To you
you're strong and powerful,
vanquisher of your foes,
avenger of your people,
sent by God.
This enemy ground
holds no terror for you,
for you
who can walk out unscathed,
stealing the gates,
putting us to shame.
To you
I am a piece of meat,
a ware to buy,
a bit of cheap fun
for half a night
to make you feel good,
feel manly and strong;
a pretty body
you'll soon forget.
To me
you are coins in my hand
to pay tomorrow's bread;
a stranger in my bed
whom I have to please,
pretend to love,
for half a night;
just another man
I wish I could forget.
To me
I'm what I never wanted,
what I never thought I'd be.
How did I come to this,
to being your piece of meat,
selling myself
because there's nothing else,
no way out?
As long as men like you
do this to women like me,
this is where I'll be,
condemned to shame.
To you, you are a hero
and I your piece of meat.
To me, you are a customer,
and I your piece of meat.
And to God?
___________________________________________________________________
[24. March 2014 - in class...]
This little story often gets overlooked because just afterwards, the Delilah thing happens. For a while I had no idea how to write about this - then suddenly I got this idea. Maybe because last night a missionary at our church told us a bit about human trafficking and prostitution and such...
In Sunday school (from my experience) Samson is often depicted as a hero (and, well, he does appear in Hebrews 11 which is a sort of "heroes table" - though Jephthah appears there too and I don't really like him either...) - but he had his problems. In particular, a "women problem". So he just pops by a brothel on the way to doing another heroic deed (taking the gates of the Philistine capital and carrying them faaaaar away - that must have made the Philistines, who were planning to kill him while he was with the prostitute, feel pretty stupid).
Well, what does one make of a story like this? First off: perfect heroes don't exist. Second: I don't find Samson much of a hero anyway (didn't obey God much - though he remembered Him in the end! Which shows people can change and there's always a chance to repent). Third: I tried to look at how the prostitute might feel. Not just about this story, but in general.
So: please pray for those stuck in the sex trade. Over here in Switz women from Eastern Europe are sometimes promised a job and tricked into prostitution that way. In parts of Asia, poor families resort to selling their children just to be able to feed the rest of the family. Please pray for those involved in helping them find a way out, and pray for more people to reach out and show them the love of Jesus. Pray also for their customers... there might even be some Samsons out there, with a double face - good Christian on the surface, but with a secret "women problem". Pray that they can also receive the help they need to stop visiting prostitutes (when demand ends, so does supply!), and pray that they can find better ways to spend their time, and find healing and forgiveness and a change of lifestyle in Jesus.
Picture by Gustave Doré
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