Third Sunday after Trinity

Date:28th June 2009

Preacher: Revd David Carpenter

With God all things are Possible

In the name of God: our wisdom and our truth.

Hannah had it all: a good husband and family, with all the security this brings. Her husband’s lineage suggests a well-to-do respectability. There were children around the family home, step children, the children of her husband’s other wife. It was a devout family; each year they went to worship at the temple. The wife with the children received more portions from the sacrifice because of her large brood, but we are told Hannah had only one portion because she was childless.

Makes sense, quite fair.

True the other wife used to gloat a bit, but come on, might not have Hannah been a little jealous?

It wasn’t the other wife’s fault that she got pregnant at a drop of a hat, and after all Hannah’s husband kept reassuring her and telling her how much he loved her (when he wasn’t with his other wife, I assume).

What more could she want?

She prayed earnestly for a child and her husband kept telling her how much he loved her and how she was worth more than ten sons.

So Hannah must have tired everyone with her going on all the time about not having children, a bit ungrateful really.

But then Hannah didn’t just keep ringing her hands, and winging within her own home. She went to Church and at Church her murmurings brought her to the attention of the priest, who on observing her, because she appeared to be talking to herself, assumed her to be drunk so he promptly told her to go clear off until she sobered up. Friendly sort of church, but a bit fussy about who loitered around: you know, brings the tone down a bit otherwise.

Good Story?

I don’t think so. I think it’s about as sexist as you can get and obviously written by a fella!

It’s the husband and the other wife who had it all. No one really took the time to understand Hannah’s loneliness, isolation and depression: her deep and inconsolable yearning for a child.

It begs the question, because of the culture of the time, whether the husband would have been quite so supportive if he hadn’t already had sons. And the second wife’s whole inculturalisation would have reinforced her pride at being a bearer of male heirs.

Despite the apparent support and favour shown Hannah, given the background, we know that the story is really saying that she had nothing; that she felt passed over, impoverished: that she thought herself, and was considered by others, unfulfilled as a woman.

Then perhaps, there’s even a hint that she presented herself as an embarrassment at Church: that the priest’s attitude was dismissive. Wasn’t the priest perceptive enough to have noticed some real anguish here?

As she is challenged by the priest, we begin to glimpse something of Hannah desperation, and Eli is gracious enough to realise he has been too quick of the mark. When he speaks to Hannah he plumbs the depth of her despair, the earnestness of her prayer, so sends her away now, not in frustration, tutting under his breath, but in peace, perhaps with the hope and with a little prayer that her heart-felt cry would be heard.

The outcome is that Hannah takes Eli’s gift of peace and trusts that her prayer will be heard, and we know how the story ends. Although it doesn’t form part of today’s reading. Hannah returns home, puts her anguish aside, and in hope, gets on with her life. She has intercourse, and we are told the Lord remembered her.

There are two things I would like to draw attention to.

Firstly, Hannah had intercourse.

Why do I draw attention to this: simply because God worked through the ordinary. There was nothing supernatural here that we know of; just God taking what was offered and using it: God working in co-operation.

The second thing is that Hannah had to deal with the issue.

You cannot stay isolated, wallowing in self-pity, no matter how deep the despair. If you are really earnest about there being change, then sooner or later you have to come to terms with the truth that you cannot grow as a person, if you are not prepared to move on, not prepared to let go. There may also be a need to seek help as Hannah did in the temple: pouring out her heart to God and to Eli.

Infertility is a real, painful issue for some today. I have two daughter-in –laws who would stand alongside Hannah in her pain. Today, fortunately, there are things that can be done to help. You have to keep positive, and understand that planning and relaxation is important, recognising that frustration and tension are counter-productive. This is true not just in the area of conception, but in many other aspects of life also.

These two principles are common place throughout scripture: whether we look at Abraham, Moses, the prophets or in the New Testament. Clearly in the life of Jesus, we see how God works in co-operation. The woman with the haemorrhage came to Jesus and argued with him. The father of the sick girl travelled to Jesus. Just to give two examples.

Today, in our day, you and I, just like Hannah, have to believe.

We have, like Hannah, to put our sense of being lost, sometimes our self-pity, often our belief in our inability behind us, and trust that we can: we can accomplish, we can achieve, both as individuals and as Church.

It is possible to make a difference.

God’s purpose is able to be worked out: not in disinterested isolation, but in mutual trust and co-operation. Together, all things become possible.