Birthing Hope

“Birthing Hope”
1 Samuel 2:1-10

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost November 19, 2006
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

* * *

Birthing Hope.

A mother wrote a letter to her three sons – aged 9, 11, and 12 – before her surgery to remove a brain tumour:

“My love for you existed from the first moment that you (cried) and goes on with you forever … It doesn’t matter that every aspect of the situation is as you prefer -- or if none of them are. By making the best of that moment, you will see that you make the very most of your life … You must not try to control all the circumstances of your life – that cannot be done. You must control, instead, how you react to the circumstances.”

Those are some of the words Anna Moor wrote to her three young sons on November 1, 1989. She survived her surgery! Several years later, she was interviewed with her husband, Jack, by a reporter interested in finding out how, as Canadians, they were able to have all three sons at Harvard on Hockey scholarships.

Jack Moor told the reporter that “what I always tried to tell the boys, is that character is like a muscle; if you don’t use it, it goes away. What matters in life isn’t whether or not bad things happen, or that you have adversity. It’s how you handle that adversity; what you do with your circumstances.”

What ultimately defines you, I believe, is not by what happens to you but how you respond to the situation. This is not to diminish or make light of the kind of adversity we face in life. We know that so many of our global neighbours face horrible situations of war, hurricanes, and other disasters. Some of us live with family situations that seem impossible to handle. There were numerous times while I was going through a divorce when I used to wonder whether I could face another day. Letting go of my daughters to the U.S., where their mother decided to move and work, was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced in my life.

Our lives are full of unhappy surprises and unexpected turns. No one is exempt from adversity. So the question is not why has life dealt us a series of bad situations but whether or not we are willing and able to respond to such situations. Blaming the situation or others is far easier than making a choice to deal with the issue at hand. Too many of us take the easy way out by blaming everyone and everything else rather taking responsibilities and steps to make changes.

In today’s scripture reading, Hannah is faced with a great adversity. She suffered much unhappiness because she had no children. She lived in a world where a woman’s esteem was measured by her ability to produce sons. Like most, if not all, women in the Hebrew Bible, Hannah is married to a man who had more than one wife. Polygamy was the norm in the world in which she lived. Hannah’s husband, Elkanah, was also married to a woman named Peninnah.

Peninnah had given birth to sons and daughters while Hannah had not. One Biblical commentator points out that “the importance granted to childbirth in (ancient) Israel no doubt led many women to experience their failure to bear children as a great tragedy indeed. While Elkanah attempted to assure Hannah that her worth did not depend upon giving birth, Hannah’s own perception of her situation had been so thoroughly shaped by Israel’s emphasis on childbirth that she wept and was unable to eat or drink. Dominant social expectations about gender and family undermined her happiness and self-esteem. Moreover, Penninah persecuted Hannah for what might have been seen as Hannah’s failure as a woman.”[1]

Hannah’s life was in crisis. But rather than blaming others or accepting her situation as fate, she took steps to change her situation. She pleaded with God for a son. According to the Hebrew Scripture read today, Hannah’s unhappiness ended when she gave birth to Samuel.

What is peculiar about the birth story of Samuel is that Hannah not only saw Samuel’s birth as God giving a child to the barren – lifting her from her personal burden involving gender, household and family – but it was also a “raising up the poor” and “lifting the needy.”

This is how one commentary describes Hannah’s Song.

“She is concerned not only about her own liberation, but speaks also about the liberation of others. In this respect, Hannah offers a model to those today who desire relief from unhappiness and persecution … However, Hannah’s example in prayer warns all of us against excessive preoccupation with our own situation. A desire for justice for ourselves should lead to a desire for justice for others.”[2]

I met Jim Loney when I was contacted by the Sojourners Magazine to take photos of him for the feature story they were preparing for the December 2006 issue. His photo is on the cover of our bulletin today. All I knew about Jim was that he was one of the Christian Peacemaker Teams members who was abducted and rescued in Iraq.

I visited Jim Loney on a rainy, July day this year. When I arrived, he was baking chocolate chip cookies for a friend who was in the hospital. I had a chance to talk to him while we waited for the interviewer to arrive. As I was taking photos of Jim during the interview I remember thinking how unreserved and honest he was about his own feelings as he was recounting his experience of captivity in Iraq.

On November 26, 2005, Jim Loney, Tom Fox, Norman Kember, and Harmeet Singh Sooden – members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq – were abducted at gunpoint in Baghdad by a group of men who later identified themselves as the Sword of Righteousness Brigade. The four lived in captivity, not knowing their fate. Tom Fox was killed by his abductors on March 9, 2006. Jim Loney, Norman Kember and Harmeet were rescued by the British Special Forces on the 118th day of their captivity.

I heard Jim share with the Sojourners interviewer about his experience of his captivity. What was most astonishing for me was that he did not seem to convey any sense of blame, resentment, or hatred toward his captors. He was articulate and at times conveyed tortured expressions. I experienced a man of profound compassion who deeply believed in sharing the peace of God with all human beings.

This is what Jim Loney says in the December 2006 issue of the Sojourners Magazine.
“This, I think, is what I’ve learned, though I make no claims about successfully living it: We are born to be born, again and again, every day in every moment in every decision, big or small, regardless of where we are or what is happening to us.

We were given birth to give birth, and every body is holy. The hardest birth of all is dying. The labour pains will seize us; we have no control over the time or place. Our job is to allow God to breathe us through, together, in the mystery of incarnation. And peace – the birthright, the manger and swaddling clothes of every human being, announced by angel voices that say, “Do not be afraid!” – I have come to cherish as the dearest and most essential of all things, even more (I say with fear and trembling) than life itself.”[3]

I, too, believe that we are “born to be born, again and again, every day in every moment in every decision, big or small, regardless of where we are or what is happening to us.” Life is a process of birthing hope.

Anna Moor wrote a love letter to her young sons as she was about to have brain surgery, believing that she may not wake up to see them. What she wanted to impart to her sons was that they had always been loved by their mother and that her love for them would never change. She wanted to also share that each of them has a choice in responding to adversity – even the death of their mother.

Before my daughters, Frances and Michelle moved from Toronto in May 2001, we spent time walking around parks along the Lakeshore. We took family photos. I told them that although we were about to live more than twelve hundred kilometres apart across the border, they would always be present in my heart and that my love for them would always be infinite. More than five years later, my daughters and I have done more than survive our separation. We have grown together in love despite the distance that separates us.

Jim Loney, even after 118 days of living in captivity, did not lose his unwavering conviction that peace is the way for everyone in this global village. He continues to struggle to bring peace for everyone in this world.

Hannah was a woman scorned and ridiculed because she was barren. Her society tied her esteem to her ability to bare a male child. So she rejoiced in the birth of her son, Samuel, as a sign of hope that God would intervene and set right the wrongs for all the downtrodden of the world. She showed us that the real measure of a person is in how we respond when faced with adversity: We move beyond mere human struggles, to the extent that we plead with God to right the wrong, not just for ourselves but for our neighbours.

Each one of us is called to live such life – a life where we are continuously being born again with a renewed hope for ourselves and for our neighbours who are poor, scorned, or ridiculed, and in need of our support.

I would like to read a song by Pete Seeger as I close my sermon today.

Oh, Had I A Golden Thread
Oh, had I a golden thread
And needle so fineI'd weave a tapestry
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design
Far over the water
I'd weave my magic strand
To every city
Through every single land
Through every land.
And in it I would weave the bravery
Of women giving birth
In it I would weave the innocence
Of children over all the earth
Children of all earth.
Show my brothers and my sisters
My rainbow design
And bind up this sorry world
With hand and heart and mind
Hand and heart and mind.
O had I a golden thread
And needle so fine
I'd weave a tapestry
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design.

May we take each moment of life as an opportunity of being born again and birthing hope for a just world. May we take each encounter as an opportunity to weave peace for each and every member of the human family. Amen.

-------------------------------------------
[1] What’s Out in the Conversation, Out in Scripture (web site), for November 19, 2006
[2] Ibid
[3] Jim Loney, Sojourners Magazine, December 2006, p. 22.