Samuel the Prophet: The Legacy

What is it like to come to the end of your life's work, when you feel you've had a calling, and to reflect on how you responded to that calling? We get a glimpse with Samuel, I think, of the reluctance with which some people lay down their role, and the worries that surface as they ponder their legacy.

The people of Israel had asked Samuel for a king; they didn't appreciate the misbehavior of his sons. Although he warned them that a king would tax them and take their children as slaves, the people perceived those things as preferable to Samuel's sons...and by extension, preferable to Samuel himself. It was disappointing, and you see Samuel struggling against the tide. Saul was anointed, and was stepping up to leadership.

At this point nearly everyone was enchanted with Saul, who had proven himself as a leader in battle. It was time for Samuel to step aside. We can follow Samuel's train of thought in 1 Samuel 12 as he talks to all the people, who had gathered at his request:

"I haven't stolen anyone's stuff, I haven't cheated anyone, I haven't oppressed anyone, and I haven't taken bribes. Right?

They admitted he was right.

"God is my witness that I have not wronged you. Correct?"

They affirmed that he was correct.

"When you asked for a king instead of a judge, that was evil. God is going to send thunder and rain on your harvest to prove I'm right."

And God sent thunder and rain on their harvest. So they admitted that Samuel was right.

Samuel cared deeply about his legacy. He didn't want the people to remember him as an ineffective leader. He didn't want them to pass around stories that he had been a crook. And he didn't want them to ever say that a king was a better leader than he had been as prophet. He took pains to establish his legacy in their minds before he relinquished the leadership to Saul.

I have seen similar drivers at work in acquaintances and colleagues who are either coming up to a time of retirement and laying down their responsibilities, or who have already lain them down but are mulling over their work of the past. Some do little things to check on how you see them, what their legacy will be. Some tell stories of their triumphs in an effort to shape their legacy just in case you didn't catch it correctly the first time. Some work hard to get everything in place and procure promises in writing, so that the efforts they've made to build something don't get undone.

The truth of the matter is that no one can ensure their legacy, no more than Samuel could. Some of us build things that last, and some don't. Some of us are remembered, and some aren't. Some of us have "tribes" that endeavor to stay connected to us and our accumulated wisdom or skills as we drift on, and some don't. Some of our own stories about ourselves agree with the perceptions and memories of others, and some don't.

Only time will tell.

In the end, says the sage, we are all like the grass, which withers and dries and blows away in the wind. We will be forgotten, our work will diminish in relevance, and the legacy--good or ill--will fade.

This may sound like a "downer," but it's not meant to be. It's meant to be realistic. And it could even provide some release. At the moment that we let go of our former shreds of "power" and our desire to force some kind of lasting legacy, we find freedom. It's okay to let it go. It's okay to have value within ourselves for simply being humans, created by God. It doesn't take the work of our hands to establish us as worthwhile.

And isn't it true that a servant is happy simply to have served?

Perhaps the best way to deal with a legacy is to recognize its transience and just let go of it.