This sermon was preached for Sunday, November 17, 2024. The texts for this sermon were: 1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25, and Mark 13:1-8.
I started learning to play viola in fourth grade and remained an absolutely mediocre player up through high school. My poor parents endured a lot trying to support our learning. I remember one particular elementary school orchestra concert, one of my first, one of those late evening concerts when they turned the lunch room into an auditorium and made all the parents sit in rows of folding chairs. At one point in one of our songs, I looked over at my dad’s face in the audience to see his eyes closed, his mouth turned down in a deep frown. I remember feeling awful in that moment, sure that my father was either terribly disappointed in my playing or totally bored to the point of nodding off. When I asked him about it later, my father, God bless his soul, explained that he was just concentrating on listening - that the expression I'd seen was his focused face. I was so comforted by that answer - I felt loved and honored that he took listening to my orchestra so seriously.
When Eli the priest encounters Hannah praying in his sanctuary, he observes her mouth, her lips moving in silent frantic prayer, and decides he understands what’s happening here. He assumes she’s drunk and scolds her harshly. But he’s wrong. Hannah is earnestly praying. “I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord,” she tells him.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to learn this same lesson over and over. It’s the parishioner with the grumpiest or most bored-looking expression on their face during the sermon who was actually the most touched by it, and went around sharing it with all their friends. I’m reminded, too, of the pastor who became increasingly irate at the young people on their phones in the middle of worship only to learn later that the teens had been diligently taking notes on the sermon and live-tweeting the Good News out to their followers.
I am not the only one who makes huge leaps of assumptions about someone’s piety and faith based on outward appearance, behavior in worship, and expression. I know many of you have been wont to judge someone else’s prayer or prayer style. We could, even now, nitpick Hannah’s prayer if we wanted to, too; isn’t she trying to bargain with God here, aren’t you not supposed to do that?
But I also know, because you have told me, because I have experienced it myself, that we can also reserve the most judgment and criticism for our own prayers. I wonder if you have a harsh voice in your head telling you that you are going about praying all wrong. Being too pushy, or maybe too informal, or too stilted. That you don’t know the right words to any prayers. That you and your problems aren’t worth God’s time and attention. I wonder where that voice is coming from. Who taught you there were right and wrong ways to pray? Who made you feel you weren't worth listening to?
Hannah was failed by her sister-wife, who treated her cruelly. She was failed by her husband, who invalidated her experience and would not step in to protect her from bullying. She was failed by her priest, who scolded her and tried to remove her from the sanctuary. But God did not fail her. And she didn’t fail herself. She knew she was not a worthless woman, and didn’t deserve to be treated or seen as such. She knew her grief was real. She trusted God to hear her and remember her. Most of all, she knew and teaches us, still, that true prayer is simply the pouring out of one’s soul in the presence of God.
Our Outline of the Faith in the Book of Common Prayer defines prayer this way, “Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”
The Book of Common Prayer goes on to describe the seven principal kinds of prayer: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession, and petition. Hannah’s prayer is both petition and oblation. Petition, presenting her own needs before God, that God's will may be done. But also oblation, offering herself, her life and labor, her womb and her offspring, for the purposes of God.
We could tell the story of Hannah as the story of someone who asked for the right thing in the right way and God gave them what they needed. Just ask for it correctly and it will be granted. But we could tell Hannah’s story another way, too. As the story of someone who took her own experience seriously, who refused to allow the people in power around her to convince her out of her grief and suffering. Who sought the presence of God and searched for greater meaning in what she was enduring.
Yes, on the surface, one could view Hannah’s prayer as making deals with God. But at a deeper level, Hannah’s time in prayer reshaped her longing for a son. It was no longer just about improving her status in society and in comparison to her sister-wife. Hannah was determined that her motherhood would serve God in a meaningful way. Give me a chance and I will use it for good.
I understand people’s frustration when it seems there is too much prayer and not enough action. I lament it, too, particularly when inaction results in the death and suffering of children. But I also lament when there is too much action for action’s sake. Too much done without intention, contemplation, and an understanding of the greater impact and purpose behind our decisions.
When we consider how to pray, we are really considering how to respond to God. How do we respond to God’s blessings and abundance? How do we hear the cries of the people around us and the cries of our own hearts as God’s call on us? God pulling us toward action for a greater purpose beyond ourselves.
Prayer doesn’t have to look like serene, silent meditation. It does not have to follow formulaic collects or use the right titles for God. It doesn’t even have to make us feel better or calmer to have been a successful prayer. Prayer can be a troubled, anguished outpouring of the soul that looks all the world like drunkenness. What that matters is that we are authentically responding to God. That we bring ourselves into God’s presence.
I’ve been hearing from folks a lot lately about the struggle of staying in relationship with people - neighbors, friends, family members, even children and spouses - who have come to see reality very differently. Especially when they’ve failed to do everything in their power to protect you and your loved ones from very real threats. Here’s the thing, I’m not going to tell you what to do in your relationships, maybe not ever but especially not categorically in a sermon - although my office door is always open if you want a friendly ear and heart as you discern.
But here’s what I will tell you. I will tell you what I wish Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, had done. I wish he hadn’t told her that she shouldn’t weep or be sad, that he hadn’t dismissed her longing. I wish he had taken her suffering seriously. I wish most of all, that he noticed and intervened when one of his wives bullied the other. I will also tell you what I wish Eli had done. I wish that he looked first for the desperation and suffering behind what he so quickly interpreted as an egregious act of desecration and rudeness. I wish that he had said to Hannah, tell me more about the longings of your heart, tell me more about what keeps you up at night. I wish he had moved first toward connection not correction, toward trusting her experience and helping her feel heard.
Prayer is responding to God. In order to respond, we must first listen. Listen to God and for God and to each other.
Now that I am a parent, I realize that my dad was probably not, in fact, enjoying the fourth grade orchestra performance. Our earnest screeches were probably as atrocious as I feared and his frown was most likely one of pain. But having listened to the cacophony of my own toddlers joyfully banging on our piano keys, I also understand now that one of the great mysteries of parental love is that we are still listening for and hearing something to love, something to be proud of amidst the banging, clashing notes. I know now, too, that the most important thing was not my father’s experience of our musical performance. It was the simple, powerful fact that he was there, still in his suit and tie from a long day in the office and a long commute home on the train. He came to be present to our humble offering. He listened with love.
God is present to every prayer. Every response in thought and deed, worded and wordless. And in every prayer, we bring ourselves into greater awareness of God’s presence. May we also learn from Hannah and Eli to be present to one another, giving space and time for each other’s outpouring of the soul, whatever form it takes.
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