Text: 1 Samuel 1:1-20

Before I get to Hannah’s story, I’m going to briefly share my own story, as well as part of a conversation I had with my friend and colleague Charlene this week. When Joe and I set out to have our first child, we were successful immediately. Completely to my surprise, because I was ancient (almost 30!) and was told it could take a few tries – or maybe more than a few tries – to make it happen. About 5 years later, when we decided to have a second child – when I was literally geriatric in the pregnancy sense – it took longer. It did take more than a year. And then that pregnancy didn’t come to term.

I felt like a failure. Like my body had betrayed me. Like there was something wrong with me. My friend Charlene, who is older than I am by about a decade or more, has a story that is similar, except she was never able to have any biological children. She spent years trying IVF. She lost more than one pregnancy. She felt both the intense hope and the intense disappointment with each cycle of trying and she also felt ashamed and grieved and angry.

She told me about going into a clinic, at that time in her late twenties, having already tried for several years and lost one pregnancy, and seeing a pregnant teen, in the clinic with her own mother. Charlene felt like that girl and her pregnancy were mocking her. A girl pregnant so young and carrying a baby she wasn’t even really ready for, would have her mother help her raise. And here Charlene was, ready and longing for a child that she would welcome and care for and she was barren.

I share these stories, of course, because we’re reading about a story of barrenness…and miraculous conception. A somewhat common theme in scripture – from Sarah and Abraham through to Elizabeth and Zechariah. These are hard stories to hear when those struggles have been a part of your experience and you have not experienced the miracle. The women in scripture – including Hannah – live in a culture and theological context in which their identity and legacy is created through their biological children – particularly sons.

That’s not so much the case in contemporary culture. Women and men both are more and more often choosing not to have children for all kinds of reasons – not least of which are over population and human-caused climate change. An effort to care for God’s creation. But even now, that’s a more unusual choice. There is still a cultural pressure – especially on women – to have biological children and to make motherhood a part of one’s identity. Young women are still asked by their older relatives or peers, “When are you going to start a family??”

How much more, then, would Hannah have been experiencing that pain and pressure and longing. Compounded by the fact that she is in a family where another woman is not just passively by her presence – like the teen in Charlene’s story – but actively teasing her, mocking her. Surely Hannah is already fully feeling shame and failure and sorrow.

One of the things that makes this story unique among the other infertility stories is Hannah’s action and initiative  in the midst of her pain. She and the family are at a festival meal – a kind of Thanksgiving Day feast near the temple – and she is so distraught she can’t even eat. And eventually she goes into the temple and, “presents herself before the Lord.” She retreats into prayer.

I have to admit (maybe shockingly?) that prayer is not often my first response to grief. I do have other spiritual practices that regularly ground me, but dialogical prayer is not often among them. Certainly not in the manner that Hannah does, which is to ‘vow,’ according to the text, but I think bargain is maybe more accurate. She tells God that if only God will grant her a child, she will dedicate that child to a holy path.

In the temple, Hannah also finds Eli. Now Eli’s pastoral response is not the best – at least initially. I can’t imagine it going down very well if I came in and accused and chided a church member for drunkenness on a Sunday morning that it would go down very well. And frankly, even if one of you would come in here high or hung-over the right response would be one of care and concern not scolding.

I’m giving Eli a very very slight pass because first the usual practice for public prayer was to pray aloud, vocalizing the prayers to be heard, so Hannah’s sorrowful whispers were weird and out of place. I’m also forgiving him slightly because Hannah’s own response to him is open and forthright. She pours out her sorrows to him – her priest. She needs him as non-family community. She needs faith family. And to his credit he pivots immediately. He does respond in care and concern. He sees her sorrow and offers solace: May God grant your desire.

And what it interesting to me is that after pouring out her heart to God and finding care in human relationship, the story says that Hannah’s ‘countenance was sad no longer.’ She is at peace and settled enough to return to her family, to eat and drink as usual. She has no idea whether or not her prayers will amount to anything. She doesn’t know that that her child Samuel is in her future. And yet she has found solace.

Charlene told me that one of the times she was pregnant, she did give birth very very early to a child that was barely more than a fetus, but perfectly formed. And in that instance she had a pastor who prepared and led a service of loss and dedication for her and her husband that allowed her to both feel the sorrow and release the child. It was a moment of both prayer and solace, human connection and Divine connection.

I don’t need to tell you that people experience many more kinds of pain and grief and sorrow and distress than infertility or pregnancy loss. We live in a suffering world. I said earlier that prayer – at least in a traditional sense – is not a natural fit for me. And yet I do believe in prayer, not least because of the space it makes in our own hearts for God’s work.

Maybe this goes without saying, but it doesn’t take the place of medical or psychological or pharmaceutical interventions. But it can be a companion to them or can make space to discern the ways in which those interventions are necessary to find the healing or peace we may receive.

In the church we have access to something that Hannah did not, though we can follow her example of prayer and human connection. Although our culture does cling tenaciously to the primacy of the nuclear family, Jesus claimed anyone who was ready to join the reign of God would be a part of God’s family. In Jesus all of us are siblings, children in God’s family. Biology no longer determines legacy.

That could be good news both to people who are not at all interested in creating biological families. It could also be good news to people who long to nurture and care for young ones but are not able to. For Charlene, she became a dedicated Auntie and has spent part of her ministry career in service to children and youth.

In church, we have inherited the blessing of both prayer and supportive spiritual leaders and community to uphold us and to provide solace and companionship in sorrow.  We have available to us both a relationship with God, our creator and with siblings in the faith family. I’ve focused on fertility/infertility but obviously people suffer in many ways, are alienated from bio family for many reasons, have un-met longings and needs and distress that cause great pain.

Prayer is not a cure-all. Or even a cure-anything. But it can be healing. It is a conversation and an opportunity to pour out the pain. I said earlier that personal prayer is not necessarily a natural fit for me, but prayer with and for other is something that I find meaningful.

While I didn’t preach as often in my previous role as pastor, I did regularly offer a pastoral and intercessory prayer in worship and I sometimes miss that. I relish the opportunity to name the people and places and systems into which I long for God’s presence to be powerfully felt.

With that in mind, I invite you to join me in prayer as I conclude my reflections on Hannah’s sorrow and solace

God of Hannah,

who reached out to you in her longing,

hear our prayers today.

We see a world in pain,

people suffering because of war and injustice

and our hearts break.

We see people in our own cities and communities

struggling under the weight of inequity –

We ourselves and those we love carry longing and sorrow, guilt and grief.

We bear burdens of illness in body and mind and spirit.

We carry the brokenness of relationships, alienation and loss.

Come and be with us in our pain.

Open our hearts to your loving presence

and to be a loving presence to those who hurt.

Open our hands to the work of hope and healing.

So that like Hannah,

we may come to proclaim your praise,

as witnesses to your power in the world and in our lives.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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