Sermon for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 28 B    Lectionary 33 B
November 15, 2009
Texts:  1 Samuel 1:4-20; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to…

It’s an old song!

Maybe you’ve heard this song
When you’ve been forced by some circumstance
To listen to Muzak or the Oldies Station,
Or maybe you remember hearing it
The first time it came out.

Those words, however trite,
Kind of sum it up for Hannah.

She may have been at a family celebration
But Hannah didn’t feel much like celebrating.

I’ll guess that there have been times
When those lines play for you too.

The story of Hannah
Is, after all, the story of all of us.

Hannah’s particular story begins
With her grief over not being able to have children,
But it could have been the grief
Of any of a number of life situations.

Many of us have unfulfilled dreams.
The dreams of things we hoped would happen
But somehow just never did.

Hannah dreamed of having a baby,
She wanted a son, more than just about anything.

Endlessly she thought of holding a tiny baby,
Of feeding him, dressing him,
Chasing him around and teaching him.

Without a child, she felt incomplete and unfulfilled.

Her pain is the pain of women throughout the ages
Who for one reason or another,
Are unable to have children.

In the ancient Israelite culture,
As in many ancient cultures,
A woman’s only purpose was to bear children,
Particularly sons.

Sons meant the family name would be carried on
And sons meant that if she were widowed,
She would have a means of support.

In ancient Israel,
A childless woman had not fulfilled her duty
And was likely to be scorned.

Hannah’s situation was exacerbated,
Because her husband Elkanah’s other wife,
Had a passel of  children,
And Peninnah, the other wife, didn’t let Hannah forget it.

Can you picture Peninnah hassling Hannah?

Look at my strong healthy children.
See how Elkanah dotes on them.
Take a look at the cute little robes I made for them.
I so enjoy watching them run and play.
Oh, it’s too bad you don’t have any children to watch play.
It’s too bad when you are a old woman
That there won’t be any children to take care of you.

And so on and so on.

Each morning Hannah would hear the giggles and cries
Of the other wife’s children,
Reminding her of her own childlessness.

At no other time was her loss
More keenly felt
Than during holiday or festival time.

Elkanah would take his whole brood up to Shiloh
To sacrifice, worship and celebrate.

It should have been a wonderful time for the whole family.
But for Hannah, it was
“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” time.

It didn’t matter
That her husband Elkanah treated her especially kindly.

It didn’t matter
That he even gave her a large portion of the festival meal.

At this festival time,
With the laughing, playing children all around,
She felt her loss so keenly.

During this time,
Hannah’s unfulfilled dream to become a mother
Haunted her ever so strongly.

She went through all the stages of grief during these times,
Except for acceptance. 
She wasn’t going to accept her childlessness. 

But she certainly felt the denial, the anger, and the depression.
She even went through the bargaining stage.
You can hear her bargaining with God in the temple
Just give me a child God, a son, and I will dedicate him to you. 

Hannah’s story is indeed our story
The story of your grief at any unfulfilled dream
That you are carrying around with you.

Maybe you had a dream to be a doctor,
But the courses leading up to medical school
Just didn’t hold any interest.

Maybe you had a dream to live in the city,
In an apartment in a high rise,
Surrounded be all the cultural activities
But no job materialized there.

Maybe you wanted daughters,
But only had sons,
Or vice versa. 

Maybe you are dreaming of a wedding and children,
Or maybe a wedding for a child and then grandchildren,
But it just doesn’t seem to be happening. 
Or maybe like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”,
You had a dream of travel and adventure
And ended up stuck in the family business.

Maybe you had special dreams of life with your spouse
But they were yanked away by death or illness.

Whatever your unfulfilled dream,
You may be carrying around grief
And with it any or all of the grief stages.

Like Hannah you may have found yourself depressed,
Experiencing that “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” kind of time.

Or, like her, you may have found yourself bargaining with God.

And like Hannah,
You may have found yourself
Pouring out your heart to God,
Begging, pleading, and lamenting.

How do you express that unfulfilled feeling?

Does your life feel chaotic,
As you fill it with ever more activities and things
So you don’t feel the pain of the unfulfilled dream.

Does your life just plain feel empty,
As you grieve the loss of what you had hoped for. 

Do you feel angry when you see others
Who have achieved their dreams,
Perhaps the dream, you yourself had wanted.

Do you bargain with God,
God just do this for me
And I’ll do whatever you want.
Go to church, serve on a committee,
Whatever you want, God.

The disciples, in the Gospel from Mark,
Were also dealing with shattered dreams.

They have built up this expectation
Of what life with the master is going to be like.

They have dreams of glory
But Jesus keeps signaling that those dreams aren’t going to happen.

Jesus keeps predicting an apocalypse such as the collapse of the temple
Or even worse, from the disciples’ standpoint,
Jesus’ own death.

Hannah’s world collapsed
When she found that she could not have children.

The disciples’ world was in the process of collapsing
As they began to grapple with Jesus’ impending death,
And Jesus’ predictions of the collapse of the temple,
A very important symbol of first century Judaism.

Perhaps you know what it feels like to have your world collapse.

Neither the disciples nor Hannah
Were ready for that last stage of grief,
The acceptance of an undesirable situation.

The disciples deal with it in a kind of denial,
By continually questioning Jesus.
Tell us more.
When will this happen?
What do we have to do to be spared?
What do you really mean when you keep predicting
All this awful stuff and even your death?
Why can’t things just go along the way they’ve been going? 

Hannah, on the other hand,
Goes and pours out her heart to God,
Crying, weeping and telling God just how she feels about this childlessness. 

How do you feel the collapse of your world?
Do you go on like nothing has happened,
Hoping it will all go away?
Do you cry, lament, or stomp around the house?
Do you bargain with God?

Whatever mode you use to express your grief and dismay
When your world collapses,
There is a piece of consistent piece of Good News
In the stories we heard this morning
And in the stories we hear repeatedly throughout the Bible:

God is present when our world collapses,
God is present in chaos
And God triumphs over evil

As Hannah sat in the temple and poured her heart out to God,
God heard her.

God saw what childlessness was doing to Hannah.
God saw Peninnah’s treatment of Hannah
God empathized with her.

God was not daunted by Eli’s misdiagnosis of Hannah’s condition.
And God triumphed over Peninniah’s mean spiritedness toward Hannah.

God does indeed grant Hannah a son,
A son whom she names Samuel.

God continues to bless Hannah,
Who has many additional children after she dedicates Samuel to God’s work,
Just as she promised she would.

God was also there with the disciples
While they grappled with Jesus’ predictions of his death
And God was there with them when they actually experienced Jesus’ death.
Jesus’ resurrection revealed God’s ultimate triumph.

Wherever there is chaos, pain, or evil,
Wherever someone’s physical or emotional world has collapsed,
God can be found.

And the power and hope of God
Triumph over any collapsed world.

God is there in your unfulfilled dreams,
God is there when you lament and when you bargain.
God is there when you have one of those
“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to…” kind of times.
God hears your cries of pain, anger, and lament.
And God is working in your life.

Our God of hope works continually
To bring some kind of good out of your collapsed dreams.
God brings resurrection out of death.
God is hope in a broken, crying world.