“Hannah, Jesus and our Song of Hope”
by Bruce J. Johnson
(1 Samuel 1: 4-20; Mark 13:
1-8)
Next
Saturday, November 22nd, is the 40th anniversary of the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy, one of those dates in history on which you know
where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the news.
The
hype has already begun with television specials scheduled for this week. And, I
suppose that it was somewhat in anticipation of that anniversary that
To
the nation, of course, she appeared so stoic and carried herself with such
dignity and grace but her poignant confessions to the priest show profound
grief:
One of her statements he remembers: “I’m so bleeding
inside”
The other: “”If only I had a minute to say goodbye,” she told McSorley. “It was so hard not to say goodbye, not to be able to say goodbye.”
(Hartford
Courant,
What a time in our nation’s history! What a relationship the nation has had with Jackie Kennedy since--- that words such as these would tough such a vulnerable place in all. Sometimes events in our lives do come without warning. We’re unprepared. We struggle to make sense out of them, and it is even tougher to see and affirm the promise embedded in them.
Last Friday, the Connecticut Forum presented a program called “Looking at Life.” I’m sorry I missed it but I enjoyed reading through the program and about the panelists, one of whom was Salman Rushdie, the author of Satanic Verses, the book that provoked the government of Iran to issue a ‘fatwa’ on him in 1989, a fatwa lifted only in 1998. In 1999, Rushdie wrote a novel titled The Ground Beneath Her Feet. About that novel, he says this:
“One of the reasons I’m writing a novel about cataclysms in people’s lives, about earthquakes, about the fact that the world is provisional and the life you think is yours can be removed from you at any moment- one of the reasons I’m writing this book is because of what happened in my life.”
(“Looking At Life” –CT.
Forum,
Indeed,
one of the major issues for us all is what happens in all of our lives at one
point or another.
We
learn that life can be provisional and that the life we think is ours can be removed
from us at any moment.
Yesterday’s
New York Times, in its “The Saturday Profile,” features the story of Maher
Arar, a man who the Bush administration claims is more than the mild mannered
and soft spoken computer consultant from Canada but someone who was also had
citizenship in Syria. The administration believes that he had ties to Al Qaeda,
something that is yet to be proven. During what was supposed to be a brief stopover
at
First, out of no where and for no reason that he could
ever have anticipated, both his life and his career were destroyed.
Second, with respect to what took place in
“I would never have imagined before ----that human
beings could do such things to other human beings.”
(NYTIMES,
300 Jewish worshipers at a Bar Mitzvah--- there, ironically, to celebrate the coming of age for a young man.
(AOL
News,
I
wonder whether what took place outside the temple in
“And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples
said to him, ‘Look Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”
Look
teacher at this incredible place--- the place of promise—the temple of Solomon—rebuilt
in glory--- the place of the Holy of Holies –the place where we know God is
present--- the place where sacrifices are made for sin--- the place where the dream
of Abraham and the vision of Moses are made to come true--- that place where
even the greatest in our land bow down--- and where the wisest come to teach
and be taught… Teacher, look how big, how grand, how square and how secure!
“And Jesus answered them: ‘Do you see these great
building? (and I would add, and ‘so much of what they represent’) there will
not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.”
And as he sat upon the
Ah! What a question, “when will this be?” Would
that we could know when such things might happen in our lives! Jesus says that
it is not for him to say but he will say this much, Two things:
First, live your lives awake and aware and ready for
that time you discover that life is provision and the life you think is yours
might be taken away. In other words, when all the big beautiful stones upon
which we have built our lives prove not very set—the stones of power, and privilege,
of wealth and possessions and accomplishments and your notions of nation and
church, dogmatic beliefs, marriage and family and sense of community----You
know, the things you think are so important if not essential.
Well, ‘in the end”, the only thing that will really
matter is our relationship
and what you have learned from it.
Second, remember this, when these things happen in
your life--- you are not in the throes of death but it “is but the beginning of
the birth pangs.”
Wow--- I guess that this is how the Markan passage connects to story of Hannah and the birth of Samuel.
In our story from 1 Samuel, it seemed that Hannah’s womb
would never produce children, only misery. Hannah, however, does not consider her
future devoid of hope. She pleads with God to remember her. Remembrance is a
powerful theme in the Hebrew story of faith. God remembered Noah and the rains
stopped and the wind and waves subsided. God remembered
(Seasons of the Spirit, p.94)
And it is meant to be the same for all future generations--- in the midst of the barren and broken, the exploding glass and twisted steel, when the stones upon which we have seemingly built our present life and our hopes for the future are disrupted… there and then we discover what really matters.
I really liked today’s meditation which is included in our bulletin about some great tidal wave of history washing it all away and being left with just each other and Christ….
“ Maybe the best thing that could happen to the church would be for some
great tidal wave of history to wash it all away--- the church building tumble,
the church money all lost, the church bulletins blowing through the air like
dead leaves, the differences between preachers and congregations all lost too.
Then all we would have left would be each other and Christ, which was all there
was in the first place.” (Frederick
Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry, p. 158)
And it is in that relationship, known and embraced in the midst of cataclysms and upheavals, that we learn about what lasts and endures forever, namely God’s renewing of life in God’s good purposes and in God’s good time. Our challenge, of course, is to keep the faith, to wait and watch and hope. What lasts in the world are not impressive constructions of architecture meant to convey the reach of human power, but the birthing of God’s triumphant and transforming love and the reach of divine grace.
(Seasons of the Spirit, p. 94)
Let me close with a quote I found the other day:
“I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.
And he replied: Go out into the darkness
And put thine hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to thee better than light
And safer than a known way.”
Amen