Lord, Make Things Right!

Prayer

Hannah’s Anguish

Today we’re moving into the book of 1 Samuel, which marks the beginning of the monarchs, the period of the kings, for the nation of Israel. Hope was that having a king to lead the nation would strengthen its faithfulness to the Lord. If you remember, the book of Judges ended with the ominous note, 21:25, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”

In today’s story, we’ll be looking at the birth of Samuel. the last of the judges. He marks the transition of Israel being led by judges to an actual king, someone who would rule over the entire unified. As much as they might hope things would be better under a king - like the rest of the history of the Israelites, it’s a very mixed bag.

Story begins with Samuel’s birth - you’ll recognize some common themes which point to God’s working here, and that this child will do great things for God and for his people.

Story begins with a faithful and pious man by the name of Elkanah and his two wives, Hannah, who was barren and didn’t have any children, and Peninnah, who had several sons and daughters.

1 Samuel 1:3-8: Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. 4 Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. 5 But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb. 6 Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. 7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. 8 Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

You’ll notice that Elkanah is a faithful man, he would take his entire family every year to Shiloh, to the Tabernacle, to worship, make sacrifices. He would make a fellowship offering, share the meat from the animal sacrificed (which was a rare treat) with his wives - Peninnah would get numerous portions because of all her children, and he gave Hannah a double portion, a gesture of kindness due to her barrenness.

Children were the honor of a woman - which meant that if you were a wife who didn’t have any, that was a source of shame, which Peninnah would remind Hannah of. Trip to Shiloh became an annual trip of sorrow for Hannah, who couldn’t even enjoy meat given to her because of Peninnah’s provocations.

After they share in the fellowship meal, Hannah goes to the Tabernacle area to pray, where Eli the priest is sitting, watching, 1 Samuel 1:10-11 - In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. 11 And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

Hannah is praying out of the depths of her soul, deep anguish, weeping bitterly. Here is a woman pouring her heart out before God. Out of her anguish she makes a vow to the Lord that if he blesses her with a child, she will dedicate him to the Lord as a Nazirite (no razor would touch his head - just like Samson).

After Hannah makes her vow, we have this almost comical moment where Eli confronts Hannah as she is praying because he thinks she is drunk - from a purely observational aspect, her behavior is odd - her lips are moving but she isn’t speaking her prayers out loud. It would be a strange sight. On the other hand, it was the tabernacle, home of the ark of the covenant - symbol of God’s presence among them - why would you think someone was drunk rather than praying at the tabernacle??

Anyway, when Eli realizes that she is coming to God out of her deep suffering, he offers her a blessing. And Hannah leaves and we get this great little note, “Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.” Just being able to pour her heart out to God, and to receive a word of encouragement, of blessing, is already proving to be a great comfort to her.

And God answers Hannah’s prayer - 1 Samuel 1:19-20, Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”

God remembered her, saw her suffering, and righted the wrong. Hannah names her child “Samuel” in recognition of that - Samuel means “name of God”. But in the Hebrew it sounds like phrase “heard by God.” God heard. God heard my cry. I asked the Lord for him and he heard me and answered my prayer.

Hannah kept her promise, raising Samuel until he was weaned and then taking him back to Shiloh and giving him to the Lord, to be under Eli’s care and to serve the Lord there.

And as Hannah gives the boy over to the Lord, we get another prayer from Hannah, a prayer that has a very different tone from the one she prayed several years earlier, 1 Samuel 2:1-11 - Then Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. 2 “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. 3 “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed. 4 “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. 5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry are hungry no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away. 6 “The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. 7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 8 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. “For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s; on them he has set the world. 9 He will guard the feet of his faithful servants, but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails; 10  those who oppose the Lord will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth. “He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.” 11 Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest.

Prayer - That God Would Set Things Right

Stop here for a moment to consider Hannah’s praying. What really sticks about her prayers is the depth from which they come. These are no perfunctory prayers, prayers mindlessly repeated.

I think about the prayer our family used to say, in German, before dinner every night - Komme, Jesus, seih uns our gast, sie was du unst beshertest hast. For years I have to confess, I had no idea what we were praying. I was just mouthing the words that we prayed so quickly that it seemed they were just strung together. One day I finally thought through the prayer, parsed out all the words and realized what I’d actually been asking for all these years - Come, Jesus, be our guest, come see what you have blessed us with. It’s actually a beautiful little meal-time prayer. Sadly, for years there was little of my heart in those prayers.

Hannah’s prayers come out, as she herself describes, out of her soul, from the deepest part of who she is. The first one out of the suffering of her soul, her anguish, her grief. She is praying the type of prayer we see throughout the psalms - prayers of people crying out to God, crying out for his help. In the Psalms these prayer are known as Psalms of Lament.

Now, this may seem very obvious, but I think its helpful at times to state the obvious - but her prayers speaks to why we pray in the first place (or, at least one of the main reasons why we pray). And it’s simply this - things are not right and we pray because we want God, we need God, to set things right. And that “not right” could be in our own lives, or in the lives of people we care about, or just the things we see as we look around at the world around us.

Women were made to bear children - and when things are working right, their bodies functioning properly, that’s exactly what happens. But it wasn’t happening for Hannah. Something had gone wrong and she, much to her great grief, was unable to bear children. So she cried out to God - Lord, set this right!

So many of our prayers revolve around physical health. We can think of several of our own who are struggling with painful ailments, diseases - with cancer, with nerve pain, the list goes on. And we know these things are not right - that we were made for life, for wholeness. So we cry out to God.

And there’s no shortage of what’s not right in the world - babies killed in the womb…children and youth taken into sexual slavery…leaders more interested in their own financial and political gain…young people struggling with anxiety and depression.

To pray as Hannah does, to cry out to God - Lord, make it right. These things are wrong. It’s to pray, not from a distance, removed, untouched, mindlessly (like I did for so long with our family dinner prayers) - but in the midst of it - from hearts that yearn for the good. That recognizes suffering, wherever it might be, and wants it ended. Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, prayed for such a heart this way, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

The shortest verse in the Bible is actually a great example of this, it’s John 11:35 Jesus wept. Why Jesus weeps is so telling. One of his dear friends, Lazarus, has died. But Jesus knows he is about to raise him from the dead. And yet he sees Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, and all of Lazarus’ friends, and their great sadness, and he shares in that. He recognizes - this isn’t right. My father didn’t make them for death, but for life. So he weeps.

Can’t help but think about our situation here at PCC, as we consider God’s unique Kingdom calling for us - sticking point was a lack of connection to the community. I hope that not only will we pray to recognize needs in community (needs that God may well call us to meet), but to have a heart for the community, people around us would matter to us - their struggles, their suffering, want them to experience goodness of God’s kingdom. Things set right. Which is really what we are asking for - God’s kingdom would come in full, everything set right. This is what was at heart of Hannah’s prayer.

Hannah’s second prayer actually reflects the same heart - except that it’s not a prayer of crying out to God to set things right, it’s a prayer of praise in recognition that he does! Prayer that declares to God - Lord, you do make things right. We pray not only because we want God to set things right - but because he does. And because we know he will.

Interesting to note that this prayer isn’t primarily about her own situation, although she does reference it. Her prayer is one of praising God, declaring that he is the holy one, the Rock, the one to whom no one else can compare. He is the one who sets things right. In an upside down world, he turns things right side up. It is the great reversal.

We see all the flip flops - bows of warrior are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. Those who were full hire themselves out, but the hungry are hungry no more. The woman who was barren (like Hannah!) will have seven children, but the one who has many will pine away.

Whole theme continues - God brings death and makes alive, God sends poverty and wealth. He humbles and exalts - because he is the Lord God, he is the one who set the foundations of the world. If you oppose him you will broken, but if you humble yourself, you will be lifted up, you will be watched over.

Because he is the Judge of all. He will, as Hannah reminds us in her prayer, judge the ends of the earth. What does a judge do? A judge rights wrongs. Establishes justice.

But I want to call your attention particularly to this one little note at the end - very last line of the prayer: “He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.” Think about this for a moment - when Hannah prayed that prayer, there was no king in Israel, that is still more than a generation away. There has never been a king in Israel at this time in their history. So who is the king that the Lord God will give strength to, will exalt?

Hannah is praying prophetically - about the king to come, the Lord’s anointed one. The Hebrew word for the anointed one is Messiah. The Greek word is Christ. She is speaking about Jesus the King of Kings.

Jesus is the one who will usher in the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the one who will defeat sin and death - which is the root of everything wrong. Everything that opposes the Kingdom of God, that goes against God’s will. And sin and death are exactly what Jesus defeated through his death and resurrection.

This is why we can pray with confidence (as Hannah does) asking the Lord to set things right. To continue that great reversal - to bring healing and wholeness to the things that are broken. To bring freedom to those in captivity. To bring life where there is death. The great hope of the Kingdom of God is that Jesus will restore everything. That he will set things right.

Spiritual Disciplines - which brings us to what this means for us, and how we might pray. As always, we finish our time of teaching with spiritual disciplines, soul training exercises, that help to center our lives in Jesus Christ and in his love for us. And of course, it’s prayer this week, the discipline of prayer. Two things that I think are really helpful, that we learn from Hannah in regards to prayer:

The first we see from Hannah (and the psalms, numerous other places in the Bible), is willingness to cry out. A willingness to open ourselves up to God, to bring our pain and our brokenness to him. To pray from the depths of our soul. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that we should pray with our minds and our spirits. Bring the fullness of who we are in prayer to God - mindful, thoughtful about what we’re praying, but out of our spirit as well, our hearts connected to God (not distant, removed, but with an openness to God and his Spirit in us).

The second thing we see from Hannah is to pray with confidence. Out of a firm belief that no matter the difficulty of the situation we’re facing, or suffering someone dear to us is enduring, it may just be the utter brokenness we see around us. To remember that He is greater. He is the great God, the Lord Almighty. Jesus is the one who has defeated sin and death. We’re praying, knowing that all thing will be set right in the Kingdom of God, that’s what God does, he sets things right. Our focus in prayer should be - not on the difficulty of what we face - but on the strength and power and goodness of our God.

Let’s pray.