|
|
|
|
|
"Samson 'N Delilah"
We have a few Sundays left here this summer, and I was struggling to decide on a sermon series to wrap up the summer. As I reflected on these closing days of summer, my mind returned to the memories of my childhood and the first, great Bible stories I learned as a boy. The stories I first heard from my Bible storybook, the stories that came to life in Vacation Bible School. You know—stories like Noah’s Ark. Daniel and his friends, Shadrak, Meshak and Abednego. Ezekiel’s amazing wheel in a wheel. Zacchaeus, the wee little man. Do you remember when you first heard these stories? I settled on a series of three stories I call the “N” stories. Samson N’ Delilah, David N’ Goliath, Jonah N’ the Whale. Stories I first learned as a child, which helped form my faith, but which provide surprising insight now as I study them again as an adult. Today, we get Samson ‘N Delilah. The childhood story was simple. Samson was tricked by his lovely companion Delilah to reveal the source of his amazing strength. Samson was stronger than any man, a strength that came from God. He had been set apart as a Nazarite to serve God. Delilah’s greed for the Philistine’s silver—1100 pieces of silver—motivated her to ask Samson the secret source of his might. Three times he tricks her. Three times she tries to help the Philistines capture him. Three times she fails. But then Delilah acts hurt. Mocked. “If you really loved me. . .” she said. “If you REALLY loved me…you wouldn’t lie to me.” And so he told her. Told her that as a Nazarite, he’d never had his hair cut. “If my hair were shaved, then I would be as weak as any other man,” he told her. Remember that. As weak as any other man. We’ll come back to that, I’m sure. You all know what happened. While he slept in her lap, she called a man and had him shave off Samson’s hair. His strength left him immediately; he was captured, blinded, and made into a side show for the Philistines. As a youth, I always thought Samson’s great downfall was Delilah. Of course, as I come back to this story now, I realize, Samson’s great downfall, the enemy he couldn’t overcome no matter how great his physical strength, was, well. . . was himself and his own desires. And his desire to get revenge. The passage from the Samson saga we read this morning comes earlier in the story. Before he met Delilah. Samson was already in a feud with the Philistines. They attack the people of Judah and demand that they hand Samson over to them. “Why?” they want to know. The Philistines reply, “We have come to do to Samson what he has done to us.” So the men of Judah go to the cave where Samson is hiding. “What have you done, Samson?” they ask, “that the Philistines rule over us?” Samson replies, “I only did to them what they did to me!” Hear it? The thirst for revenge? Like two small siblings. “You started it!” “No, you did.” “No, you did.” “Nuh-uh. You.” “You.” Samson became involved in a series of vengeful one-up-man-ship with his enemies. Tit for tat. You know, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Ironic that Samson himself would be the one left blind, and weak as a toothless old man. He told Delilah that the shaving of his hair would leave him as weak as any other man. The truth is, it was his weakness that had brought him to this fate. His weakness for women—read the entire Samson story to get an idea of how his lust for women led him down all the wrong roads. His weakness to satisfy his own desires. His weakness to gain revenge. It wasn’t the shaving of his hair that made him weak, it was living by his desires and not by God’s desires that weakened him most. The Old Testament is ruled by the law of an eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Revenge. The people then thought this was God’s intent. That this was God’s desire. But we have a window into the nature and character of God that they did not then. The perfect revelation of God through Jesus the Christ, the Son. And Jesus did not teach an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, but rather to turn the other cheek. Jesus did not teach revenge for the action’s of one’s enemies, but to love one’s enemies. To do unto others as they would do unto you. To be forgiven of sins as we forgive those who sin against us. You want to know what God thinks of revenge? The teachings of Jesus give us an unmistakably clear position: God seeks not revenge but reconciliation. The story of Samson ends in one final, tragic scene. Samson is led out to perform for the Philistine lords, to entertain them—much like a bear in a collar. As a child, I was told that it was Samson’s last, heroic act when he pushes the pillars of the house that causes it to collapse, killing 3000 Philistines as well as himself. But now, I see it as the tragic consequence of a life lived for revenge. Who wins? Not the Philistines. Not Samson. And so it is when we set our face toward revenge. In the fantasy of revenge, there will be that moment, that one, single, “gotcha” moment when one’s enemy will be reduced to shame and humiliation. When they will in turn see how wrong they are and how right we are. Of course, the reality of revenge is never that exhilarating. All revenge does is set the stage for the next battle. And then the next. And the next. Until both sides are destroyed. In the rubble, the Philistines lay dead, and so does Samson. Not exactly a testament to God’s will and desire for life. But a testament to the powerful destruction of revenge. So powerful that only with God’s strength will we subdue it.
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
