Sermon Notes for Judges 16 (28th
July 2013)
I'll never get to preach a first-sermon here
again. This and the considerable difficulty of this passage have
given me to think about the purpose and nature of the preaching
medium and about what I believe and hope for St Marks. In outline, I
will share a bit of how the process of sermon writing was for me.
Asking, essentially, why preach? And specifically, why and how
we preach the Old Testament. I will speak briefly in praise
of Samson, as Hebrews 11 does, followed by a wrestling with the
significant problems of sex and violence in
this evening's text. Finally, I will argue that the ugliness
of this passage is only resolved in Jesus – which,
hopefully, is good news because there is much ugliness is my own
life.
- - -
So,
firstly, why preach? Why does anyone
preach? Not just Christians, what are we doing when we do this? I am
trying to convince you of a point, to argue the case for
something meaningful, so it ought to be polemic and it ought to be
dialogical if it is to be authentic, so, interrupt me if its not
convincingly meaningful, or come back for lasagne at the PJs
after, as I have much to learn as well.
But meanwhile, preaching is persuasion, it
is not so much information as exhortation, ~ without taking
facts for granted. I have a story to tell which I think makes a
difference, I want to provoke you, I want to encourage you, and
ultimately I preach because I think that words have real power, I
believe that ideas matter, and I think you matter, and I think how
and what you believe about the world changes the world. So, I preach
to your imagination.
- to enrich your sense of life as it could be
- to motivate you to interrogate life as we
know it
- to map the way to get there. (the way we
get there is Jesus)
It could be art, it could be communism, .. and
this is the difficulty of preaching Samson.
Thinking, speaking, acting towards the world
operate at the level of certain temporary passions but those stem
from your most central convictions, your
presuppositions, your worldview.
This is where
preaching needs to speak to.
These
convictions constitute an understanding of the world as it is, and
the world as it should be, and an imperative action towards that
cause. Absurdly but essentially thus: You lack icecream, you deserve
icecream. In this way all communication in the imperative
navigating the minor heavens and hells of the icecream deficiencies
of daily existence.
And so,
necessarily it all preaches or infers a comprehensive
gospel, even by omission, if I
preached Samson as bad because he was controlled by lust, and applied
that it would be good if he wasn't, the implication is that the
gospel, the good life, the story that's worth you coming here on a
Sunday evening for is behavioural modification.
But Samson does not sufficiently or exclusively embody any
central conviction which could preach on its own. If you cut Judges
13-16 out of my bible, it would be months, even years before I
noticed. I could preach this evening and you could leave
understanding that it is dangerous to be controlled by lust, or that
a there was character in history called Samson believed in a god,
these may contain truth and even wisdom, they may prompt a vague
theism, or suggest an ethical application but they are floating
facts and arbitrary suggestions, accessory and satellite sermons. -
Do you see the difficulty of being assigned to preach Samson – you
have to preach the whole bible .
The purpose of Christian preaching must be concern
its central conviction which is Jesus as sufficient satisfying
saviour and King. Preaching Christianity without Jesus is incomplete,
even ingenuous, ineffective, and just not that interesting, it is
just advice mixed with a bit of history, you might even arrive at
Judaism.
Right preaching promises the good life, with
adequately propelling motivation and sufficient equipping resource
and thus, right preaching wants to determine if the same God who came
as as Jesus, also choreographed the life of Samson so that we would
understand Jesus better.
As an aside, if you are here this evening and
don't believe in Jesus, I would commend you to also to find a
chance to preach, to give a voice to your convictions, if you
believe in the saving power of art, or the necessity of meditation or
the goodness of communism, discern the integrated and holistic
extents of this understanding of the source of harmony/disharmony in
the world, and then preach it, find words for them, interrogate the
communicability of the things you find important: are they
transferable, do they bring life, is that life sustainable. If the
things you pursue are not communicably satisfying, or
satisfyingly communicable, I would adjure you to seek a better, more
holistic and worldview more satisfying for more fellow human beings.
2.3
How – needing to clarify the dangers eg Jihad of
Samson's suicide
2.4.1
OT is not useful as a How-to guide
2.4.2
OT is not that helpful as a How-not-to guide.
Which is the flip side of the how-to guide. The necessary and
selective redaction. Becomes a fairly arbitrary pick and mix
- - -
Why Preach the Old Testament? and indeed,
How? Which essentially leads me to the question, Why preach
the Old Testament? My thoughts on preaching really came after this
question, what is this thing the Old Testament? It is so long as to
be impenetrable, and so perpetually obscure. Why has Steve set me to
talk on such an anti-architectural passage..
A simple answer to why, is that Jesus did.
But to speak that is a bit blunt. If we say that Jesus had to come
from somewhere, and that wherever it was he would be well-versed in
their sacred text. Jesus was saturated with the OT, is understood
through the OT as giving his context, theology, backgroun, identity,
purpose, that which he subverts. Jesus is contexted and
explicated by the OT, and affirms it's totality
-
Jesus and the OT
- Mt4v4-10 Jesus uses OT promises to face
temptation with (Dt6v13,v16 and 8v3)
- Lk4v17-19 Jesus define the aim of his ministry
from the OT (Is61v1-2)
- Mt19v4-6 Jesus affirms the content of teaching
in the OT eg. on Marriage (Gen1,2)
- Mt24v15-16 Jesus affirms the content of prophecy
in the OT (Dn9v27)
- Mt27v46 Jesus calls it at his death (Ps22v1) and
all his playing out Is53's crucifixion prophecies
- Lk24v13-32 Road to Emmaus:Moses and all the
prophets.. All about Jesus
- Mt5 When Jesus says, 'You have heard it
said..' he is forcefully engaging the OT and its interpreters,
he is not arbitrarily revising the OT, or softening God, but in the
light of new information, because of the Christ event, because Jesus
is happening. … messiah-hypothesis … If Jesus is not real and
active in a community, then eye-for-an-eye is perfect justice and
stabilising … this because God has spoken, but he draws it to
himself. You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth, but I tell you... (Mt5v38)
And this modification is crucial.
-
2.4.3
OT progressively reveals
God's character as he works with Israel, preparing
the way for Jesus. It develops a vocabulary for life with
and without God, the consequences of sin, and the need for a
saviour. It is the context for Jesus incarnation
The OT I read much as I read a lot of culture, the
world as it is, desperately seeking Christ, fashioning their best
possible imitation, longing in broken ways for salvation, carefully
deliniating the Christ-shaped hole in their worldview.
reading the OT, and indeed all revelation as a
longing for Jesus, a foreshadowing Jesus..
anticipating, prophesying
that is the only power we have, the only reason,
method for preaching, is to point to Jesus.
2.4.3.1
So if we understand that, we understand Jesus and
we also understand our incarnation
We can articulate what it is like to have a
limited understanding of God, and to then introduce Jesus
incarnation. So applying this to our culture,
minimally it shows us how we are to interpret
Jesus' life.
- - -
If you are not a christian, the imperative
to read and understand the old testament remains, partly,
abstractly, the Old Testament is an holistic worldview. If you
don't have an articulation of a cosmological framework, I would
recommend the OT, it is pretty narrative, easy to enter into, and it
is pretty frank about the human condition, and fairly explicit about
what it believes in terms of a God and the need for a saviour. You
can read it like a superman comic. There is so much injustice, what
is needed is an intervention, a clean slate, something from the
outside. If you read the old testament and its not how you find the
world to be, maybe leave it alone; but I find there resonance and
explication for the out-of-kilter feeling I get in modern life, I
find there humanity is all its glory and depravity.
-
Secondly, if you are not a Christian, I would
encourage you to wrestle with the OT because of the Jesus
question. Jesus is like no other character in history. He
demands to be understood. No one has lived the life he did,
taught the way he did and made the claims about himself that he did.
I find his life to be compelling, his teaching to be convicting and
the claims he makes about himself are absolute. If you are not going
to merely dismiss him as an artefact of first century embellishment
and wish-fulfilment by NT authors, I would call you to enter the OT
story and to feel that yearning, and to discover how Jesus interacts
with that.
- - -
So, to the passage Context enslaved
to an occupying
force
-
various eays to enter into this story empathetically, to imagine you
So exodus,
-
does something have a hold on you>
- what justice do you long for
what promised land?
-
I AM ISRAEL
context here is israel controlled by an occupying
force of the Phillistines
we all know such in our lives, fears,
prisions, addictions that hold us, habits, assumptions, status-quos
which assert a vice-like grip on our freedom, our subjectivity, our
understanding, between you and the promised land
the occupying force of pride, that is camped out
on my heart,
long longing to kill the pride in me.
debt.
universal longing for some freedom, peace, shalom,
untroubled human thriving, unconstrained flourishing, stunted from
out potential by life events, childhood trauma, we are exiles,
and we construct our self understanding and world
understanding around the search for a saviour, we spend ourselves on
this, some obsession, perhaps it is work, perhaps it is a boyfriend
for the israelites it is a saviour, a warhero, a
military saviour, we see this later in jesus time, they want him to
call down fire, cut off ears, etc.. and perhaps even today, we see
this
I sense it in myself , a lack, a gap, a captivity
and disability, a dysfunction and
solution – saving myself
and I am happy to use disproportionate force to
obviate it, to escape it. I will put on the make up, I will work all
hours, I will serve my God and saviour, and it will reward me with
wholeness, with shalom, with freedom from exile.
I will fan the flames of superheroism in something
and that will kill the philistines in my life.
Being saved by others
enter samson, a man with superhuman strength, and
a manic streak,
we will try anything to be free.
sheer force of will
fetishising ubermensche, mythologising..
-
2.6
James Bond
- violence and responsibility
- a nation of innocents imperilled by organised
human selfishness, embodied in some baddies.
- these are simplifications., but such are
myths, it is illustrative of an aspect of the justice quandry
4. In
praise of Samson's character
- goodness, motive, praise (hebrews11) faith
Hb11v32-33 “And what more shall I say? For time
would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David
and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms,
enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions...”
He fights their Gods. He stands against
something, you cannot accuse Samson of chickening out of the
fight
See 15v11-12 – brave against philistines,
even when allies turn on him, even when his own people
his own people that he is defending, trying to
hand him over – here were God's people who had God's promise, and
yet they run away.. ow do we do against this today? How do we object
to injustice? How do we prefer the quiet life?
- somewhat foreshadows his being turned over by
delilah.
Grace for these best efforts
Mk 9v40 For the one who is not against us is for
us – (those doing their best for Jesus but lacking our group's
particular grace)
Mt 12v30 Whoever is not with me is against me –
(those not for Christ at all, must be against him)
sacrificial death
deal with the question of just righteous killing
separately
not comparable to suicide bombings, as it is made
clear that these are not innocent bystanders
if this death of samson sets free people, how much
more jesus.
desperate attempt to redeem himself?
authentically humble act of sacrifice?
but it comes to
nothing
and in the trajectory of Judges, they go back to where they started.
Samson's fighting the Philistines, a few years later, Saul becomes
King and he's fighting, the Philistines.
- - -
jesus doesn't
cancel the justice of tooth for tooth, he out does it.
the most noble thing it was possible to do
apart from Jesus, before Jesus.
Most responsible, most
nipping in the bud
5 Violence, and international relations
- Walter Wink, myth of redemptive violence (in
hollywood)
Mt24v6 - “And you will hear of wars and
rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take
place, but the end is not yet.”
- Wars, rumours of wars – do not be alarmed,
this is no the end, this is not the solution you are called to.
We, armchair liberals, want non-violence to be a
truth truth, a general revelation, a gandhi proverb,
but he is just footnoting Jesus, and hoping
against hope that a vague Jesus will suffice.
*it has to be specifically jesus.
why? it has to have historically happened in time
and space.
the actuality, the relevance
because to be just and merciful, you need to have
assurance in resurrection
- dying for a cause,
but here you are dying
for an enemy
there is no reward or
compensation
this is not the noble
death for your tribe, which will be memorialised
Jesus death was a
shameful death
I would posit that it
is possible to simulate a belief in resurrection, to achieve a
martyr's motivation
if you are going to be non-violent. it is an act
of cowardice or injustice unless you know there is a stronger
justifier, and surer saviour, a more secure haven, that you are not
abdicating a responsibility to ensure.
6 Lust,
and gender relations
None of you have voted me to speak about this, and
honestly I am hardly an authority.
What is in play in this Samson episode?
Lust
Do you ever find it hard to get to the root of
Christian ethical teaching on sex?
I have found it deeply unsatisfying.
don't teach on sex as nautiness, not even
lust as nautiness.
- the two responses I felt in receiving teaching
on lust as nautiness
1. Either people are some comfortably settled in
their understanding of sexual ethics that they will consider you
irrelevant
2. Or they will be so wounded by their experience
of just adding logs to the fire of shame they feel
Two consenting adults – nothing wrong
Or, because he loses his eyes, it is wrong, which
is pointlessly consequentialist.
Rob Bell's Sex God problematic but I found
it really helpful in de-naughtying sex, and then Mike Mason's Mystery
of Marriage is probably the pinnacle of writing that I have found
in giving a sufficiently poetic and attractive vision of a Christian
sexuality worth pursuing.
Because sex is naughty and dirty and taboo
why is it wrong
are you able to articulate
- let the one whose never seen porn cast the first
stone
- know the gap that porn fills, the hold
which it takes on you
- realising the role of power
- how sex and attraction serve your demise - abuse
of unity, revealing his secrets,
- God has a design for your person, your
integrated being, and how it is united, and where you are vulnerable
the genius, exception clauses, who we hold up
as exemplary
things we forgive of geniuses, like James
bond, I would add, somehow its alright for him to treat women
like that, because, you know, he's bond.. we still have these asurd
exception clauses for hero figures.
but that use of our strength
- man on wire, ruinous worship of
gifted man
Jesus was different. He was a single guy
his whole life. he was never inappropriate with a woman. more than
that, he radically redressed, subverted,
just as if this is the best we can do for national
justices and personal salvation before christ, and non-violence in
the new kingdom way. what then of the parallel with gender.
it is different now, and it is not self-evident
asymmetry
- Gender relations
Caveat – unhelpful to make generalisations?
Unhelpful to talk in terms of normativity?
? sensible, realistic, unjudgemental typicality
.. this is not to be essentialist, but it is
interesting to observe
and we neglect it at our peril
you can ignore this, you can these gender
differences are entirely culturally constructed.
or you can engage them, subvert them,
even if gender is learnt, you cannot pretend it
has no power, nor that there are ways of interacting in relating that
are life giving or pathological. And the responsibility you have to
speak Jesus into those
if this is what fallen gender relations look
like
this is the likelihood, this is the best we can
do, this is the inevitable, by even well-intentioned saviours..
in relationships you are in, but especially in
marriage, it seems sensible to speak your own proclivities,
weaknesses, to one another ../
and where you have strengths, where you have a
responsibility to steward those … as a good place to start, urging
you to take responsibility, to know yourself, know your
proclivities, know your weaknesses, know and rein it in.
what is your strength for?
what is your beauty for?
the proclivity to misuse it
strength becomes violence,
beauty becomes powerplay
known that saviour complex?
Jesus is so we don't
have to be,
Cowardice in asymmetry
Greed in asymmetry
Delilah - revolutionary road
coupling, enabling
there is a strength at play here, it may not apply
to all, but perhaps it is more typical of women, more available, more
appealing to them
base insecurities, you are able to control
the man in your life.
more applicable to asymmetric, and particularly
covenental relationships.
as Herod's wife
- these pictures could be read as misogynist
authors blaming women for the failings of women, and if we want to
disregard them as such.. but at best you miss
both to take responsibility,
coercive abusive
despair
- see fawlty towers. - the humour
works on a despair that this caricature is too close to the bone, a
controlling woman and a foolish man. we default to type, in cruel
Christ-less ways. it need not be.
what does gender look like after christ,
what is your strength for now? what is your beauty
for now?
7. Jesus
7.1 Did he live it in a way we might profit
by imitating? As example during his life.
– not simply weakness, in non-violence,
strategic
7.2 Did he permanently break the power of this
sin then? As effective in providing a foundation and motive for
living a different way
- if we are not preaching Christ-as-hero, we are
preaching Christ-like techniques, which will not save
death where is your sting, etc.
7.3 Is he effective now in my life now in
overcoming this? As sufficient in providing power for us to live a
different now
- for you, over your captivities, he has already
won the fight
- as our leader, he believes in what you are
capable of,
Jesus is a better superman,
like how he compares the disciples to david's
mighty men..
- - -
8.
Conclusion from Samson
- God has been doing a work through history,
through imperfect people. Explicitly with the Israelites, recorded in
the OT, and more broadly in the James Bonds of culture, we can read
the hunger for justice, this searching for a saviour.
- God uses imperfect people now to point
backwards to the Christ event which uniquely united mercy and
justice. And to point forwards to the resurrection.
- If he can use Samson, save Samson, redeem
Samson.. maybe he can use me.
pathological, misogynist, rampantly violent,
vindictively so, a lunatic streak
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