Sermon: The Countenance of the Lord
This is the prayer prayed by Hannah. In the Bible, it appears as a poem, so it is sometimes called the Song of Hannah.
Hannah was one of the two wives of a man named Elkanah. The other wife was named Peninnah.
Peninnah had children, but Hannah did not… Hannah was childless… And Hannah was miserable because of this. She desperately wanted to have children. Having children was a sign of God’s blessing. Not having children, in the ancient world, was a source of shame.
Being childless today doesn’t carry the same stigma, and yet, for many, it is still the cause of much sadness. I know couples who desperately wanted children, who spent great amounts of money on treatments hoping that would help, yet, still, they remained childless.
Then there are the many who got pregnant, only to have the pregnancy end in miscarriage, or in the death of their newborn. Our regional church just published the first issue of a new quarterly magazine called the Christian, and on the opening pages, it mentions that 1 in 4 women have experienced a miscarriage or the death of a newborn.
Did you know the numbers were that high? The grief that people experience because of miscarriage, or because of the death of a newborn, or because they were unable to conceive, is not talked about, not even acknowledged. It is a grief that is often borne in silence.
Yet, in the Bible, there are stories of women who are childless, even into their old age. Hannah is just one. There is also Sarah; Rebekah; Rachel, the mother of Samson; and Elizabeth; the mother of John the Baptist.
Each of them were childless, and beyond the age of childbearing. Each of them lived many years suffering under the disgrace of that.
But (spoiler alert!) each of these women did, in their old age, give birth. Including Hannah.
This isn’t the Bible’s way of saying, “if you have enough faith, God will grant you your wish as well.” We know God doesn’t always work that way.
But it is the Bible’s way of saying that those who have been treated poorly, those who have been mocked and ridiculed for reasons that aren’t their fault—God will take notice of them. God takes notice of those who are low. God hears the cries of those who suffer. And even though God doesn’t always remove the cause of that suffering as quickly as we would like, God is always there, suffering alongside those who suffer, weeping alongside those who weep, grieving with those who grieve, even if no one else is there to grieve with them.
For Hannah, her grief and misery is made even worse by Peninnah, who mocks and torments Hannah. Too bad Peninnah doesn’t belong to a church that has a Kindness Campaign! Perhaps then she would show a little compassion!
Perhaps Peninnah sees Hannah as a rival for Elkanah’s affection. Perhaps that’s why she does everything she can to make Hannah’s life miserable.
Elkanah, on the other hand, does show kindness to Hannah. He does not blame Hannah or shame Hannah because she is childless. He says to Hannah: “Don’t be sad. You have me! Am I not worth at least ten sons to you?”
Elkanah may be a little clueless, but he does at least try to console Hannah.
So Hannah goes to the temple and prays for a child, a son, to take away her bitterness and her misery. In tears she prays, weeping bitterly.
The priest, Eli, sees Hannah praying. She is praying silently; her lips are moving, but she is making no sound; and Eli thinks she was drunk…
Why are the men in this story so clueless? Why does Eli jump to that conclusion? Is there a lesson here for all those who mistakenly jump to conclusions, who prejudge a person before they even know what’s really going on?
Is this a lesson about how men make assumptions about women, thinking they know better than the women themselves about what’s going on in their lives?
Hannah says to Eli: “No, sir, I have not been drinking; I’ve been pouring out my soul before the Lord, praying out of my great anxiety and vexation.”
And Eli says: “Oh. Well. In that case, go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”
This benediction lifts Hannah’s spirits. She leaves the temple, goes on her way, and—the scripture says—her countenance is sad no longer.
That’s a cool word: countenance.
It’s one of those words that isn’t used as much anymore. A quick search online showed me that countenance was used much more in the early 1800s, but not so much now.
Some of you may know the word countenance from its appearance at the end of Numbers, chapter 6. In the NRSV, it goes like this: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
Hopefully that sounds familiar to you. Most Sundays, those verses are the basis of the benediction I give at the end of worship; except I don’t usually use the word countenance, because I know not everyone knows what it means.
Instead of “The Lord lift up his countenance upon you,” I say, “The Lord look upon you with kindness.”
The word countenance refers to one’s face or facial expression, or the look one gives. When the verse says “the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,” it means, may the Lord’s face be directed toward you in kindness.
And when the scripture says that Hannah’s countenance was sad no longer, it means that her face was sad no longer. It means that the visible expression of grief, of sadness, of misery, was no longer upon her face.
Hannah’s countenance was sad no longer because the Lord did lift up his countenance upon her. The Lord’s face turned toward her, took notice of her and her condition…just as the Lord took notice of the conditions of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Elizabeth, those other childless women… just as the Lord took notice of Hagar, Sarah’s slave-girl in Genesis 21, when she was about to die of thirst in the wilderness; the Lord’s countenance came upon her; the Lord took notice of her condition, led her to a well of water, and made a promise to her, that her son Ishmael would become the ancestor of a great nation.
The Lord’s countenance was upon all these women, because of their suffering, because of their misery, much of it inflicted upon them by a patriarchal society.
Clueless men—often their own husbands—didn’t understand their suffering, their misery, didn’t understand what caused it, or were just indifferent to it; but God noticed. And God’s countenance was turned upon them.
So. The Lord’s countenance was upon Hannah. In due time, the scripture says, Hannah conceived and bore a son, who she named Samuel. And when Samuel was old enough, Hannah brought Samuel to the temple, to be trained in the ways of the Lord, because she had promised to do so.
And her heart was filled with joy, and she sang her heart out to God, a song filled with praise and thanksgiving, because God’s countenance was upon her; God took notice of her grief, her misery; and God lifted her up out of that deep, dark place she was in, in a reversal that is so characteristic of God, lifting up the lowly to a place higher than those who had previously used their power and position to mock, ridicule, abuse and oppress.
We are just two weeks away from the start of Advent. In Advent, we get to hear, again, the story of another woman, who–along with her people–longed for God to notice them, to lift up his countenance upon them.
They were living in dark and difficult days; days when the people of God were oppressed and persecuted by Rome. A young, poor woman like Mary was particularly vulnerable. To avoid harassment and abuse, a young woman like Mary tried not to draw attention to herself. She tried to stay hidden. Unnoticed.
But then: God noticed her. God lifted up his countenance upon her, and his countenance was filled with kindness, compassion, and love.
Just as God took notice of Hannah and her suffering, God also took notice of Mary. God took notice of the plight of all God’s people, and God would bless them—and bless the whole world—through Mary, and through the son she would bear.
And Mary sang her own song. The Magnificat. We’ll hear it in a few weeks, during Advent.
But know that Mary’s song was inspired by Hannah’s song. Many of the themes are the same. Mary’s song was also inspired by the lives and the songs of Miriam, and Deborah, and perhaps even a heroic woman named Judith, and other women prophets and saints, all of whom bore silent shame and suffering, until they were noticed by God.
God saw them, God took notice of them, and God lifted his countenance upon them. Even when their pain was ignored or misunderstood or minimized by the men in their lives, God took notice of them, took notice of their grief;
God heard their cries and their laments. God felt their tears.
And God intervened, to turn their circumstances from ones of sorrow, to ones of joy.
God calls us to be those who notice the often hidden pain and suffering and misery of people today.
And I am thankful that, through the ministry of First Christian Church, we are doing just that. God is opening our eyes, helping us to see and notice those who grieve, those who suffer, and to do what we can to sit when them and to show compassion to them.
Since coming to First Christian Church, I have been thankful for those who volunteer at our Helping Shelf, showing compassion to our neighbors in need.
I have been thankful for acts of care shown to those beset by unexpected health challenges. You all have offered up sincere prayers and genuine love, and have literally sat with those who just needed someone to sit with them, and you have provided care for those who needed care shown to them.
You all have inspired one another and even other congregations in our community by getting us involved in the Kindness Campaign, letting one another and our community know that even when we disagree on things, that we can and should still treat one another with kindness, love, and respect; that when everyone else is hurling insults, we can respond differently.
You have supported our youth and our youth program, which lets youth know that they don’t need to do anything to earn God’s approval and love, that God’s countenance is upon them and will not depart from them. The world of youth today is one in which they are constantly made to feel that they must prove themselves in order to receive any kind of positive notice, but here, they learn that God notices them favorably—that God looks upon them with kindness—and that nothing they do or don’t do will change that.
And this is why our ministry at First Christian Church is so important… and why your support for our ministry is so important. Your tithes, your pledge, your participation, your prayers—it all helps us let people know that God’s countenance is upon them, that God looks upon them with kindness; that God notices them even when no one else does; even when they bear their grief silently.
And by doing this, we are allowing God to work through us to restore people to wholeness. God is working through us to save people’s lives.
Maybe that’s the real meaning of the story of Hannah and all these other women who were childless into old age, but then who miraculously were able to conceive and bear children: that even when all life seems gone, when things are at their most hopeless, hope and new life can still spring forth.
When things in this world seem to be at a low point, and it’s too late to change course, too late to find new life, God’s countenance still shines down, and God still works in human history reverse all the unjust, un-right, unfair things that are happening, and make the world whole once again.
And what a blessing it is, for us, that God does this through the ministry of First Christian Church.
