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\section{Preamble}
\noindent
Readings:
\begin{itemize}
\item  1 Samuel 1:9-20
\item  Numbers 6:1-8
\end{itemize}

\noindent Speaker: Neil Brown.

\noindent 10th January 2004.

\section{Introduction}

I want to tell you a story today.  A story from the bible.

It is a story  about a lady with a problem.  But  better than that, it
is a  story about a  lady who  looked to God  for the solution  to her
problem, who  found a solution,  who followed through  with everything
that she  needed to do  to take hold  of that solution, and  who found
that  God not  only solved  her problem,  but blessed  her  beyond her
requests or expectations.

It is the story of Hannah, the Mother of Samuel.

\section{Hannah's problem}

The story  of Hannah is recorded for  us in the first  two chapters of
the  first book  of Samuel,  and  probably happened  about 1200  years
before Christ.  It  is often seen as simply a prelude  to the story of
Samuel ---  a prelude which  helps us to  see that God  was constantly
working in  Samuel's life from the  very beginning and  prepares us to
see how God  used Samuel as a mighty figure in  the history of Israel.
But today I don't want to focus on Samuel at all.  I just want to look
at his mother, Hannah.  And to look at her problems.

Hannah's problem can best be seen by looking at her family tree, or at
least a few little branches of it.

Hannah was married to a man named Elkanah.  As far as we know he was a
good  and  righteous man.   It  appears  that  he worshipped  God  and
certainly  travelled to  the temple  at  least every  year to  worship
there.   We also  know that  he  loved Hannah.   It was  not with  her
husband, Elkanah,  that Hannah's problem lay, but  slightly lower down
in the family tree with their children.  They didn't have any.

Hannah was,  it appeared,  barren.  They had  tried, but  she couldn't
have any children.  The bible tells  us that ``The LORD had closed her
womb''  (1SAM1:5)  which  doesn't   necessarily  imply  that  God  had
deliberately  chosen for her  to be  barren, but  simply that  she was
clearly barren  and that God,  being in control  of all things, was in
control of her womb as well.

Being  unable  to  bear   children  is  not  a  particularly  uncommon
condition, either then  or now.  I suspect many of  us know of someone
in our  family or among  our friends who  would have children  if they
could, but cannot.  And I'm sure  we have all heard of the IVF program
and other initiatives to help couples who are otherwise unable to have
children.

But while it  is not that uncommon, it is  not a particularly frequent
condition either.   Hannah would  doubtlessly have been  surrounded by
many women who  were quite able to have children.   And while today we
as a society know that not being able to have children does not reduce
someone's  value  as a  person  any more  than  any  other medical  or
physical condition, it has not always been so.  The prevailing culture
in Hannah's  time valued  women largely for  their ability to  be good
wives and mothers, and a woman who couldn't bear a child was neither a
success as a wife or a mother.

So Hannah's problem was not only  that she would like to have children
but couldn't, but also that her neighbours and friends would be likely
to look down on her because of this inability.

We see this  clearly as we widen our view of  her family tree.  Hannah
was married to Elkanah, but  Elkanah was also married to another lady,
Peninnah.  Bigamy has certainly never been God's preferred option, and
while he  never encouraged  it, He had  not, at this  time, explicitly
forbidden it, and it certainly was a part of the culture of the time.

So Elkanah had two wives,  and his other wife, Peninnah, had children,
apparently quite  a few.  It appears  that Hannah did not  have a good
relationship  with Peninnah  ---  Peninnah was  teasing and  provoking
Hannah about not having children while she, Peninnah, had plenty.

So  here is Hannah's  problem ---  she cannot  have children  and this
affects her happiness, her sense  of self worth, her relationship with
Peninnah, and  presumably her standing in her  community.  Her husband
Elkanah does love her and doesn't mind about the lack of children, but
that is not enough to make up for all the hurt.

\section{Hannah seeks a solution}

Hannah does not  dwell on her misfortune and  wallow in self-pity, but
instead she looks for a  solution.  The bible does not explicitly tell
us how  she sought a solution,  but by examining the  form of solution
that she found we can work backwards and make some educated guesses.

Hannah prayed to God, to the LORD of hosts, and asked:
\begin{quote}
O {\sc Lord} Almighty, \\
If you will only look upon your servant's misery \\
\phantom{mmmm} and remember me, \\
\phantom{mmmm} and not forget your servant \\
\phantom{mmmm} but give her a son, \\
then I will give him to the {\sc Lord} \\
\phantom{mmmm} for all the days of his life, \\
\phantom{mmmm} and no razor will ever be used on his head.
\end{quote}

The beginning of this  prayer is perfectly understandable, with Hannah
asking God to understand her situation and her pain, and to give her a
child.  But she promises the child  would serve God his whole life and
would  not  shave.   The   bit  about  shaving  certainly  needs  some
explanation and  even the promise  of service to God  isn't completely
clear --- surely God is quite capable of finding his own servants, and
it isn't  clear that  the child,  once fully grown,  would be  sure to
honour Hannah's promise.

To understand  this prayer we must,  as Hannah surely  did, delve into
the history of Israel and find out how God has dealt with barren women
in the  past.  I'm sure  Hannah would not  have lifted a  nice leather
bound M.O.V  (Moses' Original Version)  off the shelf and  checked the
concordance for ``Barren''.  Nor would  she have been able to pop into
the local  library for a copy.   But she would  have undoubtedly heard
much of  the Law and the History  of Israel from her  husband, or from
her father,  or maybe from an Uncle  or other wise and  learned man in
the village.  She would not have consulted a paper copy but rather her
memory and she would undoubtly have found the story of Samson which we
have in the book of Judges from chapters 13 to 16.

I'm sure you all know at least  some of the story of Samson.  He was a
very strong  man in  Israel who fought  the Philistines,  often single
handed, but who succumbed to a  lady named Delilah who betrayed him by
selling his secret that if his hair were cut, he would be helpless.

But  again, it is  not his  story that  interests us  but that  of his
Mother.  His  mother, who isn't named  in the bible,  was barren, just
like Hannah.

An angel  of the Lord appear to  this lady and promised  that the Lord
would take  away her barrenness  and give her  a child, but  that this
child  must be  a Nazarite  from birth  and would  be used  by  God to
deliver Israel from the oppression of the Philistines.

The Nazarite code is detailed in Numbers 6.  Being a Nazarite involves
making  a  vow  of  separation  to the  Lord.   It  involves  avoiding
alcoholic drink  and in  fact everything else  derived from  the grape
vine.  And it involves not using  a razor on their head: they must let
their hair grow uncut.

It is not clear under what circumstances a person might be expected to
make a  vow of  a Nazarite,  or what exactly  the significance  of the
various restriction are (though I'm  sure there are plenty of theories
in  any  good  Christian  library)  but  the  similarity  between  the
circumstances of Samson's  birth and of Hannah's prayer  are too great
to be overlooked.  The facts of one  case and the hope of the other is
that God  intervenes for a lady who  is barren and gives  her a child,
but this child is to serve God  his whole life, and not to use a razor
on his head.

It would seem as though Hannah were thinking ``Perhaps I could be like
Samson's  mother.   What God  has  done  before  he can  certainly  do
again.''

But the  case of Samson  need not have  been the only  inspiration for
Hannah's prayer, though  it is the only one  that explains the promise
to avoid a razor.

Looking into  Israels history  there are other  women who were,  for a
time, barren.   Sarah the wife of  Abraham was barren for  a long time
before God's  promise was  fulfilled in the  birth of Isaac  who would
continue  in God's plan.   Rachel the  second wife  of Jacob  was also
barren for many  years until at last God opened her  womb and she gave
birth to Joseph  and as most of us  know, Joseph was used by  God in a
very amazing way  to provide food and a home for  the people of Israel
when they went to live in Egypt during a famine in their home land.

Each of these  women had faced the heartbreak of  being unable to bare
children, and each had ultimately been blessed by God to have a child.
But in each case the child was to be used by God for His purposes.  It
was not  unreasonable for Hannah  to hope and  to pray that  God might
bless her in a similar way, and use her child as He saw fit.

It is  worth noting  further that it  is not  clear that any  of these
women went on to have large families.  The only case where we know for
a fact  there was a  second child  is the case  of Rachel.  She  had a
second  child in  Benjamin, and  died  in child  birth.  Hannah  could
reasonably hope for  one child.  She would have no  reason to hope for
more  and her prayer  certainly suggests  she is  only asking  for one
child --- that would be blessing enough.

\section{Hannah fulfils her part of the bargain}

So, with  all this background understanding  of who God is  and how he
works with His people, Hannah prays and asks for a child.  The book of
Samuel only records a few lines  of the actual prayer, but it is clear
that she was praying quite an earnest and lengthy prayer.

Not only are we told that in bitterness of soul she wept, but that she
was  in  prayer for  long  enough that  Eli  the  priest noticed  that
something unusual  was happening and  in seeing her lips  move without
hearing here voice, thought she was drunk.

It was clearly  a prayer from the heart, and a  prayer in which Hannah
placed all of  her hope in God.   This is the sort of  prayer that God
loves, and his answer was, in this case, in the affirmative.  Within a
year Hannah bore a son.

It would have been easy in this situation for Hannah to have forgotten
her half  of the arrangement.  She might  have been so full  of joy at
having a child  at last, and might have  become so thoroughly attached
to  the child that  she could  not let  him go.   She might  have made
excuses as so many of us are tempted to do when God's way doesn't suit
our way. ``Surely  God would not want  me to give up my  only son'' or
``God could not be so harsh as to take him from me now''.

We do  not know what Hannah  thought, whether she was  tempted, or how
attached she allowed her self to be to this beautiful, long hoped for,
child.  But we do know what she did.  She faithfully kept her promise.

When Samuel was  weaned - probably sometime between the  ages of 3 and
5, and  certainly while still young, Samuel  was given to Eli  to be a
servant in the Temple and to serve before God.

As any  mothers among you will know,  and as any fathers  might have a
slight inkling of, the bond between a mother and a new-born child is a
very strong  one, and  all the more  so when  the child has  been long
hoped for.

The  emotional bond formed  while the  child is  still in  the mothers
womb,  and cemented during  those first  months when  the child  is so
totally dependant on the mother for food, for comfort, for everything,
is a bond that is not easily put aside.  It can not have been easy for
Hannah  to  have  given  up  little  Samuel.   But  her  character  of
faithfulness and  her promise  to God demanded  it.  And she  did that
which was required.

She did  not abandon him completely  but thought of him  and his needs
throughout the year  and when she did return to the  temple as she did
every year with her husband, she  brought a little tunic which she had
made  for him  to wear.   And the  child Samuel  grew before  the LORD
(1Sam2:21).

\section{Hannah's blessing}

But that is  not the end of  the story of Hannah.  She  had a problem,
she looked  for a solution  relying on her  knowledge of God,  and she
found one.   She prayed  and she  promised and God  gave her  what she
asked for, and she  kept her side of the bargain as  I'm sure God knew
she would.  But it doesn't end there.

Almost  as a foot  note, we  are told  towards the  end of  the second
chapter of  first Samuel that Hannah  went on to have  three more sons
and two daughters.  She had not asked for a large family, only for one
child.   And the  history of  God's working  with his  people  gave no
certainty that he would bless a barren woman with a large family.

But  God is  gracious  and God  is  loving, and  God  chose to  reward
Hannah's faithfulness by giving her more than she hoped for: by giving
her a large family

How this affected Hannah's  relationship with Peninnah we cannot know,
but how it affected her  happiness, her self worth, and her acceptance
by society we  can be sure: it gave her the  opportunity to prove that
she was a good  wife and a good mother, and I  am confident she proved
this quite successfully.

\section{A Lesson}

But what is  there in this story  for us?  Is it just  a heart warming
story of  prosperity through perseverance?   Or is there more  that we
can take away with us?

I think there is a message in here for any one of us who has a problem
that seems  to be more  than we can  manage.  Whether it is  a problem
with  health  or with  relationships,  whether  it involves  financial
concerns or  concerns for our future,  there is a lesson  we can learn
from Hannah.

Firstly, we are reminded that there is a God who cares.  A God who can
enter into our sorrow and pain.  A God who knows how we hurt and longs
to heal.   The knowledge  of such  a God was  the basis,  the starting
point of Hannah's prayer, and it can be the start of ours too.

Secondly, we can learn that there is value in doing a bit of research.
God has given  us a wonderful resource in the bible.   It is a history
of  how God  works with  and  through ordinary  people, to  accomplish
extra-ordinary things.  It is His-Story,  and it is well worth looking
at how God has worked in the past  if we hope to have a part in how he
will work in the future.

Jesus assures  us that God loves  to give good gifts  to his children,
but that he likes us to ask  for them, and particularly he likes us to
ask according to His will, his nature, his values.

Hannah did her research and was able to pray a prayer that was exactly
in accordance with  God's way, because it was firmly  based on what he
had already done.

No matter what  our difficulty, there is someone in  the bible who has
had a need that is similar or  at least comparable.  If we look at how
God worked in their lives, we  wont know exactly how God will work for
us, but we will have a basis on which to pray.

And finally  we can learn the  value of faithfulness,  and of sticking
with God's  way even  when it isn't  comfortable.  The answer  that we
find in the bible may not  be exactly to our liking.  It might require
hardship,  or patience,  or  suffering, or  sacrifice.  God  sometimes
chooses  not to  change our  circumstance,  but rather  to change  our
selves.

If we, like Hannah, can humbly  accept God's way even when it wouldn't
be our  first choice,  and can  faithfully stay with  it even  when it
isn't very easy,  we can be sure that  the race we run will  not be in
vain, and God's blessing will be  awaiting us, both here on earth, and
eternally in heaven.

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