2021.11.14 | Hannah in her Anguish
“Hannah in Her Anguish”
Rev. Pepper Swanson, Associate Minister
Eden United Church of Christ
25th Sunday After Pentecost
Nov 14, 2021
Bible commentaries often refer to today’s Bible Story about Hannah as a “treasure” or a “classic,” some even go as far as to say the story is “iconic” or “foundational.”
Many of us, however, just find it very, very “real,” which is rather amazing because it was written over two thousand years ago.
I’ve always thought what makes the story feel “real,” was not just the despair that the main character Hannah feels over her ongoing infertility but also how very real the other characters are in what they say and do to Hannah.
Before we talk about Hannah, let’s take a little inventory of these other characters and how their words affect Hannah:
First, there is Peninnah, who is Hannah’s husband’s second wife. Her name translates as “fertile” or “prolific” and in this she has been successful where Hannah has not. And, having been successful at producing children, especially sons, Peninnah has become Hannah’s rival, often provoking and irritating her. We don’t know what she said to Hannah but we know how Hannah feels about her.
Second, there is Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, who loves Hannah, his first wife, despite her infertility. and who shows that love by doting on her, even going so far as giving her a double portion of the meat sacrificed at Shiloh, which was Israel’s early worship centre, and asking her to dine with him. When she cries and can’t eat, he asks Hannah why she is sad and doesn’t she think that being with him is better than having 10 sons?
Third, there is Eli, the head priest at Shiloh, who encounters Hannah at prayer and mistakenly thinks she’s drunk because her lips are moving but no sound comes from them. He tells Hannah to put away her wine and quit being a drunken spectacle. Hannah tells him that she isn’t drunk, but deeply troubled and praying to God.
Peninnah, Elkanah, and Eli feel real to us because they are prototypical of the people we encounter whenever we go through a personal crisis, be it infertility, divorce, job loss, or distressing life change. There is always someone, like Peninnah, who “triggers” or “torments” us, either with real hurtful words or actions, or by the simple fact that they have what we do not. There is always someone, like Elkanah, who downplays our sadness by pointing out reasons to be happy, reasons which often include their presence in our lives being more important than our loss or grief. And third, there is always someone like Eli who misinterprets our actions or demeanor, forcing us to articulate what is actually going on — within and for us.
The problem with these prototypical characters is that we don’t always recognize them in real life — or appreciate the value they bring to our lives. If I think back on the times in my life when I either hung up the telephone on someone or someone hung up the telephone on me, it was almost always because one of us was acting like Peninnah, Elkanah, or Eli. While I can only guess whether my uncomfortable, dismissive, or wrong-headed words caused someone to think differently about their own lives, I know with certainty that other people and their words have been instrumental in my own spiritual growth.
But let’s take Hannah as an example. If Peninnah hadn’t provoked her by both having children and needling her about the situation, would Hannah have expressed her sadness or just let it fester inside? If Elkanah hadn’t questioned her weeping and sadness, pointing out that she could be happy without children, would Hannah have gone to pray? And if Eli hadn’t accused her of being drunk in the temple, would Hannah have had the courage to declare: I’m not drunk — I’m sad and I’m praying and pouring out my soul to God.
All of which leads to this incredible moment in the story that is so easy to miss but which I would argue is not only the essence of what faith achieves but is also the core of every miracle I’ve experienced in my own life: Verse 18 b reads, “Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.”
Her countenance, her face, her being, was sad no longer. Later Hannah will conceive and bear Samuel and fulfill her promise to God by bringing Samuel to Shiloh to serve with Eli in the worship centre. Later still, Samuel will be a great prophet of Israel and will live to anoint first Saul and then David, as the kings of Israel. Many say Samuel is the bridge between Israel as a confederacy of tribes and a religious kingdom with a Temple. The religion, the tradition, and perhaps, the faith doesn’t survive without Hannah’s Samuel.
But for my money, the story could have ended with Hannah returning to her quarters and being sad no more. Why? Because Hannah embodies the most “real” thing prayer, reading the Bible, and having faith in God achieves for us: inner peace, the kind of inner peace that makes us content and frees up our valuable mental and physical energy to love and care for others, to be creative and thoughtful, or to simply be present and listen when others express their own suffering and disappointment. Each person’s inner peace is different, achieved in different ways, and liberates us to do what we as individuals are called to do.
It seems to me that there is a faith process at play in the story of Hannah. A process that begins with suffering, involves both identifying and expressing our suffering to others and to God, and has at its aim, not the divine fulfillment of our wishes, but that unique contentment and personal strength that comes when we have fully expressed our truth to God and have decided that with God’s help, we will be okay, one way or another.
I will close by reminding you that back in early October, I said my sermons this fall would draw on those Bible stories that I found comforting in times of distress. Even though my own infertility caused me great sorrow and was resolved by adoption, rather than the longed-for pregnancy and birth, this story of Hannah remains one of my favorites. And it is because I remember a moment in my terrible infertility journey when I too stopped suffering and was sad no more. And that moment was just one of many in my life when a mountain of sadness or anger or hurt was resolved by taking Hannah’s winding path to prayer, including absorbing the words of others while gaining clarity into who I am and who God is to me.
My friends, God invites your prayers, not for the words you recite or the way you hold your hands or how you move your lips without sound. God invites your prayers because prayer is a journey and all the people and all the steps along the way to prayer are the very, very “real” way God heals broken hearts and gives us inner peace that is all our very own. Amen.