This is a sermon on this week’s lectionary passages, written and preached for Project Reconnect by the Rev. Elizabeth Raine. It was used in the resources they distribute for Sunday 17 November 2024, the 26th Sunday after Pentecost. For information about Project Reconnect, see the end of this blog.
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The two books of Samuel are named after the prophet God used to establish monarchy in Israel. Samuel anointed both Saul and David, Israel’s first two kings. Along with Moses and Elijah, Samuel ranks as one of the most important prophets of Israel.
The two books of 1 and 2 Samuel are a composite of several sources. Along with Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and 1 and 2 Kings, they belong to the tradition of Deuteronomic history thought to have been written between 900 and 550 BCE.
For a woman in this ancient world, not to produce children brought shame and misery on her. In 1 Samuel 1:6-7, Penninah, the second wife of Elkanah, torments Hannah for being barren (“because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her…. her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat”). At a time when children were considered to measure blessings, wealth and happiness, Peninnah’s tormenting of Hannah was as much about power as it was about Hannah’s failure as a woman to provide her husband with any offspring.
The ancient world, like the world today, had many people in pain, a pain often caused by this kind abuse, involving the exercise of status and power over another person. So the book of 1 Samuel begins with a woman in this type of pain; this comes at a time when Israel was at a dark point in her history, just having emerged from the period of the Judges where “everyone did whatever they thought was right in their eyes.”
Seeing his wife’s distress, Elkanah tries to comfort her by reminding her of his love, asking her, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” Unsurprisingly, however, this does not console Hannah. As well-meaning as Elkanah is, his devotion could not replace the worthless feeling inside Hannah at her failure to become a mother. On their annual trip to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, Peninnah continues to mock Hannah; soon their arrival, Hannah takes herself to the temple and prays so fervently that Eli, the priest, thinks she was drunk. She promises the Lord that if he would give her a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord and he would be a Nazarite from birth.
Eli confronts Hannah about her supposed drunkenness and she explains the real heart of the matter. Eli tells her to go in peace and Hannah leaves with his blessing that the Lord may grant her prayer.
Unsurprisingly, the next thing we hear is that the Lord remembers Hannah and in due time, she conceives and thengives birth to a son; naming him Samuel, which appears to mean “the Lord has heard her”.
At the appropriate time, once Samuel is weaned, Hannah returns to dedicate him to the service of God. Hannah, by fulfilling her vow to dedicate her first-born, Samuel, to God’s service (1 Samuel 1:27–28) is later rewarded by the birth of five other children whom she and her husband could keep for themselves (1 Samuel 2:20–21).
Hannah sings a wonderful song here in gratitude for what the Lord has done for her, and later Christian interpreters consider this song to be a model for the Magnificat, the song that Mary the mother of Jesus sings whilst visiting her cousin Elizabeth(Luke 1). In Hannah’s song of praise in response to Samuel’s birth and dedication to the Lord, she praises God’s grace and justice, just as Mary later does. She proclaims that God shatters the bows of the powerful, while filling the hungry with bread, that God gives life and raises the poor, while also bringing the wealthy low. It is a song of the reversal of power and status. And what Hannah sang long ago, Mary echoed centuries later.
Interestingly, such a reversal of suffering and status in Israel’s history has often been shown to come from a baby. The opening chapters of Exodus tells us of the birth of a baby boy who should have been murdered, but instead was preserved in the house of Pharoah and who goes on to lead his people from slavery to freedom. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, God promises to send a sign of hope to those in exile – and the signwill be that a young woman bears a son. Then when Israel was under Roman occupation, a baby is promised that will bring peace to the world, free people from their sin and give them hope – Jesus Christ.
Like Hannah, when we have faith that God is at work in our world, and that God will find ways to overcome the abuses of power and status, we can find signs of hope in the brokenness around us and within us.
Like Elkanah’s family, every human community and family has its share of power plays and conflicts. Like Hannah demonstrates, often the best thing to do is not retaliate, but try and find comfort in the presence of God and the hope and calmness that can bring. This was certainly demonstrated by Jesus, the baby born to bring hope and peace and forgiveness into the world. As John van de Laar says on his websiteSacredise,
“Every person, and every community, has been hurt by someone else, or some other group. Our natural human inclination is to try and hurt them back, to even the score. But the way of cross is the way of absorbing the violence and pain, and responding in love, forgiveness and acceptance. As hard as this is, it is the Kingdom view to which we are all called.”
The church is the place where kingdom values should be modelled, and those values should be showing a different m way of living – an upside down way where power, wealth and status become meaningless and where all are equal before God. It is a powerful message because it is a message of hope that disrupts the ways of power and status. It is a vision of a different way of organising the world. It is a word of justice and justice is powerful as a motive for those who have lived with injustice.
And by following Hannah and Mary and Jesus and those who embodied Kingdom values, we too can work and pray and sing to turn the world into a place of peace and justice.
Project Reconnect is a ministry of The Hunter Presbytery of the Uniting Church in Australia which provides a weekly worship resource for congregations, including a video sermon and a video all-age address, with music resources and discussion starters.
https://projectreconnect.com.au
An Informed Faith 