Lectionary reading: The TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME - November 15, 2009

I Samuel 1:4-20

She made this vow: "O LORD of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child . . .

APOSTROPHE by Larry Patten

Tell me about Hannah’s place or time of birth. Tell me how or when she died. Tell me what happened to Samuel’s mother between first and last breath.

You can’t tell me much can you? Indeed, in the brief paragraph above I’ve summed up the nearly singular dollop of Biblical information we have about Hannah: Samuel’s mother. Punctuation-wise, the apostrophe between the “l” and the lower case “s” defines Hannah.

Not fair, you might protest. There are more apostrophes and details to her credit: Elkanah’s barren wife, Peninnah’s rival, believer, pray-er, promise maker and a woman whose name means grace.

And yet, like so many within the vast Biblical landscape, Hannah comes and goes quickly. She’s like the college roommate that departed before the semester ended or the temp worker with the nice smile whose last name you can’t remember a week later. It’s especially like that for Biblical women. What do we know about Miriam? She’s mostly an apostrophe: Moses’ sister. What do we know about Bathsheba? Another, slightly more elaborate apostrophe: Uriah’s wife, David’s stupidity, Solomon’s mother. There are many women, and of course men, children and even angels and demons that appear for a moment and disappear into the thousand pages of the good book.

And so with Hannah, we glimpse her and wave farewell. But, at least for me, the glimpse lingers.

The Biblical Hannah bargains with God. As a polite, professional pastor I’ve always cautioned my parishioners about human-Holy bargaining. Please, please God, give me a bike and I’ll be a good boy. Bad prayer! Please, please God, help me find a parking place and I’ll treat everyone nice for the rest of the day. Bad prayer! Many bargains are more serious. We barter health, happiness and money. For ourselves. For others. For life itself.

Barren Hannah bargains. As Elkanah’s other wife, who may indeed love her husband “more than ten sons,” she nonetheless bargains for her own child. Oh, it’s not a bargain? Pardon me. Let’s label it with a proper and faithful word . . . she vows that if she births a child—male and not female, thank you very much—she’ll give him back to the Lord.

My mother did that. She made a Hannah-like vow. There, I’ve said it. I tell folks never to bargain. But, in our family legends, my mother apparently did. Let me try to explain without unduly embarrassing her or me. My parents were married in the early months of World War II. As with so many, they lived with stress, experienced times of separation and moved repeatedly as my father—in the Army Air Corps—went from assignment to assignment. They had it easier than some, harder than others. And they were childless. Apparently, at some point, perhaps only secretly or foolishly or both, my mother vowed to God that if she could have just one child, she would give it back to the Lord. (Have I embarrassed myself yet?). Years pass. Eventually, my parents have three children. Thrice blessed, they might proclaim on the good days!

One became ordained. Me, the middle child. Given back to God? Was I the fulfilled vow? How dare I think that way? Or, how dare I not? My parents, and in particular my mother, mentioned her vow only a few times. Neither my two sisters nor me lived our childhood burdened with unrealistic future expectations. I actually believe all of us were given “back to God.” All children are. Parents raise children, not to keep them, but to eventually (hopefully lovingly) point them along their own paths. My ordination path is not better or worse than the ones my siblings chose.

Hannah. Elkanah’s wife. Samuel’s mother. We read her terse account and smile when a priest spies her prayer—silently, only her lips moving—and accuses her of drunkenness. We may also smile—a bittersweet smile—when Elkanah wonders if he’s not worth ten sons. Aren’t we saddened with and for her? Childless, like Abram’s Sarai in Genesis, like Zechariah’s Elizabeth in Matthew, and longing for a child.

So Hannah prays. Hannah vows. Hannah hopes. Her story weaves into my life for I’m thankful my mother, at most once or twice, whispered to me that she vowed a child would be given back to God. I suspect most days I don’t live up to my mother’s long-ago vow. I suspect Samuel may have also thought that.

But I read and relish the briefest of stories. Hannah, barely an apostrophe, who comes and goes in a fistful of verses, continues praying in and through my life. And yours? What vow brought you to this point and will carry you into God’s next promise?

in Peace,

Larry Patten

(Written on November 3, 2009)