A Woman's God
A Reading from the Book of Samuel:
On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb. Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.
Her husband Elkanah said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?" After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the LORD. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the LORD. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD, and wept bitterly. She made this vow:
“O LORD of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”
As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.”
But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”
And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer. They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered her. In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I have asked him of the LORD.”
Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.
“Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The LORD! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Homily:
Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“History doesn’t repeat itself,” Mark Twain once wrote, “but it often rhymes.”
The story of Hannah ought to ring a number of familiar bells for anyone who knows their Bible. The basic pattern of two women married to the same man, one of them fertile, one barren, recalls the rivalry of Jacob’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, or of Abraham’s, Sarai and Hagar. There are quite clearly polygamous relationships throughout the Hebrew Scriptures—a virtual necessity given the high incidence of violent male death in the Ancient Near East—but none of them are happy, none harmonious.
More importantly, for us, Hannah’s story sets up that of another holy woman, likewise vulnerable and undervalued in her society, who by rights shouldn’t be fertile—for she is in truth a Virgin—yet whose Son’s nativity we’re soon to celebrate. It is no accident that parallels between Hannah and Mary abound.
Our readings for this evening take place in the time of the Judges, that era between Moses and David, when the people of Israel lived as a loose confederation of Tribes with no one central authority. In times of crisis, God would call upon unlikely heroes to liberate and guide His people. These Judges established no dynasty, no royalty.
And in the midst of this motley mix, we are introduced to Elkanah and his two wives: Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah has many children; Hannah has none. And in an age when a woman’s honor, security, and provision all rely on her having sons, this indeed is a problem. A woman without kids is considered godforsaken.
I will not pretend to know the struggles of infertility, especially given the expectations and judgments disproportionately leveled against women even in our own day. Honestly, the line I can most relate to here is Elkanah’s, when he tries, rather blunderingly and ham-fistedly, to comfort his wife: “Why is your heart sad?” he asks. “Am I not more to you than 10 sons?”
I mean, this tells us two things: it tells us that he loves her, and that he has absolutely no clue as to what she’s going through. He makes it all about him. And God help me, I’ve done that. So many of us men love our wives, yet fail to do the work of understanding them, which primarily consists of listening and giving a damn.
Even Eli, the priest of Shiloh, reflexively makes this mistake. Here is Hannah, a pious, faithful, mourning woman, praying before the altar of the Lord, and he rebukes her for being drunk. He judges her before it even occurs to him that she might be pouring out her soul. This tells us far more of Eli than it does of Hannah. And when she corrects him—rather gently, given the situation—he, properly chagrined, promises her that God will grant her petition, whatever it may be. Heartened, she goes home, unites with her husband, and conceives. Mazel tov.
This leads to Hannah’s song of praise, in which she exults in the Lord, who eschews the proud and breaks the bow and girds the feeble with strength. He lifts the low, brings down the high, and makes the poor to prosper. The needy He raises up from the ashes to inherit a seat of honor. And all of this—all of it—is sung by a woman who had been considered worthless, drunken, barren, and ungrateful.
That’s the real twist and sting of this story. It isn’t about emperors or kings or conquerors or warbands. It’s about a woman, a second wife, afforded no honor, no inheritance, no power, and no respect. Such as these know who God is! This is not the God who favors riches or might or the wisdom of the world. No, this is the God who liberates slaves, who chooses the foundling over the Pharaoh, who always picks the younger brother, the childless mother, the orphan and the widow.
This was countercultural stuff 3000 years ago. Heck, it’s countercultural today. Modern Americans will defend billionaires the way that ancient peoples defended their kings. But Israel is different. The people of God are different. Or at least they’re darn well supposed to be: a nation of slaves freed; a nation of younger brothers; a nation of nobodies chosen by God to teach the world the truth—the very truth that Hannah sings, of who and what God is.
And the son that she in time shall bear, the firstborn of her womb, will go on to become the prophet Samuel: last of the Judges, who anoints the first of the kings. It is Samuel, son of Hannah, who will establish the line and throne of David. And so it is Samuel who truly founds the nation as we know it, who takes Israel from a loose confederation of Tribes and makes of them a kingdom—with a dynasty one day destined to birth the Messiah, the Christ who is God in the flesh.
This, then, is the nation-story of Israel: a story that begins, as so many good things do, with a mother’s prayer; with a woman overlooked and underestimated, whose faith in the grace of God will change the world. There will be another Hannah, in fact another Eve; whose prayer gives birth to a King; whose faithfulness founds a new people of God. And she will likewise sing of the Lord who topples the high from their thrones in order to lift up the lowly.
Hers is the song we sing at every Evening Prayer: the Magnificat of Mary. And it is to her words we turn tonight—indeed, in the very next part of our liturgy—for all generations shall call her blest, who births the Son of God.
In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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