Hannah: Prayer for Justice

1 Samuel 2:1-10

Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.

“There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.

“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The Lord! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”

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It wasn’t intentional that we saved Hannah’s prayer for the week of International Women’s Day, which was this past Sunday, but sometimes happy, holy accidents just happen. So it’s good and right that we hear a prayer for justice from one of our ancestors – a woman – who prays a beautiful, bold, faithful, full-throated appeal like what we just heard; and another, which we’ll hear shortly.

Hannah, we know, was the mother of the prophet Samuel. And it’s knowing that Hannah was one of two wives to a guy named Elkanah. Elkanah’s other wife was a baby-making machine – she had sons and daughters aplenty, though we don’t know how many. And Elkanah’s other wife, described as Hannah’s “rival,” was terrible about it. According to the story, she “provoked” and “irritated” Hannah, which I imagine means she mocked her and made fun of her and shamed her for not being able to have children as easily or as prolifically as she could.

And, as Pastor Cogan reminded us on Sunday, in teaching about that un-named woman at the well who’d had five husbands by the time she met up with Jesus, having children – back in the day – was confirmation of your worth as a woman; it assured your status and place in a family; it was a very practical source of security (you’d have people to protect and provide for you, should you ever be widowed or alone); it was how you mattered as a woman in a misogynistic, patriarchal, man’s world.

So Hannah may have wanted a child because her mothering instincts were in full effect. She may also have wanted a baby because she wanted to make her husband happy. (The Bible tells us that Elkanah loved Hannah, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t given him a child, yet.) But Hannah may have wanted a child – and a boy, in particular – simply because she longed for affirmation of her worth, of her value, of her esteem, in her own eyes, in the eyes of God, in the eyes of the world … and maybe so she could tell that “sister wife” of hers … Elkanah’s other wife … to take a hike – or something similar.

That’s why Hannah prayed to and bargained so intensely with God. She promised she would commit her baby boy to a life of sacrifice and service to the Lord. And then it happened. God delivered. And Hannah delivered. And she kept her promise, too. She loved, cared for, fed and nurtured her little boy Samuel until she handed him over to the Lord; to live in the house of the high priest, Eli, and to become one of the greatest prophets in all of Israel’s history.

And Hannah’s prayer for justice that we heard was prayed in celebration and with thanksgiving for God’s answered prayer … for the gift of her baby boy. And Hannah’s song sounds like the original to the Virgin Mary’s cover version, so many generations later, in the Gospel of Luke – the Magnificat – which gets a whole lot more air-time because … Jesus.

See, in Hannah’s song, her heart “exults in the Lord,” she “smiles at her enemies” because she “rejoices in God’s salvation.” Likewise, Mary’s soul “magnifies the Lord” and her spirit “rejoices in God her savior.”

Hannah says, “the bows of the mighty are broken,” and “the feeble gird on strength.” Mary says “the mighty are cast down from their thrones” and “the humble in heart are lifted up.”

For Hannah, “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.” Mary says the same, just more simply, “God has filled the hungry with good things.”

You get the picture.

The undeniable similarities between Hannah’s prayer, like Mary’s, show a profound theological understanding about our God. A God who treasures and cares for the least among us. A God who protects the vulnerable and who challenges the powers that be. A God who listens to and uses the least likely suspects to bring justice, to provoke peace, to proclaim grace, to practice mercy, to do hard, holy, brave, beautiful things for the sake of the Kingdom.

Of course, justice of all sorts is worth praying about and working for in the world today. And since, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” because it’s International Women’s Month, and in honor of our ancestor Hannah, I found some things we could pray about, very specifically, where justice for women is concerned, and that impacts us all – or should:

• Did you know that every year more than 2 million girls are subjected to female, genital mutilation?

• Also, every year, 12 million girls in the world are married before their 18th birthday.

• 3.9 billion women live in countries with at least one law restricting their economic opportunities or access to the same justice as men.

• 90% of the world’s current billionaires were born before women could even get a line of credit.

• In the US, women get paid something like only 81-85% of what men do.

• Still, 6 in 10 Gen Z men believe/agree that we – men – are being expected to do too much to support gender equality. (For what it’s worth 4 in 10 Gen Z women believe the same.)

So, not only is there plenty to pray about because there’s plenty to be mad about, too. Which brings me to my last point for tonight. And that is the righteous anger I hear in the spirit of Hannah’s prayer, as much as all the rest. It’s what I hear when she prays that the lord “cuts off the wicked,” “shatters the adversaries,” and “thunders in heaven,” too.

So, I’ve asked Mallory to read again … something I’m taking liberties to call a modern-day protest prayer – not for babies, or for value that’s found in men’s approval, or for worth by way of society’s unfair standards – but a prayer for freedom and justice, generally, for women. It’s a poem by the play write and feminist Eve Ensler. (You might remember her as the creator of “The Vagina Monologues” from back in the day.) This is a slightly abridged piece, minimally edited for content that’s safe for worship.

I Am Leaving My Father’s House by Eve Ensler

I am leaving my father's house.

Stepping out, stepping off, free falling outside the confines of what is acceptable and known.

I am leaving this cage which suppressed me, depressed me, made less of me so thoroughly I came to call it my legacy, my country, my home.

I am leaving those angry men whose broken hearts and wounds became more painful and urgent than my own.

I'm not going to be sorry anymore or responsible or wrong.

I'm going to stop believing I can wake you up or break open your shell or get you to feel your grief, your tenderness.

I'm going to stop mainlining my life force into your self-esteem.

Air pump girl blowing up boy rubber ball. You can stay flat and go nowhere by yourself.

I am leaving my father's house.

I'm not going to whisper anymore or tiptoe or lay flat on my back.

I'm not ducking, flinching, waiting till you finish or whimpering in the dark.

I am moving out. I'm not going back.

I am leaving my father's house.

Because I no longer believe your lies about freedom and democracy – that it hurts you more than your whips or words or policies hurt me.

I'm going to believe what I see: bruises on my neck, Iraqi women with their voting fingers chopped off, emaciated polar bears in the Arctic melting from corporate greed.

I'm fleeing your disguised terror of my bigness, my hunger, my vagina, my tongue.

I am leaving my father's house.

I don't want a position there.

I'm not going to leash your prisoners.

I'm not going to starve your workers, organize your lynch mobs, or camouflage your crimes.

I'm not going to be a trophy on your arm or smile till my face breaks off.

I am leaving my father's house.

Corporate towers, cathedrals, mosques, and synagogues, picket fence houses and pentagons.

I'm going out.

Past the neighborhoods, past nations, fundamental doctrines and misinterpreted laws, past the reach of your fist, past the fire breath of your rage, past the tentacles of your seductive melancholy or your unspoken promises to change. I am willing to be alone, disliked, slandered, and misconstrued, because my freedom is more important than your so-called love.

Because my leaping will be the ultimate jumping off, will be the new beginning where we all get to start without a daddy in charge, on top, in control of all the goods, ideas, interpretations, and cash.

I'm going out there by myself.

But I know I will find the rest of you there waiting, ready, knee deep in the garden, hands raised in the water, way, way out past my father's house.

So, many thanks to Hannah tonight for her patient faithfulness, for her selfless sacrifice, for her powerful proclamation;

…for professing her faith, for promising justice, for proclaiming hope;

…for pronouncing God’s good news, mercy, abundance;

…and for her righteous anger, too, that should stoke and give permission for our own.

May we all pray in similar ways … for us and for others … until “the moral arc of the universe,” as the saying goes, “bends towards justice” … until righteousness and peace kiss one another … and until all of God’s people – men, women, and everyone in between – a re found ready, waiting, and knee deep in the garden, hands raised in the water, and moved beyond the house of the world’s patriarchy.

Amen

(The “Not Safe for Worship” version of Eve Ensler’s poem can be watched below.)

Kletskassas, Mattering, and the Woman at the Well

John 4:4-42

Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 

The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

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In 2019, Jumbo’s, a Netherlands supermarket chain, introduced Kletskassas, slow checkout lanes that encourage conversations and human connection. The goal is the opposite of what you normally want at a check line, but for good reason. They are a part of the Netherlands public health campaign to lessen loneliness and help people feel like they matter, one long conversation.  

This week, I heard and read in many places how we are in a crisis of mattering. In her new book by the same name, journalist Jennifer Breheny Wallace describes mattering as feeling valued by others

And having the opportunity to add value back to the world around us. She argues it is an even deeper need than other core needs such as purpose or belonging. One might belong to a workplace, a family, or a church and still not feel like they matter to the people there.

Wallace believes that young people are struggling with mattering more than anyone—that this need is going unmet for them. After hundreds of interviews, she heard over and over how young people felt they only mattered when their GPA was high, the number on the scale was low, when they had a certain number of likes or views on social media, or they were a top athlete. 

But by no means is the crisis of mattering limited to young people. Nearly anyone who has gone through a major transition has struggled with the question: Do I matter?

You worked for 35 or 40 years and suddenly, one day, it all stops. You cared for a child or children in your home every day, and then they moved out. You made nearly every decision in life with a spouse but then left to make those decisions alone. We are familiar with this feeling of mattering.

And with the rise of AI and the threat of it replacing more jobs and roles, the question of mattering will only become more poignant and prevalent. Jesus—and thereby the church—have something to say about this crisis, and we see it in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Mattering is at the heart of this story.

But in order for us to really see that, we have to remember last week—when Jesus was approached by Nicodemus. Near the end of their conversation, Jesus tells him that God loves the whole world. 

This encounter with the woman at the well reveals just how encompassing God’s love really is.

Jesus is leaving Jerusalem and heading back to Galilee when we’re told he had to go through Samaria. As you can see, Samaria is immediately north of Judea and the fastest way to get to Galilee. But most Jews did everything they could to avoid traveling through that land, lest they come into contact with a Samaritan. Usually they would cross over the Jordan River and then go up. So this necessity of Jesus is not geographical, but theological. 

Samaritans were already despised outsiders—idolaters even—seen as a lowly, unclean enemy. 

Women were lower in social status than men, especially women who were not married. Jesus arrives at a well at noon and here comes someone the world didn’t think mattered at all: An unmarried Samaritan woman coming to quench her thirst just like Jesus.

She could not be more at odds with Nicodemus: a male, Jewish religious leader (who came at night, mind you). If anyone mattered, it was him. His words held value. He had status. The woman, who isn’t even given a name, does not. 

Yet Jesus engages both of them.

In fact, the conversation Jesus has with the woman is the longest conversation he has with anyone. 

Ironically, a long conversation was precisely what the woman was trying to avoid. That’s one reason she went to the well at noon—the hottest part of the day, if I had to guess.

To be clear, we don’t know exactly why she’s there at noon. There could be all kinds of reasons. One of them is NOT because she’s an ostracized tramp, hated by the other women of Sychar. Yes she had five husbands, but it’s not likely because of some scandalous reputation.

It is much more likely that this woman was passed from husband to husband through a mixture of divorce and death. And she keeps getting married because she has had no children—or at least no sons—to take care of her. So she ends up in what was called a levirate marriage, where a man is obligated to take care of his brother’s widow if the brother dies childless.

Not only is she a widow, but a barren one at that. The main thing that gave women value—what made women matter in the time of Jesus—she couldn’t do. I think she went to the well at noon because not only did she think others believed she didn’t matter, but she believed that about herself, too. And when you feel like that, when you believe that about yourself, you withdraw. You disengage.

But here is this man who breaks all the rules, who crosses all the boundaries, and asks for a drink. 

A conversation unfolds where Jesus tries to help the woman understand who he is and what he can offer her, but it doesn’t click until he tells her everything about her. 

In other words, he names the reason the world thinks she doesn’t matter—and the reason she believes she doesn’t matter. But instead of brushing her off, instead of rushing away, he leans in. He talks to her more. He even debates theology with her, and finally reveals himself as the Messiah, the very one she has been waiting for.

The woman rushes back to Sychar and tells the whole town what has happened. It’s amazing—this woman who avoided people suddenly can’t help but engage and share about the encounter she’s had with Jesus. If mattering means feeling valued and adding value back to the world, Jesus has given her exactly that.

This mattering crisis is indeed a crisis, but it’s nothing new. We have always failed to name who matters and why. 

• The world has long said women don’t matter—or that only their bodies matter, and only if they produce offspring. 

• In this country we have said, and continue to say in different ways, that Black and brown people don’t matter—or at least not as much as those who look like me.

• In this capitalist society, we say that only those who contribute matter—and those who profit most matter most.

• And over the last few years, we have said that anyone who isn’t from this country, or doesn’t look like they are, doesn’t matter.

And what does this war say about who matters and who doesn’t? What about the elementary girls bombed in Iran—did they matter? Were they a part of this world that God so loved?

This encounter with the woman at the well tells us that God loves everyone in this whole wide world—and that’s why they matter. Nothing more and nothing less. It does not matter what a person does or looks like, where they are from or what language they speak, what gender they are, or who they love. 

For God so loved the whole world.

If you have ever felt like you don’t matter, I pray I am not the first to tell you that you do. To the queer kid in high school, the twice-divorced woman, the retired elderly man, the noisy child running in the halls—you matter. 

And it has nothing to do with what you have done. In the kingdom of God you do not earn value, it’s freely given to you! We call it grace.  And grace tells us You matter because Jesus shows us that every single person matters. You matter because God loves you.

We as a church can do something about this mattering crisis, and it’s to tell people they matter. 

It sounds so simple, but it’s the message people need to hear. If the church does nothing else but have long conversations with people who think they don’t matter and then tell them that they are loved, kinda of like those checkout lanes in the Netherlands, we will be doing God’s work.  

In this story, Jesus shows us something we cannot forget:

The woman at the well mattered.

Your neighbor matters.

You matter.

Because God so loved the world. Amen.