"Let The Judges Speak, Part Four: "Leaning on God - Samson"
What happens when we lose sight of the horizon
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Text: Judges 16:23-31
A number of years ago, just after John Kennedy Jr. crashed his plane into the sea off Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, there was an article in the Atlantic Monthly written by William Langewiesche, one of the leading instructors in aeronautics and flying in the United States. It was his job to troubleshoot, to help pilots who had lost their abilities and needed refresher courses. The courses that Langewiesche offered helped those who had lost confidence or even courage, and were frightened to fly again.
In light of the Kennedy disaster he was very busy, and so he wrote an incredible article in the Atlantic Monthly. In it, he told me something I did not know: that on board a plane there is usually a particular dial that works with a gyroscope to display a level picture of the horizon for the pilot. When pilots become blinded by fog or clouds or terrible weather and cannot use their visuals to be able to determine where they are, they rely on this gauge to tell them the single most important thing - where the horizon is and how to remain level.
What was staggering to learn in this article was that many pilots, even with this gauge, can still become disoriented. When a plane pitches one way or the other, the actual horizon remains the same, but pilots have a terrible tendency, a natural urge to try and steer the plane in the direction they think will level themselves parallel to the horizon, when in fact steering it in the opposite direction usually has the proper result. In other words, the natural impetus for pilots is to turn one way when they look at the gauge, when in reality they should turn the other. What the writer found particularly distressing was that some of his students actually wound up following the horizon, but flying upside-down! It is so easy for people to lose their bearings when they cannot see, to become disoriented and lose sight of the horizon.
Well, it seems to me that the story of the judge that we are looking at this morning is of someone who in many ways lost sight of the horizon. He had lost his sense of orientation, and was turning in a direction that was destructive, as if he was flying upside-down metaphorically. The story of Samson is of someone who, despite many great abilities and tremendous gifts and strength, engaged in destructive behaviour.
The story comes to us in a rather difficult and circuitous way. It probably dates back to the 10th century B.C. Whatever the source for this story, it followed a very common theme among storytellers of the day. You see, around the entire Middle East there were wandering storytellers who used to entertain the crowds and would gather people around to use their stories to send a message to the people. There was one very common story that crossed different cultural and historic boundaries. The theme was that of a strong man who, because of the wiles of women, gets seduced into bad behaviour, leading to his own destruction and death. The story of Samson, then, is very much like the stories told by the wandering storytellers. Yet, as we shall see, the story of Samson is unique.
The story of Samson is more powerful than just a simple anecdote to convey a message. It also has parallels in other forms of literature. For example, if you look at the Greek myths, there are parallels between Samson and Hercules, and you can draw many similar meanings from both the stories. In the Tyrian epics, you have Melkarth, again a similar figure to Samson. And then you have a more recent work I have just re-read: Peer Gynt, written by Ibsen at a time in the 19th century when they were dealing with the extreme positivism of society as it related to human nature and human beings. Ibsen wrote this dark and dreadful story of Peer Gynt as a correction to the excessive optimism that he found in the likes of Emerson and Thoreau and others. Peer Gynt is the story of a man who does almost everything that he can to destroy himself. He leads a life of profligacy and sin and hatefulness and abuse, but at the end, his life is turned around.
The parallels between Samson and many of these great epics and stories in history are considerable, but the Samson story has two qualities that make it distinctive. The first is that he really is not a mythic figure, but is very, very human. There is a side to Samson's life that many people can identify with, and see someone that is in some ways, though exaggerated, like themselves. Samson has a timeless, human quality about him. But there is also a fact that the Samson story is not actually about Samson. It is in the Bible, and it is about God. And while the story might capture our imaginations with its severity, and dreadfulness; in the end, the message is not about Samson, it's about God. It is those two qualities it is about - humanity and God - that make it such a timeless and tremendous tale.
So, why look at Samson? What could we possibly derive of benefit from the story of this man? It is obvious that at the beginning he is an inspirational figure. I don't know about you, but when I went to Sunday school in the 60s, Samson was a hero. In all the books, he was portrayed as this great man with long hair. He was as strong as an ox, and he could tear down buildings. This man was like God to me. In fact, the two great figures that I remember that were god-like were Eric Clapton and Samson! They were the gods in my life when I was growing up. Samson was a great figure! I thought of him as marvellous and majestic, and only later on in life did I realize that 80 per cent of the story of Samson was left out of the Sunday school books - and for good reason! Nevertheless, he was inspirational because, at the time in which the story was told, the dominant military power of the day was the Philistines. They were dominant because they had a monopoly on iron, which enabled them to make weapons that made them victorious in war.
Thus, the great military power, the might of the time was the Philistines and Israel felt weak in comparison and unable to engage them in battle. Israel needed a source of hope, a source of inspiration to take on this great Imperial power. How were they going to do it? Hence, we have Samson. Samson, this great Israelite rose up in the midst of all this and with the jawbone of an ass killed a thousand Philistines. Here is a man who was able to knock down the pillars of the temple of Dagon. Here was a man who was able to tear a lion apart. Here was a man who killed 30 men from Ashkelon all on his own. Here was a man who could sort out riddles. Here was a man of wisdom, of power and of might. Here was a physical presence that Israel could look to as its source of strength in the midst of the power of the Philistines. Here was an inspiration!
And he was more than that! He was a religious man. We are told that he was a Nazarite. Nazarites lived very ascetic lives - very similar to John the Baptist in the New Testament. A Nazarite lived life without excess, without liquor or alcohol; he lived a life that was balanced and sensible. Nazarites were believed to have super powers. They refused to cut their hair, because they believed that as Nazarites, their power was in their hair, and if they were faithful to God, they would never cut that source of power. The Nazarites were known for being devout in their love and worship of Yahweh, and we are told on more than one occasion in the story that Samson was filled with the spirit and the power of God. Samson, then, is inspirational. He is physically strong, he is patriotic, he is devout. He seems to have all the qualities of a great leader and of a great man. Samson should have his praises sung. But that is not where the story leads.
Samson was equally a tragic figure, because he was easily seduced. His lust overtook him. We all know of the story of Delilah, and some of us have heard about Samson and the harlot in Gaza or Timnah. He could not control himself. He was driven by his lust, and his lust destroyed him. But how it destroyed him is interesting. As I mentioned, the Nazarites' that hair was their source of strength. But that was a great secret, a secret that they never wanted anyone else to know. Then, you see that weakened by his lust, Samson was trapped by Delilah. She got the secret of the Nazarites, she got him to say that his hair was his source of strength. As soon as the Philistines heard from Delilah that Samson's power was in his hair, they cut it off and made Samson weak. In other words, his lust had destroyed him. But it had not destroyed him immediately, it destroyed him indirectly.
Now, I know that we live in an age where lust is something that is very often tolerated or even accepted. It is often treated by our culture as if it is benign or innocent. Lust is okay. It is all right. It is fine. Everything will be okay. But real lust destroys relationships, and relationships when they are torn apart destroy love. Love is the true power. Love is the true strength. So lust, therefore, is the very opposite, the antithesis to love. It destroys. It ruins. You see, it wasn't really about his hair. It wasn't his hair that made Samson strong. It was more. It was his fidelity to God. That is what made him great. What made him great was not that he had these great locks - that was only a symbol of his devotion to Almighty God. But, Samson had turned away from his devotion to Almighty God, so even his perceived source of strength - his hair - became his source of weakness. The hair wasn't the issue.
There is a story told of a young boy who went up to his father and said, “I would like to drive the car.”
Now, all you parents of teenagers have gone through this in your lives, haven't you? “I'd like to drive the car.”
So, as a clever parent, realizing that this was the expedient moment to try and get some good out of the child, the father said, “All right. You can drive the car if you will do three things. One, you are to improve your grades at school [a very good lever]. Secondly, you will read your Bible [what a painful thing to have to do!]. Thirdly, you will have to cut your hair.”
The boy thought this was a fair deal. He weighed it up against the privilege of driving, and a month later, he went into his father's study and said, “Dad, I have done everything that you wanted.”
And the father said, “Well, I suppose, up to a point. You have certainly improved your grades, and that is to your credit. I have also noticed that you have been reading your Bible. But you haven't cut your hair.”
The boy said, “Well, Dad, I have been reading my Bible, and I have found that Samson did not want to have his hair cut, and that Moses had long hair, and Jesus had long hair, and John the Baptist had long hair.”
And the father said, “Right, you are correct. And everywhere they went, they walked.”
It is not about the hair. The hair is not the issue. And so it is with the story of Samson. The hair is a symbol, a sign of Nazarite power, a sign of ascetic respect, a sign of being obedience to God; it is not the issue. The tragedy of this story is that Samson had lost sight of his horizon. His hair was a symbol of something much deeper, just like when we were talking about the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter last week. It is the same thing: He had lost sight of his horizon and his sense of God, and it destroyed him.
It destroys many people. Lust is simply a manifestation of the fact that we have lost our horizons. The destroyed relationships that result are a sign that we have lost our horizons. In our disorientation terrible things happen. In fact, I think it is fair to say that if you look at many of the scandals that have hit the church over the years, when you look at the evangelists that have fallen from grace, so often it has been lust at the heart of their demise. And the world, for all its love and worship of lust, sure turns on its victims when they are religious or when they are powerful or when they are great or when they are well known - such is the hypocrisy of the world. But, it does bring down the mighty! It does! However, it is a symptom of something deeper: The horizon has been lost.
Samson lost everything. He lost his strength, he lost his vision. If anyone wants to see a most grotesque painting, look at Rembrandt's rendition of the Philistine poking out the eyes of Samson. It is dark and it is grotesque and it is powerful! Samson was a great man, an inspirational figure, who came crashing down and was humiliated. think of the humiliation of Samson as he appeared before the Philistines - blind, feeling his way to find the pillars, powerless, being told to stand against them and to hold them up. It is an awful story! You are probably all saying, “Oh, on a cold day, when we are already miserable because Canada lost the hockey game to the Swiss, terrible things are happening in the world around us that we just can't bear, why are we hearing the story of Samson? Is there just no good news here?” There is. Oh, there is! Samson might have been tragic, but in the end, he was redeemed.
In one of the most powerful stories of all the judges, he stands before the Philistines, holding up the pillars of their temple and cries out, “Oh, Lord God, please remember me, and please strengthen me just this time, O, my God.” Samson, finally, had found the horizon. He realized it was not in his asceticism, not in his physical power or prowess, not in his hair, not in being a Nazarite, not in any of these things was his source of strength - it was in God and in God alone. His lust brought him down, but in the end, he turned to God. The story is tragic that he dies and the Philistines die, but he does so having reclaimed his horizon, having found his grace.
So many people, my friends, are like Samson. Whatever the reason for their losing sight of their horizons, whatever the outcome might have been had that horizon not been lost, the fact is that losing sight of our horizon often leads to self-destruction and guilt, a sense of powerlessness, a sense of unworthiness. And no matter how ascetic or Nazaritic you are, there is no way back - or so it seems. But the moral of the story of Samson is that God is a gracious God, and that is why the story is not about Samson, it is about God. Samson is redeemed. Even though he hit rock bottom, he came back. If Jephthah's daughter is a proto-Christian, then in some ways Samson is a proto-Prodigal, the forerunner of the son in the parable of Jesus who went out into the wilds and who was brought back home.
Nobody captures this quite like John Milton, in his wonderful poem, Samson Agonistes. The last stanza sums up what should be the hope for all humanity when we feel that we have strayed and lost our horizon:
All is best, though we oft doubt,
What th' unsearchable dispose
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft he seems to hide his face,
But unexpectedly returns
And to his faithful Champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns
And all that band them to resist
His uncontrollable intent,
His servants he with new acquist
Of true experience from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismist,
And calm of mind all passion spent.
Samson, in the end, re-discovered his horizon, and stood back and leaned on God. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.