Hannah's Song

Scripture: 1 Samuel 1: 4-20 and 1 Samuel 2: 1-10, OT pages 245-246 Relay races can be fun for little kids, and one I remember taking part in one as a little 7-year-old Cub Scout that involved shoes. We were in the Fellowship Hall of Morningside Presbyterian Church, the same church I was baptized in, and we lined up on one side of the room in two teams. One at a time a member of each team was to run to the other side of the room, take off a shoe, leave it there in a pile, then run back and to end of the line so that the next participant could do the same. Then, when it was your turn the second time, you were supposed to run to the pile of shoes, find yours, put it on and race back. The first team whose team members had completed the whole thing and had both shoes on their feet would win. I don’t know why seven-year-old boys care about winning this kind of thing, but they do – as though their life depended on it – and I remember how fast I ran to one side of the room where I took off my shoe, then back to the end of the line until it was my turn to go again. When it came my turn the second time I raced to the other side of the room, dug through that pile of shoes, but I couldn’t find it. I kept searching, and I could hear my teammates telling me to hurry, louder and louder as the other team’s participants where running to the shoe pile, finding their shoe and running back. Each second was feeling to me like a hundred years but I couldn’t find that shoe anywhere! Well, pretty soon the other team’s shoe pile had dwindled down to nothing at all, I was still searching through that big pile trying to find my shoe, and when the scout master announced that the other team had won I was fighting back tears because it doesn’t take a whole lot to make a seven-year-old cry. The scout master saw the tears in my eyes, called me over, sat down and lifted me into her lap, then pulled my shoe out from her pocket. I remember this event, because this was one of the most confusing experiences I have ever experienced. What did it mean? My first reaction – that she meant to embarrass me, that she meant to hurt me – but when I left the scout master’s lap my Mom quickly scooped me up in her arms and told me something funny – that people only pick on the ones who they like. Could that be true? Maybe – but certainly it’s true that life is confusing and we are always trying to answer the complicated question of – what does this mean? Knowing that – can you imagine Hannah’s fear as she left her son at the Temple? You leave a boy at the Temple and how is he supposed to feel but hurt and abandoned. Even though he was hardly abandoned it’s hard, if not impossible, to convince him otherwise, for not knowing the whole story that’s exactly what it looks like. The whole story is just as we read it in our first scripture lesson – Hannah longed for a child but pregnancy, which seems so easy to everyone else it seems, remained out of her grasp, so she did what many of us do in times of extreme desperation – we make a deal with God. “Oh Lord of hosts,” she pleaded, “if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazerite until the day of his death.” Surprisingly – or un-surprisingly – the Lord honored his promise and that meant Hannah had to honor hers – which would be hard if not practically impossible. Think of her happy times with that child – the first time she felt the baby Samuel kick still in the womb, the first time she held him in her arms, the first time this mother Hannah heard baby Samuel coo or saw him smile – but all the while, in the back of her mind, shrouding all these good things surely was the promise that she had made. She knew that once he was weaned she would take him to the Temple and would return home without him, leaving him to wonder – what does this mean? She wouldn’t be there as he asked, “What did I do to deserve being left at the Temple?” Or, “how could a mother be so cruel as to turn and walk away from her own flesh and blood,” but both of these assumptions are based in misunderstanding and Hannah would not be there to help him understand. How lucky I was to have my mother there to help me to understand the little tragedy of a missing shoe down in a church’s fellowship hall and how tragic it is that Hannah walked away not knowing whether or not her son would hate her for the rest of his life. The mind of a young boy is fertile ground for misunderstanding – the mind of anyone is fertile ground for misunderstanding – so Hannah, knowing that she would not be there to wipe his tears and to re-interpret this event sings a song that she hopes will speak for her. She wanted to tell him what it meant, and by this song which makes up our second scripture lesson we know that she was not being selfish – she was being faithful. He had done nothing wrong – in fact, his mother knew that he would be about the work of setting the world right. And she hadn’t left him alone, for we are never alone; even when we feel the most abandoned our Lord is by our side if we only have the eyes to see. But we don’t always see as we struggle to understand and most of the time, my mother isn’t there to take us in her lap and to tell us that there might be another way to look at our situation – so the unwed teenage mother goes right along with the meaning that is provided for her – without knowing how else to think she looks at her pregnant belly and believes about it what people tell her she should. That this baby is not a blessing but a shame. That she doesn’t deserve their congratulations nor their respect. There’s only one unwed teenager mother that I can think of who was bold enough to find an alternate meaning – and she was in fact so bold as to say that, “generations will call me blessed.” Now of course, for the Virgin Mary, the situation was different. She was still pure and innocent I know, but the point that I want to make this morning is that Mary’s words like Hannah’s words – her song of praise that we’ll sing as a congregation in just a little bit – can push us towards a different understanding as we try to make sense our of our life. How easily Mary could have fallen into despair, but instead she was bold to see the hand of God at work. Rather than choosing to believe what the busy bodies at the riverside whispered, Mary heard the voice of Hannah. Bible scholars believe that Mary knew the song well, for if you read the two songs together – Mary’s Magnificat in the Gospel of Luke and Hannah’s song from 1st Samuel, you can’t help but notice what’s similar. Both of these women, despite their hardship, sing for joy. They both firmly believe that the source of their joy is their God. Both make the theological claim that our God is about the work of putting things right, even if that means putting the world on its head by scattering the proud and lifting up the weak – bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly – filling up the hungry and sending the full to fend for themselves. And both women – Hannah who felt the shame of the barren wife who finally had a child only to abandon him at the Temple and Mary who felt the shame of the fertile virgin – they both saw their shame cast out by the power of fulfilled hope – and they both understood their lot in life, not according to what people were saying, but according to the word of their God. Now I believe it’s important to get that straight, because right now it’s the meaning of Christmas that is up for interpretation. You go into Starbuck’s and you get a red cup – what does this mean everyone is asking on the internet. Maybe you’re likely just to say, “well isn’t this a nice change of pace,” but if you listen to what they’re talking about on the internet you might hear from a pastor named Joshua Feuerstein who got all this started, posting a video where he accuses Starbucks of removing Christmas from their cups because, “they hate Jesus,” which, I suppose is one way to look at it – but do you really think Jesus never wanted to have anything to do with a cappuccino in the first place? We’re not even at Thanksgiving – but we are being forced into the Christmas season. There’s no way out of it, and since they’re no way out of it lets at least be bold enough to interpret the meaning of our savior’s birth, not according to what anyone out there is saying, but according to what is said right in the Bible. Mary – to understand – went to Hannah – and so I call you to Hannah’s song as well. This season has little to do with egg nog – and everything to do with hope. This time of year, while so consumed with spending – really has nothing to do with the kind of presents that you can buy with money and has everything to do with the kind of gifts that come from the hand of God. And while this time of year is so wrapped up in meaning – we talk about family and turkey and lights on the tree – what this time of year really has to do with is the woman who longed for a child and finally got one – and when she did she knew exactly who to thank. You see – when Hannah gave birth to Samuel – the prophet who would anoint Israel’s greatest king – and she knew exactly what it meant. As a people we are so wrapped up in meaning-making its important that we take Hannah’s example seriously. Whether it’s Christmas, pregnancy, infertility, cancer, or death – the world will tell us what to think and the voices of blame inside our head will too – but don’t forget how often we misunderstand as we struggle to comprehend the meaning of our lives. We must be bold enough to think again guided by faith. “My heart exults in the Lord; My strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, Because I rejoice in my victory.” Amen.