No Strings Attached

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, May 26, 2013.  The Bible verses are 1 Samuel 1:1-28.

As we enter the second week of our sermon series “Mothers and Fathers”, it's kind of interesting how many of the great people in the Bible have remarkable birth stories. Last week, we look at the parents of Moses, Jochebed and Amram. Today we're going to look at Hannah.

Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel. Samuel was the first of the great prophets of Israel. He was the one who anointed Saul as the first king of Israel, and when Saul went astray he eventually anointed David to replace Saul. Samuel was obviously a really important person in Israel at that time. There are two books of the Bible named after him, First Samuel and Second Samuel.

But of course, at the time of our Bible reading for today, Hannah had no way of knowing all that. Hannah was, as far as we know, just an ordinary woman. What we read today is pretty much all we know about her. Chapter two of First Samuel goes on to quote a prayer of praise and thanks that Hannah gave. We're told that Eli blessed Hannah and asked God to give her more children, and that Hannah did indeed have more children: three sons and two daughters. But who those sons and daughters were, or what became of Hannah and her husband Elkanah, we don't know. The story we read today is the only thing about Hannah that the people who wrote the Bible decided to include.

Our reading says that Hannah was one of two wives that Elkanah had and that sounds really strange to us today, but at the time, that was no big deal. It's just the way it was at that time. It's not hard to see some of the problems that would come with that kind of arrangement, though, and some of them happened with Hannah and Elkanah's other wife, Peninnah.

Peninnah was able to have children and Hannah was not. It's a really sad thing even now when people want to have children and cannot have them, but at that time, being able to have children was considered a large part of a woman's value. In fact, people considered a woman to have been cursed by God if she could not have children. Again, I'm not making a value judgment about that. I'm just saying that's the way it was.

So think about how Hannah must have felt. She has to share her husband with another woman. This other woman is able to give her husband children and she's not. She's feeling worthless. She's wondering if God has cursed her, and trying to figure out what she might've done to cause that curse and what she can do to get rid of it. And then, to make it worse, there's Peninnah, constantly throwing it in Hannah's face that she's able to have children and Hannah's not. We're told Elkanah loved Hannah and tried to comfort her, but it did not work. Hannah was miserable.

So, Hannah and the rest of the family were making their annual pilgrimage to Shiloh, where there was a temple, to make a sacrifice to God. Hannah goes into the temple, and she's desperate. She tells God that if God will only give her a son, she will dedicate him to God and he'll serve God his whole life. And it happens. Hannah and Elkanah have a son, Samuel. Hannah keeps her side of the bargain. Once he's weaned, she takes him to the temple at Shiloh and he serves God, serving under the priest, Eli.

Now, that's a story of faith, of course. But I think there's more to it than that. Think about it. God knew how Hannah felt. God knew how miserable Hannah was. God know how desperately Hannah wanted to have children. And yet, God did nothing about it. It was not until Hannah made a deal with God, promising that if God gave her a son she would dedicate him to God, that God did what Hannah asked.

Have you ever tried to make a deal with God? Have you ever prayed to God, look, if you'll just do this for me, then I'll do that for you?

I'd guess that a lot of us have at one time or another. If you did, how'd it work out? Did God accept the deal? Or did nothing really change for you?

God obviously does accept the deal sometimes. After all, God did that for Hannah. A lot of times God does not accept it, though. So why is it that God will do this sometimes and not at other times?

There are times, of course, when God knows we're not going to follow through on the deal. I mean, if we're desperate enough, we'll promise almost anything to God. At the time, we may even think we're sincere. After the danger passes, though, we realize we don't really want to do what we promised God to do, and we don't. But I don't really think that's the answer.

I also don't think it's just because sometimes we don't offer God a good-enough deal. It's possible, I suppose. After all, Hannah offered God a pretty good deal—the service of her son for his whole life. And since we know who Samuel became, we can say that God came out pretty well on that deal.

I don't think that's it, though. After all, there are lots of people God could've used to do what Samuel did. God is God. God can do anything, and God can use anyone. If Hannah had not offered Samuel to God, God would've found some other way to accomplish God's plan.

I don't claim to know the whole answer. I do think, though, that sometimes God tests us. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think that every bad thing that happens is God testing us. There are a lot of reasons that things happen, and a lot of times we don't understand it and we never will understand it. A lot of times, we just have to accept that things are the way they are, even if we don't know why.

Sometimes, though, I think God tests us. The test is not so God can see how we're going to respond. God already knows how we'll respond. The test is so we'll know about ourselves and so we'll learn to trust God.

Sometimes it's important for us to not only know what we want, but to know how badly we want it. We all have lots of things we want. And sometimes we have things that we think we really want. And when I say “things”, I don't just mean material things. It can be health, friendship, love, anything. We all want those things.

But sometimes we don't want them badly enough to do much about them. We may want friendship, but we don't really want to put ourselves out to do things for others. We may want love, but we don't really want to give up the things we need to give up to show love. We honestly do want these things, but sometimes we don't want them badly enough to do whatever it takes to get them.

Hannah wanted to have children. God knew that. Hannah knew it, too. But did Hannah know how badly she wanted to have children? Did she know whether she wanted them badly enough that she'd take care of them even when it was inconvenient or hard? Did she know whether she wanted children badly enough that would put her children's needs above her own? Did she know whether she wanted children badly enough that nothing would be more important to her than those children?

We don't know how Hannah felt at the beginning of this story. But we know how she felt at the end. We know that, by the time Hannah got to that temple at Shiloh, she knew that she wanted a child so badly that there was nothing else in the world that was as important to her. Having a child was so important to her that, if God would give her that child, she would give that child back to God. No questions asked. No strings attached.

Again, I don't think every bad thing that happens is God testing us. But when God does test us, that's the point God wants us to reach. God wants us to reach the point that, if God does give us what we ask for, we will be willing to give whatever God gives us back to God. No questions asked. No strings attached.

That's true no matter what it is. Whether it's wealth or possessions, whether it's health, whether it's friendship, whether it's happiness, no matter what it is, that's how God wants us to feel about it. God wants us to reach the point that, if God does give us what we ask for, we're willing to give it back to God. No questions asked. No strings attached.

So, we need to think about what we want out of life. Then, we need to think about how badly we want it. Do we want it so badly that if God gives it to us, we'll give it back to God? If so, let's pray for it. It worked for Hannah. It may work for us, too.