"Change-the-World Chili"

Preached November 25, 2012 at Ashland Presbyterian Church in Ashland, VA

Text: I Samuel 1:1-20

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of our liturgical year. Next week, we'll begin the process anew with the familiar season of Advent, with its candles and familiar carols. But today, we anticipate Christ's glorious return and celebrate the salvation that God has prepared for all people since the beginning of time. It's the big picture - it's the salvation story. But this morning, I'd like to invite you to look at our salvation story on a slightly smaller scale. I'd like to invite us to experience salvation through the eyes of Hannah.

When we come to this text, we encounter Israel in trouble. God has brought the Hebrew people out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land, but recently, things haven't gone exactly as they had hoped. The Philistines and the other nations surrounding Israel are pressing in on them, threatening their safety and security. What's more, these nations are tempting the Israelites to reject the one true God of their ancestors, the God who brought them out of Egypt, and instead to worship idols, the false gods of other nations. This political and theological confusion has caused internal divisions among the twelve tribes of Israel and has led them to the brink of civil war. The very people who are called to be God's chosen ones, the nation through whom all nations of the earth will be blessed, have engaged in the brutalities of pillaging, rape, and murder, even among their own people. The Book of Judges chronicles these horrors, always repeating a single refrain: "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes." Without any form of long-term, concrete leadership, Israel can only envision a future characterized by suffering.

In the midst of this chaotic scene, we meet Hannah. We aren't told too much about her, but we learn enough to know that she, too, is in the midst of great suffering, is wondering why God has forgotten her. You see, Hannah is married, but she has no children. And in the patriarchal culture of ancient Israel, where women were valued primarily because of their ability to give birth, to bring new life, to continue the family line, barrenness was one of the worst fates a woman could suffer. And Hannah's barrenness is not just a physical problem - it's a theological problem. "The Lord," the text tells us, had "closed Hannah's womb." It's not just that Hannah's people look down on her, it's not just that she has to endure the taunting of her rival wife Peninnah. There is a sense in which Hannah feels that her very God has rejected her. 

And nothing, for Hannah, can overcome that rejection. Not the love that her husband has for her, not the preferential treatment that he shows her in giving her a double portion of the offering. None of these things can satisfy, can deliver her from her distress.

For Israel and for Hannah, the situation seems hopeless. Hannah is loved by her husband Elkanah, Israel is loved and chosen by God, and yet, suffering remains. What happens to change things, then, to turn this story of suffering into a story of salvation? The answer is surprisingly simple: Hannah prays.  

          

Her prayer is one of desperation, one of deep, deep need. She weeps bitterly, and when Eli confronts her, she describes herself as a woman deeply troubled. The text tells us she pours out her very soul before the Lord.

And at the same time, Hannah's prayer is incredibly bold. You see, there are in fact two ways to interpret that phrase that Hannah uses to describe herself to Eli, the one that in the NRSV reads, "a woman deeply troubled." It can also mean someone who is stubborn, obstinate, persistent -- someone who will not take no for an answer.

Desperate and bold, Hannah has the faith and the courage to believe and demand that the God of Israel, the mighty Lord of Hosts, will come to the aid of someone in such a broken and lowly state. She prays in the conviction that her God is deeply invested in the salvation of those who are hurting and at the bottom of the social pyramid.

And God hears Hannah's prayer, God remembers her, and salvation comes as an answer to this prayer. Salvation not just for Hannah, but also for the whole of Israel. Hannah the barren one conceives and bears a son. But in the grand story of Israel, it is not just any son that Hannah bears. Hannah gives birth to the beginnings of deliverance. She gives birth to the new beginnings of God's salvation.

In Hannah's prayer, the private becomes public, the individual becomes communal, the personal becomes political. For you see, this child born to Hannah will be a very special child indeed. Her son Samuel will hear the call of God while he is still a child. He will become a great prophet, and he will rule as a judge over Israel in righteousness and in accordance with God's commands. He will be the prophet who initiates the monarchy. And finally, Samuel will anoint King David, the greatest king of Israel, who will deliver his people from their marginal status. In King David, Israel will experience a taste of God's salvation, just as Hannah did in the conception and birth of her son.

In a quite literal way, then, it is Hannah's prayer that gives birth to the beginning of Israel's monarchy. The glory and joy of Israel united under King David begins in the bold and desperate prayer of a humble woman in despair.

And maybe, after all, this is how salvation begins. In the small things, in the mustard seeds of our lives. A child is born when everyone believes it is no longer possible, hope is kindled, the Kingdom breaks in, and salvation begins anew. Hannah teaches us about the things that make for salvation. The little, ordinary, seemingly insignificant things that are infused with divine purpose.

Some of you may have heard of David Lamotte, a Presbyterian folk-singer and an advocate for justice and peace. When David speaks about advocacy and peacemaking, about being disciples of Christ, he likes to tell the story of Rosa Parks. Many people look back at Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat as a beginning of sorts. It was, after all, a watershed moment, an action that launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott and gave a public face to the Civil Rights Movement. But David invites us to look a little further back in the story. Before Rosa made history that day on the bus, she had been secretary of the Montgomery NAACP for 12 years. And in fact, it was her husband, Raymond Parks, who brought her to her first NAACP meeting. And then, taking even another step back, David asks how did Raymond get involved in the movement? 

Using a bit of imagination and artistic license, David likes to speculate that Rosa's husband was invited to his first NAACP meeting by a friend and colleague at work.

"Come on," his friend said to him, "Come with me to the meeting tonight. There's good work being done there. I think you're gonna wanna be a part of this."

"Man, I don't know," said Rosa's husband. "I'm tired; it's been a long day. I gotta find something to eat and get to bed. I'm working the early shift in the morning."

But Raymond Parks' friend was persistent. "You lookin' for something to eat? Listen, my wife's making chili and bringing a big batch to the meeting for supper. Come with me tonight -- we'll make sure you don't go to bed hungry. I'm telling you, my wife makes some darn good chili..."

And so, as David imagines the story, Rosa Parks' brave and fateful act of civil disobedience on that bus in Montgomery traces itself all the way back to a bowl of chili prepared by a woman whose name we'll never know. What resulted was the Civil Rights Movement - an immense experience of salvation on both the personal and political level. And it began with a simple bowl of change-the-world-chili.

A bowl of chili. A mustard seed. The birth of a long-awaited child. These are the things by which salvation, day by day, takes hold of our lives. Hannah's prayer was answered. Rosa Parks' bold act of civil disobedience paid off, in the long run.

But of course, we know of prayers that aren't answered. We know of times when people stand up for justice, for faith, for doing the right thing, and it seems that their hard work, that our hard work is in vain. Not all prayers, it seems, are answered. We know that. And you know, I think Hannah knew that. But she kept praying, and through her example, she teaches us to keep praying. For Hannah knew, and we confess, that the same world that contains tears and brokenness, death and suffering, is the world into which our Lord Jesus Christ came, fully human, to be present with us, and to suffer alongside us.

Yes, it's fitting that on Christ the King Sunday we hear Hannah's story. For the salvation that her simple prayer brings does not end with King David and the glory of the Kingdom of Israel. We know that King David is ancestor to none other than the one we call Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As we look today toward the great completion of the salvation of the world, we remember the simple things - as simple as a desperate woman's prayer, or a meal offered in hospitality - that anticipated this salvation and set it into motion.

Perhaps today, when we anticipate Jesus' glorious and triumphant return, it is most fitting to hear stories like Hannah's. For the one who today comes with clouds descending is the same one who, as we will begin to anticipate next week, was born in a lowly stable and laid in a manger. 

This, my friends, is the good news. We worship a God who answers the prayers of the lowly. Who enacts the political in the personal, who works out salvation in the smallest of moments. And we are invited to take part in this great salvation story, just like Hannah and so many of our mothers and fathers in the faith. For surely we, even we, can fix up a bowl of change-the-world-chili!