Lent Day 14: God Has Heard

"The High Priest and Hannah," James Tissot (1836-1902, French)

I shared a meditation on the boy-turned-prophet Samuel at last evening's Lenten service (you can read it here, if you like). It was the first in a series of Wednesday evening services around the theme of "Bedtime Stories." There are a lot of things that happen in the Bible when, under normal circumstances, people are supposed to be sleeping. 

I owe all credit for the idea of the series to my seminary buddy Chris Shelton (the link will take you to Broadway Presbyterian Church, where he is pastor, and you will see a fantastic picture there of him in the center of the congregation, with his son and husband). Chris is the one who came up with the idea of this passage as a bedtime story, famously donning a bathrobe and holding a Teddy bear in his arms to preach it. This is a sermon I didn't hear in person, but the idea of which has delighted me for years. 

The story of Samuel begins, not with him, but with his mother Hannah, heartbroken because she cannot conceive a baby, while her sister-wife is quite fertile (1 Samuel 1). She cries and prays at the Temple at Shiloh. The priest, Eli, doesn't recognize her tears and prayers for what they are; he thinks she's drunk. She clarifies for him that she is distressed and praying, without offering any details. Eli offers a prayer: 

“Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.” And the God of Israel does. 

A child is conceived. A child is born, and Hannah names him Samuel, which is Hebrew for "God has heard."

God has heard.

This is the central thing I think we want to know, when we are praying. That God has heard our prayers--even if the answer is "no," or "not yet," or sheer silence. We want to know that our prayers have risen up like incense before God, that God has taken note. Hannah's naming of her son celebrates the birth, certainly, but her actions after the child is born show what her heart is truly celebrating. 

Even while Samuel is a babe in arms, Hannah determines that she will dedicate him to God, and that he will serve in the Temple. When he is weaned, she presents him, along with offerings of flour, wine, and a three-year-old bull (an echo of the three-year-old Samuel?), to the priest. "For this child I prayed," Hannah tells the priest, "and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore  I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord."

Hannah is best known for the song she sings immediately following this moment of offering. Her canticle is believed to be the model for the Magnificat, the song Mary sings when her cousin Elizabeth confirms in her that she is carrying Jesus, the Messiah. Both canticles are songs of a world turned upside down, with the mighty tumbling from their thrones and the humble gaining ascendancy.

And it is a song that celebrates, at the very soul of it: God has heard.