"A Little Bit" (1 Kings 17:1-16)

The Miracle of Sharing

The danger of interpreting miracles as a supernatural bit of magic is that we pay attention to the hand but not the heart. We see the physical but not the spiritual.

The Bible suggests that miracles originate in the heart, that they are fundamentally spiritual phenomena. When Jesus encounters folks who do not have faith in their heart, he is unable to heal them (cf. Mk 6:5; Matt 13:58).

Scenes like we have today, where a little bit miraculously becomes a lot, have one thing in common. What is multiplied, must first be shared. Think about it. Every instance of multiplication in the Bible involves sharing. Five loaves and two fishes become enough to feed five thousand when a boy shares what little he has. A handful of meal and a little oil become enough to feed a destitute household for many days when a widow shares what little she has with her starving guest.

The miracle of a little bit becoming a lot is in fact the miracle of sharing, the miracle of a heart that is willing to share what little a person has with someone else. I think Paul had this in mind when he writes to the Corinthians, “By always having enough of everything [by God’s grace], you may share abundantly in every good work” (2 Cor 9:8). Paul practically writes the equation for us. First there is having enough. Then there is sharing abundantly. Enough becomes abundance when it is shared. A little bit becomes a lot.

The Miracle’s Opposite: 

Too Much, Not Enough

Today’s scripture begins with the prophet Elijah in the royal palace before King Ahab, who we are told just verses earlier “did more to anger the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kgs 16:33). As Samuel had warned years earlier, kings generally take far more than they give (cf. 1 Sam 8). Which is to say, they have a lot, and they do not share it even a little. Elijah prophesies to King Ahab that God is bringing a great drought on the land. In my mind, it’s almost the mirror opposite of the miracle of a little bit becoming a lot. When an individual like King Ahab has more than enough and does not share (but in fact competes to accumulate more and more), the world around them dries up. Life becomes stale.

I think of Jesus’ parable of the rich man who builds large barns to store the accumulated excess of his harvest, who says to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry,” when in fact that very night his life will be demanded of him (Luke 12:19-20). This is the equal and opposite equation for our miracle of multiplication. A lot becomes a little—too much becomes not enough—when resources are accumulated and not shared.

From Scavengers to Sharers

As we might expect, King Ahab is not very receptive to this message, so the prophet Elijah runs for his life and finds refuge first in the wilderness where a raven spectacularly feeds him bread and meat every morning and evening, and then in the home of a foreign widow. There is a delightful symmetry to the story of Elijah’s salvation. Both of his helpers are scavengers—people or creatures who must feed off whatever scraps they can find. This is probably obvious in the case of the raven, but perhaps less so in the case of the widow. It may help to remember that widows in the Bible are often at the bottom rung of their very patriarchal society. Not having a man to care for them, either a father or a husband, left them in dire straits. It’s no coincidence that one of the first ministries of the early church we read about in Acts is toward widows (Acts 6). Nor is it a coincidence that in today’s scripture we find the widow of Zarephath literally scavenging, looking for sticks so she can make a fire to prepare what she expects to be her and her son’s final meal (1 Kgs 17:12). 

The thing about scavengers is that they’re generally solitary creatures who look out for themselves. They scrounge for their survival. And today’s widow has given up on even that. She is preparing to die. How ludicrous must the idea of sharing sound to her. One of the key words in today’s scripture, its signature motif perhaps, is the word for “a little bit” or one of its synonyms, like “morsel” or “handful” (1 Kgs 17:10-13). The point is clear. There is hardly enough for one person to survive, much less for two or more people. And yet it is precisely here that we see our miracle. A little bit becomes a lot when it is shared. A little bit is enough in God’s economy of grace.

The “Little Things” of Our Saints

It is common to think of saints as spiritual superheros, people who did a lot. But in light of today’s scripture, I find myself wondering if the heart of being a saint isn’t much simpler. Maybe a saint is someone who shares what little they have. Whether they go on to attract worldwide fame or ride off into relative obscurity is immaterial. What matters is that what little they shared became a lot to someone else—priceless even, bigger and more important than anything else.

Think for a moment about your loved ones who have passed. I would wager that what we remember most about them is not their wealth or their accomplishments or their popularity. If they had these things, that might be how the outside world remembers them. But we remember them for the little things. Perhaps it is their laughter, their eyes when they were excited about something, their unique manner of touch, the words that they chose to use when speaking from their heart, a special sentimental gift they gave us, their way of saying hello and goodbye. These “little” things are in fact the biggest things, the things that touch us and shape us and remain forever with us and a part of us, because these are the things that our loved ones shared with us.

Giving is a divine quality. Which is to say, it is eternal. It is of the profoundest value. The gifts we received from our loved ones forever echo with the love of God. 

It is true, of course, that much of our human giving is conditional, limited to family and friends, perhaps to strangers whom we trust. Much of our human giving falls short of God’s unconditional love. Even so, the gifts of our loved ones point us toward God the Giver and remind us of what matters most. They are an invitation to live more like God, to live more in the way of openhandedness, sharing what little we have, sharing ourselves with others, friends, strangers, enemies alike.

“It Is Enough”

Paul writes that in a time of suffering, he heard God say, “My grace is enough for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Or as we could perhaps paraphrase with today’s scripture in mind, “God’s grace is enough for us, for a little bit becomes a lot when it is shared.”

In place of a prayer, I would like to conclude with a simple ritual that recalls the miracle of the widow at Zarephath. I hope it also recalls the miracle of our saints, our loved ones who shared God’s grace with us.

In just a moment, stems of wheat will be passed down each aisle, emblematic of the handful of grain meal that the widow had. I invite you to take a single stem of wheat for yourself and to remember a loved one who has passed who is on your heart. 

Remember the little things about them. 

How they shared themselves with you. 

Know that this is part of God’s grace for you. 

And know that this grace is yours forever…

And that God’s grace is forever enough.

And so, as you pass the wheat to your neighbor, I invite you also to pronounce this blessing upon them: “God's grace is enough for you.” 

(There will be a brief moment of silence now to remember a loved one and the little things about them that meant so much to you, that were God’s grace for you. Then the stems of wheat will be passed out.)

 

Uncontainable (1 Kgs 5:1-5; 8:27-30, 41-43)

To Contain a Favorable Result

As an uncle, I am slowly learning the art of just barely losing. Losing in the most dramatic, agonizing way possible—which is to say, for my nephews, the most gratifying way possible. It’s the last kick of the game. Uncle Jonny is losing by a single goal. Will he score and rescue a tie? Oh, so close. He hits the post, and the ball bounces wide of the goal.

My nephew Nathan loves playing soccer. But he hates losing. The contrasting emotions of enjoyment and fear practically do battle on his face as a tight game nears its conclusion. Giddy, uncontrollable laughter mixes jarringly with moans and groans of “Oh no, oh no!” In an effort to control the outcome, to contain a favorable result, he suddenly becomes referee and the rules start changing. Boundaries become more narrow. The goal becomes smaller and smaller. He can use his hands. And so on. 

Built on a Lie?

When Solomon takes the throne from his father David, one of the first items on his order of business is to build a temple for God. Solomon justifies his building of the temple by claiming that God has given him a time of peace that his father David never enjoyed: “My father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him…. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side” (1 Kgs 5:3-4). 

But here’s the thing. Solomon’s temple seems to be built on a lie. The Lord God had given David rest from his enemies too. In our scripture last week, the storyteller told us this fact in the plainest terms: “The Lord had given him [David] rest from all his enemies around him” (2 Sam 7:1). In fact, it was this very rest and freedom that had prompted David to plan building God a temple. God’s response was an unmistakable, “No, thank you!” “Did I ever ask for a house?” God asks. “I prefer to be on the move with my people” (cf. 2 Sam 7:6-7).

The most charitable interpretation would be that Solomon is not purposefully lying but rather simply has a confused history of events. But even if this is the case, his claim that he now enjoys a peace his father never had, smacks of justification. It seems to me like he’s looking for a rationale to do what he wants to do. There is no prompting from God to build a temple, no divine nudge-nudge to say, “Okay, Solomon, now it’s time.” This is Solomon’s idea, Solomon’s plan. This is Solomon’s temple. 

Doing What God Never Asked For

And it’s going to be built in Solomon’s way. They say the devil is in the details, and that seems to be the case in Solomon’s story. On the face of things, a glorious temple in honor of God seems like a good thing. But look more closely, and we begin to catch glimpses of a king who seeks not God’s honor but his own. To begin, Solomon builds God’s temple through the very means of oppression from which God had first liberated the Israelites. He conscripts thousands of Israelites to “forced labor,” the same word to describe the work that the Israelites do in Egypt (1 Kgs 5:13; cf. Ex 1:11). It is no coincidence that, later when Solomon dies, “all of the assembly of Israel” complain to his son, “Your father made our yoke heavy” (1 Kgs 12:4). When God becomes angry with Solomon for turning from the Lord and following after the gods of his many wives, the prophetic messenger who delivers God’s judgment to Solomon ends up fleeing to Egypt for refuge (1 Kgs 11). The suggestion is remarkable. Solomon has become like Pharaoh, and his empire has become like Egypt. The tables have turned to such an extent that now people are fleeing the other direction. 

If we zoom out, the picture we get is incredibly ironic. As I touched on last week, the temple is no more a part of God’s plan than are kings or sacrifices. Sacrifices, kings, and the temple are all initiated by humanity, and God ultimately lets us have what we want. So to summarize what we see in today’s scripture: a king, which God did not want, builds a temple, which God did request, where people will offer sacrifices, which God did not ask for (until it became clear this was how people wanted to worship God). In other words, we see in today’s scripture layer upon layer of God’s people doing all these things that God never asked for, doing things their own way. And lest we wash our hands too quickly of this waywardness, saying that was Israel and we’re the church, I would suggest that is the very attitude that leads us into this mess. What we see played out among Israel and King Solomon is humanity, and we are humans. If this is what a man who is reputed to be among the wisest in the Bible ends up doing, then we are all of us susceptible to doubling down on things that God never asked for or wanted, even and perhaps especially in our best laid plans.

Containing the Uncontainable

As Solomon is dedicating the temple amid much pomp and excess—the storyteller even throws his hands in the air and says, so many sheep and oxen were sacrificed at the dedication, that they could not even be counted!—Solomon cannot avoid the absurdity at the heart of his endeavor. “Will God indeed dwell on earth? Even…the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kgs 8:27). But he continues in his prayer and asks that, even so, “[May] your eyes…be open day and night toward this house” (1 Kgs 8:29). On the one hand, Solomon knows that God cannot be contained. But on the other hand, he cannot help but want to contain God, to point to a place and say, “Here God is!”, or to proclaim to others, “This is God’s name! Use it!” Indeed, Solomon repeatedly refers to God’s “name” throughout his dedication, in a manner that suggests he sees it as he sees the temple, that is, as another container for God. 

I think back to my nephew Nathan playing soccer. On the one hand, there is an uncontainable joy, a smile nearly plastered on his face as he kicks and runs and dives. Yet on the other hand, there is a fear of losing, a desperate desire to contain the experience, to control what happens next. It seems an apt metaphor for what is going on in the temple. What is going on in God’s name. What is going on in religion. In each case, we are trying to contain the uncontainable. 

If we’re honest, the uncontainable is what puts a smile on our face in the first place. The uncontainable is what gives us joy and life. The uncontainable is the source of all gifts, all good surprises, all the things that we could not see coming that we look back upon and say, “Thank you!” For my nephew Nathan, the uncontainable is doing something with the soccer ball that he has never done before, or accomplishing a thing that he never thought possible, or a turn of events that he could not have predicted but which he will always remember and say, “What a game!”

And yet it is only human to try to bottle up this goodness, to contain the uncontainable, to control it. For my nephew Nathan, this means adjusting the boundaries and tweaking the rules and blowing the whistle on everything that does not go according to plan. For the people of God, this might mean confining God to a name or a creed or a building, or refereeing in God’s name and declaring that God favors this nation over that nation, this party over that party, this kind of person over that kind of person, and so on. 

The Risk of Faith

I do not mean to say that all our containers for God (like buildings or names or rituals) are bad. On the contrary, I think God is looking for containers, which is to say, God’s Spirit is looking for flesh, the uncontainable is looking for the containers of names and rituals and behavior that can give it full expression. To put this trivially, the uncontainable God is like the uncontainable joy of sports that needs the containers of a field and some rules and a ball and so on. These containers are what make possible an experience of the uncontainable; they are what allow people like my nephew Nathan to experience the uncontainable joy of the game, which brings a smile to their face. But to put it a little more seriously, the uncontainable God is looking for containers that allow for authentic experiences and expressions of God’s love, like songs and stories and habits of service to one’s neighbor and care for the earth, deeds done not because they are mandated, but because in doing them we experience an uncontainable joy. These things are how love, which is uncontainable, gets expressed in little, contained ways.

Containers are not bad. It is only when we try to contain excessively, to use the same old wineskins, to insist on only one set of containers, that we risk draining life of love, or this world of its original, God-given goodness. 

This is the risk of faith—it is the risk of letting go and allowing the uncontainable to find new containers, lest the old containers contain it too well and keep it from spreading and being renewed.

And this risk originates with God. God is always taking a risk. God is always giving of Godself to humanity, putting the divine in human hands, the uncontainable in human containers.  This can go horribly wrong. I’ve mentioned the dubious motivations and deeds of Solomon, but I have in mind now Constantine, who I think gave God a regrettable container; he gave God an incredibly bad name with a long and lasting legacy. Constantine turned the cross, where Christ proclaimed forgiveness on his enemies, into a standard to carry while killing one’s enemies. Constantine turned the peace that Christ proclaimed, into a constant war. Constantine turned the freedom of faith into the obligation of a national religion. Constantine stuffed Christ into a container where Christ couldn’t even breathe, much less express the good news of God’s love that he’d come to express.

And yet God takes the risk. Because on the other side of Constantine is Jesus himself, who does not try to contain God for his own selfish ends but rather gives flesh to the uncontainable, which is to say, allows the uncontainable to exceed the limits we keep putting down. Isn’t this what we see in things like loving the enemy (i.e., loving the unlovable), forgiving the unforgivable, giving without expectation of return, hoping for what you cannot possibly foresee? And it doesn’t stop with Jesus. His followers like him do not so much insist on one set of containers as they do on letting go and letting God’s Spirit continually exceed expectations, as we see in the early church’s inclusion of non-Jews among God’s people and their recognition of women as equals of men (Gal 3:28).

I’ve veered into the abstract, so allow me to close with a concrete image that recalls my nephew Nathan. God is the love of the game, not the obsession with winning or losing. 

Prayer

Uncontainable God,

Whose love outlasts and exceeds

Every altar we have built:

When we like Solomon

Seek to contain results,

To control outcomes,

Remind us 

Of where our joy and vitality really come from.

Teach us in Christ the letting go 

By which your uncontainable love, forgiveness, and generosity

Find flesh.

In Christ, our Lord and our savior: Amen.

"Did I Ask for a House?" (2 Sam 7:1-17)

A Dinner Party

Julia had never been to an evening banquet before—or what we might call a dinner party. To get into most banquets, you had to have something valuable. Political influence. A big business. A recognizable name. Or, lacking these things, you had to have the right connections. You had to rub shoulders with important people who were moving up in the world, people who had a reputation in the government or the marketplace. People like Julia, who didn’t even know her father’s name, whose menial work was meant to be in the shadows, out of sight, giving the illusion that her employer’s home was just naturally spotless and well ordered—people like Julia were never invited to a banquet.

And yet here she was, about to enter a modest dwelling where cooked food was being set out in the center of a room and people were milling about with friendly faces and warm embraces. She recognized a seamstress from the city center, the local grocer, even a former city official. In fact, he was the first to greet her, with a smile and a handshake and a “Welcome, sister”—which, if she were honest, unsettled her a little bit, but only with the hope that maybe it could be somehow true and here was a family.

Julia was at this banquet in the first place because a close friend, another menial worker, had told her about it. “You’ll eat better there than you do on your own,” her friend had said. “And it’s different from most banquets. There are no special privileges given to the rich or the powerful. We all share the same seats and eat the same food and have equal opportunity to share in the time of sharing.”

And sure enough, there in a circle, rich and poor alike sat and passed plates and bumped elbows and swapped stories. It was surreal. A few times during the meal, someone would speak up and share a memory about a man in whose name they would bless the meal and give thanks. Clearly this man was the founder of the feast, and so Julia did not hesitate to give thanks herself. Whoever was responsible for this strange gathering had her gratitude.

When the meal was done, a few men and women gathered the leftover food and packaged it up in bags. Julia’s friend leaned over and whispered that the bags would be delivered later to the poor and the imprisoned and the people who could not make it. Then all the banqueters got up reverently to wash their hands in ceremonial fashion. As they retook their seats in the circle, candles were lit. After a moment of silence, one banqueter began to sing a short song of praise, something about the founder of the feast being emptied and made like a slave and even put to death on a cross, and something about him being most highly exalted and his name being most honored. Then another banqueter, the seamstress Julia had recognized from earlier, spoke up and shared a personal story about how a client had swindled her the past week. “Before,” she said, “I would have been consumed with anger and threats of vengeance. I would have sought to have him dragged before the courts. But this time I remembered my Lord and asked myself, ‘What good would vengeance do?’” Then she held up her arms, looking a little bit like a person affixed on one of those wooden crosses that the Romans used for execution. “If I see that client again, I will tell him what he did and how it hurt me. But I will also ask him how I can help. Maybe he has a need that he cannot afford, and I can lend a hand. Didn’t my Lord say, ‘It is better to give than receive’?”

One by one, banqueters shared. Some sang songs like the first banqueter had sung, others told stories like the seamstress had told, and a few simply recited the words of texts that were sacred to them. After each person had shared, Julia felt enriched, as though having received a gift. Although she had nothing to share on this occasion, she knew that she would have been welcomed to speak.

At the closing of the banquet, everyone stood up and a few people prayed. And then everyone said together, “Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.”

As Julia went home that night, she felt different. Better. Fuller, not just in her gut, but in her spirit. She felt like there was something within her that was not there before—a feeling perhaps, like hope. 

God’s House

When David proposes to build a “house” for God, which is to say a proper Temple instead of the portable cloth tabernacle that Israel has used since the time it left Egypt, his prophet Nathan doesn’t even think it’s worth consulting God. He just assumes God needs a temple. Or perhaps it’s that God deserves a temple. After all, if you look around at Israel’s neighbors, all the other gods have a temple. Of course they’re not “real” gods. Nathan knows that. But all the more reason for God to have a temple, but bigger and better, to show that he’s the real God and worthy of honor and glory and worship. 

This is the first time we see Nathan in scripture, and it’s obvious here that he is a royal prophet. It was common for kings in the ancient Near East to have prophets in their pay, holy men who would validate their decisions and rubber stamp them with God’s name. In other words, they were “yes” men, but their “yes” was special because it came in God’s name.

But this night, Nathan gets a visit from the real God, who tells him he was gravely mistaken in his assumption. And then God effectively poses him the question, “Did I ever ask for a house?” (cf. 2 Sam 7:7).  “I prefer being on the move,” God says, “going where my people go” (cf. 2 Sam 7:6).

God goes on to concede that, yes, David’s son will build a house for God’s name (2 Sam 7:13)—it seems that God will not forever stand in the way of our ambitions when we set our heart on something—but God concludes by making clear that the “house” that matters is the one that God is building. “The Lord will make you a house. … Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me” (2 Sam 7:11, 16). 

To be sure, God is talking about an entirely different kind of house than David had in mind. As followers of Christ, we might remember New Testament scriptures like Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where he says, “Your body”—and here the “you” is plural, so he’s referring to the collective body of Christ—“Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19). Or we might remember Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he writes that in Christ “you”—again, plural—“you…are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Eph 2:22). In other words, Paul is insisting that neither is God’s “house” a building nor—and I think this second part is crucial—nor is God’s house an individual’s heart, like my heart or your heart. Rather, for Paul, God’s house is the community of Christ-followers, wherever they are gathered, whether in a grand temple like the one that Solomon would eventually build or the small home that Julia visited.

A Pattern of God Letting Us Have What We Want

God’s eventual concession that David’s son, Solomon, will build God a literal house, a temple, actually fits within a pattern that we see throughout scripture. Again and again, God lets us have what we want, even as God commits to and insists on so much more. God consents to relate to us on our terms, even as God insists on something that far transcends those terms.

The first animal sacrifices made in the Bible were not at God’s command, but out of humanity’s free will. Only after this has happened again and again, does God eventually say something like, “Okay, if you insist on these sacrifices, then at least do them this way and understand that their true meaning is not a matter of magic but has to do with matters of the heart.” (That is my interpretation of the book of Leviticus.) 

In the same way, the people of Israel clamored for a king, even after Samuel had warned them about all the loss of freedom and life that a monarchy would entail. Finally, God concedes and says something like, “Okay, you may have a king. And even though it’s not part of my plan, I will be faithful to you. Just be sure that you and your king stay faithful to me.” (That is my interpretation of the book of 1 Samuel). 

In today’s passage, David introduces the idea that God needs a temple. God responds in no uncertain terms that God does not need a temple. Even so, God does ultimately consent to the idea that David’s son, Solomon, will build him a temple. But God clarifies that what is most important is not the physical house, but the spiritual house that he will be building among people of faith.

“So Much More” 

All of this leads me to wonder about the church at large—and the present circumstances in which many churches find themselves. I wonder about things like church buildings. Professional clergy. Programs designed to accommodate or attract a particular audience. I wonder, has God asked for any of this? Or is it another example of God letting us have our way, even as God still harbors plans for so much more?

And a part of me wonders if the “so much more” that God has in store for the church in fact looks like less. Like the modest gathering that Julia walked into. Her story, I’ll confess, is only imagined, but it is all drawn from the earliest accounts we have of the gatherings of Christ-followers. They had much less than we do. No official buildings to their name. No superstar pastors. No blueprints or ambitions for church growth. All they had was their experience of the risen Christ, which they experienced again and again together.

Not today, but in the future, I’d like to explore more with you what lessons we might learn from the early church, because it seems likely that the church at large will soon find itself with much less than it once had—and yet with an opportunity for God’s “so much more.”

Prayer

Faithful God,

Who meets us always where we are—

Grant us the faith of the crucified Christ,

Whose encounter with death

Became an ever-flowing font of life.

…

Teach us what is unnecessary and what we may let go of,

So that we might receive the gift you have for us.

In Christ, our Lord: Amen.

Will Alignment (1 Sam 1:9-11, 19-20; 2:1-10)

The Power of Purr

Have you heard the gospel according to cats? Purr changes things! (I know you don’t come here for the jokes.)

Today’s scripture would certainly seem to support the sentiment, though. Prayer does change things. But lest we jump too quickly to any conclusions, I would like to keep one question open. What, exactly, does prayer change?

Not a Transaction

It is one of the most beloved storylines in ancient Israelite tradition. A barren woman miraculously gives birth to a child. What better story to illustrate grace, the giftedness of life, the goodness that is not of our own making but from God the Giver of good gifts? 

In today’s iteration of the story, Hannah “pours out her soul before the Lord,” the Lord “remembers” her, and she “conceives and bears a son” (1 Sam 1:16, 19-20). It seems like a cut-and-dried case of prayers being answered. The priest Eli suggests as much when he says, “May the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him” (1 Sam 1:17).

But this straightforward interpretation of “prayers answered” does not rest easy with me. For one thing, scripture itself is curiously reticent to attribute Hannah’s pregnancy directly to God. Whereas in previous cases (such as the matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah and Leah and Rachel), scripture designates God as responsible for the barren woman’s conceiving and bearing a child, saying something like, “God opened her womb” (e.g., Gen 30:22), in today’s passage the narrator simply says “the Lord remembered her” (1 Sam 1:19). Perhaps we’re meant to connect the dots and assume that God’s remembering Hannah led straight to God’s opening her womb. But we could also interpret God’s remembering Hannah as a simple expression of God’s companionship and care. God heard her prayer, and God will not leave her side in the midst of her travails.

This interpretation—that God hears and cares but does not necessarily wave the magic wand—recommends itself to me on one simple basis: reality. That is, I know several individuals who have been desperate for a child, whose prayers have not been answered in such direct fashion. More generally, I think we are all familiar with the experience of praying desperately for something—a cure, perhaps, or a reconciliation, or a windfall—and it never comes.

To me, it seems that an oversimplified reading of Hannah’s story as “prayers answered” founders on the rocks of reality, on the stony shoreline of our own actual experience. We have all learned the hard way this lesson: whatever prayer is, it is not a transaction. It is not a straightforward matter of getting what we ask for.

Getting Honest with God

Perhaps part of what inclines us toward reading Hannah’s prayer as transactional is that we read it as one single, decisive prayer. But in fact, the surrounding verses make it clear that this particular prayer is one among many. Year after year, Hannah has gone up to the temple with her husband Elkanah, and every year it ends in tears (cf. 1 Sam 1:7). Why? Elkanah’s other wife, Penninah, “provokes her severely” because she has no children (1 Sam 1:6). I imagine Penninah doing this in the most infuriating way. You know, never saying anything directly, but rather complaining about all the “problems” of having children. “Oh, what am I going to do this year? My boys and girls have outgrown their best clothes—what will they possibly wear to the temple?” Or, “I wish my babies would stop crying in the middle of worship—it’s so embarrassing.” And yet she says it all with a smile. “The gall of that woman,” Hannah would have thought to herself, “to talk about the blessing of children as a burden. What I wouldn’t do for her ‘burden’!"

For his part, Elkanah tries to reassure Hannah. He gives her twice the sacrificial meat that he gives to Penninah and his children. He tells her the truth: she is his favorite. He prefers her to Penninah. “Why is your heart sad?” he asks. “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:5, 8).

And yet Hannah cries. Every year, she cries. We don’t know the particular words that she prays the previous years, but we do not need to know the particular words. The tears tell us all we need to know. Hannah is getting honest with God. She is praying her heart. Maybe it is anger and resentment toward Peninnah. Maybe like the psalmist, she prays, “Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain I have kept my heart clean…. For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning” (Ps 73:12-14). Maybe her prayer is more inclined toward despair and self-pity, as when the psalmist prays, “I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppressed me?’ As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’” (Ps 42:9-10). 

Whatever the content of her prayers, it is perhaps the simple fact that she even prays in the first place that is most instructive. Most people in Hannah’s situation would likely be tempted to look for their identity in their achievements and in what others think of them. In the case of barrenness, which was looked upon in ancient Israelite culture as a grave failure at best or God’s judgment at worst, a woman might do as the matriarchs Sarah and Rachel do, and try to find a surrogate mother. A son to their name was better than no son at all. Or another woman might find security and satisfaction in her husband’s love and favoritism. She might even occasionally flaunt her husband’s love and favoritism in the face of her rival (not unlike the way Joseph flaunts Jacob’s favoritism in front of his brothers). 

But Hannah does neither of these things. She does not look for her identity and worth in either her achievements or what others think of her. Instead, she places herself before God and expresses her honest, messy feelings. Year after year, she turns toward God. 

A Desert Interlude: Getting Closer to God

And here is my suspicion. Here is my interpretation. Year after year, through one honest, messy prayer after another—there is change. But it is not Hannah wearing God down, like water on stone. It is God slowly transforming Hannah’s heart. 

I’m reminded here of a couple of anecdotes that come from the Desert Mothers and Fathers (those Christ-followers who retreated to the wilderness once Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire and the church started feeling more like a tool of Caesar than the body of Christ).

The first anecdote is just a saying attributed to Abba Ammonas, “I have spent fourteen years [here] asking God night and day to grant me the victory over anger.” Fourteen years. That is not the kind of testimonial for prayer that you would hear from a televangelist. Who wants to wait around fourteen years to get what they ask for?

The second anecdote comes from Amma Syncletica, who explains that enjoying the presence of God involves prayer and tears. “There is struggling and toil at first for all those advancing toward God; but afterward, my children, inexpressible joy. Indeed, just as those seeking to light a fire at first are engulfed in smoke and teary-eyed, thus they obtain what they seek…. So, we ought to kindle the Divine Fire in ourselves with tears and toil.”

Tears and toil. Again, not a very attractive testimonial for prayer. But what strikes me about Amma Syncletica’s teaching is that she frames the object of prayer not as getting what you want, but as getting close to God (“advancing toward God”). And that, she says, is “inexpressible joy.”

Not Mine, but Yours 

The only prayer of Hannah’s that we actually get to hear is the last one, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. In her final prayer, we see the fruit of her years of prayer. We see her transformation. If originally her honest prayers were for a son that would bring her personal fulfillment, her final prayer makes clear that it is no longer a matter of personal fulfillment. She lets go of her son before she ever comes to hold him and effectively tells God, “He will not be mine; he will be yours.” Which, perhaps, is the difficult truth of all parenthood. Perhaps Hannah is only accepting the reality of her situation, whether she has a child or not, and entrusting God with whatever happens.

I’m reminded of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want” (Matt 26:39). Jesus’ prayer follows a remarkably similar arc to Hannah’s. First there is honesty. For Jesus, the honesty of wanting something other than a cross. For Hannah, the honesty of wanting a child so she can be seen as normal, complete, a respectable Israelite woman. But then this honesty, which may begin as messy and even selfish, naturally opens up and matures into a desire for God’s will. This honesty grows into the awareness that God’s will is in fact what is best for us. And therefore it becomes our will too.

When Hannah leaves her son Samuel at the temple, probably around the age of three, she prays one more time. It is not a tearful prayer, although I would be surprised if there weren’t some tears in her eyes. Instead it is a triumphant prayer, glorifying not only what God has done in Hannah’s particular situation, but what God is doing throughout the world: breaking the power of the prideful, guarding the faithful, lifting up the lowly. In other words, it is not a selfish prayer but selfless, celebrating what God is doing all over the world. And, for me, the key to the prayer is toward the end: “For not by might does one prevail” (1 Sam 2:9). How does one prevail? Through honest, messy prayer. Prayer that slowly changes us, maybe through years and tears and trials, gradually aligning our will with God’s will. It is, as Amma Syncletica says, “an inexpressible joy”—not to get what we first want, but ultimately to be with God and to give flesh to God’s goodness in our world.

Prayer

Compassionate God,

Who is always with us in prayer—

May Hannah’s example inspire us

To be courageous and honest with you,

To pray messy prayers,

To be changed according to your will.

In Christ, who prayed, “Your will be done.” Amen.

God's Long Nose (Exodus 32:1-14)

Not What I Expected

I was at that age when mowing the lawn had not yet become a chore. It was still a thrill to start an engine by the strength of my arm, to see the immediate results of my labor, to feel like I was useful. To feel like I was an adult.

We were visiting my grandparents. Granddad had recently purchased a semi-self-propelled lawnmower. As the grass was getting long, I volunteered to cut it. The lawnmower’s self-propulsion just added to my excitement. I would race around his lawn and be done in no time.

Perhaps I was mowing in haste. As I neared the house, I did not account for the protective plastic guard on one of the basement shelf windows and—crack! I had run straight into it, making a large and visible hole. As I finished what remained of the lawn, I sank ever deeper into a state of worry. I’d never seen Granddad angry at anyone, much less me, but that didn’t stop my imagination. I envisioned a host of scenarios: Granddad quiet and crestfallen, sorry that he had entrusted his grandson with this responsibility; or Granddad with eyes wide open in disbelief and breathing heavy sighs of frustration; or Granddad with pursed lips and contemplating matters of punishment or repayment.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the acronym F.E.A.R? “False expectations appearing real”? That certainly proved true in this case. Granddad probably saw the fear on my face. He just gave me a big hug and said, “Oh, that’s an easy fix. I’m just grateful I don’t have to mow the lawn!” And that was that. As I remember, we went out later that night and played putt-putt.

An Impatient People, an Impatient God

Moses has been away on the mountain for forty days, and the people of Israel are getting impatient. If the golden calf is a symbol of Israel’s infidelity, then it must be remembered that their infidelity is a symptom of their impatience. Only after forty days have passed and they’ve heard nothing from Moses or God do they cry out to Aaron to fashion some gods to replace Moses. Aaron’s proposal that they make sacrifices before these gods as part of a “festival to the Lord” suggests that these gods are more of a visual stand-in for Moses than an actual replacement for God (Ex 32:5). The people are impatient to have a figurehead, an intermediary, someone or something that can assure them of their relationship with God. 

We might be conditioned against speaking ill of God, but allow me to call it like I see it. God is just as impatient and reactive as his own people. It’s like looking into a mirror. God has an extraordinarily short fuse here. He tells Moses, “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them”—or as it says in the Hebrew (and this is crucial, remember this!): “So that my nose may burn hot against them” (Ex 32:10).

This impatient, violent God is very much in keeping with the other gods of the ancient Near East. You might find it interesting to know that Israel’s neighbors had their own version of the flood story, but with some key differences. Most salient among these differences is the reason for the flood. The humans on earth are making too much of a racket, and the gods cannot get any sleep. So finally they settle on a solution: let’s flood the earth! All for the sake of catching a few winks…. It’s not unlike what we see in today’s scripture, where God nearly goes nuclear on Israel within moments.

The Evolution of “God”

Only because of Moses do the people of Israel live to see another day. In today’s scripture, Moses behaves more like God than God behaves like God. He pleads with God to have some patience: “Turn from your fierce wrath,” or literally, “Turn from the burning of your nose” (remember this odd expression!). “Change  your mind!” Moses implores (Ex 32:12). And then, lo and behold! “The Lord changed his mind” (Ex 32:14). 

I don’t know what’s more troubling in this passage. That God initially has the patience of a four year old, or that God’s plans and purposes change in the blink of an eye. Either way, this is not a God I would feel very safe with. [I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving my nephews in his care.]

I wonder, though, if something else isn’t going on in today’s passage. The resemblance that God initially bears to the gods of Israel’s neighbors, gods who would kill for a wink of sleep, gods who look an awful lot like oversized humans—perhaps this resemblance represents Israel’s expectation. Just as I imagined that Granddad would be upset with me, so Israel imagines a God who operates the way their world operates, with impatience, with vengeance. And just as my expectations were met with the opposite reality, so too were Israel’s. 

One way of reading today’s story is that it shows us not an evolution in God’s character but an evolution in the way Israel thinks about God. The story begins with Israel’s fear of a god who looks a lot like us, all-too-human, impatient and wrathful. But the story’s conclusion reveals a very different God. When we hear at the story’s end, “The Lord changed his mind” (Ex 32:14), what we’re really hearing is that Israel changed its mind about the Lord. It is not God who repents from his impatient wrath, but Israel who begins to repent (i.e., change its mind) from such an image of God. Israel is catching a glimpse of God’s true character, which is not an eye for an eye, not evil for evil.

“Long of Nose”

A little while later in the story, when God renews the covenant with Israel and makes new tablets to replace the ones that Moses broke, God passes directly before Moses, and Moses hears a declaration of God’s character: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). “Slow to anger” translates literally to “long of nose,” which is a sort of repudiation of what we saw earlier, when God’s nose burned immediately against Israel. “Long of nose” was the Hebrew way of saying you had a long fuse—your nose didn’t burn so quickly!

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that this revelation of God’s “long nose” is a pivotal moment in Israel’s evolving faith. Israel discovered that their God was strikingly different from the gods of the world in this particular way: God had a long nose! God was patient! People like to draw a contrast between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, saying the Old Testament God is violent and vengeful, and the New Testament God is peaceful and forgiving. But the truth is more complicated. All of the peaceful and forgiving representations of God that we see in the New Testament—they do not appear out of thin air. They come from the Old Testament. 

Jesus frequently cites scripture, and one of the books that he draws from most often is Isaiah. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Isaiah seems to have an especially acute sense for the peculiarity of God’s patience. It is Isaiah who anticipates the covenant of love that Jesus will embody (cf. Isa 55), and in this passage he proclaims: “Let [the wicked] return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them…For ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord” (Isa 55:7-8). In other words, the human inclination is to return like for like, to reward good with good, and return evil with evil. But God’s thoughts are not ours, nor God’s way ours. God is patient. God is merciful.

A Patient God, a Patient People

The earliest followers of Christ understood patience to be part of their unique heritage and witness. The first virtue that received the treatment of an entire book? Patience. The distinctive behavior that drew the attention and curiosity of outsiders? Patience. Justin Martyr, writing in the 2nd century CE, observes that the “strange patience” of Christ-followers who had been injured by others or who were doing business with others, was uniquely attractive. Perhaps they were forgiving debts, or not collecting with interest, or not seeking charges against their wrongdoers—we don’t know the specifics. All we know is that their patience marked them as different than everyone else.

And it all comes back to our long-nosed God, I think. They say you become what you worship. If you worship power, the world becomes a battlefield. If you worship money, the world becomes a marketplace. If you worship a God of steadfast and patient love, the world becomes a community, a family. 

This World Communion Sunday, when we celebrate the universal invitation and welcome of our Lord’s table, it is fitting that we remember our long-nosed God. Jesus models for us the patience of our father in his table manners. Eating with tax collectors and sinners, kneeling down and serving others, Jesus shows us that the point is not being in control and achieving certain results, but about caring for others and trusting in the power of God’s love to heal and transform. 

At the table, Jesus holds out hope that one day we will all be gathered together at the great family reunion of God’s love.

Prayer

Patient God,

Whose kindness opens the door

To repentance and new life:

Change our minds about you

And make our hearts like yours,

Hopeful, open, and strong

…

Instruct us in the ways of your patience

That we might be saltier, brighter witnesses,

To your kingdom of love.

In Christ, the patience of God incarnate: Amen.