The Rev. Kristin Krantz, St. James’, Mt. Airy
Pentecost 25/Proper 28B, November 14, 2021
1 Samuel 1:4-20, Canticle: The Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10), Mark 13:1-8
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
Today we end our year-long journey with Mark’s gospel. Next Sunday we’ll celebrate Christ the King Sunday, also known as the Feast of the Reign of Christ, and the week after that a new church year begins with the start of the season of Advent and Year C in the lectionary cycle – meaning we’ll begin our journey through the gospel of Luke.
But today here in Mark, we find Jesus near the end of his own journey. Sometimes called “the Markan Apocolypse,” it’s Jesus’ final teaching to his disciples before the passion overtakes him.
Now the word apocalypse comes from the Greek word apokalupsis, and means “uncovering” or “revealing.” Apocalyptic narratives and images are found throughout the Bible, with Daniel and Revelation being prime examples. They are characterized by the inclusion of cryptic, poetic language; ominous signs in the heavens; falling stars; and natural disasters.[1]
Apocalyptic literature is rooted in the experience of death and destruction, but from there envisions an imminent future in which God comes to rescue God’s people: righting wrongs, routing wrongdoers, and inaugurating a new era of justice and compassion. In this way, such writings are extravagant, evocative visions of hope when all hope seems lost.[2]
Jesus stands in this prophetic tradition in our reading today as he predicts the destruction of the Temple, and warns of wars and earthquakes and famine. But that’s not where our reading ends.
No, we end with this striking image: This is but the beginning of the birth pangs, he says, which may just be one of the most hopeful sentences in all of scripture.
Because the story doesn’t end with the death and destruction, it ends with a beginning – the labor pains which will birth God’s reign. And as anyone who has experienced or witnessed a birth can attest, labor is hard and messy and scary. But one thing that can help get us through it is hope – hope for what is to come, hope for a new future.
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Hope was central to Hannah’s story as well.
I cannot imagine the strength of a woman like Hannah.
She lived in a culture which defined her worth nearly entirely on her ability to conceive and bear children, which she was unable to do.
Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, had many children and taunted Hannah mercilessly out of jealousy, for Elkanah loved Hannah despite her inability to give him children. I imagine many days she must have felt like she was simply enduring, not living.
In her desperation, Hannah took her plea for a son to God. She was desperate after years of shame, humiliated again by Peninnah at the family feast after Elkanah sacrificed at Shiloh. A well-meaning but unhelpful husband who minimized her grief. A sense of being utterly alone in her loss.
And yet, she had a deep assumption that God cared about her, and from this place of knowing, her strength was born – she rose and presented herself before the Lord.
She did not stop to talk to the priest, Eli. She walked past him and into the temple and fervently prayed, laying her heart open to God.
Heavy with grief and longing, her strength began to reveal itself in the vow she made to God – give me a son and I will dedicate him to your service.
That strength born of hope was further revealed when, confronted by a dismissive Eli calling her a drunkard, she did not back down, but instead revealed her woundedness and trust in God with the pouring out of her prayer.
She left that place, having told her story to God, no longer sad in countenance, but strengthened by her ability to name her pain and loss, and lightened of her burden as she turned it over to God.
We are told that God remembered Hannah, and in due time she conceived and bore a son whom she named Samuel.
As the story of Hannah and Samuel continues, we are told that upon weaning him from her breast she fulfilled the vow she made to the Lord, and took him back to Shiloh, to that priest Eli, to dedicate him to the Lord and give him into the Lord’s service all the days of his life, leaving him there to be raised.
Her strength was made manifest in that moment – the moment of turning over a desired and loved child. I can only imagine the myriad of feelings coursing through her.
And yet what we hear from her mouth, her song which we read just a few minutes ago, is a song of hope and thankfulness and praise, and a prophetic witness to the power of God to raise up the marginalized and bring forth life from the barren places.
A song whose echo is heard in that other great song, the Magnificat, proclaimed by another woman touched by God’s power – the mother of another miraculous baby – Mary.
As we approach the end of the church year and get ready to begin again with the Advent season of expectation and hope, our stories are offering us images of birth pangs and the casting down of pillars – of endings and beginnings.
It is no coincidence that we’ve been reading the story of Ruth and Naomi over the last few weeks. Remember that after Naomi’s husband and sons died, leaving her with two daughters-in-law in a foreign land with no means of support, she decided to send them back to their families and then return to her own home to seek the protection of her extended family. Her daughter-in-law, Ruth, however, loved her dearly, and where Naomi went, Ruth followed.
Loving Ruth in return, Naomi worked to secure her a new husband, which led to her marriage to Boaz, and her son, Obed.
Obed, son of Ruth, became the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Samuel, son of Hannah, anointed David as king.
Jesus, son of Mary, born of the line of David.
And the word became flesh and lived among us – or we might say, hope became flesh and lived among us.
Because hope was revealed in the birth of Jesus. God reached out in hope to humanity, living among us to show us the way to new life. As followers of Jesus Christ, living in his way of love, we are inheritors of that hope.
Today our annual stewardship campaign ends. Over the last month members of St. James’ have offered words of hope centered on their experience of our community. Shortly we will gather together our pledges and consecrate them. These pledges represent our hope for this community because it is through these pledges that our community will continue to thrive and grow.
My hope is that we can draw on today’s scriptures to help us do so. That when the weight of the pandemic and the social unrest we’ve been through in the last year and a half rises up, we can view them as birth pangs – as today’s labor for something better to come. That when life is hard and unfair, like it was for Hannah, we find our strength rooted in hope to persevere and pray openly and authentically to God.
It is in this way that God’s presence in our lives will be ever more fully revealed to us, and for this we can give thanks. Amen.
[1] Salt Project Lectionary Commentary for the Twenty-Fifth Week after Pentecost.
[2] Salt Project Lectionary Commentary for the Twenty-Fifth Week after Pentecost.