Pentecost 20 – NL 3 John B. Valentine
1 Samuel 1:1-20; 2:1-10 October 18, 2020

“WHAT DO WE MAKE OF ALL THIS??”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret:

I REALLY DON’T LIKE THIS WEEK’S BIBLE READING!!!

Seriously ... I just don’t “like” it ... and I kind of wonder if it’s okay for me to actually feel that way.

You see ...

This weekend’s reading recounts the life of a woman named Hannah ... who has a small but essential role to play in the history of the people of God.

It began with the introduction of a man named Elkanah ... who has two wives ...

• one of them Peninnah ...
• the other Hannah.

And while Peninnah has borne her husband numerous children ... Hannah has borne her husband none.

Now Elkanah is portrayed in this story as a truly decent guy ...

He tries to do right by his religious responsibilities ... and he tries to do right by both of his wives.

In fact ... he bends over backwards to reassure Hannah that he doesn’t love her any less because she has borne him no children.

But it’s not all harmony and tranquility in his household ...

For the two wives appear to be a wee bit conflicted.

In fact ... they’re so conflicted that ... had they been alive today ... somebody would have probably approached them about having their own ‘reality’ TV show!

You see ...

Since Hannah has no children ... Elkanah tries to assuage her by giving her a double portion of stuff ...

But that extra attention makes Peninnah jealous ... so Peninnah rubs it in Hannah’s nose that Hannah has no kids ... while she herself has many.

But that in turn makes Hannah all the more ashamed and heartbroken and irritated ...

And when Elkanah tries to offer her comfort and consolation ... it only makes matters worse!

+ + + + +

So it came to pass one weekend ... after Elkanah’s whole family had gone to church together ... after everybody else had walked out of the sanctuary ... Hannah remains seated in her pew and starts to sob.

Well ... the pastor of that church ... a certain Pastor Eli ... has no clue what was going on ...

• Worship is over ...
• The coffee hour has begun ...
• But there’s this woman still in the sanctuary ... bawling her eyes out.

Should he confront her ... or console her ... or just leave her be????

But upon further observations ... Pastor Eli concludes that she must be drunk ... or at least over-medicated ... for it appears as though she’s talking to herself like a crazy lady!

And so he opts for confrontation.

And thus Pastor Eli goes up to her and says “Ma’am ... I’m going to have to ask you to leave. And please lay off the liquor. After all ... this is God’s House!”

Well ... Hannah ... for her part ... gets all apologetic and explains that she’s not drunk ... but just troubled ... troubled by the fact that she doesn’t have a child.

And she explains her situation ... and details how she’s promised God that if she DOES have a son ... she’ll commit him to being an altar boy or an acolyte or something ...

And Pastor Eli gets all apologetic in return ... and speaks to her some words of consolation ...

And offers her a blessing ... and a prayer that she might get pregnant ...

And thus Hannah leaves in a better state of mind.

Well ... lo and behold ... nine months later ... Hannah DOES give birth to a son ... in accordance with the blessing that Pastor Eli offered.

And Hannah names her son Samuel ... which means “I asked God for him”.

And as soon as he is weaned ... Hannah makes good on her promise and offers up her son in service to the Lord.

And then ... in what is the final part of the lesson ... Hannah sings a victory song ... celebrating just how awesome God has been to her.

+ + + + +

Now ... in and of itself ... it’s a nice enough story. But you care to guess WHY ol’ Pastor John really doesn’t like this lesson???

Actually ... it isn’t just one reason ... but two ... or maybe three!

Complaint Number One ...

I don’t like people who try to make ‘deals’ with God ... and I don’t like stories that confirm “deal-making” as an appropriate form of prayer.

You see ... while conditional language may well be the language of the world in which we live ... it’s contrary to most of the covenant language in the Bible.

• Conditional language is all “if, then / if, then / if, then.” As in ... “ If you’ll do this for me ... then I’ll do thus and such for you.” It’s “deal-making.”

• Covenant language ... on the other hand ... is based on “because” and “therefore.”

+ “Because we’re in this together, I’ll be there for you.”
+ “Because I love you, I’ll help you with your homework.
+ “Because you’re my friend, I’ll support you in your struggles at work.”

“If/then” language isn’t really a part of healthy relationships between husbands and wives ... or between parents and children ... or between friends and friends ... or ... for that matter ... between people of faith and the Lord our God.

God doesn’t arrive on the scene announcing “If you’ll be my people, then I will be your god.” But rather “I AM the Lord, your God, and I invite you to be my people!”

Now .... it’s not like I’ve never prayed that prayer that says ... “Lord, if you’ll just let me win the lottery, I promise that I’ll donate 90% of my winnings to the work of the larger church.”

But the God I know ... the God who is revealed in Scripture ... doesn’t deal in “If/Then”s ... and when Hannah sets to ‘deal-making’ with God ... it kind of makes my skin crawl.

Complaint Number Two ...

I don’t like this text because I’m troubled by the phrase that asserts that “The Lord had closed her womb.” That one ... too ... makes my skin crawl.

I know that there are some people who believe that absolutely “everything that happens in this world is caused by God” ... but I’m not one of them.

You see ... in my years as a pastor ... I’ve met some couples who have struggled mightily to get pregnant ...

And I just can’t bring myself to believe that a good and gracious God would deliberately wreak such emotional and relational and spiritual distress on anyone whom God loves.

For that matter ... I don’t buy that God “caused” my nephew’s brain cancer ... or my buddy Greg’s Down’s Syndrome ... or the dementia of any of those participants in the LARC program that we run.

Not that God doesn’t excel at making lemonade for us out of life’s lemons ...

But the God whose ultimate self-expression is found in taking on the suffering of others doesn’t sound like the sort of seeks to bring down suffering on God’s children.

And Complaint Number Three ...

I can’t stand it when people do those orchestrated end-zone dances ... like the Lambeau Leap.

You know what I’m talking about???

• In the beginning ... there was the touchdown ‘spike’ ...

• Then along came the “Lambeau Leap” ... hurling oneself into the end-zone stands ... properly done only by members of the Green Bay Packers at a home game ...

• And now we’ve got all sorts of ball-spins and camera-struts and the like!

But Hannah’s “victory song” ... at least to my ears ... sounds like a “spike the ball in the end-zone” kind of prayer.

I GET that she’s happy to the point to losing herself in the moment.

I GET that she’s feeling vindicated for all of the internal anguish that she’d suffered through over the years.

I GET that she’s thankful for the way things have turned out.

But does she need to stick it to those who previously mocked her?

Does the ridiculed need to become the ridiculer?

Actually ... there’s part of me that wants to say to Hannah ... “Why don’t you play verse three of your song right back for yourself ... wherein you say ‘Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.’”

It’s not that I don’t have my own Hannah moments wherein I want to shout ‘In Your Face!’... or snarkily chuckle “What goes around comes around” ...

But then along comes Jesus saying:

• Love your enemies.
• Pray for those who persecute you.
• The measure which you serve will be that with which you yourself get served.

So you see why I don’t like this story????

+ + + + +

But maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is NOT whether we LIKE this story of not ... But “What are we going to DO with it?” ...

Because ... like it or not ... this is a story that is found within the Bible ... and ... being found there ... it is something which we confess to be sacred ... and which we confess to be God’s Word.

Honestly ... this is an important question for all of us ... folks.

• What DO we DO with the parts of the Bible that we just don’t like?

• What DO we DO with the parts of the Bible whose message we don’t agree with?

• What DO we DO with the these words that don’t seem ... to us ... like the Word of God?

We obviously don’t have time to probe that at TOO great a depth ... because I’m probably running over the allotted ‘sermon time’ already ...

But let me simply suggest that ... when we come up against something in the Bible that makes us uncomfortable ... we pay particular attention.

• We need to ask WHY it makes us feel uncomfortable ... and maybe use that as an opportunity to learn something about ourselves.

• We need to ask WHAT that story or thought or reflection IS ... at its heart ... trying to communicate ... and embrace its insights more broadly ... even if we can’t embrace some of its particularities.

• And we need to OWN the fact that ... whether or not we ‘like’ it ... it is still a part of God’s Word.

+ + + + +

Like ... for instance ... with this story of Hannah ...

When I think about that story ... and when I think about what it is that makes me uncomfortable with it ... and when I think about me ...

I realize that ... whereas Hannah has been carrying the burden of childlessness for years and years and years ... I haven’t had to carry many burdens like that in my life ... at least not such big ones and not for so long.

And maybe I need to spend some more time just listening to Hannah’s pain.

And I realize that Hannah feels utterly powerless in this situation she’s facing ... completely a victim of circumstance ... and I ... for my part ... maybe because I’m relatively wealthy ... over-educated ... fairly healthy ... well-loved ... white and male ... don’t know too very much about being victimized and powerless.

And maybe I need to spend some more time learning from Hannah’s circumstance.

And I realize that ... because I’ve never been on the bottom of the heap ... I don’t quite know the emotions that coursed through Hannah’s veins when she was vindicated at the birth of her son ...

And maybe I need to be a bit less judgmental about others who celebrate upon their moment of vindication ... and a bit more compassionate toward those for whom vindication seems like a pipe-dream.

You see ... there’s an old edumacational insight that says ... in order for us to faithful students of Scripture ...

We need to “Apply ourselves totally to the Text” AND “Apply the Text totally to ourselves” ... for that God’s Word becomes a living Word in our lives only when we do both of those things together.

For God’s Word IS true ... May it be true among us!