| 1 Samuel 1:1-20 |
| 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (The Song of Hannah) |
| I recently read a story about a psychologist asked to visit
a refugee camp of Rwandans in Tanzania after the Rwandan massacres
in the early 1990s. “The women of that camp, though safe
from the slaughter, were not sleeping. During her visit to
the refugees, the psychologist learned that the women, who
had witnessed the murder of family and friends, had been told
by camp officials not to speak of such atrocities in the camp…the
memories of the carnage haunted them, and they could not sleep.
The psychologist decided that in response to this situation
she would set up a story tree: a safe place for the women to
speak out of their experiences. Every morning she went out
to the edge of the camp and waited under the canopy of a huge
shade tree. The first day no one came. On the second day one
woman appeared, told her story, and left. Another showed up
the following day, then another and another. Within the span
of a few days, scores of women were gathering under the tree
each morning to listen and to share their tales of loss, fear
and death. Finally, after weeks of listening, the psychologist
knew that the story tree was working (and healing)…the
women in the camp were now sleeping.” (1) Peace had come
to the women as their stories were shared and they found hope
together through community and love. Voicing the truth set
them free. |
| The books of Samuel mark the beginning of a switch from the
rule of the judges to the anointing of the kings of Israel.
At the end of the book of Judges all is chaos and despair.
One tribe is almost annihilated. The people can’t hear
God’s will, and they are tired of waiting, so they substitute
their own. The sons of Eli, the high priest at the most important
temple with the ark of the covenant, are morally bankrupt.
They serve themselves much more often than God or neighbor. “God
begins Israel’s transformation in this time of crisis
not with great men and events, but with the distress of a barren
woman. Such a beginning reminds us of the unlikely paths God’s
grace often takes, and it signals to us that the coming kingdom
is to be understood as the gift of divine grace.” (2) |
| The camp officials in Tanzania had tried to put a Band-Aid
on the women’s pain believing silence was better than
working through the pain that comes with truth. They were wrong.
Pretending the atrocities they witnessed didn’t happen
just created more stress and isolation for the women. Refugees
need to share their story so they can begin to heal. That was
why Hannah was at the temple. She had no one to voice her painful
story to. Elkanah didn’t understand Hannah’s grief;
he had children by another wife! He couldn’t know the
depths of Hannah’s barrenness. Elkanah surely loved Hannah
and gave her preferential treatment but his love couldn’t
fill the void that consumed her! |
| Hannah knew where she needed to go to find solace. Year after
year they all went to Shiloh on a pilgrimage to give thanks
to God for life. But this year it was not enough for Elkanah
give the usual sacrifice to God for her. Hannah needed an audience
with God so she could bare her soul and give over her wounds. “I
am a woman deeply troubled,” she told God out of her
distress as she wept bitterly. You’d think the temple,
like the refugee camp, would be a place where someone in distress
can speak freely. But Eli the priest is overwhelmed by the
way Hannah prays before God and calls her drunk. She has to
explain, “I have been pouring out my soul before the
Lord…I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and
vexation all this time.” |
| Here is where the story really gets into the paradox of living
by faith. We know that the void for Hannah is her barrenness;
she is desperate for a child. Yet peace comes to her before
any change in her fertility. Having been heard by God and priest
and having been promised peace, she went and ate and drank
and “her countenance was sad no longer!” Was it
Eli’s words, “Go in peace,” or laying her
burden before God in the temple that gave her peace in her
barrenness? We don’t know the moment Hannah’s countenance
changed—only that God gave her new life that day. |
| Like the Rwandan women who found solace in an audience they
could share the truth with, Hannah finds solace in God. “The
books of Samuel begin with a salvation story. New life comes
out of barrenness. Hope rises from hopelessness. Despair is
transformed into thanksgiving and praise….By trusting
her plight to God, Hannah claimed the new future God can make
possible to those in…hopeless circumstances.” (3) We glimpse the last made first—God’s promise to
overturn what is wrong and set it right. We inherit from Hannah,
whose name means grace, a faith that allows us to be heard
and blessed, and transformed to new life. Stories of the last
made first, of hope in God despite one’s situation, sustain
our faith. |
| “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help
in times of trouble,” sang the psalmist. "Do not
be afraid. I am with you. I will help you," God has promised.
One of my professors, Dr. Patrick Miller, wrote, “Such
words pervade the Bible, which is full of stories of people
who have heard and trusted such news, and thereby have turned
from fear and sadness and anxiety to joy and exultation!” (4) |
| When we “pass the peace” to one another we often
forget the holy significance of what we are engaging in. Christians
have shared the peace of Christ with one another during times
of great suffering and stress. When we take the hand of another
person and say, “The peace of Christ be with you.” And
they respond, “And also with you,” we are offering
our testimony to God’s peace through Christ available
now and showing our hope for all things to come. Good morning
won’t cut it. Even a hearty “welcome” falls
flat on its face in comparison. No, we need to share “the
peace of Christ” with one another! We need Christ’s
peace to live fully and to take our place in sharing good news! |
| Hannah’s story became Israel’s over time. Just
as the women who gathered to tell their stories at the story
tree were healed by the sharing of their common experiences,
Hannah’s new future becomes a new future for Israel.
Her story of reversal speaks to other lasts made first. She
sings about them in her psalm: lowly made exalted, hungry made
full, poor made rich, weakness made strong! “For not
by might does one prevail,” but by through the transforming
power of God’s grace. |
| Grace transforms our future by addressing the forms of hopelessness
and pain that we face. Dr. Miller also said, “What blossoms
and flourishes in the New Testament proclamation of the gospel
is anticipated in the Old Testament's proclamation of the goodness
and steadfast love of God. Our song of praise to God celebrates
human impossibilities that become God's possibilities. The
praises of Israel bore witness to transformations too wonderful
for any human capability to bring off. In a world that assumes
the status is quo, that things have to be the way they are
and that we must not assume too much about improving them,
the (songs of praise) of God's people are fundamental indicators
that wonders have not ceased, that possibilities not yet dreamt
of will happen, and that hope is an authentic stance. All this
is ridiculous, of course, unless one has seen the wonders of
God in the past: the overthrow of the mighty and the setting
free of an oppressed people, the gift of life in the face of
death, new life where there was barrenness.” (5) |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - November 19, 2006 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| 1. Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley, Mighty Stories,
Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine (Jossey-Bass:
San Francisco, 1998), 3. |
| 2. The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve
Volumes (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1998) 970. . |
| 3. Ibid, 977 |
| 4. “In Praise and Thanksgiving,” Patrick D. Miller,
Jr., Princeton Theological School. Theology Today,
1988. |
| 5. Ibid |
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