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January 04, 2004
Samuel, An Answer to a Mother’s Prayer
Samuel, An Answer to a Mother’s Prayer
I Samuel 1: 1-11 / II Timothy 1: 1-7
January 4th, 2004
Quite a few of you whom I know well have something in common with me. You have matters heavy on your heart, weighing down your mind day in and day out. For some of us the matters weighing us down have been around a long time.
You and I have prayed often. So much time has passed with no apparent benefit that prayer seems futile. Maybe you have stopped praying as a conscious act. But prayer is a reflex action even after we’ve stopped thinking to pray. In the kindness of God, the sighing you feel inside, He hears as prayer. Paul tells us that all creation groans. God hears this groaning.
Maybe your concern is a family member, a needy child, a sick spouse, your brother or sister who has not found their footing in life, or maybe a friend who has become your enemy and you haven’t a clue how to mend your relationship. Time has made the wound deep.
Maybe your concern is your own need, a disease of long standing, a dreary job you are stuck with, or a spouse who is a cause of sorrow. What variety there is to life’s sorrows!
The problem is complicated for us because whereas friends may be interested in new problems, they get used to long-standing problems. Everyone who has a long-standing problem recognizes how their problem becomes part of the landscape for other people. Think of how your prayers taper off after a while for needs others have that have been around a while. People prayed once for you as you faced surgery, but the surgery only complicated your life, didn’t fix it. But people have forgotten; it was a while ago for them.
All of these factors come into the picture when we think of the matter described in the story Dan Trinkle just read for us. Here we learn of a man who had two wives. Aha! He should only have had one wife! But bigamy was not uncommon in old Biblical times. The commandment against adultery had to do with taking another person’s spouse, not with having only one of your own. So we shouldn’t think ill of this man for having two wives.
The story quickly focuses on one of these wives, Hannah, beloved to her husband, maybe even a bit more beloved than his other wife, Peninah. Peninah was blessed to have several children, while Hannah was unable to have a child.
Her problem was complicated with family dynamics. The Bible refers to Peninah as Hannah’s “adversary.” This suggests that often in the course of the day Peninah would not so subtly remind her who was mother to all the kids running around the house. But we don’t read that Hannah said anything back when she was taunted. The years went by and this became the great ache of her life.
She felt useless in the home. She was someone to pick up after another woman’s children. Maybe Peninah would make sure Hannah didn’t get to “mother” her children, just do the dirty work, change the diapers, pick up the dirty clothes, do the laundry, clean the house, cook the meals. Peninah read the bed-time stories and helped with the homework, all the motherly duties that bond children to their mother.
Fortunately she had a loving, if somewhat dense husband. Elkanah loved Hannah. Each year when they made the trip to Shiloh for their special family commitment-to-the Lord day, Elkanah would give special gifts to the family. Maybe he gave a swatch of material for Peninah to make a new dress, and to the children a new toy. The gift he gave to Hannah was always a bit better than the one he gave to Peninah. Peninah noticed, of course, and it didn’t help the family dynamics. Blundering ol’ husband meant well, but he was hurting more than he helped.
He tried to console Hannah. He asked her tactlessly, “Aren’t I better to you than ten sons?” Maybe Peninah heard him say this to Hannah and her scorn for Hannah was intensified by jealousy. Maybe Hannah said, “Yes, husband dear, of course you mean more to me than ten children.” I think she was that kind of wife, inclined to minimize the stupidity of her husband’s gaffs. All the while in her heart she was saying, “Give me a break!”
They went to Shiloh then the center of Israelite worship. They made this yearly trip for reasons I don’t fully understand. It wasn’t Passover, a national feast. Apparently they went as a family act of devotion. When they made this trip, Hannah’s problem got worse.
You go to church hoping to find some relief from life’s burdens. But Hannah discovered that church made her feel even worse. Because Pastor Eli—then known as the High Priest—didn’t have the gift of tact. He watched the people who came to Shiloh. Hannah caught his attention as she’d been coming year after year. He noticed that every year Hannah moved her lips a lot but said nothing. So he asked a kindly pastoral question. “Hannah, why are you drunk all the time?” Very tactful. Very uplifting. He offered good, pastoral counsel, “If you’d get off the bottle you’d feel better.”
We see what a gentle soul Hannah was in how she responded to Eli. She quietly told him she was not a drunk. What seemed like drunken mumbling was her silent prayer. That’s why her lips were moving. She told Eli of the vow she’d made to God, that if He would give her a son, she would protect him in a special sacred way for God’s use. She made a Nazirite vow, a vow that had an outward sign. While other little boys got their curly locks cut after a while, she would not cut her son’s hair. He would be like Samson was back in the days of the judges. Samson’s mother also was barren, and when the Lord answered her prayer for a son, she claimed him for God’s use with this vow too.
“Oh, that’s what it is!” Eli responded. “Well, may God grant you your request. No hard feelings, I hope.”
God answered Hannah’s prayer. She had a son. But I want to leave the rest of the story till later on. Now I want us to think about why this story of one woman’s despair, hope, and faith made it into the Bible, and what it means for you and me.
First, it is good to remember that our Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible are set up differently. Our Old Testament divides into four sections—five books of Moses, a section of historical books, a section of poetry and wisdom books, and finally the major and minor prophets. The second section in which I Samuel falls we think of as the books of history. History we think of as a tale of what happened long ago. History is informative, interesting, part of the lore we are glad to know.
But the Hebrew Bible is divided into three sections. The books of Moses, the prophets, and the rest. I Samuel is the first of the former prophets. Instead of being merely a history of what happened a long time ago, I Samuel is prophecy. Here we find a basic difference between the ancient Jewish idea of prophecy and ours.
We think of prophecy as prediction. Prophecy is God foretelling the future. But the future and the present were connected for the ancient Israelites. A thousand years was really like a day, as the Psalm puts it. To speak of what happened yesterday, today, and what would happen a thousand years was like your telling about what happened five minutes ago, now, and what will happen in five minutes as one continuous story. We can feel the connection between events in the short-run, but find it hard to feel the connection over long periods of time. Recognizing God’s providence at work over the long haul was what made the Jews think of their history as prophecy. There are no books of history, per se, in the Jewish Bible. Events flow under the providence of God. It’s all an unraveling of the will of God.
Whether it be the present or the future, it’s all about what God is doing. When the ancient Jews included this story of Hannah in the books of prophecy, they intended people to see two things.
First, that the God who worked in Hannah’s life was a God interested in little people. God isn’t only interested in powerful and famous people, or with nations. God is concerned with every person. Every barren woman could find comfort in Hannah’s story. Everyone of you here today is important to God. Your story is parallel to Hannah’s story. Furthermore, Hannah teaches you and me the benefits of persistent prayer. Hannah was not passive. She took an active role in her destiny. She prayed. She kept loving her husband and being patient with Peninah. Think of this with regard to your situation. Have you given up? Are you bitter? Pray! Keep on ! Do what you can.
Second, that Hannah’s story is a slice of history in which the greater purposes of God are illustrated in one small person. The God who cared for Hannah in her private distress was bringing about great things through her. There is a message here for you and me. Live and trust God as though you matter. You think that your sorrow, your suffering is without meaning. You are an inconsequential bundle of nerves that is destined to hurt, nothing more.
Your life is a pivot in fulfilling God’s purposes. You think you are less than a pawn on God’s chessboard. The story of Hannah lets us know that what you and I see as less than a pawn may well be a queen in God’s game plan.
The toughest part of life is simply keeping on. Some people fall away because they get tired. God shows us through Hannah’s story that it matters that we keep on. Keep praying. Keep trusting. Keep on keeping on. God tells you this in letting you know Hannah’s story. You are part of the story God is shaping. It is important that you play your part in God’s story faithfully. You matter in God’s story. That this is true is illustrated time and again. Play your part faithfully because you are part of the story God is telling.
This morning we take the Lord’s Supper together. It is our first Communion in 2004. On this table you see two momentos of how important you are to God. God gave His Son for your good. He gave His last full measure of devotion to you when he let his body be broken and his blood shed for you. Trust that Jesus did this for you. You find it hard to imagine that this is so. But this is the stuff of faith. Faith is about little you and Big God, about your thinking you are not important and the evidence that God thinks you are awesomely important. Eat this bread and be thankful. Drink this cup and be thankful. You are important to God. You are important to others, and I hope it is clear to you when you are here. Now act, live as though you are important to God and to other people as you are. Let us pray:
O God, speak to us clearly as you spoke to patient, faithful Hannah in days of old. Let us hear your voice. Hear our prayer. Grant us our requests. And give us the grace to keep on trusting you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at January 4, 2004 09:30 AM