Scripture: |
I Samuel 1:4-20 |
Do you like being made fun of? No? Didn’t think so. People can be pretty cruel sometimes when they think they are being funny. But if it’s an attempt to be humorous at our expense, neither you nor I take very kindly to that. I’ve sometimes wondered why it is that some people will use something like, oh say, a lisp or a limp, being fat or being rail thin, or even quite a serious deformity like being blind or having Parkinson’s as an occasion for cruel attempted humor. Human nature? Well, maybe. But if so it’s one of our worst traits. (And I know that none of you engage in this.)
This musing is prompted by our scripture today from the first chapter of I Samuel. It’s a story about a man named Elkanah. Now, Elkanah had two wives, which was fairly common for that patriarchal time. As the verse just before the one where Jeff started to read says: “the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.”
Boy, did Peninnah ever give it to Hannah about being barren! Can you just hear the anguish in these verses: “Her rival used to provoke her severely….. So it went on year by year….. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.” This isn’t just being made fun of because of a condition of barrenness; this was downright and on-going cruelty.
Now, notice an odd thing about the set-up for this story: “because the Lord had closed her womb.” How’s that? It’s God’s fault that Hannah is childless and thus open to all this taunting from Peninnah? We’ll come back to that conundrum in a moment. But first, here’s another peculiar thing: despite the fact that Hannah is barren, Elkanah loves her more! No wonder Peninnah is constantly getting on her – lot of envy and jealousy there. Peninnah had given Elkanah all those sons and daughters, but “to Hannah he gave her a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb.”
So, after many years of this situation, Hannah and Elkanah find themselves in the temple. Elkanah seeks to comfort her, saying, “’Am I not more to you than ten sons?’” But Hannah goes in to pray. Without the aid of priest or liturgy, she prays the prayer of her heart, pouring out her need and her pain, and making a promise to God that she would later keep when she turns her son over to the house of the Lord. Her focus in prayer is that if it is the Lord who has closed her womb then it is the Lord who can open it. The issue is not who’s to blame or who’s responsible. The issue is: what can prayer accomplish?
This story, then, is really all about prayer – or, more precisely, about our expectations for prayer. Hannah is pouring out her soul – so excruciatingly that eventually she comes to pray in silence, only her lips moving. And the old priest Eli, coming upon her, thinks she is drunk. Interesting parallel here, isn’t there, with the Pentecost story of the disciples praying in strange tongues and the people hearing them thinking they are drunk. When Hannah then displays her pain and anguish and sincerity to Eli, he perceives the power of her prayer and says, “’Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to [God].’”
Hannah is a remarkable woman who perseveres through prayer and discovers that God is indeed compassionate. And so a son is born – out of all expectation (the story doesn’t say anything about it, but I would have loved to see the expression on Peninnah’s face when this happens) – and she names him Samuel because, as she says, “’I have asked him of the Lord.’”
Now, here’s another oddity. In Hebrew the basis for the name Samuel is not “to ask” but “to hear”. William L. Mangrum explains it this way: “It all seems a bit mysterious and unclear. The name Samuel means ‘to hear.’ The reason given, ‘because I asked.’ What was Hannah thinking? Was she confused? Drunk? Well, I think Hannah knew what she was doing. She had promised God that if she was given a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord’s service. Miraculously, God opens her womb. She bears a son and after weaning him, she fulfills her vow. She journeys to Shiloh – leaving him at the temple where he will learn to serve the Lord.” In fact, the one she leaves him with is the same old priest, Eli, who had encouraged her to believe in the power of her prayer.
If we skip over then to chapter three, we discover the significance of Samuel’s name. Out of his sleep he hears his name being called three times. Thinking it is Eli who has called him, he runs to respond. But the wise old Eli finally recognizes that it is the Lord who is calling Samuel and tells him that when God calls again he is to say, “’Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” Listening, hearing – little Samuel whose name means “to hear” is learning to hear God, to hear and respond to the divine Word. This is the start to one of the great stories in the sweep and scope of Biblical history – the prophet Samuel who begins the monarchy that would lead to the great king David…and eventually to Jesus. And it begins with another of those women “on the margins” – like Ruth and Naomi, whose story we heard two weeks ago, like Sarah long before her and Elizabeth well afterwards who were also barren, Hannah’s faith in the efficacy of prayer and her sacrificial willingness to give this son for whom she had waited oh so long over to the service of God demonstrate her deep love of the Lord.
So what does Hannah’s and Samuel’s story have to say to us? Kate Huey answers this well with some questions for us to ponder: “The fulfillment and future that Hannah experiences is also the fulfillment and future of Israel itself, and of the people of faith who walk in their footsteps. What if reading the story of Hannah had an impact on our prayer life, individually and communally, right now? What if we examined our spiritual practice each day, and the worship we share in our congregations, and searched for the places where our prayer springs from our deepest need and a deep trust that God hears our prayers and will respond?”
Prayer, you see, is not so much about our speaking but about our listening. Hannah was able to have her prayer answered when she learned to listen to God. At its heart, you know, prayer is our response to God. What Hannah learned later in life, she wanted Samuel to know from birth: prayer is hearing God call us by name and responding, “’Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” What will you hear? What will be your response?
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
November 15 , 2009