Hannah Awake and Aware

November 15, 2009

Trinity Church

The Rev. Shelby O. Owen

“And her countenance was sad no longer.”

Hannah is a beloved but barren wife. In today’s lesson from 1 Samuel we hear that Hannah’s husband Elkanah gives her double portions of meat as compared to the single portions he gives his other wife Penninah, the wife who has sons and daughters. Elkanah obviously loves Hannah but he cannot fix her grief. Hannah’s rival Penninah taunts and irritates her regularly for being barren, for her inability to have children. In a patriarchal culture where a woman’s value was contingent solely upon her ability to bear children, Hannah would have carried great shame; she would have been in a place of isolation, of loneliness and distress. Elkanah shows his clumsy pastoral skill as he says to Hannah, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” He seems to genuinely want her to feel better but unfortunately he just doesn’t get it- does not understand her anxiety and shame and desires.

As she leaves her home, where she is misunderstood, Hannah goes to the temple of the Lord, where she prays, where she pours out her soul before the Lord, fervently praying silently but with moving lips. She encounters Eli, the priest, who gets it dead wrong when he accuses her of making a drunken spectacle of herself in the temple. Perhaps Eli’s inept response signals the end of a really bad day for Eli! Hannah replies to Eli, “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my anxiety and vexation all this time!” Her response certainly would not have been the first or last time a lay person had to set the priest straight! After the priest finally gets it right, as he gives her his blessing, Hannah leaves the temple and her countenance is sad no longer.

In spite of those around her who don’t seem to have their wits about them: Penninah who cruelly pelts Hannah with hateful remarks, Elkanah her husband who loves her but struggles to relate, Eli the priest who accuses her of drunkenness while praying, and a society whose cultural norms dictate her worthlessness, Hannah is actually able to keep her head and heart together. In the midst of her struggles, she surrenders to God all that she is and has as she pours out her soul before the Lord. In a seemingly really difficult situation, she recognizes that it is God alone to whom she can and must turn. In a situation where her worth and value could be considered questionable Hannah believes and knows that God cares for her! She is aware of and awake to the deepest truth, the truth of God’s love for her. Through prayer Hannah is able to face her emptiness and what she finds in God’s answer is anything but emptiness-she finds a solid sense of who she is-God’s own child. In her utter vulnerability space is created for her to receive God’s gift of self. Hannah’s identity is not based on the cultural dictates but on the deeper truth of her being cared for by her creator.

19th century writer George Macdonald wrote:

My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;

I think thy answers make me what I am.

Hannah’s prayers flowed from what she was not. She was keenly aware of what she was not, keenly aware that she was barren and keenly awake to the God of possibility. Hannah was aware that God’s answers made her complete. In her unmet desires, in her barrenness, Hannah took that opportunity to draw near to God, searched out the deepest truth, and claimed the identity that God invited her into- one who is in need of God and one who was made complete in God. The reading says “her countenance was sad no longer’ before she ever becomes pregnant. Perhaps that implies that when we can let go of all we think we need, creating a space within for God alone, that then we are able to receive all that God has for us.

We are not unlike Hannah. We have dreams and desires of our own. We have detours and disappointments; we have blockades in the road; we have our own barren times that make us pause-maybe things that don’t just make us pause but things that make us really cry out in anguish. Through what do we base our own identity? Perhaps we base it on our work? So what happens when we find ourselves or someone else we love in these challenging economic times being laid off, being “let go?” Or as we retire from our work? Perhaps we find our identity through being a husband or a wife? So what and who are we when our spouse dies or when our spouse tells us after 2 or 20 years that he or she doesn’t want to be married anymore? Perhaps we find our identity in our good health, in our ability to manage our own lives? So what happens when we find ourselves infirm or with a diagnosis that interrupts our plans that takes us down a road we had not envisioned? Life happens, not QUITE according to plans!

So who are we, both as individuals and as a church? On what do we base our identity? Perhaps our own disappointments and perceived failures (and I underline “perceived”) can remind us of our true identity, that we are children of God, known and loved-that this is the deepest truth. We can remember that bumps in the road or huge potholes in the road or even in whole sections of missing road serve to jog our memories that our true identity rests in a God whose love for us never ends. We will all interface with the Penninah’s and Eli’s of the world, those who will try to get us to believe we are insignificant, not worthy of their love, or society’s love because we don’t measure up in some way, and we will walk with those who genuinely love us, as Elkanah loved Hannah, but who at times simply cannot relate to us. When we find we are coming up short in our own strivings or in the efforts of those around us, we can remember as Hannah did that our value, our identity is foremost and ultimately tied to our connection to God. We can become our true self God has created us to be, not what others have made us to be.Like Hannah, our spiritual strength is empowered in our vulnerability when we can pour out our souls to God. God has made us to be dependent on him.

“My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not; I think thy answers make me what I am?

We are not complete unto ourselves; we are complete in God.

Amen