April 20, 2008 Sermon

Samuel Appears
I Samuel 2:12-26

Last week we jumped into the end of the Gospel of John.  I commented that unless you knew what had gone before, reading that passage was like hearing a punch line without the joke that should go before it.  You don’t get it.  You can’t get it.

This week we jumped into the story of Samuel.  I started reading in I Samuel 2, which means I left out the back story.  And that was one big back story.  I supply it to you now.  We start with Moses.  Approximately 1250 B.C. Moses led the Israelites to freedom from Egyptian slavery.  Forty years later, Joshua led their descendents into the Promised Land.  There followed decades of fighting with the people who lived there, plus their neighbors.  The Israelites won some battles and some they lost.  Many began clamoring for a king.  Their enemies had kings.  The Israelites who wanted one, too, reasoned that a king would unite them and make them more efficient, more powerful in war. 

This longing for a king might have seemed logical.  Unfortunately, it contradicted the command of Yahweh, the Lord God.  Through prophets and judges (charismatic leaders who arose to lead Israel through times of crisis and then stepped back down from power), the Lord had expressed his will that Israel not have a king.  They would only follow that king and not God, God felt, rightly, as it turned out.  But the people kept demanding a king.  Foreigners with their kings threatened them.  And their own leaders, prophets, priests and judges alike, were not exactly the cream of the crop.

Enter Eli and his sons.  Eli served as a Hebrew priest at the high altar at Shiloh.  His sons had joined the family business—as well they might, for the Hebrew priesthood belonged only to the family line of Levi, one of Jacob’s twelve sons.  Eli, while not perfectly innocent, tried to fulfill his priestly duties with integrity.  His sons did not bother trying.  They stole meat and drink from the offerings people brought to lay before God on the altar.  They, um, procured women.  They shamed their father and fouled the already nasty reputation the priests had among the common people, the people who paid for their corruption in more than one way.

Enter a young woman named Hannah.  She is married but has no children; her husband has another wife (perfectly legal in the Israel of that day), and that wife has borne children, including sons, the reason for existence for any Hebrew wife of that era.  Their husband loves her, but Hannah is not consoled.  (If this story makes you think of Jacob, Leah and Rachel way back in Genesis, give yourself a gold star.)  Hannah prays, weeps, begs the Lord God for a son.  She promises that should God grant her wish, she will dedicate the boy to become a priest.  In other words, she so desperately wants a baby boy she commits to giving him up (should he ever appear) for priestly training outside of her home at a very early age.  And God grants her desire.  She has a son.  She names him Samuel, a play on the Hebrew word that means, “I begged”.

If you longed for a baby boy well beyond the usual age for birthing, and if you finally had one, would you send him away as soon as you weaned him?  Hannah does.  She keeps her promise.  She sends her boy to Eli for priestly training.  Then she prays her thanksgiving to the Lord God, but with a twist: not only does she express heartfelt gratitude for a son, she adds a prayer of satisfaction for her feeling that God has given her a measure of revenge against her husband’s other wife.  (In fairness we should note that this other wife has mocked Hannah for not bearing children.)  But Hannah goes even farther.  She becomes a prophet.  Her prayer concludes with a prediction that God will judge the wicked: wicked people, wicked nations, and all the wickedness in the world.

The musical Wicked contains a song that tells us, “No one mourns the wicked.”  Hannah certainly does not.  She has lived under the oppressive regime of her co-wife.  She has moved through a society that degrades her because she has not given birth.  Some even believe that her barrenness is a punishment from God.  But do not lose sight of the global nature of her prayer and its prediction that all corrupted mighty ones will fall.  The entire history of Israel—indeed of the world—carries this theme.  God will punish the wicked.  God will reward the righteous.  It might take a while.  It might not happen during your lifetime.  But stay straight.  Fly right.  Worship God in spirit and in truth.  You will receive your reward.  But watch out.  That reward may not look like you think it should.

Wait for God’s reward.  Hannah gives up her son, her reward we might think.  She sends him to Eli, who begins training him to become a priest.  This is not the action of a vengeful, heartless, cruel mother.  Once a year Hannah makes Eli a new robe for him to wear as he performs his sacramental duties.  An elder in our church, reading this passage, commented that she could just imagine Hannah sewing this garment, pouring her love into it with every stitch.  Eli blesses her for this faithful gift.  He prays that the Lord would give her more children.  She has three more sons and two daughters.  Her son Samuel promises to become a worthy man and trustworthy priest.
What is Hannah’s reward?  Is it revenge against her co-wife?  Is it the chance to raise her chin and look the world in the eye now that she has had a son?  Is it knowing that her boy will make it big in the big-time?  Is it having yet more children?  No; while all these no doubt please her, her reward is seeing that the Lord God is.  The Lord God exists.  The Lord God works intimately in creation and in human lives.  And the Lord God has a righteous, perfect plan for what will come to be. 

We who read this story can respond to it in different ways.  We can view it as a mildly interesting little tale about people who may or may not actually have lived a very long time ago.  They lived in primitive times and had primitive attitudes.  They branded childless women as losers.  They dreamed about revenge and fooled themselves into thinking God offered it as part of the religious program.  This whole thing feels like radical Islam in our era and we want nothing to do with that.  In this take the story of Samuel has next to nothing to teach us.

Or we could view this as part of the long history of the Hebrews.  It gives us historical context on the whole Old Testament.  It teaches a little about the culture and religion of that place and time.  It reminds us that human nature has always been sinful.  If we have this kind of academic response to the story of Samuel it fills in a few gaps in our knowledge of the Old Testament, but has virtually no application to our lives.

Or we could view the story of Samuel as part of our own story.  We still struggle to hold up our side of our relationship with the Lord God Almighty.  We Christians believe that Jesus, a Hebrew, fulfilled the Hebrew prophets’ predictions that God would send the Messiah to save the world from itself.  And if we’re honest, we know that among the many reasons we need to be saved is that we thirst for revenge against our enemies.  And we must fight off temptations like the ones that utterly corrupted Eli’s sons, the fallen priests.