Thursday • 8/15/2024 •
Thursday of Proper 14
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Judges 14:1-19; Acts 6:15–7:16; John 4:27-42
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)
Samson
One of my favorite things about baseball is the way quirky unofficial traditions become a part of the game. For example, “walk-up music” appears nowhere in the baseball rule book. But these days, when a batter walks up to the plate, his journey is accompanied by music selected that describes him, and is designed to inspire him or to intimidate his opponents. In our reading today we are introduced to Samson, and the title of his walk-up song could be, “If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right.”
“Get her for me, because she pleases me.” — Judges 14:3. Rather than choose a wife from among his fellow Israelites, Samson desires a Philistine woman. He is a personification of the saying, “The heart wants what the heart wants.” As a result, a world of grief awaits him.
Image: Lucas Cranach the Elder , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
However, the story of Samson does not lend itself easily to the drawing of moral lessons. It portrays an ambiguous savior-figure, yet it is governed by a theology of God’s control: “for [Yahweh] was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines” (Judges 14:4). The Lord has his own purposes, and he works despite—or through—humans’ ungodly motives (Judges 14:4). In today’s reading, Samson’s wrongly placed anger causes him to kill thirty men. He slaughters the men simply to honor a bet he has made with Philistines who were present at his wedding festivities, but who were not his friends. Samson is strong and clever—a lion-slayer and a riddle-maker. But he is also subject to manipulation and he is vengeful, and his vengefulness will become a weapon in the hands of the Lord.
The reading or chanting or singing of Canticle 8 (from Exodus 15) feels especially timely this Thursday: “The Lord is a mighty warrior; Yahweh is his Name.” When it comes to battling for his people, he can do so by hurling chariots into the sea, and by sending a flawed warrior like Samson.
These are good things to keep in mind when the world seems so out of control, and when there seem to be no adults on the playground of human affairs. God is in control.
The Woman at the Well
John’s “Woman at the Well” is another example of God using a flawed messenger. It’s intriguing the way this five-times “married” woman who remains nameless to us (but who had to have been well known in Sychar) becomes herald of the good news. John’s expression is rich and elegant. After her life-altering conversation with Jesus, she goes back into town and tells the people there, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” That would have included some, ahem, interesting information, one would think. Then her phrasing is wonderful: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
The result is that many come and listen for themselves. They conclude, “This is truly the Savior of the world.” The whole story is a remarkable first step in the healing of the rift between Jews and Samaritans, between the Southern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom. Jesus’s ministry to the Samaritans is a signal that God’s promises are to all people, not just the Jews. The phrase “Savior of the world” has deep roots. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldees, promising that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Shechem was the first place Abram came to in the land of promise. Here at Shechem, at the oak of Mamre, God had said, “To your seed I will give this land.” Shechem represents Israel’s destiny to bless the nations.
In Jesus’s conversation with the Woman at the Well, that promise is renewed. Shechem is the site of Jacob—“the Usurper’s”—well, of his burial site and that of his son Joseph (delivered from his own exile in Egypt—see Acts 7:15-16). Shechem stands between Mt. Gerizim of the covenant blessings and Mt. Ebal of the covenant curses. Shechem is home to Gideon’s son Abimelech, and witness to his sad tale. Good news comes through broken individuals to a broken people with broken lives, who have lost the vision for what God has called them to be. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth—full of restoration and healing!
All this, and more, was what Jesus had in mind when he talks to his disciples about sower and reaper sharing the same joy, and of reaping what others have sown. The disciples are entering into a story that has been building and intensifying toward an amazing climax—a climax of which they themselves will play no small part.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+