. God is cracking open the world of humanity and offering a life restoring changing hope.
God is showing us that God is beyond our expectations. God is bigger than we can possibly imagine. God is loving the unlovable and transforming the wicked. God is present in then nursing home, the temple, the pig farm, the doctor's office. What is going on is that God is a work in the life of Ruby Turpin, in the life of the tax collector, in the life of the Pharisee, in the life of the sinner, in the hurting, the helpless and the homeless. God is at work in you and in me. Praise God. Amen.