Month: July 2021

Scripture: Judges 13-16

MP3 Audio Link: https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/sermon-recording-4-jul-2021-samson

YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEr9ntmv-eI

Structure:

• Introduction
• Colonisation
• Alienation
• Desolation
• Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Lemony Snicket begins his book, A Series of Unfortunate Events, with the words: “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.” 

Quite a few of the stories in the Bible could do with the same sort of warning. Of course, an introduction like that just makes us to want to read more.  

Today we continue our sermon series on hair and hairy people in the Bible.

If we say something is a bit ‘hairy’; for example, ‘the weather was a bit hairy’ or ‘the umpiring was a bit hairy’, we mean that it was a bit rough & ready or less than perfect, perhaps even a little scary. Hairiness is the opposite of refinement and good quality. The opposite of safe.

The English language has a few weird and wonderful idioms involving hair. For example, ‘She gave me the hairy eyeball’, meaning she looked at me with utter disdain or contempt. No one wants to get the hairy eyeball.

Last week we heard about hairy Esau and his relationship with smooth Jacob. This morning we hear about Samson who, of course, was never supposed to cut his hair. Not only was Samson physically hairy, he also lived at a pretty hairy time in Israel’s history and he did some hairy things.

Samson’s story is told in the Old Testament book of Judges. Quite frankly, “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.” 

Between the time of Joshua and the prophet Samuel, while the people of Israel were settling into the Promised Land, God raised up certain men and women to be judges or leaders of the nation. People like Gideon, Deborah and Jephthah.

There is a refrain running through the book of Judges to the effect that each person did what seemed right in their own eyes. In other words, the people of God did not follow God’s law faithfully. We notice a downward spiral of moral degradation as we read through the book of Judges. Both the people and their leaders seemed to get progressively worse.

Please turn with me to Judges chapter 13. Samson is the last of the judges during this period and he is perhaps the hairiest and the most tragic of them all. From Judges 13, verse 1, we read…

The Israelites sinned against the Lord again, and he let the Philistines rule them for forty years.

² At that time there was a man named Manoah from the town of Zorah. He was a member of the tribe of Dan. His wife had never been able to have children. ³ The Lord‘s angel appeared to her and said, “You have never been able to have children, but you will soon be pregnant and have a son. ⁴ Be sure not to drink any wine or beer, or eat any forbidden food; ⁵ and after your son is born, you must never cut his hair, because from the day of his birth he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite.He will begin the work of rescuing Israel from the Philistines.”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Colonisation:

Israel’s pattern of behaviour during the time of the judges went like this. They would turn away from the Lord and follow the practices of the nations around them. Then God would give them over to what they had chosen. He would let the nations they copied rule over them and oppress them. This is not what God wanted for Israel, but it seems God did this to try and vaccinate Israel against pagan worship. 

Eventually Israel would cry out to God for deliverance from their enemies and God would raise up a hero leader to save his people. But, by the time we get to Samson, the last of the judges, the people have given up crying out to God for help. They just don’t seem to have any fight left in them. They have become docile and compliant. This is a dangerous position for God’s people to be in. God had to do something to wake Israel out of her stupor. 

These days, when we hear the name Philistine, we tend to think of someone who is uncouth, or uncultured. A bit rough and ready, a bit hairy and perhaps also ignorant. To call someone a ‘Philistine’ then is an insult. But the actual Philistines, who lived during the time of the judges, were anything but uncultured and ignorant. They were actually quite smooth and savy.

The Philistines were a seafaring people who came to the land of Israel a few decades after Israel had settled there. To put it in terms we can relate with, the Philistines were sort of like colonists. They came after the Israelites with a view to establishing their own ways at the expense of God’s people.          

In the early stages of their colonisation, so the experts tell us, the Philistines were not especially heavy handed or aggressive. The violence and aggression came later. At first, they inveigled their way into Israelite life through trade and intermarriage. Gradually their pagan religion became normalised and palatable, so that it didn’t seem threatening or hairy.   

But God could see the threat to Israel. If Israel just kept drifting along, accommodating the Philistines’ way of life, soon there would be no Israel and the people of God would be neutered.  God’s plan was to bless the nations of the world through Israel, so it was crucial that Israel maintain its identity and God given way of life.

The angel of the Lord told Samson’s parents that their son was to be a Nazarite. The word Nazarite means set apart or separated out for God. Normally the taking of a Nazarite vow was voluntary and for a limited period of time. But in Samson’s case, it was compulsory and for all of his life.

In Matthew 5:33-37 Jesus warned against making vows. Jesus said: Do not make a vow when you make a promise… Do not even swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Samson’s situation is not exactly the same as this because Samson had little choice in the matter. Samson was commanded to never cut his hair, never drink wine and never come in contact with a dead body.

If we were reading Samson’s story for the first time we might think, ‘this is different’. God is calling Samson to be a holy man. The part about not coming in contact with a corpse might lead us to think that Samson was going to deliver Israel without killing anyone. That would be unique.

Sadly, the story does not unfold that way. More often than not redemption involves violence. This should not surprise us because redemption is about being set free from someone or something more powerful than us. And the one holding the power is usually unwilling to let go without a fight. Jesus certainly suffered violence in the process of setting us free.

Samson was far from holy though. He manages to break all three of the Nazarite no no’s and other things beside. And yet, God’s grace is sufficient for him. God works with Samson’s choices, making those choices serve the divine plan of salvation.

In chapter 14 of the book of Judges, we read how Samson takes a fancy to a Philistine girl in a nearby village. He wants to marry the girl and asks his Dad to set it up. Samson’s parents are deeply grieved by this. Their son has asked them to do a very hairy thing in their eyes. They want Samson to find a nice Jewish girl but Samson won’t budge. From verse 4 of Judges 14 we read…

His parents did not know that it was the Lord who was leading Samson to do this [to marry a Philistine], for the Lord was looking for a chance to fight the Philistines. At this time the Philistines were ruling Israel.

God was not happy with the status quo. The Philistines were in charge of Israel and God did not like that arrangement. It was only ever meant to be temporary. The Israelites were being too accepting, too inclusive and bending over for the Philistines too easily. God wants his people to put up some resistance and so God uses Samson’s wedding to pick a fight.

Samson gave a wedding banquet at the Philistine’s house. In that culture a wedding banquet meant seven days of eating and drinking. The text doesn’t say explicitly that Samson consumed wine but it seems to imply that he did. In any case, Samson supplied wine for the guests. Not what you would expect from a tee-totalling Nazarite.

During the banquet Samson has a bet with some of the men there. If they can solve his riddle he will give each of them a new set of clothes. But if they can’t, they must give him new clothes. They can’t solve the riddle of course and so they threaten Samson’s fiancé, saying that if she doesn’t tell them the answer they will burn her father’s house to the ground with her in it. That’s the Philistine mafia for you.

After much nagging, emotional blackmail and giving of the hairy eyeball, Samson’s bride to be finally gets the answer out of Samson and she tells the guests. Samson is furious. He knows they cheated to get the answer but a bet is a bet. From verse 19 of Judges 14 we read…

Suddenly the power of the Lord made him [Samson] strong, and he went down to Ashkelon, where he killed thirty men, stripped them and gave their fine clothes to the men who solved the riddle.

Alienation:

I grew up watching a TV series called the Incredible Hulk. You know the story, of the scientist David Banner, who tried to come up with a serum to enable people to control their anger. But it all went wrong and now, whenever David Banner gets angry he turns into the Incredible Hulk; a green muscle bound monster with super strength. Sort of like a Viking berserker.

The cool thing about the Hulk is that, whenever he got angry and started smashing things, he always ended up helping some poor innocent soul. His anger had a redemptive effect. The Hulk set people free. He delivered the oppressed from those who abused their power. 

The sad thing about the Hulk though was he could never get too close to people or settle down. He was always on the run, trying to hide his true identity. So David Banner (aka the Hulk) lived a lonely existence.     

I don’t imagine Samson turned green when he got angry but he did become unusually strong. What we notice is that his strength came from the Spirit of the Lord, from God’s presence. We are a long way from that image of the Spirit as a gentle dove descending on Jesus at his baptism. God’s Spirit will not be pigeon holed. He is more like a hurricane in this situation.              

Once Samson’s anger had cooled down he returned to his fiancé with a young goat. In those days, and in that culture, you didn’t give red roses to your sweet heart, you gave goats. Samson was hoping to consummate the marriage. But when Samson arrived he found his fiancé had been married off to his best man.

Samson went on a rampage again. This time he caught 300 foxes (or more likely jackals), tied flaming torches to their tales and set them loose in the Philistine’s cornfields. The fire spread to the olive orchards as well.      

This would have been devastating to the local economy and put many Philistine families on the edge of starvation. The Philistines got their own back by burning to death the woman Samson had wanted to marry. This is such an awful story. I did warn you though. Samson’s stories don’t have a happy ending.

Samson was not inclined to turn the other cheek. He retaliated by attacking the Philistines fiercely and killing many of them. Then he went to find sanctuary in a cave, alone.   

This tit for tat situation continued to escalate, as it always does. The Philistines went down to the territory of Judah and attacked one of the Israelite towns there. When the men of Judah found out the Philistines really wanted Samson, 3000 of them went to the cave where Samson was holed out and gave him the hairy eyeball, saying…

“Don’t you know that the Philistines are our rulers? What have you done to us?”

He answered, “I did to them just what they did to me.”

¹² They told him, “We have come here to tie you up, so we can hand you over to them.”

Samson said, “Give me your word that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³ “All right,” they said, “we are only going to tie you up and hand you over to them. We won’t kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him back from the cave.

Now, I tell you this part of the story because it is sooo sad. The 3000 men of Judah are supposed to be on Samson’s side. Granted, Samson is from the tribe of Dan, just north of Judah, but they are all still Israelites. There are 3000 of them for crying out loud, plus they have Samson, the Hebrew Hulk. They could have taken the Philistine’s on. They could have said to Samson, ‘Fight with us against the Philistines. Let’s throw off the yoke of oppression. God is clearly with you and we are with you too.’

But instead they say, “What have you done to us? Don’t you know that the Philistines are our rulers?” The men of Judah can’t imagine a reality in which the Philistines are not in charge. They can’t picture their own redemption. They are scared and defensive. All they can think to do is hand Israel’s most powerful weapon over to their enemies.

That’s what colonisation does. It creeps up on you, destroying a people’s identity, purpose and hope right under their nose. We shouldn’t be too hard on the men of Judah though. They have been lulled into a false sense of security and they don’t have any fight left in them. Would we behave any differently if we were in their shoes?

You know the church in the west has lost a lot of ground in recent decades. We need to resist being colonised by an anti-Christian world view. As followers of Jesus we need to maintain our identity and our hope in Christ.

This is not to imply that the society we live in is completely bad. Our society still enjoys the benefits of many Christian values, but we are not perfect. New Zealand is a mixture isn’t it. We need to discern what is Godly and what is not of God. Jesus calls us to be salt & light. That is, to hold to Christ without resorting to violence and without withdrawing from society.

We feel for Samson too. He is isolated, alienated and alone, and he knows it. All he has is his long hair, his smouldering anger and his brutal strength. When the men of Judah hand Samson over to the Philistines, he breaks the ropes he is bound with, takes the jaw bone of a recently deceased donkey and uses it to smash the skulls of his enemies.

From verse 16 of Judges 15 we read: So Samson sang, “With the jaw-bone of a donkey I killed a thousand men; With the jaw-bone of a donkey I piled them up in piles. So much for avoiding contact with dead bodies.

Verse 20 of Judges 15 says that Samson led Israel for 20 years. But it seems he was a leader without followers. He was a man set apart, a man alone.

 You may have heard the news this past week that the Guinness World Record for the most M&M’s stacked on top of each other was broken by Will Cutbill of the UK. When I heard that news I wondered to myself how many M&M’s did Will manage to stack. Was it 20? Was it 30? Not even close.

Will managed to balance just five M&M’s on top of each other. The previous record was four. It is obviously a lot harder than it looks. Will’s advice was ‘take your time’. It took him many hours and I imagine lots of patience. The things we do in lockdown.

Why am I telling you this? Well, partly as light relief in what is an otherwise gruelling tragedy. But also because Samson’s story is as frustrating as trying to balance M&M’s.    

Despite his supernatural physical strength, Samson was as fragile as an M&M stack. Samson had a weakness for Philistine girls. He kept falling in love with women who only wanted to manipulate and use him.

In this way, at least, Samson mirrors the nation of Israel. Samson’s life showed Israel what they were like. A bit hairy. Not particularly faithful to the Lord. Always getting in bed with foreign gods. Never quite living up to their potential. And yet, by God’s grace, still serving God’s purpose of salvation.    

Perhaps it was Samson’s isolation which made him vulnerable. He does not appear to have had any companionship or community with his own people. As we’ve heard, the men of Judah resented Samson for disturbing the peace and putting them in a difficult position with the Philistines.

Samson was like Mikey Rourke in the film The Wrestler. Sure, he was famous and good at hurting people, but that fame and his freakish strength only alienated him from his kin. He came to his own but his own received him not. Over time, loneliness like that has a corrosive effect on the human soul.

Desolation:

May be that is why he looked for comfort in the arms of a prostitute at the Philistine city of Gaza. As always, that sort of rendezvous resulted in another confrontation with his enemies. At least this time no one died.

In Judges chapter 16 we read how Samson uprooted the gates of Gaza and carried them 40 miles away. The gates of an ancient city symbolised that city’s security, among other things. Samson’s feat was perhaps a prophetic sign to Israel that they don’t need to fear the Philistines, for Gaza’s security was no match for the strength of God. 

Straight after the incident with the prostitute from Gaza we read how Samson hooks up with Delilah, another Philistine woman of ill repute. We can sense by now that this is not going to end well for anyone.

Verse 4 of Judges 16 tells us Samson fell in love with Delilah. As most of us know, falling in love makes us blind to the one we fall for. Samson could not see Delilah for who she was.

The five Philistine kings (each representing a city) see an opportunity and approach Delilah. They offer to pay her 1100 pieces of silver each, if she will trick Samson into telling her the secret of his super strength.

Delilah didn’t have to think about it. Straight away she went about her work. Three times she asked Samson what made him so strong and each time Samson led her up the garden path with a false answer. Clearly they had trust issues.

So when the Philistines came rushing in to get Samson, they failed. Samson could not be restrained by seven new bowstrings, nor by new ropes that have never been used and not by weaving the seven locks of his hair into a loom either.

In verse 15 of chapter 16 Delilah gives Samson the ‘hairy eyeball’. She says to him: How can you say you love me, when you don’t mean it? You’ve made a fool of me three times and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong.    

Now you would think that after the three attempts on his life, in which Delilah has been instrumental, Samson would see that this woman could not be trusted. We, the reader, desperately want Samson to learn, but he doesn’t. Like a stack of M&M’s, Samson keeps falling over. If you want a story with a happy ending, then don’t read Judges. 

When Delilah asks Samson a fourth time, Samson tells her the truth. If you cut my hair, I would lose my strength. So Delilah lulled Samson to sleep. (And isn’t that so typical of the smooth Philistine approach. The Philistines had enchanted Israel, lulling God’s people to into a false sense of security. Which is why God had sent Samson; to wake the people up and bring them to their senses.)

Once Samson is asleep a man comes in and cuts Samson’s hair. This time when the Philistines come, Samson is powerless to defend himself. They put Samson’s eyes out (they blind him permanently) then take him to the city of Gaza and put him to work grinding grain at the mill. Grinding grain in that culture was women’s work, so the idea here is to humiliate Samson, the strong man of Israel. Meanwhile, Samson’s hair starts to grow back.

When the five Philistine kings gather to celebrate and offer sacrifices to their god, Dagon, they bring Samson in for entertainment. The house is packed and there are 3000 on the roof as well.

Samson asks the boy leading him to let him rest against the pillars that support the building. Then Samson prays one last time, asking God for strength. With his final words he cries out: Let me die with the Philistines. Pushing the pillars with all his might, the building fell down on the five kings and everyone else. Many people died that day.     

Conclusion:

Samson’s story starts with colonisation. His life is filled alienation and loneliness, and it ends in desolation. So much suffering. What was the point of Samson’s life? Was it all in vain?

No. We need to take a longer view. You see, Samson’s life is part of God’s bigger story of salvation. Samson’s task was to begin the work of delivering Israel from the Philistines. So the story does not end with Samson’s death. Samuel and Saul continued the work of deliverance. But it was king David who finally managed to subdue the Philistines. Samson had the difficult and lonely job of ploughing the hard ground, allowing others to sow, water and reap the fruits of freedom with justice.

More importantly though, Samson’s life and death points to Jesus.

Like Samson, Jesus was set apart before he was born for special service to God; to deliver people from oppression.

Unlike Samson though, Jesus accomplished his God given purpose with words and deeds of truth and grace, not by smashing skulls or burning crops.

Like Samson, Jesus was rejected by his own people.

But unlike Samson, Jesus found comfort & strength in prayer.

Like Samson, Jesus died a sacrificial death in the presence of his enemies.

But unlike Samson, Jesus forgave his enemies and opened the way to friendship with God.  

Grace and peace to you.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

• Have you ever been given the hairy eyeball by someone? How did this make you feel? How did you respond? 

• Why does redemption so often involve violence? Why does God use Samson to pick a fight with the Philistines?

• Why do you think the men of Judah handed Samson over to the Philistines? How do you think this made Samson feel? Is there someone you know, who is isolated, that God would have you come alongside? 

• How might we (the church) resist colonization and maintain our identity and hope, in Christ, in this rapidly changing world?

• How many M&M’s can you balance on top of each other?

• In what ways does Samson show Israel a mirror?

• In what ways does Samson point to Jesus? In what ways is Jesus different from Samson?