RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - November 15, 2009

“The Real Power Of Prayer”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
1 Samuel 1:4-20

Following in the personally painful and culturally shameful Old Testament tradition of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, Hannah was barren. She had tried and tried, but she could not get pregnant. Though she had followed the advice of all the wise women and biddies, she still had no child to call her own.

One ancient matriarch had suggested, "Maybe you have to watch your diet. That might help you to bear." Another wizened centenarian had told her matter-of-factly, "Hannah, try to sleep with your husband as the moon becomes full.”

A closer friend had said, "Honey, forget the moon, sleep with him as often as you can." Someone else’s grandmother had even pushed magical herbs and directed the despairing young woman, "Make a sun tea from these and drink it three times a day." All this Hannah had done religiously, but nothing had worked.

It was awful. Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, loved her dearly, but he needed sons. Without sons, the family line would die out. Only sons ensured immortality. And so in quiet desperation he had taken a second wife, Penninah, and the plan had worked out beautifully. Penninah bore children left and right.

However, when she was not in labor, Penninah was taunting Hannah unmercifully. Oh, Penninah knew full well that barrenness and sin were inextricably tied, and so her mockery was razor-sharp and shamed Hannah to her core. Penninah knew what buttons to push, and she pushed them long and often.

It was the very worst when Elkanah packed up his wives and children every autumn and made the annual pilgrimage to Shiloh for the Feast of the Tabernacles. There they offered sacrifices, prayers of thanksgiving, and praise to Yahweh for the fertile fields and the bountiful crops.

In Shiloh, Hannah’s predicament was so very public. How ironic for her to be thanking God for the fruit of one’s labor! How diminishing for her to once again – year in and year out - have her whole being rubbed in the fact that she was infertile, had experienced no labor whatsoever to be thankful for, had no children to show for her womanhood.

“There she goes, the Barren One. Look at her. No fruitfulness there," Penninah would cackle in a stage whisper behind Hannah’s back. “God closed up her womb long ago. Imagine the wrongdoing somewhere in that woman’s past!”

And Elkanah – even though Hannah was his beloved – did not understand her pain. Her behavior baffled him. “Why is she so down cast?” he wondered. “After all - didn't she have him?”

“Why do you go about weeping and not eating? After all, aren't I better then ten sons?" he asked. “Couldn't you just ignore Peninnah’s taunts; that's what I would do.”

No one understood. No one ever understood. And so Hannah once again sought refuge in the synagogue, her haven for quiet and some degree of peace. And as the candles flickered their shadows on the walls and ceilings and the far off fragrance of incense settled in the nooks and crannies, Hannah’s lips moved silently in fervent prayer to Yahweh/God.

But no one understood – not even Eli the temple priest who saw her bloodshot eyes and tangled hair, who observed her strange behavior and put it all together like a little jigsaw puzzle and was pretty darn certain that she had hit the local tavern early that morning and now was drunk. All this he told her in no uncertain terms. "How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine, woman."

Eli did not know that this bizarre scene playing out before his very eyes was one of deep pain and loss. This woman prayed not in thanksgiving for this joyful harvest festival but rather in angry and frustrated prayers of petition.

"O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me. If you will only give me a male child, then I will give him back to you as your priest until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head."

How desperate is that? Out of Hannah’s grief came this theology of bargaining with God: “You give me a son, and one day I will give him back to you.”

And so in a whisper Hannah finished her bartering and negotiating with the Almighty. And Eli the priest sent her forth with words of promise and hope – as all good priests and pastors are taught to do - "Go in peace; (may) the God of Israel grant the petition you have made."

And so our Old Testament story teller wraps up this tale of pain and loss, but not before letting us know two things. The first is that Hannah, the women who was slowly starving herself in grief, returned to her quarters and had a big Thanksgiving dinner. In Elkanah’s eyes, this issue over the barrenness must somehow have resolved itself because Hannah had an appetite once again. The second thing – and even more important for us - is that Hannah was no longer sad.

And then it is almost as an afterthought that we learn that Hannah and Elkanah retired to the bedroom in the months to come, and God did remember Hannah, and she eventually bore a son, whom she would name, Samuel, which means “asked of God,” which is exactly what Hannah had done.

Like many Old Testament stories, this one has layer upon layer of meaning. Perhaps first and foremost for its author was the relationship between this tale of a barren women and the history of Israel itself. You see, when Hannah becomes pregnant and bears a son – Samuel – it is this child who not only is given back to God, but who changes the course of Israelite history as well.

We know from our readings in the Book of Ruth over the past two Sundays that the years of this story occur near the end of the period of the judges. At this time, there was no king in Israel. There was no established and universally recognized leadership. In other words, life was chaotic. The Israelites had no vision or goals or direction. They wanted a king. They needed a king.

Now Hannah’s child, Samuel, fits into all this because Samuel grew up a priest – as his mother promised. He was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets of ancient Israel.

It was Samuel who anointed the first king of Israel, who was named Saul. It was also Samuel who anointed Israel’s second king, who was David, from whose lineage Jesus emerged. In short, God chose Samuel to establish Israel’s monarchy.

Samuel was a very important figure in the history of Israel – but as our story teller reminds us, he would not even have been born had not Hannah turned to God in desperate prayer. So Hannah – a barren woman - is a key player in the deeply patriarchal story of God’s chosen people.

However, there is another truth in this story that is much more personal – and that has to do with Hannah simply turning to God in prayer.

When the sun tea and magical herbs continued to fail, when the phases of the moon did not seem to make any difference, when Hannah could no longer take the digs and ridicule and sarcasm that Penninah let fly, and when the pilgrimage to Shiloh was more than she could bear another year, Hannah prayed.

And the part of the story that we often gloss over in the midst of finding out the truly exciting news that eventually Hannah got pregnant is that little sentence that tells us that when Hannah finished praying, as one translation reads, “her countenance was no longer sad.” Hannah shed her despair and desperation not when the prayer was answered, but when the prayer was said.

What mattered for Hannah – and what matters for us – is the connection with God that is made through prayer. Oh, sometimes the cancer is cured. Sometimes the marriage is saved. But always, always, the connection with God is secured. The relationship with God is deepened and strengthened.

The steadfast assurance that we are not alone, that God is with us in all of our struggles, maybe not bringing the answer we want but always bringing the answer of that holy presence – and maybe, as Frederick Buechner has noted, maybe it is the affirmation of that presence that lies at the very heart of all our prayers anyway.

You and I know Hannah because she is in each and every one of us. She is the one who can not help but bargain with God. She is the one who turns to God in desperation, pain, anger, and sorrow. She is the one who approaches the Almighty with hope because otherwise why would she pray in the first place. And all of those ways of reaching out to God that Hannah did and that we inevitably do - are good and appropriate – even the anger, even the bargaining.

There is an intrinsic value in prayer, but that value is more than the prayer being answered. The value lies in the relationship the prayer establishes and makes ever firmer and stronger. The value lies in the process of self-reflection – in taking the time to actually articulate the curses as well as the blessings of our lives. The good, the bad, and the ugly – all can become the richness of our prayers. The joys, the hurts, the hopes – all can be the basis of our trust in the Holy One.

Though being here together as a community on Sunday mornings is deeply important to the work of our little church, this public worship is only half the story. We need – each one of us – a time for private devotions as well – and that is not easy when we feel pressured to put in so much time in our jobs, when we feel that we spend most of our time in airports or cars, when we are backstage or onstage for days and nights on end, when 24 hours is simply not enough in a day.

But imagine if we did carve out time for self-reflection and prayer! I believe that the blessings we articulated would be richer, the burdens we carry would feel less weighty, the anger we hold inside would neutralize when it was finally shared.

But most of all, if we were disciplined about private devotional times, I believe we would quit searching for God in a particular situation or incident in our lives and begin seeing the largeness of God in the world. I believe that we would feel less that God is in our hearts and more that we reside in the heart of God. I believe that we would feel a freedom unlike any other because we would realize that in the end we are not the main character in our lives, but we are part of something blessedly bigger.

As one author wrote, “The value in pouring out my soul before God is not the result, but the relationship I form with God in that moment – a relationship that may become the beginning of something completely new or the restoration of something I lost along the way...It is God’s deepest longing that I come to God regardless of what is occurring in my life at the moment. God is not a God of situation. God is a God of relationship (who) offers the bidding words that I need to hear time and again, “Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And then, like Hannah, we will no longer be sad.

Sermon - November 15, 2009

“The Real Power Of Prayer”

By Rev. Nancy Foran 1 Samuel 1:4-20

By Rev. Nancy Foran
1 Samuel 1:4-20