Messages, Meditations, and Musings on the Life of Faith by Rev. Dr. Scott E. Olson, Interim Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church, Preston, MN

Sunday, October 14, 2012

"Hannah's Song" Sermon Pentecost 20

“Hannah’s Song”
Pentecost 20 (NL3 Judges)
October 14, 2012
1 Samuel 1.9-11, 19-20; 2.1-10

Hannah’s story, of a barren woman who longs to have a child, is a compelling one that draws us in. Most of us know those for whom this is a tender and painful story. Hannah’s grief is compounded by her husband’s second wife, Penninah, who cannot only have babies at will, but who mocks her and throws it in Hannah’s face. Her husband, Elkanah, is sympathetic and even overly generous but, while trying to mitigate her pain, is clueless. “Am I not worth more than ten sons? he says.” Her story is also compelling because it is told in the context of a much larger but similar story of hopelessness and despair. The 12 tribes of Israel are besieged by other powers from without and by their own corruption and faithlessness from within. Both Hannah and Israel don’t seem to have any future.

However, the birth of a child changes everything. Even so, the key to understanding what this means comes within Hannah’s Song, the psalm of thanksgiving Hannah sings in praise of God’s gracious gift of a son. This is important because we might be tempted to ask more of Hannah’s story than we should. It is natural, but misguided, to pore over her story looking for a procedure for getting what we want from God. Hannah’s Song reminds us that it is not about us; rather, it is about what God does in, with, and through us. It is about us only to the extent that God has a special place in his heart for the hurting and helpless.

What does Hannah’s Song tell us what we need to hear today as we make our way through the story? First, the story shows again how God meets each of us in midst of our pain, despair, and hopelessness. Wherever we struggle, whoever persecutes us, whatever we lament, God is there with us. Hannah trusted in that promise, which is why she poured out her soul to God in the shrine at Shiloh. The tribes of Israel, as they suffered at the hands of other nations, some of it their own doing, cried out to God for a deliverer. God raised up judges for them and will eventually raise up a king as well.

That God meets us where we are leads us to the second important takeaway today: God is working even though we can’t see it. The miraculous birth of Samuel is the back-story to another back-story, which ultimately tells the story of how David became the greatest king of Israel, uniting the tribes into one formidable people. Getting there is not a smooth ride and it takes all of 1 Samuel and much of 2 Samuel to tell it. Hannah’s Song reminds us that God is acting in, with, and through the world on our behalf. By the way, I think that it is precisely those times when we think God is absent from us that God is working the hardest.

The third and last point our text makes today is that God turns life upside down from what we expect. God does not only reverse the fortunes of the lowly, the downtrodden, and the marginalized. God also works in, with, and through the most unlikely of people and circumstances. Who would think that Hannah would have a child, let alone a kingmaker and king-breaker? Who would have thought that it would be the eighth son of Jesse who would become king? For that matter, who would have imagined that the Savior of the world would be born in a humble stable to a carpenter and his ordinary wife, a woman who sings a similar song of her own after his birth? A side note: it seems to me that God’s preferential option for the poor and marginalized ought to inform our political choices.

When I was doing coursework for my doctorate, I had the opportunity to do an intentional analysis of the events that led up to this point in my life as a pastor. It was amazing to see how the people I met and the experiences I had shaped me in ways I couldn’t dream of at the time. The opening of Hannah’s womb reminds us that our lives and our futures are continually being reopened. The birth of Samuel reminds us that God does new things in amazing ways. Hannah’s Song is our song and we join our voices to hers, for God meets us at the places of our deepest need, works in ways that we can’t always see, in ways that we can never expect. Thanks be to God! Amen.

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