Of Violence and Intimacy
February 18th, 2007
Gary Harder
Text:
Judges 13-16 (16:4-9, 15-22)
Introduction
“Please be my valentine”. “Come, cupid, shoot your arrows, make us fall madly in love, instantly, magically. Kindle, rekindle, romance.”
Valentines day has slipped by us once again. Was yours a hugely romantic day? Or were you like Charlie Brown who waits by his mailbox all day waiting for even one valentine, but not one comes. During this season we need to tell a good love story, don’t we. A love story out of the Bible. Will the story of Samson and Delilah do? It is a love story all right, but a love story gone bad. More of a power story really.
Macleans magazine devotes a good part of two recent issues to love gone bad. It’s January 29 issue highlights an article entitled “The 27-year itch” More and more of us older couples are calling it quits after decades of marriage. Apparently we older couples are finding it more and more difficult to stay in love with each other. The statistics are quite appalling.
And then Maclean’s February 19 issue focuses on the other end of the age spectrum and tells us that teenagers and young people are either refusing to fall in love or can’t fall in love. They have sex a lot, but sex is never connected with love or with commitment. The authors use the phrase “hooking up”, which apparently means pursuing sex but delaying love and resisting committed relationships. Love can wait. Sex can’t. Multiple sexual partners are the norm.
But the end result of this loveless sex, according to many interviews with these same teens, is emptiness and meaninglessness and loneliness, because there is never any genuine intimacy.
Understanding intimacy
And so we need to talk about intimacy. Intimacy, the fragile miracle.
Intimacy is at heart a sense of closeness with another. Or closeness with a group. Or closeness with God. And that closeness with another has more to do with a sharing of feelings, or ideas or concerns, or experiences, than it does with a sharing of bodies. At its best sexual intercourse is an expression of intimacy. At its worst it is an escape from real intimacy.
Intimacy is a closeness, a meeting of meanings, a communion between persons. It is those moments when two persons, or a group of people, make contact – an emotional and personal communion; a deep sharing of thoughts and ideas and feelings; moments when people in a sense look eye to eye into each other’s being. Intimacy is a bridge connecting one person with the core of being of another person, and over which there is a mutual flow of feelings, hopes, anxieties, dreams, and sometimes the physical expression of love.
But intimacy is never a permanent thing. It is not something that you achieve and then have forever. It is not something that is there every minute of a marriage or a relationship. Everyone strives for intimacy, cries out for it, and yet it is so illusive. It slips through our fingers and loneliness is never far away. We want it and yet are strangely afraid of it. It remains almost a mystery. But when we experience intimacy, it is a very beautiful mystery, indeed.
I want to suggest that there are two poles to an intimate relationship; both closeness and distance, both togetherness and apart-ness, both inviting the other to be near, and allowing the other space. There needs to be a rhythm in the relationship, an ebb and flow between the two poles; between touching and letting go.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in her book “Gift From The Sea” writes poetically about the two poles of intimacy. (pg. 104-106)
“A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back – it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.”
You see, if we strive too frantically for closeness, if we become possessive of another, if we always want to be near, the relationship after awhile will feel suffocating, stifling, very un-free. We want to pull away from the clinging vine. But if there is too much apart-ness, if space is the norm and distance predominates, intimacy can’t happen either. In a healthy relationship intimacy moves in the rhythm between the two poles of closeness and apart-ness, drawing near and letting go.
For all that is said of intimacy, and it is already an overused cliché, in the end it is still a gift, a happening, a miracle. You cannot force it to happen, but you can open yourself to allowing it to happen. And when you have a relationship that offers intimacy, accept it as a gift from God, rejoice, and know that you are very richly blessed.
Intimacy as a Game: Samson and Delilah
But for many people intimacy is only a game. So it was for Samson and his various women.
Judges chapter 13 – 16 tells an intriguing story. The theme is intimacy, but it is intimacy as a game, and the game ends in tragedy as all of that kind of games-playing must.
I have wondered, when I re-read the story, why the story of Samson is even in the Bible. It’s not particularly edifying. Samson seems more of an anti-hero than a real hero. No model there for how we should live. He leads quite a life. His story takes up four long chapters in the book of Judges. Why all that space in the Scriptures when far more appealing figures merit only a paragraph or two? And then we find Samson’s name again in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. There in chapter 11, in the list of the heroes of the faith, his name is incl
uded among the saints. Maybe if sinners like Samson make it onto that list there is hope for us all.
Now I must admit that there is something very appealing about stories of people who are super-humanly strong. Headlines: The strongest man in the world runs amuck and kills 1,000 people with the jawbone of a donkey. Now that would make the 6 o’clock news. That would get him his own T. V. series.
His story begins with a lot of promise. His birth is announced by an angel. His mother is barren so her pregnancy will require divine intervention. The baby is to be dedicated to the Lord in a Nazarite vow; that is, as one specifically dedicated or consecrated to God for a special purpose. There were three parts to the Nazarite vow.
The person must abstain from drinking any alcoholic beverage.
The person must avoid any contact with any dead body, human or animal.
The person must never have his or her hair cut.
In our story Samson will violate each of these three vows. But now in the birth story the angel gives this baby a very special assignment. He is to begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.
But immediately a close reading suggests a problem. The Nazarite vow is supposed to be a very personal vow made with full awareness of all the implications – that is, made by an adult. Sort of like adult baptism. In this story it is Samson’s mother who makes the vow on Samson’s behalf. Maybe a bit like infant baptism. A mother so desperately wanting her son to do the right thing.
Samson never makes the vow himself. He never really does accept his call from God; he is always fighting it. In fact, he is always fighting period.
It’s going to be a grand drama. But I want to focus only on two shorter segments of the overall story. I doubt whether these are the parts where the original tellers and editors of the story would have stopped. No doubt I will do violence to the original intent of the story. For today I’m not really interested in Samson’s mighty feats of strength, as good a read as they are. Instead I want to go to his love life, to the heart of the relationships between Samson and the two women in his life. Well, three actually. In those relationships many words of intimacy are exchanged, but there is no experience of real intimacy. In that there is a powerful message for today’s world.
I am intrigued by Samson’s love life. Big, macho, super hero Samson keeps getting outdone by his women. He is a physical giant, but an emotional and relational runt. The real tragedy in the story is his total inability to relate to the women he professes to love, his total inability to be genuinely intimate.
Marriage
In episode one, Samson sets out to get married.
“Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 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.’ But his father and mother said to him, ‘Is there not a woman among the daughters of your kinsmen, 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 pleases me well.'” (Judges 14:1-4)
Kind of impulsive, don’t you think. Doesn’t sound like he even discussed the thing with the girl or with her parents. He just says to his own parents, “I like her. .. get her for me.” Sure makes courtship easier if you can do that. His parents don’t like the idea at all especially the fact that their son wants to marry a foreigner and someone from a different faith. But they are very meek in the face of their son; spineless really. But then when your son is as strong as Samson maybe you do what he demands. Samson pays his girl a visit, and on the way encounters a lion. “And the sprit of the Lord came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands.” In the whole story so far this is actually the first hint of Samson’s extraordinary strength. And his strength is clearly connected with the spirit of the Lord “pushing”, or “compelling” him. It is connected with his Nazarite vow.
This dead lion plays a part in the wedding story. His parents have arranged the wedding, and on their way to the bride’s home, he and his parents come across the carcass of the lion he killed earlier. And they notice a swarm of bees in it making honey. He takes the honey from the carcass – thereby violating the vow not to touch a dead body – and eats it. And then Samson uses this experience to craft a riddle. During the 7 -day wedding celebration Samson wants to have some fun. He makes a huge bet with 30 of his wife’s friends. They must guess his riddle. “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.” He is referring of course to the honey in the lion. They can’t figure it out so they pressure his wife to get the answer out of Samson.
She throws herself on him, sobbing, “You only hate me, you don’t love me, you have put a riddle to my countrymen, and you have not told me what it is. When you love each other you don’t keep secrets, dear. Come on, share with your dear wife.” Words of intimacy. But the sharing of secrets is for an ulterior motive. It is to tell her countrymen the riddle so that they will win the bet. Words of intimacy without the experience of intimacy. It’s a demand for deep sharing with an ulterior motive in mind, a sharing without caring, a pseudo closeness manufactured only for betrayal.
The secret is told, Samson is betrayed. He has lost his bet and must pay up. So he flies into a rage. There will be, in his story, an escalation of the cycle of violence and abuse. He stages a magnificent temper tantrum, leaves his wife, and kills a bunch of Philistines. In the best of soap opera traditions, his wife goes over to the best man at the wedding and sleeps with him. When Samson hears about that he kills a bunch more of the Philistines and burns their crops as well by catching a number of Jackals (foxes), tying them together by their tails, two by two, and adding a lit torch.
Samson and Delilah
Then there is a short episode of Samson hiring a prostitute, buying love, as it were. If you can’t relate to women you can still buy sex and a safe relationship.
But then, enter Delilah. Enter real love, or at least what seems to be love, especially in contrast to the prostitutes he has been seeing. You would think Samson would learn something. But he doesn’t. He deserves the kind of women he chooses, picking them always for their outer beauty, not inner attraction.
Samson and Delilah, sweet love at last. But Samson’s new love is n
ot above betrayal either.
Boy does he know how to pick them. The Philistines bribe Delilah to find out the secrets of Samson’s strength. One thousand pieces of silver from each of the Lords is quite a bribe. Wouldn’t it be tempting to betray the one you love for instant riches?
So Delilah and Samson play games with each other. “Tell me the secrets of your heart, Samson dearest. Tell me the source of your strength.”
“Of course my love. Would I hold anything from you? My strength lies in my being free. If anyone ties me up, why I’ll be just like an ordinary man. “
The game goes on for quite a while. After each installment quite a few Philistines lose their lives
Finally Delilah, in a profession of deep love, says:
“How can you say, I love you, when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me wherein your great strength lies. And she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, until his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his mind,” (Judges 16: 15ft)
Delilah demands intimacy. “Come on dear, tell me the secrets of your strength. When you are in love you share everything. No secrets between us dear.” And finally Samson does share his deepest secret – his vow with God, the core of his identity, based on never cutting his hair. And he is immediately betrayed. Delilah first makes love to Samson, and then when he falls asleep, cuts his hair. The final Nazarite vow is broken. His strength leaves him. The Philistines capture him, gouge out his eyes, and force him to grind flour at the mill. He is their slave.
There have been words of intimacy, but those words have been a mockery of love and of sharing and of the relationship. There are eleven hundred pieces of silver riding on that intimate moment. Samson is the one who has been betrayed, but he is not innocent in the betrayal of love. He keeps picking those kind of women. His macho image does him in. He is not capable of a real relationship with a woman. The story ends in revenge. He never did ever act out of obedience to his call from God. He always acted out of ever deeper levels of rage and revenge. His hair grows back, while he is a slave. His enemies take him to a temple gathering honoring their god Dagon. He is brought there to be mocked. In one final act of revenge he pulls down the pillars of the temple, killing everyone inside, including himself. Samson does not fulfill his destiny, or follow his call. There is no lasting peace brought about with the Philistines, though he has killed many.
Intimacy and Violence
People in our world cry out for intimacy. Everywhere one hears the words of intimacy, the longing for intimacy. Everywhere one sees the most intimate physical acts portrayed on screen and paper. And yet, what one sees and hears and reads is most often totally devoid of the experience of intimacy – that depth sharing, person to person, that touches the innermost depths of both persons with a loving, healing encounter.
Probably the most obvious uses and abuses of words of intimacy surround sex. The prostitute selling intimacy, as if it could be traded or bought or sold. Or the boyfriend telling the girlfriend, or the girlfriend the boyfriend, “If you really loved me, you would show it by going to bed with me.” For that person sex is a mockery of love and intimacy, not an expression of it. And so what was meant to be a beautiful expression of genuine intimacy, sexual union, becomes a substitute for an emotional and spiritual closeness with another.
We can also mouth empty words of intimacy in many other ways, like in demanding sharing in the church, and then not acting responsibly with the information or feelings that have been shared. Like in inviting someone to unburden a pain or struggle, and then using what has been shared for retelling. Or like in wanting an emotional high on a Sunday morning, an injection of the joy of the Lord, without being willing to spend solid time within the gathered community developing trust and intimacy and shared worship.
Genuine intimacy takes time to develop, whether that is intimacy with God, with another person or persons, or with a group. Spilling one’s insides too quickly before trust has matured, just like exposing one’s body to another before love has been totally nurtured and committed, may be a shallow substitute for intimacy. There is a very close connection between solitude and intimacy. “Solitude,” says Bruce Yoder, “is being at home with oneself. Intimacy is being at home with another person.” Maybe, just maybe, intimacy begins within.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings.” (Life Together, pg. 77) Richard Foster wrote, “If we possess inward solitude we will not fear being alone. Neither do we fear being with others, for they do not control us.” (Celebration of Discipline, pg. 84) Intimacy begins within, not somewhere out there by finding the right people. It begins with finding ourselves before we find another. It begins with looking within our own hearts in order to know ourselves deeply before we can know another deeply. That’s why, for example, the best preparation for marriage is not finding the right person to be your mate, but finding yourself and being the right mate. But intimacy grows best when there is also a closeness with God. Personal solitude is not complete unless it includes a deep personal encounter with God, unless it includes prayer and the search for the peace of God.
Kenneth Leech wrote, “The fact is that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit, and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth that, at the root of your existence, you are in constant and immediate contact with the infinite power of God.” (Soul Friend, pg. 170) Being in touch with yourself, and being in touch with God, are the basis for being in touch with others. But then move out. Risk closeness, risk the kind of sharing that reaches closer to the core of being.
The problem with Samson and Delilah, and with his first wife for that matter, was not the words they exchanged, not the plea for the sharing of deep secrets. The problem was the ulterior motif, the betrayal that lay behind the demand. The problem was that words and experience didn’t match. I suspect that it is when we don’t experience intimacy – real emotional and spiritual intimacy – that we will be tempted to become more violent. Abuse is our awful solution to a lack of intimacy in our lives.
Is that perhaps why so many marriage relationships today don’t survive? The words and the experience don’t match? Or the deep sharing doesn’t take place? Or when it does,
it gets betrayed in some way, made too small a thing, not kept sacred? And soon violence replaces intimacy.
I don’t mean to focus on marriage as the only intimate relationships we have. Though it is Valentine’s week, I don’t want to pay all my attention to cupid and to romance. I think we need many intimate relationships, though some particular experiences of intimacy I believe belong only within marriage. We all need closeness with others. We all need to develop healthy relationships with a number of others – preferably with people of both sexes. And within the Christian community we need to find times of sharing, of closeness, of intimacy with each other as well as with God.
Conclusion
Intimacy is a rather fragile miracle. You can’t manufacture it. You can’t make it happen. You can only open yourself to allow it to happen. By making yourself vulnerable you create the opportunity to experience it. Receive intimacy then as a gift, even a miracle, fragile but precious, free of even any hints of violence. Can the story of Samson at least teach us that?