Follicle Power

Numbers 6:5

All the days of their nazirite vow no razor shall come upon the head; until the time is completed for which they separate themselves to the LORD, they shall be holy; they shall let the locks of the head grow long.

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My hair, flow it, show it
Long as God can grow
My hair

"Hair" by James Rado and Gerome Ragni recorded by The Cowsills

What's interesting about the Nazirites, and Samson in particular, is that there is no real explanation about why no razor shall come upon the head. It's pretty easy to understand why they should avoid a carcass or wine and strong drink, but no shave or haircut seems almost arbitrary.

There are two probible answers, the first is to show obedience and the second is to be set off to anyone who sees the Nazirite.

As for obedience, maybe this is the story of Samson in a nutshell. God was faithful while Samson took food, drink, and women that no Nazirite should take. God still blessed Samson with great strength even though he broke nearly every Nazirite vow. But it was when his hair was cut that his strength, and lo his freedom, were taken. Only at the end of the story, when Samson returns to God and his hair returns to his head is his strength restored.

So which came first? Hair or Faith? While they returned at the same time, It is probably only by faith that the power of his vows and the power that came through his vows returned. It just took the same amount of time to regrow the hair.

Something that is true, and still true among Orthodox Jewish men whose face and scalp has never seen a razor, is that their appearance sets them aside from other men in the community. This standing does not come from their hair, but their hair represents who they are in the community. It's a sign, a symbol. It represents that they are holy, set apart for the work of the Lord in the community.

Let my life show God is in control. Let my hair show I am obedient. Let my hair show all power comes from God. As the song goes: My hair, flow it, show it/Long as God can grow/My hair.

What's a Man to Do?

Hosea 3:1-5

The LORD said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine. And I said to her, “You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not play the whore, you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.” For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

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Sunday morning when we go down to church
See the menfolk standin' in line
I said they come to pray to the Lord
With my little girl, looks so fine
In the evening when the sun is sinkin' low
Everybody's with the one they love
I walk the town, Keep a-searchin' all around
Lookin' for my street corner girl

I got a woman, wanna ball all day
I got a woman, she won't be true, no no
I got a woman, stay drunk all the time
I said I got a little woman and she won't be true

"Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?" by Led Zeppelin

There are some who think scripture is this clean, tidy, glorious, joyous work that shows the world the power and majesty of God. Well, except for clean and tidy, this is true. The book of Hosea is one of those times when scripture is anything but clean and tidy.

Hosea is a man, a simple man, a prophet, who is called by the Lord to "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom." You know Billy Graham never got this word from the Lord, and we should all thank God that we didn't either. Robert Plant singing "I got a little woman and she won't be true" takes on a whole new meaning in light of this scripture.

In our life, in our society, the man is a fool for taking such a woman into his bed. In the age of AIDS, and it's still the age of AIDS, it's suicidal. In the time of Hosea, it wasn't too good either. Imaging how a man could go broke if paying two weeks wages for his wife to bring her home.

Actually, given a six day work week, the fifteen shekels of silver would take between two and three weeks to earn and the homer of barley and measure of wine would cost more. There goes a month of wages and you don't know if the kids are yours until the Maury Show hits the airwaves thousands of years later.

So what's a man to do? There are two things. The first is tough enough, be obedient. The Lord tells Hosea to take this wife of ill repute. She won't be true, and you are called to take her into your bed. What could be tougher?

Well, there's this. The second is tougher, it is to do nothing. There is nothing Hosea can do to change the ways of his wife. Well, nothing he can do in an active way that is, not in the way "men of action" think of action.

In the end, these are too much for the man of the song and he leaves her where the guitars play.

In the end, in the truth of life, the work of redeeming the woman, and the work of redeeming Israel (which is the point of this Hosea), is only possible thorough the work of the Lord God. Hosea can do nothing but love her, show her true unconditional love; even in the light of her actions. This is the quandary of the Lord and the Lord's first love Israel, but while God will never force love upon the nation, the Lord will never leave either.

This is the reconciling work of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The work of God in Jesus Christ is glorious and joyous. The work of God is ripe with power and majesty. But it is not always clean, and it is not always tidy. Sometimes, somebody's got to get their hands dirty.

May Your Dreams Be Realized

Martin Luther King, Junior Day


Romans 8:18-21

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, let it rain
Rain down on he.

"MLK" recorded and composed by U2 from "The Unforgettable Fire"

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Within all of us there is a dream of freedom. This is the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. had for all African-Americans, all Americans, and all humanity. In King's words, "Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" (Excerpt from King's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.)

King's dream comes a little closer every day for the Children of God. King's dream slips away a little bit every day for the children of the fall. Of course these two groups are not exclusive, actually they're identical. We are all born of sin and redeemed by God. This is what makes the yearning for King's dream more difficult. We are instruments in the hands of God for Christ's everlasting kingdom on earth; and we are prisoners of our own demise.

On this day, on the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, we remember the sufferings. We can remember fire hoses directed at protesters. There were fights. There were arrests. There were lynchings. The ultimate price was paid by many in this war so fought so that truly all people could live like we were created equal. The battle is not won yet either.

As great as the sufferings are; freedom, peace, and liberty for all God's children is worth the high price. Many have paid such a high price for freedom. Christ too paid a price for our freedom, and it's the price Christ paid for our freedom and our salvation. Now it is up to us to do something with that salvation given to us by God's good grace through faith.

Both prices are so very high, so let us act and live and work in ways that honor those who have purchased our freedom at such great costs.

Are We There Yet?

Deuteronomy 2:7

Surely the LORD your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.

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When you look through the years and see what you could
have been oh, what might have been,
if you'd had more time.

"Long Way Home" by Roger Hodgson originally recorded by Supertramp on "Breakfast in America"

So why did the Israelites travel 40 years in the hinterlands of the Holy Land? It was a matter of trust. In Numbers 13, Moses and Aaron send spies into Canaan because it was to be given by the Lord to the Israelites. Moses told them "Go up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns that they live in are unwalled or fortified, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring some of the fruit of the land."

Now the spies discovered two things, first it that Canaan was the land of milk and honey. It was the place the Lord had promised them and it was good. It was good indeed.

The second thing they discovered is that the Canaanites were big and strong. This made them afraid. They were so afraid that when they returned to Moses and Aaron they lied about number one and told the worst version of the truth of number two. Only Caleb told the truth, and the crowd outvoted him.

So the Lord God decided that if Israel was not going to trust God, they would not live in the land the Lord set aside for them. Every Israelite over age 20 would perish in the desert instead of live in the land of milk and honey.

Imagine this conversation in the desert: "Are we there yet?" "No, and we would have been if you had only told the truth."

What could have been...

The one that got away...

When you look through the years and see what you could have been oh, what might have been....

Ah the lament of those who let fear rule their lives instead of trusting in the love of God. Now, God doesn't promise that what comes next will be a cake walk. There will be times of trial. Let's remember what Israel experienced before the Exodus, there was a lot of horrible times for the nation of Israel in captivity in Egypt, but there was the promise of the Lord.

In the lines that precede the quote, Roger Hodgson's lyric goes like this, "Does it feel that you life's become a catastrophe? Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy." There does have to be a time of trial. There will be a time of testing and tempering like steel losing its slag. Like gold being purified. It will be hot and it will probably hurt, and that's a part of being refined.

But in the midst of the refiner's fire, remember this from Deuteronomy, "Surely the LORD your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."

God is faithful, God is generous, God is gracious, the Lord is God.

Babel/Babble

Genesis 11:1-10

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

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Like the city that nurtured my greed and my pride,
I stretched my arms into the sky
I cry Babel! Babel! Look at me now
Then the walls of my town, they come crumbling down

"Babel" written and performed by Mumford & Sons from the CD "Babel"

The walls come crumbling down. The walls come crumbling down. It's the ultimate sign of urban chaos, the walls come crumbling down. The earliest example of the walls crumbling down is Babel.

So why did it come crumbling down? According to Genesis it's because the Lord is afraid of the people He created. How's that, the Lord's afraid of creation. One city, one tower, one language, and that's all it takes for the Lord to see what's coming down the road. What's the easiest way to stop people from doing what they're doing, confuse them so badly they can't continue.

Confuse the language and confuse the people. Suddenly we have different languages and even when our native tongues are close they aren't close enough. People who speak the same language can't even agree on what words mean. We even had a president who asked an adversary what the "definition of 'is' is." If we can't agree on being we won't be able to agree on anything.

So stretch my arms to the sky, "Babel! Babel! Look at me now!" We are filled with despair at what we have become, and is it because the Lord fears us? Well, maybe in Genesis but not anymore. Now, seemingly, the Lord no longer fears us.

Our Lord came to Earth, Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Our God faced the worst in us. God was killed by us. God, in the words of the Apostles' Creed, descended to hell before ascending to heaven. There is no place we can go that our Lord has not been. This is the wonder and glory of the incarnation.

The walls of my town come tumbling down. And when it came, my hope is that the Lord is ever present. God stands beside us one and all. This is our hope. This is the love of God.

Lovin' John the Baptist

Baptism of the Lord Sunday


Matthew 3:4-11

Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

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I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire,
I got a cobra snake for a necktie
A brand new house on the road side,
and it's made out of rattlesnake hide
Got a band new chimney put on top,
and it's made out of human skull
Come on take a little walk with me child,
tell me who do you love?

"Who Do You Love" written by Bo Diddley, recorded by George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers on their "Move It on Over" album. This version recorded live in Germany.

John came from the wilderness of Judea, which meant to everyone who knew the formal politics of the region that he was nobody. There is another thing that Matthew’s gospel tells us that shows that John is a great big nobody, his clothes.

So consider then as John comes wandering out of the wilderness and into a group of people. Some of them are the well heeled folks from the seats of power; others are rural folk trying to scratch out a living in the hinterlands. He doesn’t look much like either group. He is wearing camel hair clothes with a leather belt. In a fashion forward way, it sounds like he’s a sharp dressed man. In truth, the clothes he was wearing would look to us like a rough camel skin poncho tied with a leather thong. There is no mention of sandals and certainly no mention of boxers or briefs. He doesn’t have the big bucks haircut and a comb would probably surrender the moment it saw his head.

It seems he would be familiar with a man with a cobra snake for a necktie.

He’s wild, he’s unruly, he looks dangerous, and he’s attracting crowds, crowds who have come to confess their sins and be baptized by him in the Jordan. The contrast between John from the wilderness and all of the people who came from Jerusalem and Judea to see him was deep, deep indeed, but there is one more thing that we must remember. The well heeled people came out to the wilderness to go see John.

Style never goes out of style, and when a trend is to be followed; leave it to the trend setters to spot the good ones and latch on like a leech.

If the best defense is a good offense, John was the most offensive of all. He knows why they’re coming. He knows that they want to see the show and become a part of the show. The Pharisees and Sadducees figure that they’ll be able to tell their good friends and not-so-friendly rivals that “they were there” and “they saw it all” when John the Baptist was getting started.

John of course isn’t having it. “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the coming wrath?” He not only doubts their intentions, he invokes an animal which is associated with the fall of humanity from grace into sin and for good measure isn’t kosher. He not only calls them insincere and insignificant, he calls them unclean. I say that the well crafted insult with a well placed word says much more with far less, and John demonstrates this today.

Then he even derails their first line of defense, who they are with the authority they receive from the synagogues and the temple. John cries out “Don’t say to yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father,’” You know they want to answer back “How dare he! Doesn’t he know who we are?” John warns them not to go there, not to invoke their status as the sons of Abraham because God can raise children from nothing. Their lofty status and their expensive suits and fine shoes mean nothing to John the Baptist. John may be the original king of “what have you done for me lately?” Yes, the leaders of the temple and the synagogues have been important to the nation, but what have you done for me lately?

John’s take, you are nothing, nothing to the kingdom of God.

Then, at this point in John’s wilderness sermon, I imagine he drops his voice to a different level as he tells the world what’s coming next. He hints that there is a change on the way. He hints that someone who will do the work of redeeming creation is coming. He is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire. The name is unknown, the person is unknown to John at this moment, but we know who he is hinting at, he’s hinting at Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus who is the Christ.

He hints that while the baptism he celebrates is a ritual bath cleaning us for repentance for sins. The baptism that is coming will serve as a refiner’s fire. The baptism of the one who comes will separate us from our impurities like the flames eliminate the chaff from the wheat leaving only the kernel of truth behind. He tells us that the fire is unquenchable, but the wind that blows, the Holy Spirit of God, we know that this wind will never quit blowing either.

George and John both ask all who are tuned in "who do you love." Only John says who loves us too.