Giving our Best to God
1 Samuel 1:4-20
4On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; 5but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. 6Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. 7So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. 8Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” 9After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. 10She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. 11She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.” 12As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. 14So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.” 15But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. 16Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” 17Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.” 18And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer. 19They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I have asked him of the Lord.”
While the stories from the Bible mostly were written by men and focus on men’s stories, this morning’s story about Hannah may have originally circulated among women and show God working through women in our sacred history. We remember the stories of pairs of women in the bible where one woman has many children and the other is barren. Sarah could not have a child while Hagar bore Ishmael. Leah would carry many children and Rachael had none. Ruth lost her husband and became a woman, widowed, barren and a foreigner in Israel.
We recall that these barren women would give birth to children who would dramatically shift the history of Israel. Sarah mothered Isaac, who carried the promises God made to Abraham. Rachael gave birth to Joseph who would save his family and Egypt from famine. Ruth became the grandmother of King David.
Hannah witnesses the deep anguish and pain felt by so many mothers who cannot conceive a child, a hurting of the heart felt by so many women even today. I wonder what the women thought of Elkanah’s insensitive attempt at comforting his wife: “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” Elkanah cannot enter into Hannah’s heart and know that emptiness she feels with her barrenness. Hannah endured social humiliation in a society which defines a woman’s success by the number of children she bore. Hannah suffered daily abuse from, Penninah, the other wife, who has given birth to many children.
Hannah turns to God in prayer, advocates for herself with the only One who can change her situation. She proves herself a daring woman, a powerful woman, a woman even God, a woman of a deep and wise heart.
Do you ever wonder why Hannah first asks God for a son and then promises to return that son back to God? The history of Israel includes a dedication of the first born to God as we read in Exodus 13: 2: “Consecrate to me all the firstborn.” We recall this consecration and the ransoming of the first born sons by the sacrifice of animals when we remember Jesus’ Presentation in the temple. Perhaps Hannah, in her prayer to the Lord, engages in a nuanced negotiation with God: you give me a son whom I will return to you and you will then provide me with other children in return for this gift. Eli, the priest who blessed Hannah with the promise of a child, seems to understand this deal making for when the family would return for their annual pilgrimage to Shiloh, Eli offered this blessing to Elkanah: “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord” (1 Sam 2: 20)
Hannah and her offering her son to God provides us with an opportunity to reflect on stewardship. Next Sunday, you are invited to make your pledge to support the church for upcoming year. I am not asking you to present your first born children as servants at church. Though we might save some money on cutting grass, shoveling snow and cleaning the church, we just do not have enough bedrooms and food in the Rectory to accommodate an influx of guests. Hannah shows us that we should give our best to God, should offer to God the first of our resources since God so richly blesses us with an abundance of God’s gifts: our lives, our families, our church, our beloved country but most importantly the incomparable gift of Jesus, God’s only begotten Son.
Now comes my NPR moment of asking you to make your gift. In the Episcopal Church, the tithe, ten percent of our income, remains the standard of our giving to church. Some of us abide by that standard, some of us do not. Some of us have promised God to move toward the tithe by offering a percent of our income to God and increase that amount, year by year, until we reach 10%.
We came out of a challenging year and some of us have either promised nothing to God or failed to make a pledge for 2021.
I am asking you, as a sign of your gratitude to God, to offer to God the best of what God has given you. I am asking you to make this offering as one of your spiritual practices like daily prayer, like caring for the needy, like participating in worship. For some of us, this offering may involve a level of sacrifice. As Christians we know that our lives involve sacrificial giving. In our Baptism, we have been consecrated as a priestly community so our sacrificial giving back to God comes as part of our priestly duty.
Such patterns of giving may seem foreign to our society, a society more focused on self than on others. Yet we belong to God’s people, a people who worship a God who overturns the standards of the world. We pray to this God who makes the childless woman finds her life fruitful, while the mother of many sits forlorn.
urs is the God who raises the poor from the dust; and lifts the needy from the ash heap. God accomplished this great work in lifting up Jesus from the ash heap of the grave and making us part of his holy body.
In a few moments you will receive the gift of the very Body and Blood of Jesus, a gift beyond any earthly value. May you receive in this sacrament the great gift of God’s very self. May you know in this sacrament how deeply you are loved. May you experience through this sacrament how you can return love for love.