A New Song to Sing

1 Samuel 2: 1-10, page 191
Then Hannah prayed and said:
My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.
There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.
Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by the Lord deeds are weighed.
The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more. She who was barren has born seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.
The Lord brings death and makes alive; the Lord brings down to the grave and raises up.
The Lord sends poverty and wealth; the Lord humbles and exalts.
The Lord raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; the Lord seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.
For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s; upon them the Lord has set the world.
The Lord will guard the feet of the saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness.
It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be shattered.
The Lord will thunder against them from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
The Lord will give strength to the king and exalt the horn of the anointed.”
Sermon
Last Sunday was a big day – 20 women from this church were on their way back home from a fantastic retreat at Camp Calvin, in between services we paid respect as an old flag was retired and a new one hoisted up the flag pole. In Fellowship Hall was another great talent show where Chris Manning won first place for his rendition of “Long and Winding Road” – and down Hwy 78 in Snellville our choir joined with other area choirs for an incredible concert of sacred music.
And at that concert, during the final hymn, the most incredible thing happened. For the final hymn, this choir made up of over one hundred members, representing five churches, the director from Snellville United Methodist Church chose a song made famous by a choir in Brooklyn New York – a choir with significantly different from the one I saw before me.
So I began to wonder how this song was going to go over – the choir had just sung songs many would say were appropriate for a bunch of main-line, middle class, folks – a mighty fortress is our God, written by Martin Luther himself from the Lutherans, some Beethoven and Handle from the Presbyterians – and now they were going to attempt something a little different, and honestly, I wondered how this choir made up mostly of white people were going to pull it off.
But the choir got going, and from the back of the sanctuary – the place where the trouble always gets started – you could hear the effect their singing was having on the congregation - as the Spirit of Rhythm was descending and we all were actually clapping in time.
At the end of the hymn the congregation was so transformed by the song we all stood to applaud and the choir was so led as to lead the congregation in an encore.
I don’t know if you would say we were possessed – enjoying an out of body experience or what – but the music last Sunday transformed a choir and a congregation in one fell swoop.
That choir might have gone back to their suburban homes, but they, if only for a moment, were a choir from Brooklyn New York with as much soul as any I have ever heard.
And that congregation might have looked like prim and proper Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodists, but we, if only for a moment, were so moved by the spirit someone wandering in from off the street might just have mistaken us for Baptists.
This ability to transform is a power that mothers have always known about – how a baby so worked up, face contorted in discomfort and frustration, back arched – can be transformed back into that angle you know and love with the right song from the right voice.
It’s this power that today’s scripture lesson posses, as I can tell you it’s not just a prayer. How would a prayer prayed for the first time have made it in the Bible – as no one was there to write it down, Samuel too young to do such a thing.
No, this is the song Hannah, Samuel’s mother, sang to her stomach when it finally began to bulge – years of waiting, years of frustration, years of disappointment finally over. “My heart rejoices in the Lord” she sang to the long-awaited baby inside.
Samuel had heard it so many times it was familiar to him before he was even being born; it was the only thing that calmed him down when he woke up in the middle of the night, tired but too frustrated to sleep. Every parent knows you’ll do or sing anything to get that child back to sleep in middle of the night, but Hannah already knew what to sing – it was the only song that would do as she rocked the baby who would become Israel’s prophet in her arms.
It’s a song he knew so well before he could even know his own name that even the first note brought a smile to his face.
So when Hannah brought Samuel to the temple, so grateful for him that she felt she needed to dedicate him to God, it was the song she sang to give her the strength to follow through with this promise I bet she wished she would had never made.
Singing this song one last time, a song Samuel knew better than any other, she wiped the tears from his eyes and walked away, no one to wipe the tears away from her own.
Leaving her son at the temple with one last gift, a song. But it was a powerful gift that she gave him – a gift that transforms reality.
This is the gift she gave him one last time the day she walked away from the temple leaving her son to be brought up in the House of the Lord.
When he woke up cold and alone on the temple floor, it was this song that kept him warm.
Homesick and hungry, nothing else could give him comfort, remind him of his mother’s love the way this song could – transforming his solitude, if for only a moment, to feel his mother’s arms around him once again singing the words: “Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more.”
Too small to defend himself against the abuse of the others at the temple, this song promised him a new day when the, “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength.”
And as he grew up, old enough to notice the pain of his people, the struggle of the widow, the plight of the poor, so frustrated he just wanted to escape a world so dark and cold, he would sing this song and know justice, for “The Lord raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; the Lord seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.”
You see, music transforms; and a song, the right song can tide you over until justice comes.
This was the song that carried Samuel through his struggle. It kept the light of hope burning brightly, when it was hopeless all around.
Like the slaves who sang, “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home”, we can sing of freedom – until bondage gives way.
The slave owners knew that song’s power, and so they took away the drums, policed the night for fear of such songs of freedom – but the slaves sang and they sang songs of thanksgiving and joy – praising God for a freedom that wasn’t yet here but surely on the way there.
They kept on singing as Samuel did, even though the world tried to silence them, tried to teach them a different song to sing.
Replacing songs of change with songs about how nothing will ever change.
Putting away songs of joy for songs of lamentation.
Songs that tell us that there’s no use praising God for what’s on the way, for the good old days are long gone – that tomorrow should be feared for don’t you know it just won’t be as good as yesterday. So we’ve been wishing we were something else, we’ve been regretting who’s won and who’s lost, and we’re already disappointed in what tomorrow will bring.
So Hannah comes with a new song to sing.
A new song, so rich and so true that when Mary found that she was pregnant with the Son of God, though she was afraid, though she was worried, though she was certain that she would be ridiculed and shunned as an unwed mother there was really only one song for her to sing.
Let us join her in singing Hannah’s song.
Because with our heads bowed low and our worries fixed in our minds there’s nothing but that tired, sad, lonesome, boring song that’s sticks in your head and is never going to get you where you need to go!
It’s time for you to sing a new song – a song about a new day that isn’t here yet – but you better know it’s on the way.
A song about a new world of justice and peace – that isn’t here yet – but you can sing it as we walk this road until we get there.
A song about hope, and change, and the God who is even now making a way, building up a new Kingdom, setting the captives free – and when that new day comes you better know the words to sing.
My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
Hallelujah!
-Amen.