Sermon Nov. 15, 2009 I Samuel 1, Heb. 10

Hannah is tired of unanswered prayer. She is tired on being the favored wife but having to put up with the taunts of the second wife since she does not have children. She is tired of her husband trying to make it up to her and doing so clumsily. As Bruce said, "is a dream alive that won't come true, or is it something worse?"Every once in a while, I'll see some polygamous Mormon offshoot on TV and they always say how great they get along. I don't believe it. It is a situation bred for trouble. Men have enough trouble working with one wife; I can't imagine keeping a number happy. Anyway, at rock bottom, she goes into the shrine to pray, even though her prayers have been to no avail, and her desperate prayer is mistaken for the drunken mutterings of a reprobate. Elkanah's name means God fashions; Eli's means my God. Both these men with godly names misunderstand her, even as she may fear that even God misunderstands her plight.

 

The congregations in the book of Hebrews are tired of trying to be good and not seeing much benefit for it.Some are bringing in home troubles, others work troubles; some are stressed out, and others depressed, in other words, a typical congregation. He has them hold on to hope. When hopes have been dashed, that is a hard task. As Langston Hughes said, "what happens to a dream deferred?" Hope imagines a different future and lives expecting and working toward its realization, almost as if it is already at the doorstep.

 

How do you provoke someone into doing good? How does one exhort, especially about the end times? I don't know if nagging pushes someone into doing good, or more likely puts them into a more passive mode. Good examples are ignored as much as found inspiring. It's not easy to exhort into the end times when Christian predictions have always been wrong, when we've seen 2,000 years pass by,l even as the new movie 2012 adopts a Mayan calendar for Hollywood's latest apocalyptic venture. We get a triad of hope here: boldness, endurance, faith. How to hold on? Boldness comes in short supply when you are in trouble, especially when you try and try and keep on spinning your wheels to no avail. Endurance is a word often translated as patience. Its sense is not giving up or giving in, hanging in there all the way. Faith here strikes me as closer to a sense of abiding trust in the promises of God. He recalls the days of the congregation at its best to remind them of their resources.

 

After all the years of strife, Hannah's prayer gets answered. Every year she would go to Shiloh and make a new priestly robe for her vowed and dedicated son. she and Elkanah would have more children, and I guess Penninah stewed in her anger, or I hope grew to appreciate Hannah and her children. I hope that the congregation of the Hebrews found the energy they were lacking.I hope they came to see that God notices and appreciates all of their good work, even if thy felt under-appreciated at the time.

 

I pray that all of our unanswered prayers find a good resolution, even if it is not quite what we demand or expect. I pray that we see that the future does not have to repeat the mistakes of the past but is open to the fresh breeze of the new. God does realize that we all need fresh infusions of energy from time to time.God is an unfailing spring of energy that we often leave untapped. Go to that source of energy and hope, find refreshment and strength for the days ahead.