1 Samuel 1:4-20; 2:1-10
Faithful Lament
James Sledge November
18, 2018
In
the wake of the horrific murders at a Pittsburgh synagogue, there have been
many articles written about the rise in anti-Semitism and racism. Not so many
years ago, people talked about moving into a post racial society. That seems
naïve foolishness now. Recently I read an article in the Post that talked about how young Jews find themselves confronted
with a reality they thought belonged to a distant past.
For many young Jews across the nation, last month’s mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh was a jarring lesson. Many millennials who grew up hearing about anti-Semitism from their parents and grandparents think of the Holocaust, Eastern European pogroms and the Spanish Inquisition when they think about violence against Jews — stories they read in history books about events that happened well over half a century ago, and all in the old country, not the United States.The Pittsburgh rampage, committed by a gunman who reportedly shouted “All Jews must die” as he fired, shattered what remained of that illusion.[1]
I
rather doubt that black, millennial Americans ever shared such an illusion.
Hate and violence against African Americans never was an old country problem relegated
to history books. Still, the mainstreaming of racism in recent years, including
its blatant use as political strategy, feels like a huge step backwards. And
those who had hoped in some sort of inexorable progress toward a day when
racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and so on were confined to history may now find
such hope in short supply.
I
confess that the last few years have at times left me struggling. When I talk
with other clergy types about how they and their folks and managing, I hear of
two very different responses. One sounds like the joke Stephen Colbert tells regarding
Donald Trump’s claim to have done more for religion than any other president. “It’s
true,” says Colbert. I’ve prayed more in the last two years than I ever have.”
But others have respond differently, struggling to pray at all because of anger
or despair. Me, I’ve gone back and forth between these two.
Some
people of faith think anger and, especially, despair out of bonds, evidence
that faith is lacking, but that is not the witness of scripture. In the
Psalter, psalms of lament are the single, largest type, and Jesus borrows one
on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
In
our reading today, Hannah also feels forsaken by God. In patriarchy, a woman’s
worth was often reduced to a bearer of children, and a barren woman thought to
be accursed. Adding to her pain, Hannah’s husband has two wives. The other has
children, and she torments Hannah mercilessly over her barrenness. Hannah’s
husband loves her, even favors her, but he seems oblivious to her pain and
feelings of worthlessness. Hannah is so despondent, so depressed, she cannot
even bring herself to eat.
Inconsolable,
Hannah goes to the tabernacle of Yahweh. The priest, Eli, is there at the
entrance, but Hannah seems not to notice. Her beef is with God, and she does
not bother with the priest. The scripture says, She was deeply distressed and
prayed to the Lord, and wept
bitterly. She made this vow: "O Lord
of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and
remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male
child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death.”
Hannah
needs God to look at her, to see her. She has become invisible, forgotten. But
she demands to be seen, to be remembered. And she is not above bargaining,
doing whatever she can to get God’s attention, for without it, her situation is
hopeless.
Modern
Christian faith, steeped in the reasonableness of the Enlightenment, does not
do lament terribly well, is not well practiced at demanding to be remembered by
God, to be seen by God. Modern faith may bargain in an emergency, but by and
large such faith turns us into functional deists whose God is distant and far
removed, incapable of intervening, incapable of setting things right, incapable
of noticing, remembering, and ending barrenness as Hannah dares to hope.
Hannah’s barrenness is a deeply personal
crisis, but for the scripture writers, it is also freighted with symbolism. This
scripture takes its final shape long after the glory of David and Solomon,
perhaps even during exile in Babylon. Barrenness, bleakness regarding the
future, is also Israel’s experience. Will God notice their plight? Will God
remember them?
We
know barrenness in our day as well, a loss of hope for the future. The
mainstreaming of hate and racism, mass shootings, desperate families from
Honduras callously labeled criminal invaders, partisanship so hate-filled that
it threatens to obliterate any notion of “We the people;” all these are signs
and agents of barrenness. They threaten the promise and hope of America. They
threaten the hope of a better future for all.
But
all too often, American Christians don’t know how to engage God over barrenness
and loss of hope. Too often faith becomes a cosmic version of, “Don’t worry, be
happy,” something that will be on full display when we soon move into the
season of Advent.
When
Advent began, centuries ago, it was modeled on Lent, a time of preparation and
repentance. It could lament how far the world is from the promise of swords
beaten into plowshares and nations who no longer learned war, of wolf and lamb
lying down together, the desert rejoicing in full blossom, of barrenness
swallowed up in life.
But
our Advent has been largely coopted by a consumer version of Christmas whose
answer to the world’s pain and barrenness is a frenzy of shopping and manufactured
cheer, a moment of nostalgia and cheap joy that seeks to blot it all out for a
brief moment. Such cheer and joy have little in common with Hannah’s song which
emerges from faithful lament, from faithful initiative with the God of history.
Her song celebrates a God who does intervene, a God Hannah trusts will continue
to act to lift up the poor, the lowly, and the barren, and bring low the
mighty, the rich, and the powerful.
Dare
we lament the barrenness of our world as Hannah does? Dare we act as the faithful
covenant partners we are called to be, expecting, even demanding that God
remember divine promises to be the rescuer of the weak, the champion of the
oppressed? Dare we actually believe in, trust in, the God of Scripture, the God
we see in Jesus? Dare we, like Hannah, cry out, demanding that God stir, that
God act? And like Hannah, dare we hope that God will stir, that God will bring life
and newness out of barrenness and despair?
Come
quickly, Lord Jesus!
[1]
Julie Zauzmer, “‘We were never taught’:
Young Jews in the U.S. encounter anti-Semitism firsthand,” The Washington Post, November 5, 2018.
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