Lending to God

1 Samuel 1:4-20

24^th After Pentecost Year B

November 19, 2006

There was once a man who had two wives. No this isn't the opening of a joke; this is how the story of Hannah begins. Elkanah had two wives: Hannah and Peninnah. Polygamy was a common practice in biblical times because everyone's primary concern then was having descendants. If a man's first wife was unable to have children, he would often take a second. Not surprisingly, we have no record of this ever making for good relationships between the wives. Hannah was the wife who couldn't have children. Peninnah on the other hand seemed to get pregnant at the drop of a hat; every time you turned around, she was having babies. Even her name meant fertility. And she never let Hannah forget it. She taunted her; using everything in her arsenal to deride her. And as Peninnah taunts Hannah we can imagine the word she must have used, “Cursed,” she must have said. “God has cursed you.”

You see she was using the dominant paradigm of the time as ammunition against her rival, God rewards those who are good by punishing those who are bad. Having a child, especially a boy was a sign of blessing, a sign of God's favour, a sign that you must have done something good. To be barren, on the other hand is to be cursed such a misfortune a sign of God's wrath and punishment. Can you hear Penninah, “I wonder what awful thing you have done to make the Lord hate you so much? Sometimes I wonder why my husband even bothered to marry you. Even his cows contribute more to this family than you!”

  I imagine Hannah's family life would be like being stuck in Jr. High forever. Do you remember what it was like in Jr High? This past week I was reading Anne Lamott's account of her experience. She writes, “Seventh and eight grades were about waiting to get picked for teams, waiting to get asked to the dance, waiting to grow taller…They were about praying to God to grow dark hairs on my legs so I could shave them…they were about violence, meanness, chaos…They were about feeling completely other. But more than anything else, they were about hurt and aloneness.”

   That was Hannah's life as an infertile woman. It is important to remember that, in Hannah's day, having babies was pretty much everything. She couldn't fall back on her career or just get busy with other things. From the day she was born, her ancient society told her that her purpose for being on earth was to be a mother.

     Times have changed. Thankfully, there are other missions and vocations available to women today. We still know couples who struggle to get pregnant. We know women and men who would love to have children, and who know they would make great parents but that is just a prayer. Every time they pass a child in a stroller they smile graciously, but from someplace deep inside, a familiar sadness emerges once again. Some choose to adopt. Some put their hopes in new medical technologies. Others today have chosen to live perfectly fulfilled lives without children. None of those options were available to Hannah. In her society, every day was Mother's Day. And to be a woman without a child meant you were not really a woman.

    The awful state of Hannah's life came to a head at one of the family gatherings. Every year, there was a religious feast at Shiloh; sort of a rough equivalent of our Thanksgiving holiday, when all the relatives come together, and all the family dynamics are fully in play. You pack up the mules, get the fatted calf ready. Bring it to Shiloh, where it's sacrificed by the priest, the choicest parts offered to God, the rest is eaten in the sacrificial, festival meal. And so there they are, gathered around that table; there was Peninnah at the table, and we can imagine all her kids orbiting around her, playing and eating, Peninnah nursing a baby at her breast. We can imagine her flicking a bit of food at Hannah when Elkanah wasn't looking.

    Even Shiloh, the name of that holy place is a taunt-it means tranquility. The irony is not lost on Hannah as her life is anything but tranquil. The temple, the place where God dwelt, the symbol of God's giving power in the midst of God's people. Surely this symbol was a bitter reminder of the deadness of Hannah's womb. After all hadn't God's first commandment bee to be “fruitful and multiply.”

     When Elkanah and Peninnah and the children had finally left the temple, something snapped for Hannah. After years of being trapped in the same routine of passive acceptance of what she perceives to be her fate she finally turns to the one who can make all things new, she brings her burdens to God, “She pours out her soul to the Lord.” We need to recognize the bravery the chutzpah of this woman, Hannah went to the temple by herself, without her husband, a bold act in this patriarchal age. At that time the priests were the ones who took prayers to God, acting as intermediaries-yet Hannah blew right by that priest at the doorpost. Her prayer is the first prayer ever said in the temple by someone other than a priest. Hannah prostrate on the temple floor is not only a picture of despair but a sign of hope. She is on the road to redemption, ready to burst free of her prison of isolation, loneliness and self pity. In that moment of trusting God Hannah is transformed from a woman obsessed by fears about a future to a woman alive in the present.

She pours out her soul and weeps before God: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a Nazarite until the day of his death.” Nazarites were men who were consecrated before God. They never drank wine or cut their hair. Their lives were totally devoted to worshiping and honoring God.

     At first glance, Hannah's prayer appears to be adesperate effort at striking a bargain or a deal with God: “If you give me a son, I'll turn him into a holy man.” But one of the things that we know about prayer is that it doesn't really help to make deals with God. Deals assume that you have something that the other person wants. A deal says, “If you give me that, I will give you this.” That's how a deal works. But when it comes to God, what are you going to give him that he doesn't have? God doesn't lack or need anything. That is just one of the definitions of what it means to be God.

    Have you ever been in the middle of a real mess in which you were so terrified that you prayed, “O God, if you get me out of this, I'll start coming to church every week.” Then miraculously you got out of the mess. In the midst of all your joy, you remember that promise about coming to church. Than your prayer becomes, “Well, God, you aren't going to hold me to that, are you?” No. No, he's not, because God never takes our deals seriously. It is not the reason he delivered you. He delivered you only because, out of the mystery of his will, that was his choice.

   In this case God decides to give Hannah her heart's desire. Hannah is promised a child. When Hannah got pregnant, it wasn't because she had offered God a deal God couldn't

refuse. It was simply, mysteriously, for no reason at all that God chose to bless her with a child. But the striking thing about this story is that even if God didn't take the deal seriously Hannah did. When the child was born, she named him Samuel which means “in the name of God.” When he was weaned, she said, “I have lent him to the Lord.” So, she brought him to the temple at Shiloh and gave her cherished son to the priest Eli. Hannah gave her dream child back to God.

     And so, what about your dream? It may not have anything to do with a child. It may involve a different relationship, your work, health, home, or some desired accomplishment. The story of Hannah's life asks the question, “Can you give this dream back to God?”

     After she left the young Samuel in the temple, Hannah was once again a woman without a child at home. She was right back where she started. Once again, she would be ridiculed and judged by the other women. Peninnah was probably pregnant again. So why would she do this? How could she leave her son at the temple? How could Hannah give away the one thing she wanted the most in life? I think that is because Hannah finally came to understand that you can only truly enjoy the things you don't possess.

     One of our greatest mistakes is to define life by possessions. We speak carelessly of having a family, having your health, or having a job as if they were things you owned. But you don't really have them, and if you think you do, you'll spend your life trying to make deals to hold on to them. The deals will only become more and more desperate as you inevitably start to lose these things. And the desperation will make it impossible to enjoy them.

The story reminds us that you don't have to possess things to enjoy them. Even your family, even your dear children cannot be possessed or owned. In fact, it is only because something doesn't belong to you that you can enjoy it in the first place. How many times have families been torn apart because someone was trying to control them? How many times have dream jobs become nightmares because someone wouldn't let go of their expectations? How many times have people succumbed to bitterness because they could not accept the changes and necessary losses to life? They held on so tightly to their dreams because they couldn't imagine life without this thing they just had to have.

     Place yourself in Hannah's shoes for a moment. Are you  just be too afraid of losing him? You cling to him, afraid to let him go. Do you see? Samuel is not just some mother's son. Samuel is the name of whatever it is that you are clinging to today, whatever you afraid of loosing.

     The best way to get over your fear of losing things is to go ahead and lose them. Lose them to God. Like Hannah, lend them into his hands. It is the only safe place to store what is most important in life. Put all your cherished dreams in God's hands. Give everything that is precious to you over to God. Let it all go. Only then will you stop being afraid; only then will you be able to face the possibility of loss.

    There is an even greater reason why Hannah gave her son back to God. She knew that her real yearning in life was not for a child, but for God himself. It didn't matter if Hannah had ten kids, until she was clear in her own heart that the deepest desire of her life was for God, she would never be satisfied. Neither will you or I. Until your heart is set completely on God, it doesn't matter how wonderful the rest of life is, it will never be good enough. But when the heart has first been given to God, then everything else is received as a blessing from his hands.

     We can enjoy the blessings of God for a while, and we can give them back unafraid. That's only because we know there is one thing we will never have to give back. There is one thing that once given stays with us forever. We will never have to give back the love of God, which is a love from which we can never be separated. And finding a love from which you can never be separated, well, that is the best deal of all.