Sermon Pent 26, yr B, 2024

It was a special day, a festival day when Elkanah’s family came down to the temple.  Kinda like Christmas, that one time of year the extended family goes to church.  Everyone went, everyone celebrated and everyone received their gifts in turn.  Everyone was eating and drinking, having a good time except one.  Hannah sat in silence during the feast.

I can imagine her family shaking their heads, as she leaves to return to the temple.  It’s likely Hannah heard the whispers, all these years married and still no children?  What sins did she commit I wonder to incur God’s wrath?

I can imagine Hannah’s husband sighing deeply at Hannah’s discontent…as much as he cared for her, he could never make her happy.  … ‘am I not enough for you?’

Peninnah, Elkanah’s other wife likely smirked.  Hannah was doing herself no favours, crying all the time…getting all puffy and unattractive.   That’s why she, Peninnah, had many sons and daughters, and Hannah had none…had never even been pregnant!  Yet, still Elkanah doted on her, miserable, dried up old stick that she was.  Peninnah was glad whenever Hannah crawled back to temple to beg for what Peninnah had in abundance.

This had been going on for years, and I’d bet the family was used to it…and the family just ignored it.  Just one more uncomfortable family dinner …I’m sure none of you can relate.

At the temple it was another story…here surely Hannah would be welcome, could speak her mind, ease her conscience and pray to God for deliverance from her daily trials?   Here in temple surely felt Hannah safe.  We read that here she wept her bitter frustration, bewailed God for being unfair, begged God to see her devotion and take away the curse of her barrenness.

Yet, even in the temple Hannah is tormented and misunderstood.  Eli, we read, the priest of the temple strides up to her and cries out… Woman! You ought to be ashamed…making a drunken spectacle of yourself here! Of all places!  You can imagine heads turning, couples whispering and the priest in his robes standing tall and accusatory over her.  Hannah simply can’t catch a break.

Hannah’s story is the story of many people.  Vulnerable, troubled and in need of help, yet those who ought to help her…family, partner, church…mock, whisper and outright accuse.  She is universally misunderstood.  Without sons, a woman’s position in society was precarious to say the least. Without sons she would be considered without value, and being always reminded of her barrenness she likely would have seen herself as a failure.

‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.’

Or in other words…dear lord…I’ll do anything! Just please, please help!.   Have we all not prayed that prayer at some time in our lives?

 

 

Have we not felt like those around us didn’t understand?  Have we not all sat in a room full of people celebrating and felt nothing but despair and misery?  Have we not felt mocked and dismissed for something we have had no control over…yet still took the hurt to heart.

Have we not each had our grief, our private sorrows, our broken hearts and still be told… are you not over that yet? Look at what you do have, you ought to be grateful? Or heard the dismissive…ugh, don’t mind her she’s just being moody.

Or are we those who mock others? Dismiss their hurts? Misjudge their mood and make false accusation. Do we stand at the doorframes judging those outside as drunk, useless, just another one making a spectacle of themselves.

But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.’ 

Those around us have stories.  Years of history that we do not know.  The priest Eli had no idea that Hannah had been barren and mocked, tormented her whole married life.  No idea of the pain she endured, the prayers gone unanswered, the shame and the mask she wore.

 Eli had no idea… and as a priest in authority, and as a man of power… looking at a woman he assumed drunk, cluttering up and besmirching his sacred space…I wonder if occurred to him to care?  A woman in his time was not viewed with respect, a drunken woman alone and unchaperoned… was likely seen as little more than dirt at his feet to be swept out the door.   And when he heard he was wrong…Hannah got little more response than: Go in peace, may God hear your prayer.  And she left, likely to Eli’s relief and I have no doubt that he soon forgot the encounter.

But we, we get to hear what came next…

               “In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked him of the Lord.’”

Yep, that Samuel.  The Hear I am, Lord Samuel who hears God calling for him in the temple under the supervision of that same priest Eli who was so dismissive of Samuel’s mother.

Throughout the bible we are given example after example of how God choses to further his mission in unexpected people and unexpected ways.  If you had asked anyone in that temple who the Lord would act through they would likely point to the Priest of the Temple, Eli.  However, it is not Eli who is chosen, rather it is the Hannah, whose barrenness appeared in the eyes of her culture to be a punishment from God, it is Hannah who will birth Samuel, one of the great prophets.  God choses the underdog.          

As Hannah later pronounces in her Canticle

4 “The bows of the warriors are broken,
    but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
    but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
    but she who has had many sons pines away.

The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
    he humbles and he exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
    and has them inherit a throne of honor.

 

 

 

Which is echoed many centuries later in the most famous canticle of all:

“My soul glorifies the Lord
47     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
    remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
    just as he promised our ancestors.”

 

The bible is full of examples of God working through the most humble and vulnerable among us.  How in the midst of tragedy God hears the prayers of the humble and faithful.  Conversely the bible is also full of examples of people in leadership and authority, misusing or neglecting their responsibilities.  Eli is the most powerful man in this story, yet when we read his story… it is a story of failure of faith, of misguided leadership until in his old age we read a story of a priest learning to become humble as the lord speaks not to him, but to the lowly acolyte in his service, Samuel.

There is much to learn from the story of Hannah, about faith, prayer, and perseverance.  There is also much to learn from the stories of the other characters…Elkanah, Peninnah and Eli…about pride, self righteousness, and how we judge others.

There are many people in this world who are in Hannah’s position, far more than in Eli’s.  There are many stories about God blessing those who are downtrodden and vulnerable.  There are many reasons, millions …billions of human reasons that Christ was born to Mary…vulnerable, humble and young.  God walks with those society ignores.

We so badly want to be the Eli’s of this world.  The powerful, the authority, the 1%...that too often we are dismissive of those 99%, the worlds majority.  God’s reign, which we will hear about next week, turns upside down all societies obsession with status and power. Not so that the 99% get the wealth and power…but so that 100% have all that is needed.

As Hannah prays in her Canticle

7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
    he humbles and he exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
    and has them inherit a throne of honor.

As we start towards the new year of the church in Advent, we remember that we wait and hope…not for our own glory, but for God’s glory to come.  In those days we be the Eli’s, the Hannahs’ and all the characters in between…and God will know each story, our stories.

When the time comes to read your life…what story will God hear and what example will you show?  We are all a part of salvation history, it is still being written as we live it… we are all characters in the great story of God’s saving grace. 

               However, unlike Eli or Hannah we are fortunate enough that God is still writing the chapters, there is time for our character to grow.  So the question becomes, in the story of God’s salvation… what part will you play?