Loss Is Indeed Our Gain

Today’s poem is a Lenten prayer written by Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. He draws inspiration from 1 Samuel 8, where the Hebrew People demand that Samuel anoint a king over their nation. Dr. Brueggemann’s poem is a counterpoint to their demands. The King that God has in mind is not one who exerts earthly power, but one whose love for their people leads them to suffer alongside them and ultimately take their place. 

“Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, 'You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves and the best of your cattle and donkeys and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And on that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you on that day.”

-1 Samuel 8:4-18

Loss is Indeed Our Gain

The pushing and shoving of the world is endless.

We are pushed and shoved.

And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving

in our great anxiety.

And in the middle of that

you have set down you beloved suffering son

who was like a sheep led to slaughter

who opened not his mouth.

We seem not able,

so we ask you to create the spaces in our life

where we may ponder his suffering

and your summons for us to suffer with him,

suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.

So we pray for your church in these Lenten days

when we are driven to denial–

not to notice the suffering,

not to engage it,

not to acknowledge it.

So be that way of truth among us

that we should not deceive ourselves.

That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.

We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.

Amen.

Rev. Ryan Young