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Hannah was absolutely miserable. In
her society, men held all the power positions.
They were the judges, the priests, and the monarchs, and they passed their
roles onto their sons. Women could inch up the status ladder by producing
children, preferably boys. But Hannah was barren. She was Elkinah’s favored
wife, but that was small consolation. And Penninah, Elkinah’s other wife,
had given Elkinah several children. Penninah delighted in tormenting Hannah
about this at every possible turn. Hannah cried much of the time. Often she
had no appetite.
Hannah doesn’t wallow in her sorrow. She calls upon God to look upon her
misery and give her a son. She promises that if God answers her prayers she
will give her son back to God as a temple servant. Hannah conceives and has
a son, Samuel. In Hebrew word play, “Samuel” means both “one who is from
God” and “one who is given to God”. Hannah keeps her promise. As soon as she
weans Samuel, she brings him to the temple priest, Eli, and dedicates him to
God, saying, “As long as he lives, he is given to the Lord”. (1
Samuel 1:28) And then, Hannah bursts into a hymn of praise to the power
of God. We hear Hannah’s song in today’s
first reading: My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my
God. Hannah sings that in God and in God alone all things are possible:
There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock
like our God. She sings that God alone is the source of all that is: For the
pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.” And
Hannah sings that in life and death we belong to God: The Lord kills and
brings to life, he brings down and raises up”. Hebrew Bible scholar Walter
Brueggeman writes of Hannah’s song, “The last threat is death; and the best,
most astonishing (of God’s gifts) is resurrection life. Hannah sings of the
one who breaks the power of death. It does not matter if that power is
experienced as barrenness, as despair, as hopelessness…Hannah flings this
song buoyantly in the face of the power of death. Her song is an act of
daring hope, rooted in a concrete gift, (yet) waiting for more of life to be
given…”
The first two chapters of Luke tap deeply into the currents of 1 Samuel.
Once again, God intervenes dramatically in the lives of women and their
families. A barren woman, Elizabeth, conceives a son and praises God for
taking away her “disgrace”. (Luke
1:24) Jesus is conceived in Mary by a direct act of God. Like
Samuel, “the one who is from God”, Jesus, “the one who saves” is also given
to God and dedicated at the temple (Luke
2:22-24).
The best known
link between Luke’s gospel and 1 Samuel is Mary’s song, the Magnificat, our
second reading
today. The angel
Gabriel has visited Mary with the news of two miraculous pregnancies,
Elizabeth’s and Mary’s. Mary doesn’t wallow in doubt or confusion, even
though she probably doesn’t fully understand what God is doing or why this
is happening now. She rushes to
Elizabeth’s
house and bursts into a hymn of praise to the mighty power of God: My soul
magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior…for the mighty
one has done great things…holy is his name.” Like Hannah, Mary dares to sing
of hope and of sure reliance on God’s promises: He has helped his servant
Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our
ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
Hannah and Mary
sing special songs about concrete miracles in their lives. But their songs
go way beyond praise for what God has done for them personally. They give us
wonderful witness to what it means to celebrate what God has done, to thank
God for what God is doing, and to praise God for what God will do
- for the whole community. God will reorder the world and make it
right.
God will break the bows of
the mighty, strengthen the feeble, feed the hungry, exalt the lowly, scatter
the proud, guard God’s faithful ones, and judge the ends of the earth.
This is not new witness. The words of Hannah’s song likely come from
Israel’s collection of
public hymns. Hannah joins her voice to a song Israel has already been
singing. Israel’s song becomes Hannah’s song. Hannah’s song becomes Mary’s
song. And their song becomes our song. We dare to sing that
God
alone is
our rock; God alone is our salvation. We dare to sing that absolutely,
unequivocally and without question, God’s promises do not fail.
It takes a lot of
courage to sing Hannah’s and Mary’s song, especially when we are feeling
miserable or powerless or hopeless or confused. To sing when we lose our
job, when we or someone we love becomes disabled or seriously ill, when we
struggle with alcohol or drug abuse in ourselves or our families, when we
face the grief and pain of emptiness, loneliness, loss, or death. There is
much in life that can bring even the most faithful among us to our knees.
And for most of us, our first instinct during those times isn’t to burst out
into a buoyant hymn of praise to the power of God!
As many of you know, right after Thanksgiving last year, my dad had surgery
to remove a second colon tumor. Two days after the operation, my Dad
crashed. His lungs filled up with fluid and his heart went into a dangerous
irregular rhythm. He ended up in the ICU, on a ventilator, with IV drips and
tubes everywhere. The cardiologists couldn’t get my Dad’s heart beating
normally and his blood pressure started to drop. He wasn’t getting enough
blood to his vital organs. Late at night I cried much of the time. I didn’t
have a lot of appetite and I really didn’t want to leave my dad’s side, even
to eat. Hour after hour, day after day, I watched the monitors blink and
listened to them beep. In the ICU, the nurses and doctors were doing
everything right - of course I was watching every
move carefully. But still Dad continued to slip.
I wish I could tell you that I faithfully dared to sing praise to God
- the God who is the source of all that is, the
Lord who brings to life and raises up, the Mighty One who has done great
things, the God whose promises do not fail. But the words that came out of
me were cries of anguish and grief. “Why is this happening now? It’s not his
time yet.” “God, why did you lead me through all this medical training if it
doesn’t help me do anything for my Dad?” I came to know new depths of
physical and emotional exhaustion. There were times when I was just too
tired to pray or even to hope, let alone to sing.
Until I heard others who were already singing. Until my mother-in-law,
Marge, said to me, “He really is in God’s hands, now and always. At the
time, Marge was facing her first Christmas as a widow, and I knew she spoke
with absolute and unshakeable conviction and confidence in God. Until I
heard you, the Northminster community of faith, whom I carry in my heart. As
you prayed for us, I could hear you daring to sing, “My heart exults in the
Lord, my strength is exalted in my God…there is no Rock like our God. My
soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior…the Mighty
One has done great things….holy is God’s name….God’s mercy is from
generation to generation…according to the promise God has made…” Then, like
Hannah and Mary, I joined my voice to a song God’s community of faith was
already singing.
My dad turned the corner. It isn’t likely that he’ll return to full
strength, but he has recovered enough to have a good quality of life for the
time being. None of us takes that wonderful gift for granted.
Friends, Israel’s
song, Hannah’s song, Mary’s song - this is our
song. We dare to sing it because we are a community who exists to praise
God. We may put away the alleluia during the Lenten journey but we don’t
stop praising God. We dare to sing because God has done great things for us.
We dare to sing because God is our rock and our salvation. Around this table
we share the body and blood of God’s covenant. We dare to sing for one
another and for the world because absolutely, unequivocally and without
question - God’s promises do not fail.
Praise be to God! Amen. |
