Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: I Samuel 1 (selected portions)
May 11, 2003
In one of their recorded hits the Kingston Trio didn’t sing last Sunday night, one can find the words:
Here’s to the maid who steals a kiss and stays to steal another.
Here’s to the maid who steals a kiss and stays to steal another.
She’s a boon to all mankind
She’s a boon to all mankind.
She’s a boon to all mankind.
For she’ll soon be a mother.
Well, maybe so. But maybe not. For in a world where far too many females who don’t want to be pregnant are, there are an equal number of females who do want to be pregnant but aren’t.
I proudly count among my friends a church member who, when asked what he does for a living, always responds: “I get women pregnant.” Which he does. And he’s very good at it. He’s a physician, don’t you see, who specializes in issues of infertility. Not only did Beaumont Hospital lure him here from Utah to run their infertility program, but he just completed a term as president of a world-wide professional organization of doctors who do the same thing he does. To those who need his services, he is both a fountain of knowledge and a reservoir of hope. Couples desiring children have been known to view him as their last chance.
As a pastor somewhat long in the tooth, you would think that “problem pregnancies” are my stock in trade. Unmarried teenagers, careless adulterers, mid-life surprises, that sort of thing. But you’d be wrong. I don’t see many of those. Instead, when I hear the words “problem pregnancy,” I think of those for whom conception would be the problem’s solution rather than its cause.
Trying to conceive becomes the focus of their lives. There is nothing they will not do….no place they will not go….no one they will not see….no check they will not write….to keep alive the dream they will not abandon. Their stories are legion. But their sufferings are silent. After all, what does one say (by way of small talk or conversational chit chat) in response to the inquiry: “So when are you two going to start filling up the nursery?”
In the Bible, childlessness is every bit as much a theological problem as it is a pastoral one. The word the Bible uses is “barren”….the assumption being that you wouldn’t be that way if God hadn’t made you that way. Barrenness was looked upon as a reproach….a punishment inflicted by God….involving, for the woman, disgrace in the eyes of the world and ridicule from her neighbors in the world.
Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was despised by her more fortunate (and fertile) maid, Hagar. While Rachel, envious of her less-attractive but more-fertile sister Leah, cried: “Give me children or I shall die.” Then there is the apostle (I Timothy 2:15) who, in reflecting upon the disastrous effects of Eve’s transgression under the apple tree, wrote: “Yet women will be saved through bearing children.” Even as the writer of Psalm 128 suggested that the reward for a man who fears and serves the Lord is a wife who, like a fruitful vine, produces children like olive shoots around his table. And when Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin) discovered herself to be “great with child”….just before Mary discovered herself to be “great with child”….she thanked the Lord for taking away her “reproach among men.”
In those days, nobody considered infertility to be a medical problem. Instead, it was a theological problem of the kind that could be cured only by prayer.
So Hannah prayed. And who was Hannah? Well, she was the other wife of Elkanah….the “barren” wife of Elkanah….who suffered regular and repeated ridicule from the mouth of her “rival” (Elkanah’s other wife) because her belly never swelled and her nursery never filled. Which caused Hannah to weep. And which also killed her appetite. So her husband said to her:
Hannah, why do you weep?
Why don’t you eat?
Why is your heart sad?
Am I not more to you than ten sons?
Isn’t that just like us men? We try to be sensitive, but we never quite get it right. Our masculine arrogance always gets in the way, leading us to think that we can be the antidote to every woman’s ailment and the answer to every woman’s dream.
Well, give the guy some credit. He stayed by her. Didn’t ditch her. Could have. People would have understood. But he didn’t. And if that sounds like some guy you meet later in scripture, give yourself a gold star as a theme-spotter in biblical literature.
Anyway, they go to Shiloh (this troubled couple)….where the temple is….and where the priest, Eli, resides. And it is in the presence of Eli that Hannah prays, pouring out her hurt, then closing with her offer: “Lord, remember me….give me a son….and I’ll give him back. The very minute he can both toddle and go to the toilet, he’s yours.”
She prayed this silently, mind you. But in those days, when people prayed silently, their lips sometimes moved. Occasionally, I open my eyes and watch you during the silent prayer. Your lips don’t move. But hers did. And old Eli, upon seeing her moving lips, presumed her to be drunk. That, of course, is another biblical theme for you “theme spotters”….namely, the tendency to accuse people “deep into the Spirit” of having been deeply into the spirits.
Which is why Hannah tells Eli that her lip movements have nothing to do with “wine” and everything to do with “womb.” The upshot of the ensuing conversation is that Eli tells Hannah her request will be granted and her womb, filled. And in the Bible’s remarkably archaic way of describing such things, we read: “And Elkanah knew Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her.”
Now you are probably thinking: “I’ll bet Hannah is going to welch on her deal….and that when it comes time to turn her son (Samuel) over to the priest, she won’t.” But you’d be wrong. Because she did. Just like she said she would. She turned him over to Eli, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine. Thus began the biblical thread that ran from Eli to Samuel….from Samuel to Saul….from Saul to David….and (eventually) to the redemption of Israel, courtesy of another child whose birth circumstances, while entirely different, were equally strange and totally attributable to God. But, then, you knew that. Of course you knew that.
Although, had it been left to your discretion, you would have forgotten the deal….to give the child up, I mean. I know I would have forgotten it. After all, promises made in desperate circumstances are like promises made with fingers crossed behind your back. You can hedge on them later. There are a million ways to forget them, ignore them, back burner them, rationalize your way around them, and become more than a little slipshod in whatever future delivery you make on them. Besides, it is in God’s nature (at such moments) to cut you lots of slack. That’s “slack” spelled GRACE. We talk about it every Sunday. Sing about it, too. God will give us grace. God will give us mercy. God will give us forgiveness. Meaning that contracts made with God need not be binding, given God’s great understanding. Right? Right!
Besides, to preach a primitive story suggesting that God might want our children, overlooks the fact that they are “our” children. Are they not? Why, of course they are. We produce them proudly. We provide for them generously. We identify with them closely. Which gives us certain rights of possession.
One of the worst mothers I ever encountered was the woman who chose to overlook her husband’s repeated sexual involvements with their daughter, lest in confronting him, she lose him. Then, on one horrible night (in something of a drunken diatribe), she threatened to kill her daughter, shouting: “I brought you into the world at a time of my choosing. I can take you out of it at a time of my choosing.” But the fact that, to a person, we would have risen up and said to her, “No, you can’t, lady,” indicates that we know possessiveness has limits. Our children are not ours to do just anything with.
But handing them over to the Lord? That sounds a bit extreme. Though not entirely odd. Growing up in a Roman Catholic neighborhood, I recall that offering a son to the priesthood….steering a son toward the priesthood….or praying a son into the priesthood….represented a dream come true for many of my friends’ mothers. The fact that I have no boyhood chums in the priesthood reflects no lack of effort on their mothers’ parts. Still, to my knowledge, none of those mothers played a pre-pregnancy game of “Let’s Make a Deal” with deity. They just hoped.
I suppose it is a sad commentary on all that has transpired in the last few years, that today’s Catholic mothers do not feel similarly. For while Roman Catholicism has traditionally argued that celibacy is the gift of our Heavenly Father, it could also be argued that the priesthood is the gift of Catholic mothers.
The closest we Protestants come to a similar “gifting” is the sacrament of baptism. Every month we come forward to present our children. Interesting verb, “present.” Linguistically, it is not far removed from the noun “present”….as in Christmas present, birthday present, etc. And when we do the presentation, we say (albeit with a bit of coaxing): “The faith is ours, and we will stop at nothing to see that it becomes theirs.” I know those aren’t the actual words. But that is their intent. Although I sometimes wonder, were I to thusly phrase it, how many of you would go through with it: “The faith is ours, and we will stop at nothing to see that it becomes theirs.”
Which brings me to a story. A true story. A closing story. And a very local story. It involves people you know well. They have a couple of sons. And their sons are as involved at First Church as their parents are. But, as is often the case with kids, one of their sons (along about the fourth grade) protested that he didn’t like Sunday school….didn’t see what was so great about Sunday school….and didn’t see why he had to go to Sunday school. Sunday school was boring. And in a world where there are enough kid-friendly electronic bells and whistles to make life exciting, why settle for boring?
Fortunately, not all kids feel that way. Some do. But not all. Maybe you have heard the complaint. Or maybe, light years ago, you made the complaint. So, what to do?
Some parents, of course, capitulate to the kid. “All right, stay home. We’ll all stay home. We can’t have this fighting, Sunday after Sunday. It isn’t worth the hassle. When you’re old enough, you’ll choose for yourself, anyway.” Which is true. The kid will….when older….choose for himself. The choice generally being: “None of the above.”
Other parents call us with a set of implicit demands. “Make it more interesting,” they say. “Less boring,” they say. “Recruit people who will capture my kid’s interest,” they say. “Go knocking on doors in my neighborhood and recruit seven or eight of my kid’s best friends (so that my kid will see faces he knows when he comes to Sunday school),” they say. And we accept many of those challenges, given that a subtle justification often underlies them.
While others beat the kid….bribe the kid….or hit the ecclesiastical trail, going from church to church with the kid, effectively surrendering all control to the kid, mumbling quietly: “Wherever he’s happy, we’re happy.” Which may be a reason to make one change, but when you’re staring at your fourth or fifth change, it may be time to inquire as to whether your home is a dictatorship….and if so, just who the dictator is.
But back to my friends and the complaint of their son: “Why should I go when I don’t want to go….don’t need to go….and don’t have many friends who go?”
To which they said (after listening attentively to his concerns): “Son, you’ve seen baptisms in church, haven’t you? Well, when you were really little….so little that we had to carry you in our arms….we had you baptized. And, on the day of your baptism, we made a promise to God that we would bring you to church (at least until you’re a whole lot bigger than you are right now). You wouldn’t want us to break that promise to God, would you?”
Which he thought about. Then thought about some more. Before saying: “No, I guess not.” Which is pretty much the last thing he’s said about it since.
I suppose you could say: “He’s one smart kid.” Or you could say: “He’s one lucky kid.” All I know is what I heard his parents say:
“Hey, he’s not our kid.”
Note: Let me begin by thanking my sources for the sermon-ending story. Some people occasionally wonder whether I “clear” the use of such material. Actually, my fourth grade friend is not only a really great guy, but told me that I could use his name if I wanted. I chose not to. But I really appreciated receiving his permission.
As concerns the image of the “barren womb” in Hebrew scripture, I am very much aware that “biblical barrenness” has as much to do with the nation as it does with any particular female. But the two are often intertwined, as in references cited earlier in my text. For anyone interested in a further explanation of the “barren womb” image of scripture, let me steer you to one of Jeff Nelson’s academic heroes, Walter Brueggemann.
