Hannah Ratliff

Columbia Theological Seminary

Preached April 12, 2018

*Note: This sermon was edited further after it was preached, thanks to the feedback of faithful and thoughtful classmates with new perspectives.*

***

            Will you pray with me?

Faithful God, we come to You wondering what Your word means for our lives today. We pray that the Spirit may move through this space and in ourselves. Give us new ears for hearing, new hearts for understanding, and new minds for learning. We pray all this in Your holy name. Amen.

Today’s scripture is from First Samuel, chapter one, verses 12-20. Listen now for the word of the Lord.

“As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.’ But 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. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.’ Then Eli answered, ‘Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made.’ And 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. They rose early in the morning and worshipped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered her. In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked him of the LORD.’” The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

 

I grew up hearing a lot about the story of Hannah. She wanted a baby so bad that she would pray and cry, and cry and pray. Finally, it seemed, she asked God the exact right number of times for her wish to be granted, and she was given Samuel, the real hero of the story. And that was it. That’s who I was named for.

That story never really added up for me, and in a lot of ways, even the full story doesn’t add up to me today. There is a whole mess of complicated implications about motherhood in this text that I simply don’t have answers for, and can’t get around to in the short time I have here. But something that confused me, even as a child, and that I wanted to make sense of, was why Hannah so desperately wanted to be a mother at all. As a kid, it seemed to me she had a pretty sweet thing going on. She had a great husband who loved her, took care of her, and didn’t seem to care about her fertility challenges. Hannah was being taken care of, and didn’t have to take care of anybody else. Sure, Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah gave her a hard time about not having a baby, but that was no big deal. I couldn’t make sense of what Hannah was so upset about. I couldn’t relate to the character whose name I shared.

When I was a kid, as soon as I could understand what motherhood – at least in my white, suburban, heteronormative context – looked like, I had some trepidations about the whole thing. Sure, I knew being a mom was a noble ambition – they were the ones, I was told, who put together the cells that made another life. They were the ones, in my experience, who taught you how to read, the ones who rocked you to sleep, the ones who held you in their arms in the hospital bed, locked eyes with you for the first time, and loved you, irrevocably, forever. But I was aware, from a young age, that there was another, grosser, side to motherhood, too. I saw, often, that Moms were also the ones that had to wipe the snot off your nose with their bare hands! They were the ones, I heard, that burped you every night after dinner, with the goal in mind being that you would throw up a little spittle down their backs before falling asleep! They were the ones, I was told, that drove you from softball practice, to math tutor, to trombone practice, and then made a hot meal for when you finally arrived home. Most of the time, they were even the ones who grew you inside themselves for the better part of a year, and then endured the visceral bodily horror of pushing you out into the world! It was absolutely wild to me that anyone would voluntarily go into such a vocation.

Needless to say, I have long been wary of the concept of motherhood. I’m still very unsure if it’s a task I, personally, feel called to take on. So, I couldn’t wrap my mind around why Hannah was so torn up about avoiding this thing that I just saw as a big, scary, gross responsibility. It probably won’t come as a shock to you that I now think I was very much missing the point.

One of Hannah’s most powerful lines of dialogue, in my opinion, comes in verse sixteen. “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman,” Hannah says. A worthless woman. Hannah knows that this is how the world sees her. Worthless. Cursed. Barren. According to the world around her, she has forsaken her only duty, to reproduce and continue the line of Elkanah’s household. It seems that, in Ancient Israel, a woman’s role was as a vessel for reproduction. And in such a world, someone like Hannah – well, her life would hang in a tenuous balance.

Not only did Hannah’s lack of children mean the absence of maternal responsibilities, but it also meant a significant lack of status and security. “Sure,” she may have thought, “Elkanah still loves me now… but circumstances change. Perhaps as my youth and beauty fade, he might come to think of me differently. Perhaps another wife will come into the picture and he will forget about me entirely. Perhaps that nasty Peninnah will take the opportunity to gain the upper hand, and cast me out of the picture.” Hannah’s lack of children put her at great practical risk. I imagine that there was a constant, nagging worry: would today be the day that her safety, her protection, and the only family she had would be snatched out from underneath her?

But practical concerns weren’t the only thing at play here. I think it’s easy to reduce our understanding of Ancient Israel as a place where people were simply desperate to survive, and had little time to bother with complicated feelings or crises of identity. This is untrue, and I think it’s a disservice to the text. No, I am certain that beyond securing what could have been a precarious position as Elkanah’s wife, there was something else going on in Hannah’s desperation for a child. Though motherhood in Ancient Israel was the establishment of a solid, embodied familial tie between husband and wife which could not be undone, it was something more – it was the creation, also, of a new connection, between mother and child, a connection that was likely more remarkable and earnest than most young women had ever experienced before. Motherhood was a more secure social status, sure, but it was also a new relationship, with another person who, instantly, loved you in a way unlike any other. It was someone who looked at you with wonder, who looked to you for comfort, who looked at you in gratitude. It was a connection that meant something, and it was one worth fighting for.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Hannah wanted to be accepted by the culture and community that she was a part of. She wanted to be validated by her peers, secured in her position as a wife in her household. She probably wanted to shut Peninnah up. But I think she also wanted something else – she wanted a relationship with a child who would love her, who she would love, in the complicated and fraught, but often beautiful and mysterious bond which mothers share with children. So that makes it all the more poignant, and confusing, that once she gets the child she has been praying and hoping for, she gives Samuel as a gift to God, to be raised in the Temple – apart from her.

Hannah wanted a connection, I think. She did not want to be seen as a worthless woman. She begged God to help, to give her the worth that she thought she lacked and to solidify her connections in this world. And then, as soon as she got this wish, she seemed to hand it away. It makes me wonder if this whole thing was really about the baby at all.

I don’t think that God ever saw in Hannah the woman that the rest of the world did. I don’t think that God ever saw Hannah as worthless, childless, alone. I think that God heard the prayers of a woman who was hurt by the world around her, a world that told her that because she had not given birth, she did not matter. I think that God heard the prayers of a woman who was growing weary of the constant, searing ache of loneliness. I think God heard the prayers of a woman who was begging to be told that she was worth something, and that someone looked at her with wonder, and loved her with a connection beyond comprehension. And I think that God responded with the message God provides to each of us, today and every day: That we are worthy, no matter how many times the world around us may say otherwise, because we are loved beyond measure by the creator of the universe.

Our world is constantly bombarding us with attacks on our self-worth. Look around and you’ll hear and see the sometimes subtle, insidious messages implying inferiority: It takes years, decades — whole lives, even — for many women, like myself, to start to love and appreciate the bodies that they have long been told aren’t attractive enough, lean enough, good enough. From the first day we’re sent to school, we’re raised in academic competition with one another, and if you don’t come out on top every time with a perfect test score, you can start to think maybe you weren’t that smart after all. Instead of collaboration, many American industries reward cutthroat rivalries, with clear winners and losers. Getting a position of power and authority is often prioritized far higher than ethics like collaborative thinking, or — gasp — compassion for the person presented as your competitor. If you’re not the wealthiest, the smartest, the most attractive… then, well, the world has no problem telling you that you’re worthless. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman.

            If you’re a person struggling with infertility, you are a beloved child of God. If you come from a home with an absent mother, or were raised in the foster care system, or you are a child of adoption, or your relationship with your mother is strained or broken, you are a beloved child of God. If you got passed over for that promotion, or were let go from your dream job, or can’t seem to get called back for an interview, you are a beloved child of God. If you failed that Hebrew exam, or got a C on an exegesis paper you were really proud of, or just can’t seem to get through Ordination Exams, you are a beloved child of God. If you are a trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary person, you are a beloved child of God. If you are struggling with your weight, battling an eating disorder, or both at once, you are a beloved child of God. If you have had a hysterectomy or mastectomy, or have lost a limb, or are differently-abled, you are a beloved child of God. If you just don’t feel at home in your body, or your mind is a place ravaged by fear, and anxiety, and confusion, you are a beloved child of God. You are a beloved child of God.

What was Hannah asking for when she prayed to God? Was she asking for a baby in her belly? Or maybe something else? I think, like many of us, Hannah was begging God to look at her, and say, as God has so many times:

My sweet child! You are worth more to me than you can fathom! You are worth all the jewels of the ground, and all the stars of the sky. You are beautiful, you are bright, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are made in my image, and I remember you always in love.

God said this to Hannah. I pray that you may hear it as God whispers it to each and every one of you. Amen.