“That’s The Story Of My Life”

“That’s The Story Of My Life”

Text: 1 Samuel 1:4-10

© November 19, 2006 by C. Edward Bowen

Are you glad that the election is over? Are you glad that you don’t have to watch any more of those political campaign commercials? I think people get disgusted with those campaign ads because almost all of them seemed to basically be saying: “Don’t vote for my opponent! He’s a lunatic and a maniac! And if he gets elected, we’re all going to die!” But did you notice that as soon as the election was over and the votes were counted, many of those who lost came out and said, “I’d like to congratulate my opponent on their victory. He (or she) is a good person, and will do a fine job leading our country.” What’s going on? Are the people we voted into office lunatics and maniacs who are going to destroy civilization as we know it, or are they good people who will do a fine job? Which story are we supposed to believe?

Which story are we supposed to believe? That was the question that Hannah had to struggle with. You see, in the passage that we just listened to from 1 Samuel, there was a man named Elkanah. And he had two wives – Hannah and Peninnah. Back around 1000 B.C. or so, when this story was taking place, having more than one wife was not an uncommon thing. But while Peninnah bore Elkanah a large number of children, for some reason Hannah wasn’t able to have any children. And that upset her greatly. And so Hannah struggled in search of a story, in search of an explanation, to make sense of why things were happening as they were.

Well, right off the bat, Peninnah, the other wife, was quite ready to give Hannah an explanation for why she didn’t have any children. By taunting Hannah, the story that Peninnah wanted to her to believe was this: “Hannah, you don’t have any children because you’re a loser, and you always will be.” And unfortunately that’s a story that many people believe and live by even today.

For instance, over the years educators have found that if you repeatedly tell young children, “You’re dumb. You’re bad. You’re a loser. You’ll never amount to anything,” eventually kids start to believe that story. Even if a child is actually bright and quite capable of doing well in school, if that young person is repeatedly told that they should believe another story about themselves – that they’re no good, that they’re a loser – at some point that story will take control of their lives and they’ll end up doing poorly in school. Was Hannah a loser? Was that the story that she was supposed to believe?

Hannah’s husband, Elkanah, though, wanted Hannah to believe another story. When he saw how depressed she was about not having any children, he said, “Hannah, why are you feeling so low? So, you don’t have ten children. So, you don’t have any children. Look, you’ve got me.” Now, Elkanah might have intended to cheer Hannah up with those words, but those words ended up hurting her instead. Because basically Elkanah was saying, “Hannah, what you think is such a big, awful problem isn’t anything. Look on the bright side! There’s a lot of other things in the world that are a whole lot worse than what you’re dealing with.”

It’s kind of like the saying, “A minor operation is someone else’s surgery.” In other words, when it comes to you, there’s no such thing as a minor operation. If it’s you that’s being operated on, even if it’s the lowest-risk, most run-of-the-mill kind of surgery there is, if it’s happening to you, it’s major, it’s important. And so when you’re about to undergo some “minor” operation, the last thing you want is for some friend or family member to tell you that it’s nothing, that they know of 25 other people who have had that exact same thing done. But that’s the story that Elkanah wanted Hannah to believe, that what was happening to her just wasn’t that bad. Was that the story Hannah was supposed to believe?

Later on, when Hannah went to the place of worship, the priest Eli had yet another story that he thought applied to Hannah. Apparently as Hannah went into the sanctuary, she was praying silently. The Bible says that her lips were moving but you couldn’t hear any words. And so as Eli looked at her, he said, “I’ve seen your kind before! You’re a drunk! You’re a bum! God doesn’t have time for the likes of you!”

It’s like what is happening in Las Vegas and in a growing number of cities across the country. More and more cities are passing laws making it illegal to give food to poor people. In Las Vegas, for instance, you can actually get arrested if you were to go to a city park where homeless people gather during the day and feed them. And what’s even more shocking and offensive is how that law in Las Vegas is worded. Their law says that it’s illegal to give food to anyone who appears “to be entitled to apply for or receive” government assistance.[1] In other words, according to that law, a church is allowed to take food into city parks and feed people, as long as they look rich, as long as they look like that have some money. But if someone looks like they might be poor, if you hand them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you could find yourself hauled off to jail.

What Las Vegas seems to be doing is judging people by their appearance and making some pretty harsh judgments at that: “We’ve seen your kind before! You’re drunks. You’re bums. God doesn’t have time for the likes of you, and neither do we!” And sadly that’s basically what Eli said when he saw Hannah. Without knowing anything about her, he was ready to assign a story to her to explain why she was the way she was. But was that the story that Hannah was supposed to believe?

Fortunately for Hannah she refused to accept any of those stories. Instead, she knew that the story that applied to her life was a story that was far greater and far better than any of those stories that Peninnah, Elkanah, and Eli were trying to get her to settle for. That’s because Hannah knew the story of her life was a part of God’s story.

And God’s story, she knew, included the story of Abraham and Sarah. Do you remember them? They were that elderly couple, in their 80s or 90s, who had never had any children. They had the same problem that Hannah had. But one day God came to Abraham and Sarah and promised that one day not only would they have children, but in time they would in time have a whole nation of descendants. And even though it took a while, and even though they were rather old when it happened, the day finally came when Abraham and Sarah did have children. That story, Hannah knew, was a story about how we matter to God, how God cares about the problems we face in life, and how, when we put our trust in God, God is able to do amazing things in our lives.

Hannah likewise knew that God’s story also included the story of those Hebrew slaves who were set free from their bondage in Egypt. Do you remember them? The pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had turned all the Israelites into slaves, forcing them to toil in the mud making bricks for the pharaoh’s cities, compelling them to live lives of desperation and despair. But then one day, when it looked like there would never be any hope for them, God appointed a man named Moses to go to the people and to lead them out of Egypt to freedom, into a land of their own. That story, Hannah knew, was also a story about how we matter to God, how God cares about the problems we face in life, and how, when we put our trust in God, God is able to do amazing things in our lives.

And from those stories, Hannah had the faith to believe that the God of those Hebrew slaves and that the God of Abraham and Sarah was her God as well, and that what God did for those people in those stories was the exact same sort of thing that God could do for her in her life. And in time, Hannah’s faith was rewarded as she gave birth to a son, to a boy that she named Samuel, and who in time grew up to be a great leader in Israel, a leader who helped to guide his nation in the way that God wanted them to go. And all that became possible because Hannah was able to filter out all the wrong stories that were being handed to her by the people around her and stayed focus on the true story, the story that God gives us, the story that we find in the Bible.

There are a lot of stories that float around out there in the world. There are a lot of stories that people build their lives on, but they’re stories that aren’t true. Stories like: “Just do what feels good, that’s all that really matters in life.” “Don’t worry about other people, don’t spend your time caring about what happens to others, just look out for yourself.” Or: “Don’t forgive people when they cross you. It’s a sign of weakness. If someone does something to you, make them pay for it, make them suffer.” Have you heard those stories before? Do you know people who live their lives based on those stories? The problem, of course, is that those aren’t the stories that God teaches us.

Instead, the stories that God teaches us are stories that tell us about how important each and every one of us are to God, how we are all created in the very image of God. The stories that God teaches us are stories that tell us about how seriously God listens to our prayers and how compassionately God reaches out to us in our times of need. The stories that God teaches us are stories that tell us that there is absolutely nothing that God won’t do to show us how much God loves us, how much God forgives us.

What’s the story of your life? Do you see your life as a part of God’s story, as a part of the story of what God is trying to do in the world? Or have you allowed some other story to take over and shape who you are? If you have, it’s not too late to make a change. Because as God prepares to author the next chapter of that story, there’s a place for you. As God prepares to write the next installment, there’s a place for all of us.