This week’s lectionary brings us two stories of distress, one personal and one corporate. The childless Hannah is mocked by her husband’s second and fertile wife. Jesus speaks of an approaching period of widespread destruction. Hannah’s story at least has a happy ending when Samuel is born.
I’ll pass over the Bible’s “family value” of Elkanah having two wives. What strikes me most about the Hannah story is how much attention is drawn to Hannah’s distress. I realize that her barrenness is heightened to magnify the miraculous nature of the prophet Samuel’s birth, but still – fifteen verses describe her bitterness and only two the happy outcome of her prayers. I’m glad that we’ll sing the Canticle of Hannah instead of a psalm on Sunday; such great grief deserves an equally great outpouring of joy.
Hannah’s unhappiness is clearly described. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly… ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look favorably on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant…’” R and I have not known this misery of unwanted childlessness, thank God, but it seems to me that Hannah speaks eloquently for those who have, who not only are without child but may feel forgotten by God. God answers Hannah’s prayer. What do we say to those who do not have their prayers answered?
The discourse of Jesus takes us beyond personal misery to an overthrow of religious, political, and natural order. When a slack-jawed Galilean disciple-tourist is overawed by the beauty of the Jerusalem temple, Jesus lets him have it. “Do you see these large buildings?” he says. “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” Prophets in the past were killed for saying things like that, and the fearful disciples want to know more in private. Instead of reassuring words, they hear even worse news. There will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines. And “this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” We don’t hear about the rest of the birth pangs in subsequent verses, but believe me, they don’t get any better. This labor won’t have nearly as happy a result as Hannah’s.
It’s an apocalyptic view in some ways, but it also describes the way the world is. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famine are part of the daily news. Personal sorrows are there, too. Christianity is an open-eyed religion that can directly face what is awful and what is evil in the world (though less so in its happy-clappy manifestations). That’s true because it is also a religion of hope. “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” the letter to the Hebrews says, “for he who has promised is faithful.”
That’s the key, isn’t it? God is faithful. God has promised to be with us, to remain among us always. God sent Jesus Christ to reveal God’s own self to us, and God continues to send the Holy Spirit so that we are not comfortless. It is not easy to see or sense God in the middle of distress, yet God is there. “There is no Holy One like the Lord,” Hannah sings, “there is no Rock like our God.” Because of that faithful Rock who can throw down stones, we can live through distress, take up hope, and walk with joy.
Pentecost 24: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (as canticle); Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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I wrote a very lengthy comment on this: sufficiently long that I decided to move most of it to my Live Journal instead of cluttering up your site with it. Suffice it for here to note that we are reading the Apocalypse of St. John in the Daily Office, and it teaches in yet another manner the same message: whatever happens, this Rock is faithful: "Faithful and True," he is named in Rev. 19:11.
Were I a preacher, I would be nearing the end of my series of sermons on the Epistle to the Hebrews. The whole long argument of this book is, again, the same message; Jesus Christ is faithful and true, and our faith is built on a foundation which cannot be shaken.
We are singing several Advent songs this Sunday, finishing with "Tell out, my soul," which is a metrical paraphrase of the Magnificat. While St. Mary's story differs from Hannah's, she certainly knew the tale. The Magnificat shows how thoroughly she internalized it, and put herself into it. She too "lent [her son] to the LORD" (I Sam. 1: 28).
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