November 15, 2015
Stories of Hope and Praise
- 1 Samuel 1:4-20
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
Hannah thought she would scream if one more person asked when she and Elkanah would have a baby. She used to look forward to seeing her friends in the morning when she gathered water at the well and hearing all the latest news. Now she dreaded those encounters, wondering when someone would ask, “So, Hannah, how are you doing? Are you with child yet?” She decided that from now on she would draw water later in the day so she wouldn’t have to answer any questions from her friends – even if the questions were well meaning. She would do anything to avoid those questioning gazes and the superior looks of those with children.
At last summer’s tribal reunion in Shiloh, Hannah lost count of how many relatives who asked when she and Elkanah planned to start a family. One after the other they piped in saying, “Well Hannah, you and Elkanah have been together for a while now – don’t you think it’s about time you had a baby? Your mother is looking forward to grandchildren you know. Look at all my children running around the food tables – aren’t they the cutest?” Hannah kept looking at the sundial and counting the minutes until she could get away from all the family members with children.
She and Elkanah had been trying to have a baby, but nothing had happened. Elkanah tried to be encouraging, he never made her feel bad about being infertile, and she loved him very much – but all she could think about was having a baby. Plus Elkanah already had children with his first wife Peninnah, so having another child wasn’t a real priority for him.
Peninnah was a big problem too. Hannah knew she looked down on her. She just knew Peninnah felt she was better than she was since she had been able to provide Elkanah with children. It’s like she was taunting her and did everything she could do to irritate and demean Hannah because the Lord had closed her womb.
And Hannah wondered – why had God closed her womb? Was she a bad person or something? She knew it was her job as a wife to have babies – that is what wives were for. She also knew she was expected to give birth to a son who would carry on his father’s name and bloodline. She didn’t have the choices women have today. She was nothing if she didn’t have a son to care for her in her old age.
Hannah tried to love her husband’s other children and to mother them, but Peninnah didn’t want her input or help. So Hannah found herself more and more reclusive and even bitter. One way to avoid some of her pain was to avoid other people. Going to the synagogue on the Sabbath was almost impossible because of all the mothers and children gathered together on the right side of the temple together. She stood out. She was different. She was barren.
Hannah tried not to resent her friends and family who had children - but it was hard not to. In her efforts not to be angry with those who had children, she felt a perceptible shift of that anger toward God instead. She began to question God and wondered if God thought she was unworthy of motherhood. Was this a punishment for something she had done?
Hannah mourned the absence of the baby she longed for. She felt so alone and lost. Her heart told her that God was close to her in her sorrow, but her aching heart simply couldn’t feel it. The hurt was too deep.
So finally she did what people of faith do when they are at the end of their rope – she went to the temple and had a heart to heart talk with God. She prayed one of those “let’s make a deal” prayers that we have all prayed at one time or another. “God if you will do this for me, then I will do that for you.” But it wasn’t a frivolous prayer – Hannah poured out her heart and soul to God. If God would give her a son, she would give that son back to God to be in God’s service. This was an incredible deal she was brokering – she was promising to return to God what she wanted most in all the world – a son – if only God would give her that son. And God does. God grants Hannah the desire of her heart and a son Samuel is born – the son who will grow into the boy who learned to listen to God in the night, the prophet who anointed David king of Israel. He was as promised, a faithful man of God.
And so Hannah proclaims her joy and gratitude in a song to God. “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God,” which sounds very similar to Mary’s song as she waits for the birth of Jesus. Hannah is the Madonna of the Old Testament. We can rejoice that Hannah’s story has a happy ending.
But that’s not the case for all those who desperately want children. More than 5 million people in the United States of childbearing age experience infertility. There have been and there will be couples and women in this congregation who have to deal with everything Hannah did. And most of us are unaware of their problem as they deal with one of the most emotionally and spiritually difficult journeys of their lives.
Barrenness is a familiar theme in the bible – especially in our Old Testament stories. You may know nothing about the barrenness of a women’s womb, but you know what barrenness looks like and feels like. We wonder to ourselves just like Hannah did, how a new future is possible amid the barrenness that can render us bitter, hopeless and afraid. What are your prayers of barrenness? What prayers of groaning are you praying right now? Where do you see or feel loneliness, isolation and despair?
And how will you deal with these feelings – for yourself or for someone you love? Are you comfortable with the waiting that has to happen as we bring our prayers to God? Just like Hannah we often have to wait with deep longing for our prayers to be answered. As people of faith we should know how to wait – we will begin the season of Advent, the season of waiting for Christ to be born in just 2 weeks. And I don’t know about you, but I am very bad at waiting. So how do we wait for the Christ to be born? For that matter how do we wait for that raise we need, or that college acceptance letter, or that list of who made the basketball team, or for that relationship to heal, or for an appointment with a medical specialist?
So I see and hear longing in Hannah’s voice. And as a Christian who waits for the second coming of Christ and the coming of the reality of the kingdom of God, I know that part of my faith journey is learning to sit with that longing – even as I give voice to it. In an already but not yet world, people of faith are in waiting mode and so was Hannah.
But look at how she handles that. Her prayer to God, her prayer of groaning, comes from a place of utter vulnerability. When Hannah seeks out God’s presence in her state of anguish, her prayer signals that she is aware of a divine concern for those who society does not value. She does not just come to God with a formal petition. She does not come with a traditional sacrifice. She comes in loneliness, isolation and despair. She lays bare to God all of her emotions and all her pain. And God is present to her and responsive to her. It is Hannah’s humility and honesty that get her somewhere – not her station in a culture that does not value her.
Embedded in the story of God’s grace and love to Hannah is the fact that she does not just ask and make a deal with God in her prayers – she also grieves, meditates, murmurs, and stands silent. She comes before God as her whole self – cultural baggage, broken dreams, audacious hope and all. And God responds. Hannah is the person God chooses to birth a son that will begin a monarchy for God’s people Israel. The salvation history of the Hebrew people and the salvation history for all of us includes barrenness, infertility, closed and opened wombs, ecstatic prayer, intense grief, social conventions, cultural limitations and so much more. They are layers of graced existence, of miracles and surprise, and of pain and promise – all making us into the people of faith we were called to be.
I am not telling you that if you lay bare your soul to God and pray for something that you will get it. But I do think in doing so your mind and your heart will be lighter. As our story tells us – after Hannah prayed, but before she knew her prayer was answered – her countenance was sad no longer. And God does hear your prayers. And if God does not bring you the answers you want, God will bring you God’s own self, walking beside you every step of the way. And maybe at the secret heart of all our prayers, that is what we are really praying for anyway.
As the Book of Hebrews reminds us, we can hope because God is faithful. Difficult times cannot outlast the God revealed in Jesus the Christ. In trusting God and sharing our vulnerability with God we can find not only encouragement for ourselves but also strength and insight to encourage others. May it be so. Amen.
Resources: Words, sentences and stories are used liberally from the following.
“Baby Blues,” by Rev. Dr. Mary Lautensleger, liberallectionaryresources.com.
Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, Proper 28.
“Hannah and her Sisters,” by Katie Munnik, presbyterianrecord.com