Sermon Notes Hannah I Samuel 1, 2

November 18 I Samuel, 1, 2
Hannah is the female form of John, so it means Grace or Precious. She does not feel as if she is living out the meaning of her name. She feels constantly put down and judged. She can do nothing to change her status.Inside, she feels like Job or Naomi.

Hannah lived in a biblical time of polygamy for males. Marriage is difficult enough, and I suppose that issues only multiply in such an arrangement. Sure enough, competition exists between her and another wife, Peninnah. Males do not seem to have evolved much since Biblical times, as their husband, Elkanah, seems as clueless as any 21st century husband. I give you the special treats at festival, don’t you know how much I love you? Am I not worth more to you than oodles of children? How can you be sad, after all, she is married to him.He does notice her sadness, so he may well be more advanced than many 21st Century males, but like a good male, tries to argue out of her feelings, and he uses his love as the point of comparison.

Hannah prays a desperate prayer. She makes a terrible vow to cement her prayer.So fervent is her prayer that the priest Eli figures that she has been hitting the bottle. Again, I should ppoint out that Eli is a male priest, unable to determine drinking from sincere prayer. Maybe he hadn’t seen enough of sincere prayer to judge properly.Hannah stands for all of us who pray and pray and wait for an answer. (Yeah, yeah, the answer may be no, but that snarky comment is beneath religious contempt) She needs help; she needs the circumstances of her life to change. How quick we are to judge Hannah’s plight, instead of accepting her pain. (In that sense we are all Elkanah and Eli).We may not be in her situation, but I would bet most of us have uttered a scared, desperate pleading when it seems hope is lost, that no way out is even a glimmer on the horizon.When we are faced with such a deep prayer, maybe the best we can do is promise to offer a sincere prayer for them as well.

Infertility was clearly an issue in ancient Israel, and it seems to be an issue in our time. Of course, it doesn't seem to be for folks who should not be considering bringing children into the world, but fertility clinics now dot our country. In ancient times, the woman was called barren, and now we blame women for waiting too long to have children. Notice who gets left out of the equation in each instance.Of course, we were treated to the scientific genius of Todd Aiken and pregnancy and the vulgar theological musing of Senate candidate Murdock in Indiana on the same issue. Hannah is strict about the answer to her prayer and offers her first born son to the work of god in the temple shrine to work with Eli, of all people. She would see him once a year and brought a new robe. It is a moving and heartbreaking gesture. It brings to mind people being hid during the Holocaust who were hidden away and could only see their son being taken for a walk at a certain time every day.
Christmas comes in a month or so. So much of Mary’s great prayer in Luke, a prayer the choir sang on All Saints Day,a prayer about  a surprise birth, seems modelled on Hannah’s prayer.Both prayers are about reversal of fortune, in this life, in this society. The prayer takes an individual lament and elevates the plight to the public stage. We’ve lost the notion of the everyman or woman, except maybe in some actors such as Tom Hanks.they see themselves as representative figures. The personal prayer is public, a microcosm of a world in prayer.