Remembered

She made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head."  Now it came about, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli was watching her mouth.  As for Hannah, she was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. So Eli thought she was drunk.  Then Eli said to her, "How long will you make yourself drunk? Put away your wine from you."  But Hannah replied, "No, my lord, I am a woman oppressed in spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the LORD.  Do not consider your maidservant as a worthless woman, for I have spoken until now out of my great concern and provocation."  Then Eli answered and said, "Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him."  She said, "Let your maidservant find favor in your sight." So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.  Then they arose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD, and returned again to their house in Ramah. And Elkanah had relations with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. (1 Samuel 2:11-19 NASB)

 I suppose there are a lot of things that could be said about God that might be drawn from Scripture and sound really wrong.  But sometimes what they say about Him reveal character elements, not of the Creator of the universe, but of His faithful chosen ones.  I believe this passage is one of those.  There is what Hannah says in her prayer, and what the writer says in his description of what God does for her.

Hannah prays from a troubled heart, troubled because of a "rival" jealous provoking wife.  She asks that God "remember" her.  It's a Hebrew word that means exactly that, rather than "see" or something that, by extension, can mean remember.  It only means remember.  And used here as she speaks to God implies He might forget.

Well, in prayer, humility is a good quality, so perhaps she prays for Him to remember her because she does not consider herself worthy of His attention.  Humility is good.  And the prayer of a humble woman does not form a solid foundation for a theological position all by itself.  Yet, it was recorded just this way.

So we remember, God was said to have remembered Noah and his family in the ark, and then dried up the world.  God remembered Abraham and rescued Lot from Sodom.  God remembered Rachel and she bore a child.  God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.  It would be a mistake to think this is the only place God's memory is called upon or referenced.

After Eli blesses Hannah, her prayer is answered.  The writer records that God remembered her, like Rachel before her, and she bore a son.  The humble request was answered as it was requested, to be remembered.  It's as if everyone thinks God forgets.  Everyone may, but then God says of Jerusalem in Isaiah 49:15-16, "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.  Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms..."

So, I can speak from my perspective that my Master has forgotten me, it may seem that way to me.  But the faith of the psalmist, of the prophets, my ancestors, and the writings of my Master in Scripture says otherwise.  History may record that I am not alone in feeling like my Master has forgotten me.  After 40 days in a boat full of animals and 400 years in slavery, it's easy to understand why they would think that.  But I also know that my Master is not like people that way.  It may not feel like it, I may not have evidence or clear reason to believe it, but I know that I am remembered.  For my Master tells me so.

Can Lost Reverence Be Found?

Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb.  It happened year after year, as often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat.  Then Elkanah her husband said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?"  Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the LORD.  She, greatly distressed, prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly.  She made a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head."  (1 Samuel 1:6-11 NASB)

In my youth, I was taught reverence for the One my family worshiped.  It was taught in a thousand different ways, but I still remember it.  We spoke only in whispers in the sanctuary (and called it that).  We wore our best to church, better than we dressed anywhere else; not to impress others but to bring our best to our God.  We didn't miss church.  This tended to spread communicable diseases among the faithful church-goers, but we shared so much anyway, it didn't matter.

There were just things you did.  And there were just things you didn't do.  You did not question a leader, at least not as a child.  But we also did not direct our anger at God.  Ironically, it was understood that, as Master of all things, ultimately whatever bad thing happened to me was His fault.  Yet we were never to blame Him, at least out loud; or so it seemed.  The lesson being taught is actually one that is struggling to emerge again in modern congregations.  The lesson was that nothing bad that happens smudges the goodness and glory of my Master.

This lesson, lost in the rebellion against "organized religion", is one that needs to be renewed.  It's one among many, but it is one for which we pay dearly.  The loss of this lesson has permitted our society to dictate belief and practice to us in the place of Scripture.  This is evident in our disdain for authority.  When we teach that the Scriptural Deity can be yelled at and resented, and He's big enough to handle it, we degrade His holy goodness and glory.  We bring the One we cannot reach into our realm, and make Him one of us.

Jesus became one of us by His choice.  Our Maker reaches out to us.  He is unapproachable, unreachable, incomprehensible, and unknown by our own devices.  We can't reason Him into existence, we can't reliably demonstrate in controlled experiments one element of His character.  The best we can hope to achieve to to look at His handiwork and marvel at such magnificence and power.  Once there, we can then, with awe, approach the Scriptures; His record of His self-revelation to His human creatures.  And from there we can make ourselves available to His Spirit.  That is the best we can do.  Most of us don't even do that.

I believe that when I consider myself free to resent and be angry toward my Master, I deny the very first line of His Scripture, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  If He created it all, what right do I have to resent Him for anything?  That I know of His existence means He has revealed Himself to me.  The blessings I receive from Him could stop right there, and I still have more than I deserve and more of His attention than I warrant.  That He does not stop there multiplies shocking grace until I reach the cross where all my assumptions, presumptions, pride, reasoning, and self-righteousness fail, revealed as the refuse heap they are.  And destroyed as a modern American male, I stand before an empty tomb, myself empty of all that I call my own, where I crumple to the ground in worship.

The truth lost with the lesson of reverence is that my Master has assaulted and utterly destroyed the limits of my imagination, understanding, and comprehension so that I sometimes can't, or won't, see Him as He has revealed Himself.  Like He hid Moses in a rock so he would not die as he saw only a part of His glory, so I am only able to see a part of my Master.  But the part I see is so much more than anything I endure.  How can I resent the One having done so much for me?  How can Jesus, the cross and the empty tomb not be enough?  How is that possible?  Scripture is already more of a gracious gift than I can ever be worthy.  How can the message it contains not reduce the rest of me to mere heap of gratitude, gratitude I can never really express well enough?

Mine Irony Forms A Foundation

Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives: the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.  Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the LORD there.  When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the LORD had closed her womb.  Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb.  It happened year after year, as often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat. 8 Then Elkanah her husband said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" (1 Samuel 1:1-8 NASB)

 De oppresso liber is the motto of the US Army Special Forces.  It's on the patch signifying the whole element in the Army, and it is part of the warp and woof of their training.  It means, "To liberate the oppressed", and if you follow their methods and activities, it fits most of the time.  The US Army Special Forces, within the larger umbrella of "Special Operations Forces" is unique.  They are less "commandos" and more "mentors" among foreign people groups, not even nations as much as people groups. The people groups are more often than not, oppressed in some way.

From just a cursory read through Scripture, it seems my Master has something of the same interests.  He tends to work through the oppressed to accomplish His goals and purposes.  He chooses the unexpected, the least powerful, least respected, least wise, and the most obedient (or those are the ones who make it into written record).  As the Book of Samuel begins, irony stacked on irony sets the circumstance into which Samuel is born.

Hannah means "grace", and it's the name my wife and I chose for my daughter.  She was a gift of my Master's favor to us.  So, "Grace" has no children, but her husband's other wife has plenty.  So the first irony is that "Grace" has no gift of children from the Maker of all things.  It's a hard irony because of the other ironies with which it occurs.

The second irony is Hannah's husband is a devout man, going yearly, faithfully to worship in Shiloh, paying vows, and making sacrifices.  He is faithful, and he shares his faithfulness with his family, all participate.  Yet, this faithfulness does not garner Hannah a child.  He and his household's faithfulness to the Master of the universe does not warrant the giving of a child to one named for His grace.  This too is a hard irony.

The third irony is that Hannah is loved by her husband partly from pity of her inability to bear children.  He would give her a "double portion" from the sacrifices, giving his other wife and her children one portion each.  So neither her name, nor the faithfulness of their family, nor the love of her husband is enough to warrant children from the Master.

The fourth irony is the treatment that Hannah gets from her "rival", a very interesting Hebrew word for "one who provokes another to active anger".  Hannah would fume at the treatment of the other wife, trembling and weeping.  Her husband's response would always be, "am I not better to you than ten sons?" which was a silly question only a man would ask.  This was the bitterest irony, the one of hate out of jealousy for love which was only there because of pity.  The nexus of all these ironies, her name, the love of her husband and hate of her rival, all revolves around the irony of her closed womb.  Hannah feels nothing like an example of the grace of the Master she worshiped so faithfully.  Then the Divine Special Force steps in, and the oppressed are liberated.

The normal view of this book is to look at this account as a setting for Samuel and no more.  But the stark contrast of what was and what my Master brought about is part of why Samuel's origin is so dramatic.  The drama out of which he is born is part of what sets him apart.  It provides the reason for the quality of his holiness before his Master.  Samuel would not be who he became without his mother enduring what she did before he arrived.  The history of Israel, the people of the Maker of all matter, hinged on the painful ironies of a humble woman named, Grace.

How often to I complain of my "suffering" which is really nothing of the sort at all?  How many times, caught in such an irony as Hannah experienced, do I blame my Master for His oppression of me?  I'm not alone in that since some Psalms express the same lament, but it's here in this humble beginning of Israel's last judge that I see that my Master does not waste a pain endured.

This isn't a competition for who endures the most pain either.  This account is different from other accounts in Scripture, but the point remains much the same.  It would seem that redemption, as my Master practices it, is transformational of people and circumstances.  Order does not seem to be important to my Master's method.  It seems that the person at the end of the transformation is His means to accomplish His purpose among His people.

So, pain and suffering in the life of the people of their Creator is simply the sharpening of a tool He will use to save and dispense His favor on them.  It would seem that my Master prefers irony as a teaching tool.  Like parables, few find them, but those who do hopefully live richer lives.  I'd like to live my life as miner in search of the ironies of my Master.  Which means I have stop whining, start searching, and praise and worship my Master every single day, and every part of every day.  How ironic that I found this one, and miss so many others.  Well, let me grab my pick, shovel, and "lighted helmet".  I've got some digging to do.