A sermon for Provoking Faith in a Time of Isolation,
the online gathering of Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church,
October 18th 2020
Sometimes, when calling for social justice,
the most
effective voice is the most vulnerable voice.
Martin Luther King may have been the great orator,
but it took
Rosa Parks to strategically sit in the wrong seat
before she,
and the Alabama bus boycott she triggered,
became
national symbols for change in the civil rights movement.
Similarly, we might ask why it is,
that the
most effective international voice in recent years
in the
fight against fossil fuels is Greta Thunburg,
a
young schoolgirl Sweden,
who
is incredibly still just 17 years old.
Similarly, the strongest voice calling for gender equality
in education in Pakistan,
is Malala
Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban as a teenager
and
recovered to win the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17.
Similarly, the right for everyone to vote in elections in
the UK
was won by
the steadfast witness and courage of the suffragettes,
including Emmeline
Pankhurst and Emily Wilding Davison.
Similarly, the modern feminist movement found its origins
in the
writings of Simone de Beauvoir.
And I could go on, for the entirety of this sermon,
naming
people like Claudia Jones,
the
Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist
deported
from the USA for becoming a Black feminist leader
in
the American Communist Party.
And then of course there is Mary the mother of Jesus,
whose song
of justice in Luke’s gospel, often known as the Magnificat,
heralded
the birth of Jesus.
And all these women, the named and the unnamed,
who have
opened their mouths
and sung or
spoken the songs and poems of justice,
are the spiritual descendants of Hannah,
who we meet
in our Bible reading for this morning.
And Hannah is truly a remarkable woman,
not least
because we actually know her name.
Most of the women in the Old Testament are unnamed,
known only
as the ‘wife of’ or ‘daughter of’ a named man.
Additionally, it is equally rare in the Old Testament
for a woman
to be heard speaking.
Whereas Hannah is both named, and speaks,
which
already makes her rare within the biblical narrative.
But even more unusual is that fact that this woman,
whose name
we know and whose words we hear,
is, in
social terms, a nobody.
She’s not married to someone significant,
and she’s
not done anything to establish her reputation.
She’s just an ordinary married woman with no children,
which in
the world of the Old Testament
was about
as insignificant as you could get.
These days, we are used to women having control over
reproduction,
from
effective contraception to IVF treatment.
But there are still plenty of women who long for children
but can’t have them,
and who hear
the desires of their own hearts in Hannah’s prayer for a child.
And although the focus of our sermon this morning is not on
issues of childlessness,
we do well
to recognise that a story where a woman prays for a child
and
then immediately gets one
is a
difficult story for some women to hear.
And we need to remember together
that when
we bring children to church for dedication,
there will
be those present who find such services profoundly painful.
So let’s return for a moment to the social world the Old
Testament,
where barrenness
was often regarded as a curse from God;
and parents who got to old age without children,
were not
just at risk economically, with no-one to look after them,
but they
were also outcast socially,
stigmatised
as having not been blessed by God.
Culturally therefore, in the Ancient Near East,
the pressure
to have children was overwhelming,
and Hannah’s request for a male child
would have
echoed the desire of most women.
Female children, at that time, were a liability that cost
you money;
whereas
male children could work and bring money into the family.
If you could only have one child,
you wanted
a boy, so that was what you prayed for first.
Even down to our world today,
there are still
some cultures that prefer sons to daughters,
and female
infanticide is one of the tragedies of human history.
So this makes what Hannah says next to the Lord so
remarkable:
She says
that if she is granted a male child,
she will
dedicate that child to God.
He won’t be the answer to her security in old age,
because he
will have been dedicated as a Nazirite,
offered in
lifelong service to God alone.
And here we get our first glimpse
that the
significance of Hannah’s story
is bigger
than her personal desires or concerns.
She starts with her personal experience of childlessness,
but then
moves beyond this
to
a recognition that how God responds to her,
in
her time of powerlessness,
is
in fact a profound revelation of who God is;
and that
this in turn places a call on her
to
respond to that revelation of God’s nature.
In other words, if God is the kind of God
who looks
with favour on a powerless, childless woman,
then God is also a God who looks with favour on all those
who live
with poverty, injustice, and oppression.
But Hannah also realises
that God’s
response to those afflicted
is not through a simplistic
answering of prayer,
or
the granting of heartfelt desires.
The blessings that God gives to the world
are not to
be taken individually
and horded personally;
they are for the common good,
because God
is working for the good of all people.
And so Hannah prays for a son,
but as she
does so she promises to offer that son back to God.
Her own decisions about Samuel
reflect her
understanding of how God works in human affairs.
God is not some localised, family-centric deity;
God is not
some household-god to whom you bring your personal desires;
God’s blessings are not for the fortunate favoured few;
God blesses
the world,
and
does so by remembering the vulnerable and the oppressed.
So then Hannah prays this remarkable prayer,
and in
doing so, she herself becomes a prophet of God,
proclaiming
God’s nature into being in the world.
Extrapolating from her own experience,
Hannah
realises that God is not on the side of the strong and the powerful,
but
is rather on the side of the weak and the powerless.
She
realises that God’s blessings are not found in fine food or abundant living,
but
in the feeding of the hungry and the care of the dispossessed.
She
realises that many children are not, in fact a sign of God’s favour,
and
that life is a gift given for the blessing of many.
She
realises that God is not a local, tribal, or regional deity,
who
pours goodness upon those who worship faithfully;
but is
rather the God of all people near and far,
and
longs to raise up the poor and lift up the needy.
As Hannah puts it,
‘For the
pillars of the earth are the LORD's,
and on them
God has set the world.’
Her son, of course, will be the great prophet Samuel,
who anoints
the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David.
But her greatest legacy was not her son,
it was the
vision of God that she articulated.
And Hannah’s song was echoed, a thousand or more years
later, in the song of Mary,
who
similarly proclaimed the overthrow of the dominant social order
when she
sang with joy at the imminent birth of her son Jesus.
Within the Christian tradition, the vision of Hannah’s song
finds its
fulfilment in the revelation of God
that
comes into being through Mary;
another
insignificant woman
who
dared to respond with faith.
And it continues to find its fulfilment in our world
as women
speak out from the truth of their experience
to
challenge oppression and highlight injustice.
From the courage of those
who have told
their stories as part of the #metoo movement,
to the women who have blessed our Baptist family
through their
gifts of ministry, leadership, and preaching,
despite
those voices that have tried to deny their right to do this.
The insights of those who have been disempowered
by society,
patriarchy, and misogyny,
can still speak truth to power
just as
Hannah’s voice three millennia ago
revealed
the bias of God towards the poor and the vulnerable.
This is not, however, to fetishize the voices of the abused,
or to excuse
their treatment,
as if we somehow need those who have been oppressed
in order to
hear God speak.
Rather, it is a recognition that when human failings
create
structural oppression,
whether on the grounds of gender,
ethnicity,
sexuality, or social status;
God is always at work with and within
those who
live with disempowerment,
and God’s nature is always
to bring
justice to those facing injustice.
So can we hear the gospel of Hannah?
Can we
rejoice that God raises up the poor,
and empowers the weak?
And can we,
with her, learn to dedicate to God
the deepest desires of our own
hearts,
as we catch
a glimpse of God
as one who is above all, in all, and
through all.
‘For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's,
and on them
God has set the world.’
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