Sermon: “Pray Like Hannah!”
October 18, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: 1 Samuel 1-2:10; Luke 1:46-55 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
We left the family of Israel a couple weeks ago as they were starting their journey to freedom. They had received the gift of Passover, the blood of the lamb that covered them and sealed a new covenant promise from God to give them new life in the Promised Land. Moses led them in the journey; Joshua led them into the land. After they got settled, God lifted up leaders from among them to serve in the role of judges. These leaders, both men and women, help deliver the people from enemies and model faithful living for the people. This time of leadership under various judges lasts about 350 years. It is a period of time marked by increasing failure: failure in the integrity of the leaders and failure of the people to live according to God’s ways. It was a time of increasing tribalism and division, of increasing chaos and violence. It was clear they needed a new kind of leadership! That is the moment of time in which the Bible pauses to tell us the story of Hannah. To me it sounds a lot like the times we find ourselves in, so I pray that God would speak to us through the story of Hannah.
Hannah is married to Elkanah, an ordinary man, who lives in the ordinary town of Ramah, in the state of Ephraim in Israel. Hannah has been unable to get pregnant and have children, and though Elkanah loves Hannah dearly, he has added a second wife named Peninnah to his household. Peninnah has had no trouble getting pregnant and has grown the family with many children. As opposed to the realities for families in America today, when the average child costs about $250,000 to raise, in the ancient Near-East where this family lived, a thousand years before Jesus’ birth, children were a necessary financial asset. They provided labor, ensured a family’s continued possession of land; they were the hope for the future wellbeing of a whole family. And while Peninnah’s children have provided security, confidence and comfort for herself and Elkanah, Hannah’s future continued to be precarious and uncertain.
Hannah has built up layers of grief and fear. At the core, is her own longing and sadness of being unable to have children. Some of you may know that pain first hand, or may be close to someone that has struggled to have the family they long for, with an empty place inside waiting to be filled with love for a child. Hannah’s community would have judged her harshly for her inability to have children, shunning her, excluding her from moms’ clubs and talking about her in the gossip groups. In addition, there is the sense of rejection, knowing her husband has invited another woman into the bedroom. And if that isn’t hard enough, Peninnah takes every opportunity to rub salt in Hannah’s wounds right there in her own home. The story tells us that Peninnah ridiculed and provoked Hannah, boasting about her own fertility and security, leaving Hannah shattered beyond words. It is clear to Hannah that if Elkanah were to die before she does, she will be evicted and abandoned in a heartbeat.
How many in the world can relate to this? Knowing their social security, their home or health care, or the food on their table, is vulnerable to the whims of those with power and resources, the boss trying to make a profit or the congressional leader trying to cut social safety nets? How many have been discarded by a spouse or dropped by friends for things over which they have no control? How often does society continue to blame the victim?
Hannah’s ordeal goes on for years, till it finally comes to a head on the annual family pilgrimage to Shiloh to worship at the tabernacle of God Almighty. Hannah just can’t take it anymore and breaks down. Elkanah hears her crying and tries to help. First, by giving her extra portions of food (like a second piece of pie was going to solve the problem? It’s too little, too late!). Then he says, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why aren’t you eating? Why are you so upset? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” Rather than helping, his inept words just make matter worse. If he’d had even a shred of empathy, he might have thought to turn that around and say instead, “You mean more to me than ten sons.”
But he doesn’t, and Hannah escapes into the temple to take her heavy heart to God in prayer. Like the hymn we just sang, she carries everything to God in prayer, unloads her pain and grief, shares her vulnerability and fears, pours out her longing and need, and then begs for a child, promising that if God answers her prayer, she will give the child back to God, dedicating his life to God’s service as a faith leader. A priest happens to see Hannah, down on her hands and knees, tears streaming down her face, lips moving in silent prayer, and adds a final insult to injury, accusing Hannah of having raided the communion wine. He scolds her for being drunk!
But in that moment, empowered and emboldened by prayer, Hannah speaks up for herself. “Oh no, sir!” she replies, “I haven’t been drinking wine or beer or any of the strong stuff. I’m just so discouraged; I was pouring out my heart to the Lord. Don’t think badly of me! I’m desperately praying out of great anguish and grief.” Eli, the priest, ends up blessing Hannah and sending her on her way, saying, “Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of Him.”
Most of us have been raised on hymns like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” with assurance that God hears us when we pray. But it is helpful to remember that what underlies all such prayers is the faith that God not only hears, but God cares and God responds. Not all desperate prayers are answered in the same way Hannah’s are, but even Jesus encouraged his followers to “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.”(Mt. 7:7)
In Hannah’s case, the family attends morning worship before traveling home, and we are told that in the course of time Hannah becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son. She names him Samuel, which rhymes with ‘heard by God’ explaining to everyone, “I asked God for him and was heard by God.” Hannah is true to her word, for when the toddler Samuel is weaned, she takes him back to Eli the priest, and leaves him there to be raised in the service of God. Samuel will grow up to play a critical role in the transition of national leadership from the broken system of judges to a new system of monarchy. All because Hannah had the boldness to pray a radical prayer at a turning point in history!
Let’s look at that prayer in 1 Samuel 2 (on the back of the bulletin), for her initial prayer request to God was prelude to an even bolder prayer. Hannah prays this prayer as she gives the child God has given her back to God. I might have expected Hannah to be weeping again, like I did as David and I drove away after leaving our Anna at college. But she begins, “My heart rejoices in the Lord!” She praises the God who made her strong, who answered her prayer, who rescued her!
Next she prays a word of warning – perhaps directed at Peninnah and Elkanah and those like them (vs.3), “Stop acting so proud and haughty! Don’t speak with such arrogance! For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done and who will judge your actions.” She speaks of a God of surprising reversals – a God who breaks the weapons of the strong, and arms those who stumble with strength, who provides food for the hungry and makes the well-fed go in search of a meal, who lifts up the poor from the garbage dumps and gives them seats of honor. Do you hear the echoes that will sound again in Mary’s prayer as she anticipates Jesus’ birth? Another mother who prays at another turning point of history. Finally, Hannah declares (vs.9), “No one will succeed by strength alone; those who oppose the Lord will be shattered.” Human power will always fall short; only God’s power is sure.
So what is the challenge for us in Hannah’s story and Hannah’s prayer? Could it be an opportunity to see the Elkanah and Peninnah in ourselves, and ask, in what ways am I proud and haughty, putting too much stock in the power and things of this world and not leaning on God’s power? Are we treating victims with distain and the vulnerable with scorn? Are we enabling the rich to take advantage of desperate times, enabling leaders to focus on filling a seat of power rather than taking up solutions for relief? There is a saying that God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable (which you might be interested in knowing, was coined in regards to the role of the media, and only much later applied to God). But if you are comfortable, perhaps there are ways that God wants to use Hannah’s story to afflict you to see the vulnerable in a new way, to see their suffering and start change.
On the other hand, if you are feeling afflicted, what words of comfort and hope is God speaking to you through Hannah and through her prayer? Perhaps the comforting reminder that God sees you, God hears you, God will respond. Or the hope that God cares deeply about the discriminated-against, the oppressed, the shut-out and the trampled-on; that God will take the unlikely and unseen, and use them to bring justice and peace in the world. Maybe the prayer of a desperate, disregarded woman will spark a new movement. Maybe one of you is the unlikely one who will pray that new bold, radical prayer that starts the ball rolling toward a brighter tomorrow. Maybe you are being invited to give back to God the life that he has given you, with joy and with trust.
Hannah gives her only son to God, imitating the God she loves, who will give His only Son to save the world and to provide fresh, righteous, just leadership. That’s how Hannah’s prayer ends (vs.10), looking ahead to the coming of God’s anointed, God’s Messiah, God’s Judge, God’s King. God has put his Anointed, Jesus, in charge; the One who lifts the brokenhearted and welcomes the outcast has the true power.
In the 1950’s a middle-aged pastor, from a minority Christian community in the small island nation of Sri Lanka, was chosen to lead a movement of unity in the worldwide church. He wrote important sermons and books, but also poems and hymns. One of these poems was set to the tune of a Pakistani melody, and expresses the kind of surrender to God we see in Hannah. The pastor-poet-leader was D.T. Niles. I had the privilege of going to school with his granddaughter. The song is titled “Saranam, Saranam”, which means ‘Refuge, Refuge’. Chuck is going to sing it for us now. By the end I hope that you join in singing the chorus. I left out the 3rd verse, so it wouldn’t go so long, but I would like to read that verse for you and invite you to hear it in Hannah’s voice:
O that I, my vows to Thee may pay,
and that by Thy faithfulness to me each day
may live, and on Thy love my burdens lay;
Saranam, Saranam, Saranam.
Closing Song: “Saranam, Saranam” (Refuge)
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