The Purpose of Privilege

Preached by Pastor Benjamin Vrbicek

August 2, 2015

*There is no sermon audio for this week

Someone pointed out to me this week that as he was reading his children’s Bible to his family, he noticed that ‘round about the place that Samson should have been in there, he wasn’t. Samson was missing. That wasn’t always the case. I remember hearing about him quite a bit growing up.But I wonder if his disappearance isn’t because we are actually looking at the story more closely. One commenter said of our passage this morning, “The story of Samson is famous for its potent mix of sex, violence, death and power—exactly the stuff of a contemporary summer action film!” (Keller, Judges for You, 135).If that’s true, and I think it is, it’s not surprising then that though Samson is missing from children’s Bible’s, he wasn’t missing from the famous “Bible series” that was on network TV a few years ago. In all the selectiveness of what stories to choose from the Old Testament, Samson got his episode.And let’s give him time this morning. Or better, let’s have God teach us what we might learn from this judge named Samson.If you have a Bible, please follow along with me as I read from sections of Judges 13:24-16:31. As you’re turning there, I’ll say that this morning we have a very long Scripture reading, but that means a very short sermon—long passage, short sermon. Let’s get after it.

24 And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.Samson’s MarriageSamson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” 3 But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”

[Skipping ahead; he eventually goes to Timnah, and on the way he kills a lion; he goes back to the lion, finds a bee’s nest, takes some honey, and then creates a riddle for the Philistines about it; picking up in v. 15]

15 On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, “Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” 16 And Samson's wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” 17 She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted, and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. 18 And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,“What is sweeter than honey?What is stronger than a lion?”And he said to them,“If you had not plowed with my heifer,you would not have found out my riddle.”19 And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father's house. 20 And Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.Samson Defeats the Philistines15 After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat. And he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.” 3 And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm.” 4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.

[Well, as you might suspect, the Philistines are upset; his own people, the Israelites, turn him in; picking up in v. 14]

14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men. 16 And Samson said,“With the jawbone of a donkey,heaps upon heaps,with the jawbone of a donkeyhave I struck down a thousand men.”

[Moving to ch. 16]

Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. 2 The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” 3 But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.4 After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5 And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.” 6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.”

[Then 3 times he tells her, but he lies and he is not captured; then, a final time (4th time), he tells her about his hair, and if it’s cut, he’ll become weak. So she cuts it an the get him; and we pick up in v. 20]

20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. 21 And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. 22 But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

[The Philistines celebrate their victory and have Samson entertain them; and we pick up in v. 28]

28 Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. 30 And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. 31 Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years.

This is God’s Word. Pray with me that he would be our teacher.

Introduction

• At times, we want to point our finger: “Samson, stay away from loose woman; keep your eyes on God!”

• At times, we want to weep with him. His wife—his wife!—was given away to another man and then then eventual killed. And in the end, his own eyes are gouged out. That’s tragic

• At times, we want to laugh: the foxes tied together with rope and with a torch and then set on fire? Come on, this is some hillbilly prank. Or we laugh at his poetry in chapter 15: “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.” That’s funny.

• At times, we want to slap some respect into him for the disrespect he shows to his parents and the disrespect he shows to his wife when he calls her a cow.

• And at times, we marvel at his strength: we are not picking Samson last for our kickball team, are we?

• At times, we know we are simply looking at a big child: what others do to him, he does back—only with more force.

• And yet, we also know that God made him a judge and a deliver and at times we see Samson cry out to God. But even here, even in his crying out to God, we can see his own desires for vengeance are mingled in.

No, we’re not quite sure what to do with this guy, are we? I’m not. If you listened to the podcast Serial last year, you might be able to relate to this. We tend to feel about Samson, with all of this waffling, the way the journalist and host, Sarah Koenig, felt about Adnan Syed.But for all we are unsure of, we do know something. We do know that he started well. He was a privileged. He had an extraordinary birth. If you were here last week, Jason spoke of this as we studied chapter 13. This was a man born to save. The angel of the Lord announced his birth to a woman who was barren. Samson starts with great privilege. He is blessed. And this is what makes his trajectory in life so tragic—that privilege would be squandered on himself rather than leveraged for others.This summer I have had the privilege of officiating several weddings here at Community, including one yesterday afternoon. And at each wedding, we throw open those back doors and out comes a beautiful bride. And she walks down the aisle, the crowds stands, and then she is given away to a handsome man with a smile so big it touches his ears. And I get a front row seat to that. I had one yesterday.How sad would it be to find out later, that… well… something went wrong. What started with great privilege and blessing and promise, got off track. Maybe you can relate to this.For all that we are not sure about when it comes to Samson, what we can be sure of is that something went wrong. I don’t know all of the reasons for it, but I want to focus on one thing: privilege abused, privilege squandered. Somewhere along the way, Samson began to misuse his privilege, and it was an expensive mistake.But don’t you feel this tension too? Don’t you know how easy it is, how quickly it can happen, that we take our privilege and blessing and promise, and we begin to abuse it and squandered.As I said—long passage, short sermon. So, here’s what I want to show very briefly: Frist, how privilege is abused (by Samson, by Israel, by us). And second, I want to show the proper use of privilege. Just two points: privilege, its abuse and its proper use.

Privilege: its abuse

Let’s start with abuse. We see the abuse of privilege by Samson in many places. Let me highlight two ways. First Samson abuses his strength for personal vengeance. There are 10 episodes where in these chapters where Samson shows off his God-given strength, and most of them, it would seem, are for personal vengeance. He’s abusing the privilege of his strength for himself. Yes, working against the enemies of God is a good thing, but whoever are the enemies of God seems pretty irrelevant to Samson. When an enemy makes him mad, he kills them.The second way Samson abuses the privilege of is strength, is sexually. What Samson sees, he takes.

Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” 3 But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”

Or consider 16:1,

Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her.

These women, including Delilah later in chapter 16, are no good for him. Yet again and again, he goes back to them like a slave. There’s a lesson here, men. Be careful men. Just because you have the power for sex and the ability to let your eyes wonder, don’t think it won’t be expensive. It cost Samson and it cost others.And notice that repeated phrase there in chapter 14: “right in my eyes.” Here in chapter 14 we have a slow build in to the final refrain in the book. The last verse in the Book of Judges reads, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25; cf. 17:6).I think it’s interesting that the last time the phrase “Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” was used was in 13:1. Let me say that again. That phrase—“evil in the sight of the Lord”—is no longer used after 13:1. Rather Samson—and his eyes—serves as bridge to the final refrain: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” That’s significant.And speaking of Israel, where are they in these chapters? The only place they are mentioned with any substance is briefly in chapter 15. The men of Judah go to Samson and say, “We won’t kill you; we’ll just hand you over to the enemy.” That’s in 15:13. The sad thing here is that they no longer fight their the enemies. They simply appease them. Here’s the point: the way that Samson goes after foreign lovers, so Israel has gone after foreign gods. The narrative is making a rhetorical point. Samson, in a sad tragic way is Israel.Israel, O Israel, if ever there was a privileged nation, it was her.

4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Samson was privileged; Israel was privileged; and so are we.Consider privilege of our technology. We have computers that fit in our pocket that used to take up whole rooms. An classmate of mine from seminary recently did a blog post about the book Jurassic Park. This year is the 25th anniversary of the book. I read that book back in 9th grade. In the post he wrote,

The original Jurassic Park book is a cautionary tale, akin to Frankenstein. The dinosaurs are there not just because dinosaurs are scary, but because they facilitate Crichton’s message about the dangers of the undisciplined, hubristic use of technology. The plot thrives on this incredible irony: people can literally re-create dinosaurs, but bumble from one incompetence to another in trying to manage them. It’s like they have power over everything and power over nothing at the same time…

Then, near the end, he switches to our use of technology,

For all the power our smartphone gives to us, it can come to hold even greater power over us. It’s like having enough power to create dinosaurs, but not enough power to stop them from eating you. (Gavin Ortlund, “A Tribute to Jurassic Park on the Occasion of its 25th Anniversary,” 7/19/2015; here).

In other words, privilege, but we only abuse it, or in this case, it abuses us. The whole article is fantastic.Or consider way we abuse privilege at work. If you have computer skills do you lord it over others? Or can you sit with someone while they stumble through something. Do you make money? Good. It’s a privilege. But do you know where the privilege came from and how you got it and why you got into the school that you did and landed the job that you did. The Bible teaches that God helps with this. He makes it happen.Or consider the joke about crossing guards and hall monitors and how they let privilege go their heads. Or the way a bully says, “If you tell on me I swear I’ll…”Or consider the son who gets to play quarterback because Dad is the coach.Or consider privilege of being big and strong compared to your children. No doubt I can and should discipline and correct my children. This is the privilege and responsibility given to me by God. And sometimes will mean that I must raise my voice, but come on, does anyone ever really speak to me with the tone I speak to my children?And consider the many needs in our church for workers with children. Part of the reason we have the needs is because we have a growing church, but our need for workers would disappear if people didn’t think they were above it.We don’t have enough time, do we. Consider the privilege certain races are given in certain parts of the world, or being the first born, or being form an upper middle class family, or athletic, or musically inclined, or… And on it goes.A friend told me this litmus test to see if you are guilty: how many times in the last year have you been bursting with gratitude—I mean tears-down-the-checks gratitude?

2. Privilege: its proper use

But what we should really consider is Jesus. Jesus, the one who had all the power and privilege, and a miraculous birth (just like Samson), uses his privilege for the good of others and the glory of God. In Jesus, we see the proper use of privilege. Note what Paul says in Philippians 2:5-11.

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In Jesus, we see the proper use of privilege. But we don’t just see it as something out there as a good example. In the gospel, we experience it; in the gospel, we experience that Jesus used his privilege for our good.

Conclusion

An interview was released this last week where one of my heroes talked about one of my heroes. It’s a video where John Piper—a hero of mine—talks about Mark Driscoll—another hero mine. Except, if you know anything about happened with Driscoll, you know that, it would seem, great privilege of church grown and influence lead to great abuses of power at Mars Hill Church, the multi-site church with a dozen or so campuses that Driscoll pastored; all of which imploded last year.This terrifies me. Lord, may it not be so here and in my heart. At one point in the interview, Piper says something that I want to leave us with.

To your question [about Mark Driscoll], it’s not a unique situation. In history, or in our day, Christians are failing. Lay people and pastors are failing every day, and bringing reproach upon the gospel. Individually at your office, if you’re known as a Christian and then you do something out of character, it brings reproach upon the gospel. Who has not let Jesus down? Something you should be witnessing, you didn’t witness. You feel bad in the evening. You let him down. This is not unique to leaders, and it’s not unique to Mark or Mars Hill…One way to process Mars Hill or any other ministry that is defective, whether the defect implodes like Mars Hill or not, is to say, “God is unbelievably merciful to use you and me with our defects to speak gospel truth.”(The Gospel Collation; “John Piper Reflects on Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill Implosion”; here).

Samson, or Israel, or Driscoll, or you and I: isn’t it true? Under the microscope of God’s holiness, none of us looks too hot; all have abused whatever privilege we have been given. Which is why I’m so thankful for the gospel. I’m thankful for grace. What a privilege to know Jesus and be loved by him. May God help us to not abuse and squander our privilege, but to use it the way Jesus does, for the good of others and for the glory of God.