sermon by Carrie Eikler
1 Samuel 1-20, 2:1-10
Samuel Series: Part 1
Our summer is starting off with six weeks of looking at the
1 and 2 Samuel. I’m not quite sure why we chose Samuel… If I had my druthers, we would have started
the summer off with a bit more comfortable or familiar choice. Sort
of like starting off the summer with the familiar Memorial Day hot dogs and
potato salad picnic, it would have been easy and fun to think of exploring the
parables of Jesus, or the beatitudes or something a bit more familiar like
that.
But instead of the hot dog and potato salad familiarity of
those gospel stories, we are—admittedly—jumping into an unknown arena. Like trying our hand at kimchi and stuffed
oysters for the Memorial Day picnic.
It’s not something we would have thought of, or are very familiar
with. Nor are the books of Samuel.
In fact when Torin and I were sitting at the Blue Moose in
the cold of February (remember that?) and we were looking ahead into the summer
and he said “You know I’ve always wanted to study the books of Samuel” I think
I may have snorted out a bit of my mocha.
I don’t know why I had that reaction, but it probably had to do with the
fact that the only things I remember about Samuel were…well, I couldn’t
remember much. Mostly some grisly
situations of swords shoved into bellies, and sex, and battles. Which is great if you are a summer
blockbuster movie, not so much if you are a pastor with tendencies to preach
about the gospel of nonviolence.
Yet here we are.
I can say that thankfully the books of Samuel don’t start
off with some long-winded genealogy.
There are a few unusual names we have to stumble through but the story
is quick to get those names into a tangle of relationships. Once the characters are out there, there is
already tension. Elkinah has two wives:
his favorite, Hannah who doesn’t have any children, and Peninnah who is not the
favored one but the one who has given
Elkinah children. So there’s the tension: one favored…one second fiddle. One quite fertile…one childless.
We can even image there is tension between Hannah and YHWH
because, as it says, “the Lord closed her womb.” And here we encounter a common biblical
scenario: fertility and infertility was based on actions of God. God did this.
Only God can undo this. To the
original readers of this text this would not have been disturbing or insensitive
or thoughtless. This is how matters of
the body worked. God was in charge.
But it didn’t mean that Hannah liked it, or even accepted
it.
As we will see, the books of Samuel are a testament to a
people in transition from unruly and chaotic tribes to a centralize and
powerful monarch. It is a story about
desire and hope, fearlessness and bravery, power and corruption. It weaves a
story around YHWH’s power in those historical events.
And it all starts with with a severely grieving woman...and
some men who just don’t get it.
Just because Hannah and those around her may believe YHWH
was in control by rendering her infertile, she doesn’t accept it as her
fate. First she wept, which is totally
understandable. Inconsolable grief. Her husband bestows words on her that
depending on the tone—and ah, what we miss in the text is this tone—could be an attempt to comfort her,
or an insensitive dismissal of her feelings.
IT could be “there there, don’t worry.
You have me, and we’re fine the way we are. We don’t need children. We’re fine.
You have meeee”
or it could be
(inflect tone) “Come on Hannah. buck up.
You’ve got me..what else could you want. (wink wink).”
Whether it was to console her or berate her, it didn’t in
the least bit deter her. She goes to the
temple to petition God even more deeply and has another encounter with someone
who just doesn’t get it. Remember last
week when we talked about Pentecost and the outsiders thinking the merry
revelers inside were drunk? There seems
to be a thread in my sermons here, because again, Eli the priest thinks Hannah is drunk simply because she is
muttering to herself—she is praying—she is putting words to her grief that she
will not keep bottled up inside.
I love what she says here, in the NRSV translation: “I have
drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have been pouring out my soul before the Lord”
and you can almost hear her tone change here: “Do not regard your
servant as a worthless woman, for I
have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.”
I have been speaking
out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.
And Eli recognizes he is wrong. He grants her a benediction, to go in peace,
and may the Lord grant her the petition she poured out from her vexed
lips.
And before anything happens.
Before she finds out the Lord opens her womb and she conceives and will
have a son that is dedicated to the servant of the Lord, who will be
instrumental in the creation of the kingdom…before she knows her prayers have
been answered she goes home and her countenance was sad no longer.
By going to the temple, speaking out of her great anxiety
and vexation, speaking the truth of what was really going on inside her,
telling this pompous religious man he’s got it all wrong… her sadness eased, just
a bit. You can even tell the lightness
of the tone: “Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her
husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.”
Has that ever happened to you? You feel so weighted down with troubles—from
physical or emotional barrenness, or interpersonal conflict, or financial
instability—and it eats and you and eats at you and someone comes along, and in
all good intentions they try to make you feel better, but they just don’t get
it?
And have you ever
said “You know, friend. You have got it
all wrong. This is what is really going
on…” Maybe you’re not so brazen as
Hannah…I know I’m certainly not. But you
kind of get what she’s going through.
If I was to guess, I’d say you probably have experienced the liberation of sharing your burden in
safe spaces—with trusted friends, in your private journal, in prayer. How sometimes just giving words to the pain
of your soul can lift you, even if the resolution is nowhere in sight. From your vexed lips to the Lord’s ears—and
somehow you receive a word of blessing, of peace. If only for a time.
So when Hannah went home she probably didn’t know what would
happen, but soon it will be revealed that she does conceive a son—in due time, it says. Not right away. Not the next week. In the frustrating, endless due time.
And it is here that she celebrates. It is here she sings the song, the second
scripture Linda read. Hannah’s
song. And you probably recognize
it. The hymn we sang after the reading
reflected the sentiment in Hannah’s words doesn’t it? But if you look at the scripture reference
the song is based on, you will find that is from another woman in the gospels. The song of Mary’s Magnificat.
If you put Hannah’s song and Mary’s song next to each other
you will find surprising similiarities: not only in the word and sentiment, but
in the theological underpinning of two women, enduring fear and struggle within
their reproductive selves, praising a God who, as their lives attest to, will
surprise you, confound you, anger you, lift you up, flip you upside down, and
bless you wherever you end up.
Even if it’s not where you want to be. Even if it’s in the place you never thought
possible. Even if it humbles you, you
who always had everything. Even if it
fills you, you who were barren for so long: in your womb, or your soul, or your
relationships.
It’s not just about
babies. It’s about the way God works.
Hannah’s song switches things around. Gives a different vantage point and puts us
in a different place. Often when we are
preaching, we encourage you to see how you relate to what’s going on in the
story. I’ve done that a bit today,
invited you to poke around at any barrenness that might be drying within you.
But I’m going to do a little flip and invite you back to the
beginning of this story, before Hannah knew what she knew. When she was desperate, misunderstood, and
written off. Martin Copenhaver in his
commentary on this texts, gives a rather honest reflection that we might
confess that Hannah, as depicted in this story, “might be just the sort of
person who would have the ability to drive a pastor a bit crazy.” I might say, the ability to drive any of us a
bit crazy.
He says “She is needy, dramatic, challenging, and
insistent.” [i] So
maybe, if we do a little flipping, we can see that there are probably some
people like Hannah in our lives to whom we are a little…condescending to, or
impatient with. The friend that can’t
get over some wrongdoing or the family member who can’t get out of a rut.
I certainly have given trite words of reassurance. Clichés of comfort. I have see others as drunk on their own
self-pity rather than recognizing their pain as a prayer, uttered from their
anxiety and vexation. Hannah’s story may
invite us to look at our own barrenness, but Hannah’s song challenges us confess to the times we have not met others in
their need.
When we have been Elkinah and Eli, who just don’t get it until
the persistence of others opens our eyes.
--
In scripture, barrenness is always a signal that something
amazing is going to happen. In the book
of Samuel, we see that Israel’s beginning in the books of Samuel rests in
Hannah’s painful waiting, with barrenness, fear, anger, and oppression. The story of Israel moves not only by the
power of God, but by the persistence of the lowly.
Whenever we participate in emptiness, dryness, barrenness—either your own, or
accompanying others as we try to understand their
struggle—we too are an integral piece to a new beginning. We start to receive the story of Hannah—the
story of Samuel—the story of Israel—the story of God.
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