Samson's gifts

Judges 15:9-20

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on Lehi. The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” Samson answered them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.” They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. And Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey,
    heaps upon heaps,
with the jawbone of a donkey
    I have slain a thousand men.”

When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi.

By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore,which is at Lehi to this day. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Samson has perhaps always been the most troubling character in scripture for me.  Maybe he feels the most unreal to me.  The most unlike any of the other people God chose to lead people.

As a kid, I confused Samson with Hercules.  And I got older, it seemed stranger and stranger to me that God chose this massively strong man - with strong passions and a weakness for pretty women (he visits a prostitute in the very next chapter before he weds Delilah) - to become a judge of all things.  I just have never been sure I saw the qualifications.

Of course, who am I to judge his qualifications.  

It's clear Samson had gifts.  Though they weren't necessarily the gifts that I tend to lift up or see as important, they were gifts God was able to use.  This is true for our churches and communities.  We aren't always going to understand everyone else's gifts.  Yet God still can use those gifts.

And like any gifts from God, they can be used for good and they can be used for ill.

Samson is a good representation of the truism that our very strengths can be our weaknesses.  When we overly rely on what we think are our chief gifts, they can be abused, manipulated and cease to function.  We might be great teachers, or leaders, or preachers, or have strong gifts of mercy or artistic gifts.

But push any of them out to the exclusion of others - over rely on them to the point where we see ourselves and the gifts as one - and problems begin.

It is good - important even - to know our gifts.  But remembering they are from God and remembering that they alone do not define us are the keys to making sure our gifts are being used up for the building up of the community, rather than the tearing down.

Giving, generous God, you have endowed me with gifts that are meant to be used up for the building up of your commonwealth.  Keep me humble and faithful in my use of those gifts.  Amen.