1 Samuel 1:4-20 ; Hebrews 10:19-25
November 15, 2009
At first glance, this reading from the book of Samuel appears to be a very personal, spiritual story about Hannah and her quest for a son. And it makes sense that we would read it that way. We read it that way because we are used to spiritual narratives being personal, even private, in nature. We read it that way because there is always a natural tendency to empathize with the protagonist in any story. But most importantly, we read it that way because we are not the nation of Israel living in exile in Babylon in 6th century BCE.
If we are to “get” this passage, we have to step back from our way of reading it and put ourselves in the shoes of those who wrote it. First, let’s begin with a quick review of the larger story in which this narrative sits. The story of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings is the story of four main characters: Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon. These four men, one prophet and three kings, occupy the majority of these books, even though they occupy a short period of time in history relative to all the other kings mentioned in these books of the bible. Obviously, the point is these are the guys who defined the nation of Israel. They built it and ruled it, giving the people an identity that still had a hold on those in exile 400 years later – which is amazing because not only are these characters long gone at that point, the Jewish people had lost their status as a nation. They had no land, no king, nothing…except their identity that was formed and shaped during the time of Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon.
Now the stories of the kings were written and read long before the fall of Jerusalem and displacement of the Jews. However, they were heavily edited into their final form during the exilic period. Which makes sense when you think about it. The experience of exile was so different from the experiences of those who first chronicled the history of the Israelite kings – the ones who originally wrote these stories down. They didn’t have to make sense of the painful experience of exile. They didn’t have to wonder why God would allow such a horrible event. Conversely, those in exile wondered just that, and so they went back to their history and recreated the stories in a way that helped them understand who their God was and how that God acted in relationship to the people throughout the generations. In other words, these “finishers” of the story made significant changes to the original in order to make sense of their current predicament.
Because of this we are to read the story of Hanna through the eyes of those living in exile so many years after Hannah lived. Her seemingly private tale is actually to be read as the story of the Hebrew people, of the nation of Israel, of God’s chosen people. Her barrenness is the barrenness of exile. Her embryo is the promise of God to the people in exile, and Samuel becomes the symbol of the future hope of Israel.
One thing we know about the experience of these editors of our text is that it’s hard to understand God in the midst of exile. We understand because exile is not an experience limited to the Jews in 586 BCE. Exile is any experience of feeling disconnected from God. It’s those times when we might even feel abandoned by God. And sometimes it almost feels as if God is responsible for the situation because God chooses absence over presence. These are the “why?” moments. “Why would God allow this to happen? Why, if God loves us and forgives us would God not swoop in and stop the suffering? Why would God create a world where such experiences of exile are possible?” In these moments, these questions hang heavy in the air, and in order to lighten the load, we struggle to answer them as best we can.
The Jews in exile who edited the stories of the great prophets and kings of Israel reveal their answers through stories like Hannah’s. In her barrenness they give voice to what they truly feel – they refuse to deny their own painful experience. Remember, Hannah is not just barren, she is barren because God closed her womb. They blame God for their own experiences of barrenness – for the lack of hope and serious doubt in God’s promises to them. It’s God’s fault, they say, that we are weeping by the rivers of Babylon. For them, God had closed the womb of promise.
But of course, the story does not stop there. Even in their weeping, they go on to tell the rest of the story. They know God is not finished; the relationship is not forever severed. They know it, and they find an expression of that in Hannah. We read that because she is barren she weeps, she can’t eat, she suffers ridicule and cruelty; yet she gets up and goes to the temple. She gets up. As hard as that must have been, believing it was God who closed her womb, she gets up and goes straight to God to pray.
This is not an unusual move for biblical characters who suffer and feel like it’s God’s fault. Many people in our scdriptures decide from their place of suffering that it’s time for a little “chat” with God. Some demand answers, some pray for relief, some get angry, some bargain with God. Hannah, Sarah, Jacob, Job the prophets, Paul, the disciples, even Jesus – remember my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And time after time, God is there to listen, to explain, sometimes to chastise and sometimes, amazingly, God changes God’s mind because of these “chats” - these prayers. Hannah’s vow was convincing to God – her vow to bring her child back to the temple and dedicate his life to God. While I recognize I could never know what God would do, I can’t help but wonder what the response would have been if Hannah had begged for a son in order to alleviate her own suffering. Giving Samuel to the church was not going to solve her problems. She didn’t know if she would have other kids. One Samuel is gone the ridicule might continue and her security in the household will remain compromised. Nothing in her life would change – yet she prays for a son in order to give him to God admitting that God’s plans were far more important than hers.
In her actions – in her vow to God – the Israelites in exile find their instructions. They need to change their prayers from requests that sound more like complaining to prayers where they offer their lives to God, knowing, or rather somehow believing God would fulfill God’s promises if given a chance. And in Hannah’s case God does – Hannah becomes pregnant not just with a son for her, but with Samuel – the future of Israel. Samuel is the one who would eventually raise up David as a king who unites the people and makes of them a great nation. In Samuel was proof that God fulfills promises. Or, maybe another way to understand it, is that the people suffering in exile told the story of Samuel in order to defiantly proclaim from the depths of a time of barrenness their complete trust in God and their hope for the future.
Likewise, the author of Hebrews was writing from an experience of exile, only this time it was the Jews and Christians in the years following the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It was their Babylon time. And this author calls the people to the same kind of hope that their ancestors found in the stories of Samuel.
And where would the Christians find that hope? Where was their Samuel? It was the church – the gathered body. For the author of Hebrews, hope was not in one person, but in the gathering. He says “meet together”; don’t neglect this important – actually necessary – step lest you remain in the world of barrenness, of separation from God.
Polls show there is a growing number of people today who describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” Often that grows out of legitimate, tragic experiences of the religious institutions hurting people in some way. Sometimes it’s because of the legitimate, tragic truth that religious institutions too often show themselves to be something other than God’s realm and so turn people off who believe it should be better than that. But I think there are also a lot of people who are spiritual but not religious because, quite frankly, it is difficult to be religious. As one author says, “The inconvenient thing about religion is it asks you to do stuff; like worship with other people, love other people, and do good things for other people. And to do it all regardless of how you feel about any of it.” Without religion, one can become focused on their own personal growth, but have no faith that the gathered body does have the ability to offer hope not just for individuals, but for humanity.
The author of Hebrews wasn’t saying our hope is found in a personal salvation through individual belief in God or Jesus. Our author would be baffled by the idea that someone could be spiritual but not religious. He writes, “Meet together, stir one another to love and good works.” I love this idea of “stirring” one another to love and good works. For me it conjures up images of our hearts being stirred like a stew – waking them up, moving them to compassion through each other’s experiences and convictions.
We too live in exile. I truly believe this, although many would argue otherwise. But here we are, living as a nation, united just as the nation of Israel was united before the Babylonians changed all that. And I think the writing is on the wall – not in the 2012, end-of-the-world-hollywood-apocalypse sense, but in the “we’ve lost our way” sense. We are at war; we use our economic might and power to get others to do what we want; and the gap between the rich and the poor actually does approach the cataclysmic. We can’t count on God to be on our side – that isn’t how it works. We are given the freedom to move away from God, and suffer the consequences. We are the creators of our own barrenness and separation…exile.
Even the church is in exile at times. There are times that we lose our center, looking to someone or something other than God to guide us in what we do. I see it when churches look to be “trendy” to attract members, making church growth the God and contemporary culture the means of salvation. I see it when individual salvation becomes the mark of success for pastors and congregations – “winning people for Christ”, it is called, in a gross misuse of that phrase of Paul’s.
I read an article that was comparing some of our current churches to the early church. The author pointed out that the many challenges of the early church never, ever included a lack of growth. Instead, they made a point of staying distinct from contemporary culture, of continuing the Hebrew understanding of being set apart as a people by and for God.
The task the early church set for itself was not to resemble the surrounding culture and be popular with ordinary folks; the task was to radically challenge and change the surrounding culture. “The struggle for the church,” she writes, “has always been how to be faithful to God.”
The good news here at First Pres is that we do gather – we come together every week and many other times, and we do stir one another to love and good works. It is our defiant answer to exile, our proclamation of faith, our confession of hope in a sometimes hopeless world.
I want to give you just one example of this is something we have recently started. Our church has made two micro loans to people in the Grinnell community. In each case, one event – like losing a job – caused them to get behind a little bit. These loans make it possible for them to get caught up and then have reasonable monthly payments that won’t over burden them. And here’s the thing about our loans: they are interest free, they are given freely with ultimately no expectation of repayment – as the bible directs us. And they are made with compassion as the basis, allowing for renegotiating terms of repayment if that ever becomes necessary. Not exactly like the culture around us, is it?
And it all started with one person who was moved by the suffering of another human being. And that one person came to his church – his gathering place, and started stirring. He stirred the session with an idea, and it got the juices flowing and creative solutions began to emerge. Then the session stirred the congregation, and you let your hearts be stirred and generously supported the program. And it has made a real difference. I’ve had the blessing of seeing it first hand in these two situations.
In addition now we, along with others, are stirring our community to love and good works. A number of organizations in Grinnell are working together to try and establish a microfinancing program for the whole community that could serve far more people than we can alone. And finally, you can’t imagine how many new, creative ideas have begun to grow out of this.
What could have been a bleak situation, a situation where someone asked “Why does God let this person suffer so unfairly?” turned into an opportunity for hope to be born; the gathered body of Christ is responding in a way that would be difficult for any of us individually, and so far is not how the contemporary culture responds. And in this way, we are proclaiming that God’s promises still live in us – in our church. No matter how barren things seem, there is always something brewing in our hearts. They just need to be stirred up a bit by one another so the ideas become actions – actions of love and good works. So, let’s keep stirring one another. Amen.
