Hannah, Teach Us
to Pray
On 1 Samuel 1:4-2:10
By Griff Martin
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On November 18, 201
Incarnate
and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it
into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us
aware of you presence here in this space and in these words God for if we are
present to you then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present to you
then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the
Comforter. Amen.
Picture
it, sitting at the Thanksgiving table…. The small talk has all been made, we
are all caught up on the how are you’s, where is so and so’s, who is doing what
and who is with who. And somehow during all of that you escaped, you smiled and
nodded, you played your part.
Everyone
has already had first servings but a few are going back for more… the famous
cornbread dressing, the turkey gravy, those rolls… someone is trying to stop an
uncle from pouring another glass of chardonnay and someone else is trying to
get the kids to go outside and play. And the silence begins as those who have
gone back for second rounds make their way back to the table and as someone
else brings out a few of the pies.
And
silence.
You
can’t talk about the world because that is way too divisive. It’s a time of
moral and religious and social change and you are not really sure that everyone
sitting around the table agrees with you, in fact based on something the uncle
with the heavy handed pour said earlier in the day, a joke that was not funny,
you are fairly certain that you don’t agree with him and knowing your grandmother
and her penchant for quoting Scripture you are pretty sure you are not seeing
eye to eye anymore.
And
suddenly the conversation shifts and someone says your name…. “Hey, you are
being quiet today. How are things going in your world? Tell us what is new.”
Which
is the last thing you want to talk about with your family…. Because in the last
year as the world has changed, so have you. Questions have come up that have
lead to more questions, as systems that have been in place for a long time
start to crumble you are cheering it on because you have now seen that system
was no good, you are active and alive in a way you have never been before.
Or
maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s that even though they are family, this is
not the place that you belong, maybe it never was and maybe that is new for
you. There are things about you that your family doesn’t understand, or even
worse refuses to understand, and there are roles that they desperately want you
to play and take and you refuse or you can’t. There are secrets that are known
but have never been verbalized and then there are secrets that are unknown.
Walls have been put up. Family meals can do this.
You
answer the best you can. You talk about all the safe topics you can think of
and you make big deals out of things that aren’t really a big deal but you know
will make your family proud, you dance around the subjects you have always
danced around and you play the role you are supposed to play. The good girl,
the good boy, the perfector, the unifier, the peacemaker.
And
then eventually grace upon grace, the meal ends and everyone gets in the car to
go home breathing deep sighs of relief… No politics, no religion, no secrets.
Another successful family meal.
Until
you can’t anymore.
The secrets
become too much. The stuff you are avoiding talking about becomes too much. The
world and the social changes and religious changes and cultural changes become
too much. The jokes that have hints of sexism and racism can no longer be
grinned and tolerated. The systems of your family that have been so long the
norm now cut like razors.This is not a safe place.
What
do you do?
We are
not the first one’s to face this. Hannah faced this. Our text today begins at a
family meal and a festival. They are all gathered together and trying to figure
out what to talk about. They can’t talk about what is going on in the world
because everything is changing… religious changes, social changes, moral
changes… and it’s not easy.
And
then there is Hannah who can’t play the one role that society has deemed most
important for her, she can’t bear children. And her husband’s other wife has
quite the opposite problem, she has kids like the old woman in the shoe and she
makes sure that Hannah knows it every chance she has.
I can
imagine this holiday meal….. since they can’t talk about the world and current
events, all the talk has to be about family. And if you you don’t fit in with
family or can’t play the role that they want you to play, then that is going to
be a hard meal. Add in a relative who is more like a rival and who loves to
make you jealous and loves to put you in your places, and this meal is suddenly
hell.
And
that is where Hannah finds herself.
In
fact things get so bad and so ugly that Hannah eventually excuses herself and
heads to church to pray. This is the “I can’t go on a date Saturday night
because I have to shampoo my hair” excuse of all excuses: I can’t stay for
dessert because they need me at the church to pray this hour. Or maybe she does
not even make an excuse, maybe she finally breaks and she just walks out after
finding hers courage for the first time. And off she goes to church, surely
things will be better at church, right? And it’s not that odd because Hannah
spends a lot of time at church.
Now
Hannah I believe is quite religious. The text we read starts off with a family
that sacrifices, she seems to know the priest, the church is the place that she
goes to when in despair and ultimately this is going to the place where she
makes the greatest sacrifice of trust and faith in her whole life.
She is
probably deacon chair, she is probably the one you can count on to do more than
her share of the work, the one who comes to the meetings and volunteers to take
minutes, the one who you can always count on when someone else drops out at the
last minute, she knows church. She knows worship. She knows how to pray and how
not to pray.
However
this day she finally breaks and well to put it into perspective, this
progressive contemplative baptist woman finally goes pentecostal. She is
weeping and she is praying truth. She is letting the tears fall and she is
telling her whole truth with her whole heart. She is praying to God in a way
that one can only pray to a God they know and they believe in. She has broken
all the rules of the mandatory course “How To Be and Behave Like A Nice
Respectable Religious Woman That The World Will Like Because You Are In Your
Place” (which if you did not know seems to be a class the church has always
taught, actually I mean a lie the church has always taught).
And
she is praying the first real prayer she has ever prayed in her life. It’s not
some polite and well written Invocation from Sunday morning or a prayer she was
taught in Vacation Bible School. It’s not the Lord’s Prayer and it’s not a
responsive reading. Those might work from time to time, but they are sure are
incredibly tidy for a very messy life.
No she
is praying from her heart, telling truths that have been so long bottled up
they come flooding forth once the heart is opened.
In
fact she is praying in such a disgraceful and authentic way that the priest
just assumes she had too much to drink at her holiday meal. This is something
he knows well because his own boys love to drink at holiday meals and non-holiday
meals. And she looks just like his boys when they have had too much to drink,
sloppy blabbering emotional fools.
As I was
thinking about her this week I thought about a woman I saw at ACL Festival a
few weeks ago who had had too much of well it looked like everything. Now she
had enough wits about her to try and make it to the food booths to try and get
something in her, but the problem was it was at that moment when she was too
far gone and trying to sober up that her boyfriend decided to break up with
her. A friend and I were sitting a few feet away from them and we heard the
whole thing, actually anyone close to us heard the whole thing, and you could
not look away.
She
wailed. All emotions were fair game. She told him how much she loved him and
then she told him how much she hated him. She promised him everything she would
do if they stayed together and then promised what would happen if they broke
up. It was ugly and it was messy and it was real and it was authentic. She was
telling the truth, all the truth she had and she was putting it all on the
line. She was using words that I can’t repeat from the pulpit. She made it
obvious how much she loved him and what he meant to her and it was frankly a
bit embarrassing as an outsider to see and hear.
But
maybe that is what prayer should be….. weeping and wailing when there needs to
be weeping and wailing, all the emotions are fair game. It’s love language that
can frankly be embarrassing to admit aloud. It involves words we would never
use in the pulpit. It’s authentic and it’s messy. It’s truths that we don’t
want to say out loud but when we do they will save us. And it is so
embarrassing for someone else to see and hear.
It’s
the disciples all pouring out onto the streets of Jerusalem on Pentecost and
being confused with a bunch of drunks.
It’s a
bit much and it’s always scared us when people start to really pray and we see
real emotion and passion and life and love and religion. We try to calm them
down a bit, we are not those type of Christians. Which is exactly what the
priest does to Hannah. He says to her “How long will you make a drunken
spectacle of yourself?” And he says it in a tone that has always been reserved
for religious authority to speak to females.
However
Hannah is the original Nanette…. Hannah Gadsby: “There is nothing stronger than
a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.” And Hannah has started to rebuild
herself that moment, because that is what prayer can do, when we really
pray.
And
instead of giving the answer that she would have given even a day earlier, “Oh
Priest, oh Eli, I am so sorry, I got carried away let me get ahold of myself.”
Instead she stands up and she says to the priest, “I am a woman deeply troubled
and that is a lot stronger and scarier than a drunk woman. I am a woman who is
pouring my heart out to God and the is about as strong as it gets. I am telling
my truth and I am sick and tired of the way things have been. I want more for
me and I want more for you and I want more for our community.”
And
the priest was stunned because he heard truth…. “Go in peace, and may the God
of Israel grant you the petition you have made.”
And off
she went, Scripture tells us she was no longer troubled. I think it’s because
she finally let go and she finally prayed and when she did she saw the world in
a new and truthful way. You see that is what prayer does. Prayer makes us
stronger than we knew possible and it makes us see things we did not know
possible.
Prayer
is all we have when there are wars and rumors of war, nations fighting against
nations, earthquakes and famines, rulers fighting against rulers (you know the
Gospel text today)… Prayer is all we have for wildfires, mass shootings,
political division…. Prayer is all we have for family dinners with secrets and
conversations off limit, homes where you can’t be your true self… which is to
say prayer is all we have.
Prayer
reminds us that the center holds, prayer reminds us that love will win, prayer
reminds us that resurrection is the greater truth, prayer reminds us that all
will be all and all matter of things will be well.
But it
takes authentic prayer, the laying it all down and holding nothing back prayer,
the prayers of those who are willing to share their whole truths with their
whole hearts, the prayers of those who don’t care what they look like because
all they care about is getting to God, the prayers of those who are willing to look
like drunks in church.
I have
known a few of these folks during my life.
I am
not one of those folks. I have to confess that I care way too much what people
think about me and I love control too much and I am scared of the whole truth
and speaking it with my whole heart. There are moments I have come close and
God those moments are glorious, but they aren’t the norm for me.
However
I know folks for whom this is the norm…. And let me tell you they are some of
my favorite folks. Because they are real because they are not building walls
trying to hide things, and they are not scared of talking about anything
because they knew who they are, and they have a connection to God that allows
them to pray truths and then give it over to God and then miracle of all
miracles, to live.
And
this week, Thanksgiving week, it’s worth stating they are also some of the most
joyous and grateful people I know. Because they see the small things that I
often miss because I am so worried about keeping it all in here and I am so
attached to my thinking and because they know that all the good has nothing to
do with us, so why not celebrate it and be grateful?
These
are the folks like, Hannah, who can be on the floor of the church one day
weeping with a concern before God and praying in such a way that they cause a
spectacle and then just a short time later like Hannah praying a prayer that
will be so instrumental it becomes the foundation for the prayer of Mary, the
mother of Jesus.
A
prayer like this:
I’m
bursting with God-news!
I’m
walking on air.
I’m
laughing at my rivals.
I’m
dancing my salvation.
Nothing
and no one is holy like God,
no
rock mountain like our God.
Don’t
dare talk pretentiously—
not
a word of boasting, ever!
For
God knows what’s going on.
He
takes the measure of everything that happens.
The
weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces,
while
the weak are infused with fresh strength.
The
well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts,
while
the hungry are getting second helpings.
The
barren woman has a houseful of children,
while
the mother of many is bereft.
God
brings death and God brings life,
brings
down to the grave and raises up.
God
brings poverty and God brings wealth;
he
lowers, he also lifts up.
He
puts poor people on their feet again;
he
rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope,
Restoring
dignity and respect to their lives—
a
place in the sun!
For
the very structures of earth are God’s;
he
has laid out his operations on a firm foundation.
He
protectively cares for his faithful friends, step by step,
but
leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark.
No
one makes it in this life by sheer muscle!
God’s
enemies will be blasted out of the sky,
crashed
in a heap and burned.
God
will set things right all over the earth,
he’ll
give strength to his king,
he’ll
set his anointed on top of the world!
Here
is truth… I am tired of holding it back and working so hard to look
respectable. I am tired of avoiding truths I want to share all of my heart and
I want to be honest about topics that might offend folks but also might start a
conversation that heals us. I want to be a person of joy and gratitude. So this
week with Hannah as my guide, I am going to work on authentic prayer because
authentic prayer leads to all the things I want in my life: faith, gratitude,
joy, honesty and a love with God that makes other people blush.
Will
you join me? Can we become a community that is no longer holding back and is
not concerned with looking respectable? Can we be people of faith, gratitude,
joy, honesty and a love with God that makes other’s blush?
Amen
and Amen.
*artwork: Your Prayer, Drawing by Jude Berman, judeberman.org
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