Judges 13:2-25
Hebrews 13:1-3
As I said when I introduced the first scripture lesson, I preached at the Agudas Achim Synagogue Sabbath worship service yesterday morning. They welcomed me warmly and it was a wonderful time of worship.
I did my best, but I don’t think I was any match for Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz, who preached here two weeks ago. She stimulated our thinking and delighted everyone with her singing and playing my long-unused and out of tune guitar. And the one question I’ve been getting again and again over these last two weeks is: “When can she come back?”
Worship is different at the synagogue.
Around 9:30 people slowly start to gather. There are prayers and readings of psalms and conversations among those present. But the real service doesn’t begin until 10:30. Esther tells me “It’s a Jewish thing,” showing little regard for a strict starting time. But it reminded me of the beginning of our worship services as people drift in during the announcements and opening hymn—like that only about 50 minutes longer. During the service, children casually walk in and out, people talk with one another.
Worship is different at the synagogue.
As we talked about my preaching there, Rabbi Hugenholtz remarked that Christian prayers are often brief and our sermons long—just the opposite of what happens in Jewish worship.
“How long are your usual sermons?” She asked.
“Fifteen, Twenty minutes.”
Her eyes opened wide and she was aghast. She said she’d probably be fired if she tried anything like that on a regular basis.
And I was advised: ten minutes. Tops.
I told the congregation yesterday that in a sense, even ten minutes might be too much time for a Christian to take in speaking to a Jewish congregation. For centuries—approaching millennia—we Christians have talked over the Jewish people, controlled the conversation, more than had our say. Perhaps, I thought, the best thing would be to sit in repentant silence for 10 minutes.
But I knew that not do. They had graciously invited me there to preach.
And you are paying me to preach.
So I talked—briefly—and I want to talk this morning—about an insight I gained from giving my attention to the story of the birth of Samson from the Book of Judges.
In Jewish Sabbath worship a long section of the Torah—the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses—is read each week. And then a shorter section of the Prophets that somehow relates to the Torah is read.
Something similar happens in our worship. The first lesson, usually from the Hebrew scriptures, is followed by a psalm that in some way responds to or echoes that first lesson. And the first lesson usually has some relationship to the second lesson. Sometimes I choose the first lesson and then decide on the second. Sometimes I choose the second lesson and then decide on the first.
As I said in introducing the readings this morning, the story of Samson was read yesterday because of the details of the Nazirite vows set out in the reading from Numbers. A Nazirite was someone specially consecrated to God. Both men and women could be Nazirites. They were to abstain from wine and other alcohol and, really, anything that included grapes. They were not to cut their hair nor were they to go near a dead person. The vow was not intended to be perpetual but only lasted for a period of time.
As we heard this morning in the reading from Judges, Samson was a Nazirite—although he didn’t seem to have any choice in the matter. And he was a Nazirite for his entire life.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really given much thought to the story of Samson. I remember as a child watching that old Cecil B. DeMille movie starring Victor Mature as Samson, throwing around all manner of objects and people to show off his strength—but by today’s standards Mature is not very buff.
That movie and Peter, Paul, and Mary’s version of “If I Had My Way,” the song that tells of Samson, were pretty much my only engagement with this this story.
This morning we heard the beginning of this story—before all the feats of strength and the long hair and Delilah and the destruction of the temple of the Philistine god, Dagon.
This story begins with angel. Or is it an angel? That’s always the question in scripture, isn’t it?
And angel appears to the wife of Manoah, but when she tells her husband about this she says that her visitor was “a man of God,” whose “appearance was like that of an angel.” Remember, as I so often tell you, that “angel” is simply a word that means “messenger.”
As one of the psalms was being read yesterday, Esther, who was sitting next to me for a while, leaned over and said, “This is all about angelology—no one understands it.” She was right—not just about her congregation, I’m sure, but also about those of us here. Because you know, here in in Iowa City and Coralville, we’re pretty sophisticated. And my guess is that most of us—all of us?—don’t think about angels very much.
What happens, however, if we ask: what does an angel look like?
He was, Samson’s mother says, “Most awe-inspiring,” or as another translation puts it: “Most terrible to see.” The translation at the synagogues said that he was “very frightening.”
There is something about the appearance of an angel—whatever that appearance is—that is disturbs us.
It’s hard to hear this story without thinking of other times the messengers of God came to human beings with news about birth: the three men visiting Abraham, calling forth his hospitality and Sarah’s laughter at the improbable news that in their old age they would become parents. We Christians have our own story of a messenger coming to Mary and of her incredulous response: “How can this be?”
If doubting laughter and disbelief are the usual responses to angels, perhaps it is because listening so that we really hear can be so hard.
We listen out of our own expectations of what can and can’t be said, of what is and isn’t possible.
Manoah’s wife tells him about the “man of God” who came to her, and how his appearance “was like that of an angel of God,” but he does not readily accept what she says. It is too much for him. “Let this man of God come again,” he prays. He has some questions.
When the angel does return to clear things up, Manoah’s response is to ask that this messenger stay around a little longer, so that he and his wife might follow Abraham and Sarah’s example and offer something to eat. Scripture seems to suggest that the best thing to do, should you encounter an angel, is to offer the angel something to eat, to extend simple hospitality. And in doing so, they both come to realize that they are dealing with something much greater than they could imagine—the Eternal One who accepts and shows compassion and announces new things.
How does one know that they are seeing and hearing an angel? The Christian scriptures say that in extending hospitality people have “entertained angels unaware.”
And maybe that’s it.
We don’t know. We don’t know when the messenger of God will come to us.
We don’t know when the word of judgment or mercy will be spoken to us.
So our task is to provide welcome and hospitality—to one another and to the stranger—so that we might be able to listen—to one another and to the stranger.
If we do this well—or if we do it at all—we might see in the human being before us a creature who is made in the image of God.
The words of the psalmist continue speak to us about the true human condition:
Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels
and have crowned them with glory and honor.
In recent days we have heard some say again that some human beings—immigrants in particular—are much less than this, that they are less than human. They are, in fact, animals. It is a thought that gets picked up and repeated. And in its repetition it grows and becomes ever more dangerous.
Now, it’s been said in defense that this was a reference to members of a brutal gang.
But we must stop and say “No”—we will not go any farther down that road. Anytime, anytime we dehumanize people—regardless of how horrible their actions—we lose sight of who they are and who we are. When we dehumanize some, it becomes much easier to blur the line further, seeing ever more people as “animals” and acting accordingly.
This, then, will be our vow, to safeguard the dignity of each person recognizing the light and grace of God shining on them as well as on us.
Our nation is getting caught up in a great expulsion of immigrants. Some are vicious criminals, but from what I read about those who have been arrested, detained, or expelled, most are hard-working people who have been in their communities for some time, and live peacefully with their families and their neighbors.
We can disagree about immigration policy—and in this congregation we do—but I am confronted by the sense that immigrants frighten many people. And this suggests to me that they might be “angels”—the frightening messengers of God. And our task becomes one of extending hospitality so that we might listen, so that we might hear from such messengers what God is doing in our time.
After the Mount Pleasant raid earlier this month, our Mission Board asked for a special offering to provide support for basic human needs—food, shelter, and such—for the families affected by this raid. You responded with over $2,000.
Last Tuesday, our Church Council met and voted to provide $5,000 from our Engagement Fund to the Eastern Iowa Community Bond Project. The Engagement Fund was the result of a significant gift a few years ago that was given so that our church should feel free to use for any initiatives that will enhance our presence in the community through our service to it, both ‘community’ and ‘service’ broadly defined.”
And on Wednesday we heard that the Mission Board’s request that was made last December to the Iowa Conference of the United Church of Christ had finally been approved. This was for $2,000 from the Conference Thank Offering Fund, also to be used for the Bond Project—to help provide bonds—usually around $10,000 for those who have a good chance of being allowed to remain in our country.
We are responding to human beings—human beings—in difficult situations with significant assistance. We are providing hospitality—perhaps, perhaps even entertaining angels unaware.
Loving the stranger—whoever that is, and however well-known or unknown—is not easy.
Loving the stranger carries its own demands.
Loving the stranger involves risks—and even Jesus cautions those who would follow him to count the cost.
The need to love the stranger, the one unlike us—except for the common likeness of being an image of God—the need to love the stranger grows ever stronger in these days, even as many are reluctant to hear and act on such a call. There are risks and challenges that accompany any attempts to respond to this call. As we choose to hear and respond, let us act with wisdom.
We continue need one another—to remind one another of God’s love and acceptance, to remind one another of God’s call to love. The hope remains that we will yet learn to respect each other, to see in each person—in their own joy and their own suffering— an image of the living God. There is the hope that in our growing respect we may find ways to bring a greater peace to our state, to our nation, and even to the greater world.