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The Rev. Frank
Logue
Strength Beyond Circumstances Hannah is a pillar of strength in the Hebrew scripture. Today we read nearly two chapters of First Samuel, to here of Hannah’s story and then to read together her song of praise to God in thanks for reversing her fortunes. Hannah was a woman of her times, who transcended those times through her faith in God alone. Entering into Hannah’s story is a way of discovering how God can be present to us when everything seems to be going wrong. Through Hannah we see how we can have strength beyond our circumstances. In my sermon last week, I said that if you don’t first and foremost place your trust in God, it won’t matter what else you trust in first. Placing trust in anything other than God is a sure way to be disappointed. This week, we encounter Hannah who is a prime example of a woman who puts her trust in God. Let’s enter the story more fully. Then having come to better know Hannah’s struggle and how God’s will was accomplished through her, we will come to see how God is working in our lives. Hannah is married to Elkanah who loves her very much. But Hannah is barren. She has given Elkanah no children. As was common at the time, Elkanah has another wife, Peninnah and this wife bore Elkanah both sons and daughters. As a childless woman, Hannah’s status in her family should be low. But we find that Elkanah loves Hannah very much. For Elkanah, it is the Lord who closed her womb and so there is no blame on Hannah. He asks her, “Why is your heart sad?” and tries to comfort her in saying, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” She may be childless, but this has not dimmed her husbands love for her. This leads to jealousy. Peninnah sees Elkanah’s love for Hannah despite the children she bore her husband. Peninnah taunts Hannah mercilessly. This is the background as we enter the main event in our reading for today. Elkanah and his family traveled to the sanctuary at Shiloh. After Israel settled in the Promised Land and before the temple was built in Jerusalem, this is where the one true God was worshipped in Israel. Hannah goes intent on pouring her heart out to God. She prays in a way virtually unheard of at the time. Everyone prayed in those days standing with arms outstretched to heaven and saying the prayers aloud. This is exactly what I do when I pray the prayers of our communion service. But Hannah did not pray in this way. Hannah prayed silently. As our text tells us, “Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.” The priest, Eli, sees this unusual prayer and assumes that this woman is drunk. A bit indignant at this drunken woman’s spectacle, he challenges her to put away her wine. Then she confides in the priest, “No, my Lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” This is where Hannah speaks directly to our times. Much of the obstacles she faces as the barren wife of a man with two wives has changed. While the problems of a childless couple are familiar, and many a childless couple has found hope in Hannah’s story, her particular shame felt in her culture is not quite the same. The disgrace she would have experienced in iron age Israel is very different in kind from the disappointment more common today. Yet, when we read of a faithful follower of God deeply troubled and pouring her heart out to God, then we find something that resonates fully in all times. There are many reasons why we Christians may still find ourselves deeply troubled and pouring out or very souls in prayer. Money problems, difficulties in our marriage, uncertainty with a job or lack of job, problems with children or parents or health. The list goes on to name all the woes we can face. And Hannah in the sanctuary pouring out her soul can stand for any of these. Hannah says to the priest Eli, “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” A worthless woman would have been exactly how others named her. Peninnah would have taunted Hannah exactly like that. What good is a woman who does not give her husband sons and daughters? This is the sort of jab that Hannah has likely endured. Now the priest sees her as a worthless woman drunk on wine in the sanctuary. But here is where the reversal occurs. We already know that Hannah has never been seen as worthless to her husband Elkanah. He loves her completely. Now we here that the priest Eli does not see her as worthless either. Clearly he is impressed by the genuineness of the trust in her heart that the only place to put her trust is in God alone. Finally, we will learn that God never saw her as worthless either. This should come as no surprise as through the life and ministry of Jesus we learn that not one single person is worthless in the eyes of our loving creator. The priests sends her away in peace, adding his own prayers, or rather agreement with her prayers. The priest is confident that God is faithful and just and will honor the heartfelt cry of Hannah’s very soul. For her part, Hannah shares this optimism. We are told that with the priest’s blessing, she was no longer sad. Hannah trusted that what would happen next would be God’s will and she assumed that God’s will was to bless her. Hannah’s faith was rewarded. In due time, she conceived and bore a son, Samuel. This son Samuel will be dedicated to God. He will spend his life serving in the sanctuary at Shiloh and will become an important figure in the history of Israel. But for now, we move to Hannah’s song. In place of the Psalm today, we read this song of praise from First Samuel. Sounding very much like the other Psalms we get this hymn which is so very like Mary’s own hymn, which we call the Magnificat. Having expanded our Advent from four weeks to seven this year, we encounter Hannah’s hymn more closely connected to that of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, another barren woman God will bless with a son. In this season of anticipation, we find Hannah who was past the point of anticipation. Others would have given up on her situation. But Elkanah did not give up on her, Hannah did not give up on herself, and God proved to be a God in whom we can always anticipate faithfulness. Hannah’s song teaches us not to be proud or arrogant, but to put our trust in God alone. It is God who gives us the only power we have. God lifts up the lowly. In fact, what we discover in Hannah’s story is that no one is lowly in the way we might think of it. No one is inherently worth less than anyone else. God sees us all the same. It is not the circumstances of a person that matter so much as whether the person places their trust in God. Hannah’s strength is a strength beyond her circumstances as she puts her trust not in her own strength. As she puts it, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in God. There is no Holy One like the Lord” she says and here she would have said the name of God, Yahweh, which our translation gives as Lord and puts the typeface in small capital letters so in reading it, you know that Hannah is naming the God of Israel. Hannah’s story, which we find echoed in Mary of Nazareth and her cousin Elizabeth show women others might not have noticed who anticipated that God could and would enter in human history to change life for the better. In this season of anticipation, what are the concerns of your soul? What is it that you need to pour out to God? No matter how hopeless or helpless the situation seems to be, the pattern we find in scripture is that we need to pour out our soul to God. We need to offer up our anxiety and the vexations we face. The way God brings it all together may not be what you have in mind. I can almost promise that it won’t be. For even though we find Hannah’s prayers answered, they are answered years later than she would have wanted and with a son who will be raised in the sanctuary at Shiloh rather than in her own tents. No, the solution may not be exactly what you have in mind, but if it is God’s will, it will be better than anything you or I could devise. I don’t know what you are facing this season. But I know that you can anticipate that God will be present in the situation. Trust not in your own strength, in your own ability to turn things around. This does not mean do nothing. Of course you need to act. But you need to not trust your own actions, but God’s grace and mercy. Do what you know to do and pray that God will make your own work come to nothing if it is not God’s will. Pray that God will open a way where there seems to be no way. Notice that she left the sanctuary that day already relieved. She was no longer sad once she truly gave her problem to God for she was confident that God would be faithful. Know that the solution is not to be proud, or arrogant, or selfish. The solution is to give your problems to God this very day, really let go and ask God to handle it. And then anticipate that God is just as faithful today as he was that day that Hannah poured out her soul. Anticipate that God has heard you and will act and go ahead and thank God before you leave today for handling this problem that still seems insurmountable if you look at the circumstances alone. For God has given you a strength beyond circumstances if you will pour out your soul and trust. Amen.
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