Women Lead Here

Follow the Leader • Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

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Hannah's story is an amazing picture of crying out to God, one of 6 stories of barrenness in the Bible, and as Mary will do, she gives him to the service of the Lord and "he grows in wisdom and stature and favor with God"

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Women Lead Here

The next book of The Bible Project is Samuel, never mind the 1&2 it’s just divided that way because of scroll length, it’s one continuous narrative about how Israel’s life unravels when they ask for a king.

Nate started us off last week with Eli, Samuel, and we’ll talk more about Kings Saul, David, and Solomon, but we’re in today and it’s super important to notice how this grand story of Israel’s first kings begins. Not with kings.

If you really want to know about a person, there’s one person who truly knows.

Instead, the story begins with someone who something more noble than any king. She is the one who gets the whole story started by crying out to God. It’s an important theme in scripture, a woman who is infertile prays for God to come and rescue her.

The narrator of Samuel is going to begin with THE person who can truly tell us something important about the namesake of this scroll, the last priest/prophet before the kingship politics of Israel begins, and Samuel is the one who anoints the first king, the one who brought “listening,” SHEMA, back to Israel, as Nate showed us last week.

If you really want to know about a person, there’s one who knows more than anyone else knows, who watches this person more than anyone else watches Samuel. Who is it that can tell you more about someone than anyone else? Mom. The story named after Samuel starts not with the birth of Samuel but with the turmoil of Samuel’s mother before Samuel, the choices and vows she makes and keeps to the Lord.

We know it’s not her husband, Elkanah, because he’s married to Peninnah ().

1 Samuel 1:1–2 TNIV

There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.

Her name is Hannah, and her name in Hebrew is “Channah” and means “Grace and Favor.”

But Hannah did not FEEL FAVORED.

1 Samuel 1:3–6 TNIV

1 Samuel 1:3-8

1 Samuel 1:3–8 TNIV

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. 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. But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb. Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. 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. 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?”

1 Samuel 1:3-

Easy to imagine that Hannah would grow bitter and retaliate against Peninnah, but we don’t see that in the story, but instead Hannah weeps and pours her heart out to God (1:8), like the psalmist Jesus quoted on the cross, .

Peninnah provoked

Psalm 22:1–2 TNIV

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.

Psalm 22 TNIV

For the director of music. To the tune of “The Doe of the Morning.” A psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm, not a human being; I am scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. “He trusts in the Lord,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.” Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me feel secure on my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise him— may your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

This bothers Elkanah and he tries to console her with double portions of food offerings but his best work is a little Beauty and the Beast’s “Gaston” moment when he says, [turn to profile], “How could you not be happy, my dear, you’re married to me!? Am I not worth ten sons to you!?”

Then Hannah makes a very serious vow to God, called a Nazarite vow. Let’s look to see what that’s all about.

1 Samuel 1:9–11 TNIV

Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. 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.”

Here’s the deal with the Nazarite vow: Hannah is essentially asking God, “If you’ll remove this social, emotional, spiritual pain of childlessness from me, I’ll actually give this child back to you!”

You’ve heard of people in desperate times making vows that they will serve God, but actually offering their child up in service in the priesthood, no alcohol, no razors.

Now, Hannah would sit in the court of the worship place, the tabernacle?, and one day she was so anguished and crying but not making a sound, a site that looks crazy or drunk.

And this is what Eli thought about Hannah and said,

1 Samuel 1:14 TNIV

and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”

There’s a very interesting exchange here, listen to this:

:15

1 Samuel 1:15–18 TNIV

“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.” She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

What happens next is so amazing I’ve asked [reader] to read it entirely from . What will you notice as we read?

1 Samuel 1:19–2:10 TNIV

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. 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.” When Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.” “Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him. After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there. 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. “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. “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. “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. 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. “The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 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. 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; 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.”

1 Samuel 1

What does this say about God that this pivotal story of Israel all begins with a woman’s anguished cry to God, vow, and faithfully keeping her word?

Bearing children has sometimes been taken for granted over the years, and yet in the Bible we see lots of examples of women who were considered barren at the time. Can you think of six different women in OT/NT? Sarah, Rebekah, Samson’s mother, Rachel, Hannah, and (not Mary) Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. As writer Karla Hawkins says, “They all started out longing for a child of their own, and then God blessed them with very special children. [God] turned their barrenness and grief into fruitfulness and joy. To anyone who might be praying for a child today . . . God can overcome and heal a couple of any diagnosis of infertility. Likewise, while there is no doubt that women are blessed, and that motherhood is a blessing . . . a woman’s worth is not in having children, though this is a great honor. Even though barren, women have worth, value, and purpose, and though some may never bear a child, all women are image bearers of God.

The Journey upholds women who have had miscarriages.

The Journey upholds women who have had abortions or have been forced into abortions.

The Journey upholds women who have infertility and shed tears like Hannah or are wordless and soundless and don’t feel you have a voice.

Listen to me women, Here You Have a Voice. At The Journey YOU have a voice. You can cry out about injustices in the world to you, to other women, and we can together decide what the gospel says to do about it.

This story that starts with Hannah and barrenness and crying out and worship and God’s gracious response and Hannah’s reciprocal grace of offering up her only son, Samuel leads us to recount some important truths about what we believe here today about women in the same situation of Hannah and all women.

hey all started out longing for a child of their own, and then God blessed them with very special children. He turned their barrenness and grief into fruitfulness and joy. They had all been “diagnosed” as barren, but God had better plans for each one of them and their offspring. If God can do that for them, he can also do that today for anyone crying out to him for a child of their own.

In God’s creation, men and women are both made in the image of God and equal in God’s site.

The Journey does not hold any intentional double standards and tries to include and call women to lead in every capacity as men lead. Women teach not just other women or children but men. Women pray, read scripture, and do all roles in worship. Women preach at The Journey, and men cook occasionally. Women serve communion, speak over communion, lead ministries, take leads where men enjoy being quiet and seeing their spouses or single women to lead boldly.

So this should be an encouragement to anyone who might be praying for a child today, as God can overcome and heal a couple of any diagnosis of infertility. Likewise, while there is no doubt that women are blessed, and that motherhood is a blessing to mankind, a woman’s worth is no longer found in just having children today. Even though barren, women still have worth, value, and purpose, and the key is to just stay close to the Lord and trust in him at all times.

The Journey supports the #metoo movement, women seeking equal treatment in the workplace, women speaking out courageously against sexual harassment and any other form of abuse. We the men also speak out, and men should not sit idly by one more single day while women are once again blamed for being victims of crimes against their bodies and souls.

Men, it’s a complex world and the Bible never once says “the woman’s place is in the home,” it’s simply not in there, and that value was a product of a middle to rich class of Christians in the United States after the 1950s who perpetuated this idea as a luxurious value that feared women in the workplace would take jobs of men. I don’t really think the men opposing this were really that interested in the children.

The Journey supports women working and men changing diapers and helping drop off and pick up kids from school, reading to them at night and men teaching by modeling to children how to wash the dishes.

I am a male feminist and I love my wife, my daughters, and I want to see not only the best for them but the best for every one of the women in this church, and if there’s something this church does uniquely better than any other church I know, it’s that women are empowered, not by me or any other man, but by God Almighty who has empowered them from the beginning with the spark of the divine and giftedness, and if we’re ever going to be a light to the world as the church again in this dark and confused age, by God Almighty we’re going to have to be one in proclaiming that women are just as competent, gifted, and ready to lead and grow the kingdom of God as men, and it’s going to take this workforce of 50% additional workers in the kingdom if we’re going to fill the world with God’s love.