Silent Strength

Scriptures:     I Samuel 1:1-28, 2:1-10    Psalm 16

Hebrews 10:11-25     Mark 13:1-8

Last Sunday, we met women – Ruth and Naomi, and the nameless woman who  gave her last coins to the Temple – who had been down so long that it looked like up to them, who indeed from where they were situated had nowhere to go but up.  Today we meet another woman, Hannah, who outwardly appears to be in a much better position, and yet is carrying a heavy burden, by which she is, in her own words, “deeply troubled”.

Hannah is married to a man named Elkanah, and we’re given his geneology.  It’s an interesting geneology – the name of the first ancestor, Zuph, means “honeycomb”. We seem to go downhill with Zuph’s son, Tohu, whose  name means “waste” - it’s the Hebrew word used in Genesis when it says that before the earth was created everything was formless and void. But the next two generations, Elihu (He is my God) and Jehoram (God is exalted).  The name Elkanah itself means “God creates”. So Elkanah came out of a family whose beginnings were a mixed bag, but that was devout.  The name of Hannah herself means “gracious”  And then we’re told there’s a second wife, and her name is Penninah, which appears to mean “pearl or coral”.  To support two wives, we can suppose that Elkanah was at least comfortably well off.  We’re told that Hannah has no children, while Penninah had many children – the main reason Elkanah married Penninah in the first place is that Hannah hadn’t come through with any children.  And Hannah was deeply unhappy about this; in that culture, bearing children was the most important purpose for a woman, the one thing a woman could do that a man could not.  In that culture, for a woman, to be childless was to have failed at one’s purpose in life. And even though Elkanah loved Hannah, the second wife Penninah constantly picked on Hannah for having no children.

We’re told that Elkanah went up to Shiloh every year to sacrifice to the Lord – this took place long before Jerusalem was the center of worship; at that time Shiloh was the main center of worship.  On the occasion described in our reading, the family went up to Shiloh, with Penninah picking on Hannah the whole time.  Elkanah gave portions of the sacrifice to Penninah and her children, and an extra big portion to Hannah, because he loved her – but Hannah was so upset she couldn’t eat.  Elkanah tried to comfort her, with words that might make the women among us want to smack him: “Why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad?  Am I not more to you than ten sons?”  Yeah, Hannah, how can you cry when you’re lucky enough to have me!  Elkanah surely saw himself as enough of a prize that Hannah should be satisfied with him, but Hannah for some reason seems unconvinced.

So Hannah breaks off from the group and presents herself before the Lord.  Only men would have been allowed into the worship space proper, so she would have been near the entrance of the space.  Hannah was absolutely at the end of her rope, and so Hannah poured out her heart to the Lord, begging him for a son, pleading with him for a son, promising God that if she was granted a son, she would dedicate his life to serving the Lord.

Eli, the old priest who presided there, sat at the entrance, and so saw Hannah.  He saw her lips moving but no sounds coming out – in those days, silent prayer was very unusual – and so Eli supposed she’d gotten drunk and staggered in by accident. Eli hisses at her, “How long will  you make a drunken spectacle of yourself?  Put away your wine.”  Poor Hannah….unable to bear a child, tormented by Penninah, having to deal with Elkanah’s clumsy attempts at comfort, and then, when she comes to pour her heart out before God, the priest chews her out.  But she responds, “No, sir, I’m at the end of my rope, but I’m not drunk; please don’t regard me as a worthless drunk, for I’ve been pouring my heart out to God.”  And Eli gives her a grudging blessing: “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”  She responded to Eli, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.”  But even with Eli’s misunderstanding and interrupting her, and only grudgingly blessing her, it was enough: we’re told that “The woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her face was sad no more.”  She and her husband conceived, and in due time she gave birth to Samuel, and when he was old enough, presented him to Eli to be trained for religious service, fulfilling her vow.  And God blessed Hannah for her faithfulness: Hannah went on to give birth to three more sons, and two daughters.  But Samuel…..Samuel was more than a cute baby….he grew up to be a game changer, first supplanting Eli and his corrupt sons, and eventually himself anointing Saul, the first king of Israel, marking the end of the period of the judges – sort of the wild wild west period of Israel’s history – and the beginning of a central government for Israel.

But Hannah was not looking for any of that.  Hannah poured out her heart to the Lord, shared her cry of the heart with the Lord, and the Lord responded, spectacularly.   

What are the things that weigh you down?  What are the things that block out the light in your life, that keep you in the shadows?  What is your cry of the heart?   Today’s passage reminds that even when family opposes us, that even when those who are supposed to be on our side are insensitive to our needs, that even when the official representatives of God dismiss us as “less than”, God hears the cry of our hearts.  God hears the cry of our hearts.  And God will respond….perhaps not on our schedule, perhaps not as we expect, but God will not ignore the cry of the heart from those who love him.  So let us bring our deepest yearnings to the throne of grace.

Today, on this day, and I have to say on most days, the cry of my heart is for justice for the poor and oppressed, and for peace.  In many ways, this has been a really difficult year....from the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France in January to the church shooting in S. Carolina this summer, to the ramping up of hostilities in Palestine in recent months, to the crisis of refugees from Syria and elsewhere, to this week’s attacks, not only the attacks in Paris that we’ve heard about, but the attacks in Lebanon that happened the day before, but weren’t included in our news cycle, though other countries are well aware of them. And aside from these national stories, the shredding of the social safety net which once provided the poor with some measure of dignity, but is now leaving more and more people on the streets… As a pastor, all of this weighs heavily on me….what am I supposed to do about all this?  What even am I supposed to say about all this, to tell the congregation about this? And so my cry of the heart is justice and for peace.

And our Gospel reading tells us that the path ahead may not be peaceful.  In our gospel readings, Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem, and the disciples are admiring the scenery…”Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings.”  And Jesus responds by telling them, in effect, “all of this will soon be crashing down, all of it.  Not one stone will be left on another.”  He goes on to say that there will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and persecution.  But after likely scaring them half to death, Jesus then says, “the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

The one who endures to the end will be saved.  God will answer the cry of our heart.  God will not abandon us.  The one who endures to the end will be saved.  Even as the world we thought we knew seems to come apart, may we be comforted by the reality that God hears the cry of our hearts.  May we be comforted by Jesus’ promise that there is salvation to those who abide.  Amen.